I’m leaving on a jet plane. Perhaps not. I’m flying though. I don’t exactly know where I am but from what I can make out, it’s somewhere in Gujarat perhaps. I can’t see the coast but I can see water bodies. Large bodies of water that invade the land. They come tantalizingly close to the land and then recede. There are no waves though. The water is calm.
In the midst of one giant water body, there is a mass of land. An island. There is no connectivity to it. I look around. A few meters into the closest land mass, there is a human settlement; farmers, perhaps. But on this island, nothing. Just the island. Detached.
The island looks deserted. I see no vegetation. Perhaps there are shrubs and there is undergrowth on the sandy tracts but there is no significant vegetation. I am sure. Or so I perceive from high up.
So I see this island and am unable to take my eyes off it. I don’t know why, but somehow, it is gripping. Why would no one venture onto it? Has someone tried? Has anyone ever tried? Did they give up? Is there no point to it?
Perhaps life is like that island. An isolated landmass which in itself is, well, alone. Yet, it is part of something bigger; a country, or the world or the universe perhaps. At the crux of it, though, it is alone. It stands alone; it lives alone; it dies alone.
What larger purpose does it serve? Why is it there? The point is that it is there, whether it likes it or not. What does it mean? What does it signify? I don’t know. What is it that attracted me to it? Perhaps just that. That I don’t know. And that perhaps I never will. Perhaps it symbolizes something. Perhaps not.
I seek it out for answers. I see it no more. The plane has moved.