That Feeling!

You look at the clock. It's 5 minutes to 10. You know you have five minutes to gather yourself, draw the legs of your pressed pair of trousers upon yourself, wrap the trouser waist around your hanging striped shirt with buttons yet to find their respective holes, plug that fattening (from credit card slips, forgotten invoices, occasional self-photos and a motley of obscure visiting cards) wallet into your back pocket, toss the car keys into the left pocket and mobile into the right, guess out belt hoops and weave the snaking leather into it, grab a stale sandwich from the covered plate on the dining table, run the fingery comb through the still-wet hair, glance for a second at your reflection passing behind the mirror, secure your feet and rush out, half-closing the door. You know all that. And you have done that, year after year after year. With practiced ease and nonchalance.

Today, however, it's a bit different. You still look at the ticking clock. Yes, five minutes to 10.

Just as you pull the trouser on yourself, pull blood to your leg muscles in an attempt to sprint, you see a pair of little legs on your bed kick air. You see little hands clenching and unclenching and cutting the cake of air at random angles. You hear faint cough sounds, exaggerated breath sounds. You hear this beside your pale sleepless wife, who has just closed her eyes, swollen with unspent nights. You have faint memory of the previous night; lights being turned on, cry-sounds, someone sitting up on the bed with bleary drowsy eyes till the next time you woke up again to find her still sitting on the bed, with a bundle in hand, hushing it, shaking it to silence. You had gone back to sleep, partly concerned, partly unconcerned. But when you have taken your bath and have freshened up, the faint images of last night pin you to the wall and spill guilt from your perforated skin.

So you decide while still looking at the clock. Unsure. For sure. You take the bundle in your hand before it explodes and wakes up everyone in its wake. You don't want that to happen. You feel responsible. Embarrassed. Guilty. Loved. Rather possessed by love. A salad of emotions.

Little legs kick your gut. They rumple the pressed shirt. They enter the gaps between button holes. A warm softness presses against your chest. Tiny nails scratch your face-wash dried cheeks. Ooops! hurts. You bring your face closer. Milky air hangs loosely around. And the clock ticks away. It shatters your thresholds, limits, estimations, calculations. No, you can't reach in time. You know that by now. But you are fettered. By the looks from large eyeballs in small sockets. A tiny mound of a nose with flared nostrils. Two lines of lips that curve like a beak.

The expression on the face of the bundle changes. Thousands lines of white appear on the skin of pink. You know that the explosion is not far away. In a Hollywoodian effort, you throw all your tricks to diffuse the bomb. In silence. With each tick of the ignored clock, you see your efforts failing. What if he starts a full-scale weep? You sweat from concern. From anticipation. But you still keep at it.

Your hands ache from patting. Your waist feel numb. But there isn't much scope to correct the position and restart the diffusion process. So you hang on. With an aching body, you shake that soft puddle of moving flesh and soak up every moment of it. But those large eyes are still looking from behind the wide-open lids. You feel tired. Spent.

You look around. Your wife's sleepy face. The ceiling with a fan hanging from it. The trespassing rays of the morning sun through curtain gaps. And then back to your undulating lap. And you notice tiny lids closing down. An elation runs through your anatomy like an electric spark. You feel the moment of "Yes, I can" as you keep working at it till the tiny lump falls silent, motionless.

What you feel is a strange feeling. As if nothing else matters. Your 35-hours work-days fade into trivialities, tight deadlines lose their significance, boardroom presentations seem like water cooler talks. That rush of blood tells you that NOW you have really arrived. The sense of achievement and even more, the contentment dwarfs every bit of success that you have ever felt in your life.

You look at the loveliest thing you have ever created and smile into the thinning air at that defining moment of success. What a feeling! The clock stops. It runs out of ticks.