One little pleasurable secret

We all have some secrets tucked away in the cockles of our hearts, innumerable little secrets. The first night out with friends under the pretext of group study, the first stolen kiss, watching a movie with the chillar saved from grocery shopping, sneaking out to play video games in a shady gaming parlour... oh, so many of them. The list is endless.

Many of these secrets we have shared with our friends, spouses, therapists, or even while casually venting to our househelps or drivers. Some we revealed deliberately because we could no longer bear their weight. They sat heavy on our conscience. Time has since washed over them, and now they are like insignificant crabs crawling out of the waves. But share we must, for these secrets pinch, poke, and punch us hard when we are alone. The tossing and turning in bed isn’t because we can’t find a soft spot; it’s because these minuscule mischief-makers keep sleep at bay.

Finally, we relent and spill the beans.

But among all those secrets lies one you have never shared with anyone. Absolutely no one. Why haven’t you? Because it never occurred to you to do so. The need never arose. You are comfortable with that secret. Thinking about it tickles your heart like a feather rolling gently across its surface. Only you know what happened that day, in that moment when no one was watching. You relive this secret once in a while.

In the rickshaw, hurrying to a meeting or a date, or in the cab, commuting back home, this secret keeps you company. The driver is busy navigating the chaotic traffic. You don’t exist for the passers-by. Social media has fallen silent. The day, so far, has been kind to you. That is when that day, that moment, the one no one knows about, your private affair with time, comes out of hiding.

It could be a day from your school years. You are barely ten. Your bench partner proudly owns a colourful, scented eraser. She flaunts it during lunch break. You so badly want to hold that little piece of stationery in your tiny fingers, to scrub it over the art paper where your peacock looks like a crow, to rub it on the word peace that you mistakenly wrote as piece. If nothing else, you just wish that eraser could sit snugly in a compartment of your compass box. Your pencils look lonely and desolate without that prized possession. You feel poor and lost. You even try to find it in a nearby stationery store, but the shopkeeper, busy under a heap of papers, dismisses you without a glance, “Khatam ho gaya.”

Disappointment becomes your pillow for the night.

The next day, after lunch break, the girl with the prized eraser is sobbing. You ask her why.
“I lost my rainbow eraser,” she sniffs.

You help her search for it. You feel her loss deeply. Now you won’t even be able to admire it from afar. The teacher scolds the two of you, and you both bury your heads in textbooks. After a while, you open your compass box.

There it lies, the missing eraser.

In an instant, you turn to share the good news with your sulking friend, but the mischievous devil in you holds you back.
You didn’t steal it. Someone must have placed it there by mistake. Keep it. It’s God’s way of gifting you what you yearned for.

You close the box and lock this secret in your heart forever. The girl forgets about her treasure, but you have guarded this silly-billy secret all your life. Even today, at forty, fifty, or even eighty, you smile mischievously whenever you think of that incident.

When your spouse, children, or the driver navigating you through the maddening traffic asks the reason for that grin, you wave them off saying, “Ah, nothing.”

Secrets like these are delightful. It’s good to indulge in them once in a blue moon. While you were reading this blog, one such hidden gem may have just revealed itself to you. You are smiling. Don’t worry, I won’t ask what the secret is.

Go ahead,

enjoy that little tête-à-tête with your past self.