They were all sitting around a semi-circular table. Everyone
looked anxious. Some were cracking their knuckles, others were nervously combing
their hair with their fingers, while looking at the one empty chair waiting for
him to come and sit in it. A song played in the background on a very low volume.
In the town where I was born
Lived a man who sailed to sea
And he told us of his life
In the land of submarines
He came into the room looking tired and disinterested.
Lazily, he occupied the one empty chair. Leaning at the table, staring at the
surface of the table in front of him, he sighed. Everyone awaited his words.
Still looking at no one, still staring at the table’s
surface, he said, “It is not what it is.”
Some exhaled. Some inhaled. Some uttered a suppressed “oh”.
One of them, fidgeting in his seat said, “So where are we
now?”
He took some time for the question to sink in and then said,
“Well…we are where we are and I told you that we will be here.”
Some glances around the table with the same question in the
eyes, “did he tell us?” and then someone, in not so certain a tone, said, “yes
sir, you did tell us but where we do go from here?”
He started nodding….a faint, somewhat sad smile appeared on
his face. His fingers slowly started tapping the surface of the table. After the
silence of a couple of minutes he said, with the same smile affixed on his face,
“That is the question. Isn’t it? And the answer is clear and yet not obvious.
You see it right in front of you, don’t you? And yet you won’t see it till I tell
you it is there. Isn’t that the case?”
A collective nodding and a chorus of “yes, yes, that is the
case” followed.
“To understand where we are going is to know exactly where
we are, “he said, “but although we know where we are, we know, but we don’t understand. Am I right?”
Another tentative chorus of “yes, yes, that is right”.
“So,” he lifted his head and looked at everyone for the
first time “you have to pay attention to the song playing in the background.
Listen carefully to the next lines.”
Everyone strained to listen to the song with their eyes squinted
as if that accentuates the sense of hearing.
We all live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
We all live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
Everyone stood up at once and rushed to the door to convey
the message to the masses.
