Letter to Picnic

Hi Picnic,

I write you a letter because I think I know exactly how you feel. It is a bad claim, I know again, but a very strong one. And I know that I feel correct enough because I have felt similarly many times than more. I think you are very lonely right now, and insecure, especially with the seasonal outpouring of crowds gathering to feast with you. They say it is the 'season of picnics'. How strangely true. My calender has already been inaugurated yesterday and is pretty much booked until the deep Sundays of January. Such a festive pain.

Hi again. I also have a feeling you may not have understood the previous paragraph, or the receipt of this letter. Let me tell you of certain instances. You know, my grandmother used to stay in another town, an hour away from us. The day I knew she would be coming over to stay for a month or so at our place, used to be my most restless ever while at school. I willingly sacrificed my royal popularity sessions and cycled at breakneck speed towards home, only to see her, smile and blurt out the first thing (everytime): "When are you leaving?" Well, yes, sounds rude, and insensitive, but back then it came out from an intense sense of the fear of loneliness. I needed to know that not because I could elongate the date of return into something later, but believing that I was mature, I knew I had to buffer myself accordingly.

So, this letter is about me feeling that you feel the same. You do, right? Come December and we are all in this outstanding merry mood of weddings and events. We go to you as we would to that one last thing in life which would instantly awaken us. I first consciously came to know of you with all the Enid Blytons -- of mashed potatoes and lemonades and bacon sandwiches, packed in cane boxes, to be laid out in greenlands opening up to clear blue skies. The mats would be bright in colour and there would be a game or two and a golden lab or a black poodle (how the hell??!) at our beck. Oh, how I long to read a book like that once more, only for joy, without the ripened understanding of meaning. I remember having known you first hand with school-picnics of uniforms and no school bags in school-buses going to some place. The later half is vague, the memory of the fun inside the school bus is strong. All of us were bathed in enthusiasm on our way, and totally devoid of it and energy on our way back. College picnics while I was a student were also mostly about being away from home for one entire day, rather than enjoying a day-out in itself. Next in line were corporate picnics of tailored picnic grounds and carefully arranged menu for the day, highlighted by games and prizes and superseded by alcohol and alcohol-infused behaviour and reactions thereafter!

Yesterday as we were returning from an all-aunt picnic, and I was in the front seat of the first Fortuner, navigating and trying to understand the newly installed GPS device, I was suddenly missing my friends in Bhutan -- the mountains, waterfalls, river and the moonlight. And I was wondering if they could be friends with you. For you are so thoughtlessly left behind, you must be sad. I know. Bereft of company you are just a field. With a gang you rise up to the occasion, true to your name, manicured and fit. What I was strategising was ridiculous, neither can my friends come to be with you, nor can you go up to my friends. In such a situation it is me who would love to connect you both, for I have known the generosity and magnanimity of my friends, and I understand how in need of one you are in, right now. Feel that you are with each other, like I do. Feel the pulse, the shadow.

As you are strewn all over with litter and made a mess with litres, I urge you to find some solace in this letter. It hopes to evoke in you the sense of purpose of your life whenever you are down and dejected, and the immense amount of rejuvenation you endow unto others.

You we unmindfully vacate, while you bare yourself to fill our souls.

Best,
K.