The Bluebottle!

This article has been submitted by Raji Gururaj for the CLATGyan Blog Post Writing Competition. If you think this article is a good read, ‘Like’ this article on Facebook (the button is at the bottom of this piece) or post a comment using the ‘comments’ section below.

A warm summer afternoon. The clear blue sky is dotted by a few gray clouds. These heralds of the long awaited monsoon gather slowly and bring a gentle breeze with them. Typically Bangalore. Soon, the rain will shower down upon us all and cool down the parched earth.

I sit by the window and look out listlessly. Random strings of thought fuse and diffuse like the many tributaries and distributaries of an eternally flowing river. A river that will ultimately join hands with the ocean and sway on, untraceable, yet present. The world is a beautiful place. With all the madness, the evil, the seeming sense of something unfulfilled..every day, new promises are made, the calm and beauty you didn’t know of gently remind you of their existence, however slight or imperceptible they may be. A lot of pacifiers like me would give you a piece of the same cake.

The rain has started falling. Dazzling drops in the afternoon sun, indeed a pretty picture. A gale brings some of the drops into my window and the sleeve of my pink tunic blushes a deeper shade. Just as I reach out to shut the window, a bluebottle swarms in. I shut out the rain anyway and turn my full attention to our new little friend. Slanting golden rays light up his wings and thorax, throwing into relief the metallic shade of azure that makes him so exotic. He knows not of my presence, nor of his whereabouts. He sits like a miniature cat rubbing its front paws. I push my hair back from my brows, and in a flash, sensing my movement, the bluebottle is on a wild fly-far-away-spree! He moves left, right, up, down, in a most dizzying manner.

Suddenly,*splat*! He seems to have hit the glass window pane. He flies around again and then hits the pane again. This happens several more times until I can stand it no longer. I tiptoe toward the window, lest I send the bluebottle on his dizzying rounds again. Wary of letting the rain in, I slide open the window a wee bit, so he can fly out. This might kill him, for the rain is so heavy, but the fly seems intent. He is continually pounding at the window, but can’t seem to find the opening. He wants to get out the same way he got in. I try and help him, but he won’t let me.

This sets my thoughts racing along a different line. To us, this whole world with all its eccentricities is like the window to the bluebottle. We want specific things, and we want to get them in a certain manner. If we don’t get these specifics, we feel trapped, lost, let down. Little do we realise that God has other opportunities in store. With the bluebottle’s limited range of vision, he fails to notice the opening in the window. Anything I do will not help him find it. If only we could all widen our spectrum, then we’d see our opportunities too. Yet, somehow, we emulate the bluebottle and go around in dizzying circles.

I cannot stand the fly’s continual thumps on the window. Exasperated, I open the window wider. Sensing freedom, he zooms out, but surprised by the torrents of rain, he falls on the window sill. Immediately, a wretchedness seizes me. I don’t want him to be dead. I had rather grown to like him. I gingerly transfer him onto a piece of cardboard and place him on the table. He twitches, wriggles. The wings are probably wet, I decide, and a warm sense of relief spreads in me.

You and I are like the bluebottle in every manner per se.

I’ve only just begun to realise.

Things are not always what they seem. We are a versatile lot. We grow, change, adapt. Yet, sooner or later we realise that deep inside, we are our same strange selves.

Bzzzzzzz. Our blue friend is flying again. This time too, he wants to get out. But I shan’t let him die.

In exactly 48 hours, I will know whether or not I’m going to a ‘good law school’, read NLS, NALSAR or NUJS. I might. I might not. You might. You might not. If I do, I know I’ll jump for joy. If I make it to NALSAR, I will still crib about not making it to NLS. If I make it to NUJS, I will crib about not making it to NLS or NALSAR. If I don’t, I will probably take that exam again. Am I being like the bluebottle that wanted to find the exact spot on the window? Perhaps so.

For now, the rain pours, the bluebottle zooms around.
And I wait. I wait until I know what the future holds.
And the bluebottle zooms around.

Without wax,
Raji.