Tales of the Unheard

(Painting By Jeff Rowland) Part 1 I reached the station just in time… moving in ahead and away from the crowd, as I scurried towards my cart. I quickly grabbed the handle and entered the train. The attendant guided me towards my seat as the driver gave the last call before departure. My heart sank as the train started moving; the air was filled with voices of joy, sadness, farewell and excitement. But all I could hear was the riotous sound of the horn, the clank of the wheels on the track and a distant whistle announcing that our journey had finally began. I was travelling to the City of Palaces &  Nawabs , my sweet hometown where I had begun my own journey of life, a beautiful place that has a magic of its own.  I was both excited and looking forward  to this journey, but at the same time  the thought of spending 7 hours sitting in  the same spot bothered me. I had spent hours working, looking after my house and family but to sit idle

Continued.... I gradually opened my eyes…. feeling relieved to be able to see again, a little blur but at least I could still see. I looked around …. observing my surroundings but all I could actually see was pitch dark . “How strange…   I was so sure that I hadn’t turned blind, yet it felt that I had forever been sightless.”   It took a few hours that felt like forever till I could see again. But what was there to see? Nothing I hadn’t seen before…. I was used to these purple bruises encircling my eyes and painting my body now and then. I imagined these bruises as beauty marks, pretty shades of cosmetics that covered my ugly, worthless, and pitiable body. I remember the night I stepped into my second home, leaving behind my family and what little I had. It was the first time in my young life that I had seen my present and future even darker than a night. The moon and the stars had vanished from my life; it seemed they had faded away within a murky void…. an emptiness

Continued..... I now wonder what was picture perfect about our life… how was it that our wretched lives seemed so perfect to me and why? I learned it a little too late… it was all the slightest details you’ve read above that made my life seem beautiful to you and me on the outside, but the inside was just as ugly and dreadful. My family, my home .. a blissful masquerade that was a piece of heaven on earth for me soon turned out to be a gateway to hell. Life sure was difficult and every single day was nothing but hard work, another shot at survival. We lived some really hard times all these years with blindfolds. We were fooled by the beauty of the outside colors to the extent that we ignored how black and white our lives were from the inside. I had turned fourteen years old, crossed my childhood/playful years and entered my teens working as a shepherd, seeing nothing but poverty, hunger, struggle and a constant desire to at least live a day of our miserable lives tha