Mysore haunts me even after a year of my estrangement from the city. The roads where I walked and waited all those interminable hours for that elusive bus, the marble Swami Vivekananda statue which stood forlorn and forgotten in the circle until one day it was discarded in a nearby park and replaced with a huge bronze one, the amphitheatre (Vanaranga) at Rangayana where I spent many a lost evening, the University paths where my sis and I collected gulganji seeds and searched for knowledge among the old buildings once frequented by the greats of Kannada literature... I miss all but one part of the city - the so-called litterateurs and intellectuals who claim to be an authority on all and sundry under the sun. I once asked a colleague about the books written by a famous 'litterateur' of Mysore and she replied she didn't know. Nobody knew. I searched the net and found the titles. They just talk, talk and talk. Why?
'Caught in a strange land in a net with other butterflies, I'm a caterpillar yet undecided to remain a caterpillar and perish or turn into a beautiful butterfly and live a life full of joy.' Readers don't laugh. But I came up with this one night recently when I was travelling in a train. I tossed and turned, not being able to sleep, upset over unexplainable things and frustrated over events not in my control. Then it occurred to me that our life and its usefulness depends on our decisions -- whether to remain a crawling caterpillar whose existence otherwise is either ignored by all and sundry or who is cursed for just being there and thrown out with a stick, or to develop wings of life and metamorphose into a beautiful butterfly whom everybody adores for its beauty and colour, for its flitting liveliness, for its service to the flower's pollination... I thought that I should be a butterfly, of service to others, but then again I thought, anyway, who really cares?
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