Senses

The fact that life has become a race against time is something everyone in today's world knows of. People are trying so hard to move ahead of everyone else that we don’t realize that we are infact getting ahead of ourselves too!

We fail to keep a tab on our surroundings, the people around us and whizz past them like they never existed. Every day has just become a number on the calendar. Living life has suddenly become a liability. We do not get a sense of the beauty of things around us, the beauty of the world that we live in, be it nature our own house in which we have the people that matter to us.

Living a normal life in this fast paced world is not easy.

I lived a life a fast paced life too, oblivious to what life means. But I soon came to terms with what "living life" actually meant.

The day started as every other day with me scampering through to avoid getting late to work. I was running down the stairs when I slipped and rolled down 15 steps, banging my head all along the way. I was knocked out instantly. I regained consciousness only at the hospital where the doctors said that I was in pretty bad shape.

The first few days things seemed normal but slowly I started loosing my my vital senses - sight, hearing, speech, smell - one by one. I could not come to terms with the fact that I was turning into nothing but a 150 pound piece of flesh. I fell asleep one night, and dreamt about my life gone by. Suddenly, I saw a mystical figure in front of me.

Now I knew this had to be the sedatives kicking in but it seemed so real that I could not explain to myself that this could be a dream!

As much I wanted to believe that it could actually be God himself, I started getting scared that this could also mean that I was dead!!!

I immediately confirmed my apprehensions with Him that I actually was alive. All I could ask him after that was "God, now what!"

He said, "Son, incase you haven't noticed yet, you will no longer be able to hear, see,talk, smell, touch. "

I begged him, "Please dont do this. You are making me a living piece of wood and nothing else."

I dont know whether it was my innocent "looking" face or the relentless begging that I did, God came up with a deal.

He said, "Son, I cannot give you everything back, that would be cruel to others who are in the same state as you. But i can bend the rules a little. Here's what will happen. I cannot give you all your senses back but.... everyday...you will get one sense back; only one and no more. you will spend the day with that sense and at the end of the day, that sense will be taken back. The next day a new sense would be given."

I had nothing to work with right now so I was happy with what I got, not knowing what would one sense be of use to me.

I woke up the next morning, I could not see anything, could not feel anything and neither smell. I thought that it was indeed a dream that I would get one sense back. Suddenly, like a miracle, I could hear my mother cry.

I could not believe that it was actually true. I immediately wrote on a piece of paper to my mother "Mom, I can hear!!" and she said, "Can you see me?" which I could not. But still I was happy, I could listen to my mother's voice which was like music to my ears.

They say there is a difference between hearing and listening. All these years I have been hearing the things around me. Now I was listening.

It took me sometime to get adjusted to just listening and not able to see what I am listening to. Within a few hours, I could listen to slightest of sounds around me. I could hear the nurses come along and strangely enough, although I did not know these nurses, I could differentiate among them.

I could hear my family members and again tell who was who. I could listen to the birds chirping and the soft music that was running in the background. Every sound that I could hear seemed like it was being played just for me to listen.

I could also hear a different sound when my mother moved her hands on my head which did not sound like something I heard in the past. I again wrote to her "Mom, are those new bangles, or some bracelet or something?"

She said "No, I bought them a year back and I also told and showed them to you. You did not notice them then??"

I had no answer to that question because I indeed had overlooked these things all along.

Over the course of the day I started meticulously distinguishing various sounds that I heard. Every now and then I would ask the people around me whether the thing that I just heard was new, whether I knew about this and it turned out that these things always went unnoticed.

Time had slowed down and I listened to everything with an enthusiasm that did not exist earlier. At the end of the day, I was curious to see what I would be able to do next, see, smell may be?

The next day I opened my eyes and expected to see. I possibly wanted to see things more than anything else but to my dismay I could not.

It was again back to the how I was a couple of days ago. I could not see, hear, smell. Just then, i felt my mom's touch on my forehead. It sent goosepumps through me instantly. It was a feeling I could not explain in words. It felt like I had gone back in time and I was back to being a kid where my mother caressed me, and nurtured me like there was nothing else more important in her life than me.

But then I realised that my mom had always cared for me, ran her hands on my forehead everyday when I returned from work, tired. She always was the same, its only that now that everything in my life came to a standstill that I could feel her touch.

I touched her face and noticed the wrinkles on her face. Realized that she had grown old right in front of me and I never noticed it. And like my sense of hearing yesterday, my sense of touch heightened as the day passed by.

I was left pondering throughout the night as to why I never realized, or more importantly, sensed these things in the past when it was right there in front of me.

I eventually fell asleep with a lot of thoughts still in my mind.

Next day when I woke up, I could suddenly smell the flowers around me. I also was taken back by an overwhelming smell of a contour of perfumes that the people around me had worn.

Every minute of that day, all I sensed was different kinds of smell that I never ever noticed. A new perfume, and on the contrary an extremely pungent bad smell, an open drain maybe. And as usual, like the other days, I had a feeling of happiness that could not be explained in words.

The next day, I woke up and opened my eyes and the first sight to fall was my mother right there once again next to me. I then realized that finally I could see.

I instantly broke into tears when I saw my mother and the people around me. I started noticing the wrinkles on my mother's face that I felt when I could only feel things.

I started paying attention to everything that I would just overlook under normal circumstances. i looked at the beautiful colors of the flowers in the room. i could see the tears in the eyes of the people around me and see their lips move, not knowing what they were saying, but I could still get a sense of what it could be. Not once did I look at my cell phone to check the number of calls or messages that I might have missed. Not once did I think of my wallet that might have gone missing when I fell. All these things suddenly did not matter to me.

Again, like every other day, this day was closing to an end.

I wanted to tell my mother a lot of things. i knew that the next thing I could do was talk. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was that I overlooked a lot of things about her and she never even complained.

I wanted to tell her about the things I heard, smelt, felt over the last few days. And so I did.

The next day I spoke like there was no tomorrow. i spoke to everyone at leizure - something that I never did in my life - I just did not have the time maybe. That day, I spoke more than I possibly spoke my entire life.!

Towards the end of the day I started realizing that all these things that i have been experiencing, has always been there all these years. Some more recent than the others but they were there nonetheless!

Since when did I start overlooking these things that really should not have been missed by me. Since when did other not-so-important aspects of my life become everything that mattered to me. Why does it always happen that the I need ordeals like these to remind me of these things!!

To say that I was enlightened after these 5 days would be an understatement. And for the first time since I fell, I did not care what the next day had in store for me.

The next day I woke, I was scared to open my eyes since I had realized that the five days as promised by God were over. But before I could, I smelt the fresh flowers in my room again. I thought atleast I can smell the beautiful things around me.

Then I heard my mom's voice saying "Good Morning!" and I felt, well, so I can hear too??

I then could also feel the wind on my forehead. Thats when it kicked in that there was a slight possibility that I could have all my senses back. But could God be that generous??

I then opened my eyes, more in hope than conviction and realised that I could see.

Yes, God had indeed given me everything back. I could see, feel, hear, smell, speak.

But then I realized that all that I did with my senses all these years would have to change. I began to use these senses, these very senses that make us human beings, to "sense" only the things that should matter to me.

I began treating my senses as an asset and not a mere liability from God since you never know when God could knock me out of my senses once again.