"Yer blues" - 1

I am Sampat.
I live the simple life, here in Pune.
I work at a boiler factory down in the industrial area. My bus picks me up from Kaltaakh Junction, 10 minutes from my place. I reside with my family, a wife and a 9 year old son, Prakash. He studies at the local government school right next door, while my wife works in the public library near the Municipality office.


I have a bike, which I bought last June. I like to take my family on rides on Sundays, sometimes to the district park, and at times even to the new restaurant that has opened downtown. While Prakash loves the park, he also likes doing his bit with the books, always in the top 3 of his class.
It is he who wakes me up every morning, as I drop him to school. That is not to say that he can't go on his own, but its more of an old tradition neither of us feels like parting with just yet.


My wife is the daughter of my father’s cousin. Apparently we were betrothed even when I was as old as my son is today. I first saw her a week before the wedding, during the last minute shopping trips that were thrust on me. She was in the next shop, along with her coterie, selecting bangles for the ‘sangeet’. While I was going through the motions of selecting a Sherwani, as my uncles and aunts ooh-ed and aah-ed, I couldn’t help but notice her voice commenting on every set that passed her discerning eyes. She disapproved, enamoured, and scolded, all with equal measure. I found her intense involvement in what seemed little more than a forced formality, to be rather unsettling.

Anyhow, I didn’t let that affect me, or I couldn’t, as soon my folks noticed my wandering attentions, and started the tirade of mind numbing, tease rhetoric. While some part of me wished for them all to just shut up and leave, part of the whole experience was rather enjoyable as well.

For instance, the budding romance between Kanika mausi and the mehndiwala was scandalous and fascinating at the same time. Though I only got my updates from in-the-air hearsay, I couldn’t help but play different simulation scenarios in my head, of what were to happen in case things went either of many ways between them.
Also, my fondness for my younger cousins had never faded, in part thanks to their regular visits to the home place. This meant that my last vacations as a bachelor went on nicely, as childhood memories kept flying back, as also did a slight chill, whenever the notion of approaching grown-up-ness repeated its dreary dance in front of my eyes.

Anyhow, the 23 year old Sampat was too caught up in fantasizing about realizing fantasies brewing over a decade. And with that hunger and thirst, I entered what has without doubt been the darkest phase of my life.

--

The weight of the 7 rounds around the sacred fire, along with a blinding faith in love, and the ideals of family living, kept the growing discontent under wraps for a good year and half.

Then, when the first signs of serious tension arose, we didn’t talk for a week. She had just completed her graduation via correspondence, and had asked not to be treated like an ‘invalid’ any further. I obviously took offence, not realizing the intricate complexities that come with an invisible power struggle, fuelled by what is no less than an eternity of social oppression.

That week ended with a rather frightful confrontation, wherein half the neighbourhood got to know our names better, along with the many colourful others we used to refer to each other, and our families. However, by the time we were done shouting, the heat of the moment caught us both unawares, and before we even realized anything, Prakash had been conceived, even as the dinner burnt on the stove.

Soon enough, we realized what had happened.

And we decided to come together in the love that our little light would bring to our lives. Both of us learnt to de-escalate situations before they reached precarious levels, and soon enough we reached a situation where we would alternate between moments of true joy, and phases of stoic silence.

During the days that led to the birth of our child, I knew I hadn’t felt this in love with my wife ever. And as luck would have it, I never did again.

Then, it happened. In our home there entered another soul, another star, another life, buoyant and bubbling with a radiance that neither of us had experienced before. It was simple awesome, the way we felt blessed, and united in his love. It was a wonderful time, when one couldn’t help but forget the trivial hassles of daily life, in a never ending veneration of life, in its purest form.

And sure enough, Prakash remains the source of light today as well. Be it his innocent questions on life and the world around him, or the simplicity resplendent in his nascent strains of logic; everything about him is a breath of fresh air, in a world fast getting darker and hazier by the day.
But things are still in unrest.
There is only so much that Prakash’s unknowing, unassuming shoulders can hold. For often enough there come times when all seems ill and bleak. My relations with my wife have never been this passive. For communication, all that we share is daily small talk, with little or no substance. In fact, over these last few weeks, even Prakash feels irked by the observed contrast in our conduct towards each other. Poor kid, how is one to explain to him the maze that we have all lost ourselves in.
To make matters even more entangled, his coming has all but rendered our existences devoid of any personal character. While that helps in some of the darker moments of self torment, through its potent potion of faith, love and giving, at others, that very fact leaves one gasping for breath.

Today, as I walk back home, I stare into my emptiness, and look for the many wonders that had graced my path all those years back. Where did I lose them?
Poor little Prakash has only added some much needed grace into an existence doomed to oblivion. But even that seems unable to inspire any form of hope, beyond what appears to be a path seemingly stitched to my existence, inescapably and inevitably so. It is now that I realize, more than the fights, the tensions, and the blues of it all, it is the helplessness that cuts deepest.

Even though those fleeting moments of light, pristine joy do come visiting every now and then, for instance when my son awakens me with his sweet, longing voice every morning; and when I listen to an artiste rendering a piece that touches the very fabric of my existence, I sense this growing sense of futility all around me.
Bhairavi, Yaman, Jaijaiwanti, why have you deserted me?
My playmates at my uncle, the renowned Dr. Satya Narayan Gokhale’s place, these, and other muses had courted me often in my early childhood. While I would always enjoy their company, the great post-independence-middle-class leanings and my own callousness meant my uncle saw me fade away in his mind map of a potential successor.

I had then flirted with painting as well, as a convenient means of arousing the interest of the opposite sex. Even in the midst of the in-my-face ulterior nature of my pursuit of the art, I would get these moments of surprisingly meaningful joy.

All of that, I had relinquished, out of my own free will no doubt, one fine afternoon, a week after I had heard the voice of my son’s mother for the first time. Why? I don’t quite have an answer to that. The rush of daily life, the highs of the flesh, the newness of working, and earning, growing money; money, to splurge, on the little pleasantries of life. How was I to notice the slowly tiring muses, persistent unrelentingly till then, fade away one by one? Why didn’t I ever slow down, and take a look at my slowly decaying self; lavishing in a life of mediocrity, making love to an acceptance of destiny, conceited reconciliation, and downright inertia.

I love my son, beyond what words can describe.
I have grown to accept my wife, for the sake of our son, if nothing else. The fact that we were never really meant to be one, seems to have been mutually accepted, in a screaming, maddening silence. Things have in fact improved marginally since this realization dawned. We now share a stunted form of love, more a mutual sense of pathos, at how we have come together in a cosmic tragedy, and how our sense of happiness has perhaps been impaired for life. For now at least, peace exists.
I have never forgiven myself for wasting away all the gifts I had got. Perhaps things would have been different had they stayed on; had I been more active in shaping our mutual existence, rather than waiting for milestones to come and go; had I hung on to the light that I had come with.

I can only hope for a better life for Prakash.

But for now, as I reach to ring the bell, and start another cycle of domestic life, this is all that comes to mind.

Prakash, I love you, and I always will.

An equal madness

This was prompted by a question I posed to a friend yesterday. While it was rooted in the normal random thass we indulge in daily, the levels it has managed to take me across, is, well simply put, awe-some.

“What is the motive behind any form of artistic expression?”

And the answer, that I have found, bounded by the limitations of rational logic and experience that plague me, is as follows:

--

What runs through our veins, as thinking, intelligent human persons, is a continuous stream of colourless, unthinking, ethereal madness.
We are, by creation, ‘not-sane’.

What we appear to be during our daily interactions and motions, is at best a leashed, chained shadow of our true selves. And no matter how many layers of civilization, evolution and perfunctorization we hide our selves under; the underlying truth of our identities has a knack of always rising and opening our eyes to previously uncharted domains.

Further, the fleeting nature of this true, unaffected, honest life, means we are eternally living an existence of uneasy, self-imposed compromise. What Thoreau described as a life of “quiet desperation”, fits in snugly here as well. It is an invisible, sublime, and indeed, a pure form of elemental desperation one experiences at all points in time, which chooses to keep itself comfortably concealed mostly, only to reveal itself at the hours one perceives to be the darkest of one’s existence.

Artistes, have a language to speak in.
The choice of words is deliberate, and stands clarified as follows.
What purpose does a language serve, if one remains handicapped to connect with one’s own true self through it?
An artiste is one, who can interact with his very fabric, (and through it, perhaps with Him as well), through his language.
Thus, one observes, that the definition of the term ‘artiste’ somewhat paradoxically expands in a manner that could potentially include all of humanity in its fold, while simultaneously narrowing itself down by the added qualifier of self-conversation.

The point I am driving to, through this amazingly meandering little path, is thus, the underlying motive of any form of artistic expression, is to live a moment of the madness that one is born with; to escape from the educated rules propounded by civilization and society; to find one’s own self among the millions of shadows that cloud our very consciousness.

One may look at the entire argument from the reverse angle, and deduce that anything which allows one to free one’s mind; to lose one’s time variant image of the self; indeed, to indulge in some of the forbidden madness that lies hidden deep within our cores, is thus artistic.

While this may seem appealing and interesting at first, as images of Mozart losing himself in Don Giovanni; of Newton letting go of the world in his brand of Mathematical Physics; of an aging ascetic smiling up at the heavens in spite (or perhaps because!) of the sores all over his body, come to mind.

For the sake of self criticism, I shall quote instances of madness that might not quite seem as artistic: Hitler and his holocaust, the protagonist in ‘A Clockwork Orange’, Jack the Ripper, and many, many more.
On instances such as these, I believe, that if, the activities indulged in by the persons respectively, did indeed bring them face to face with their latent selves; if they did experience that lightness of being that comes with drinking in the madness, then yes, for their socially distorted selves, their trade, was their art; their channel to all truth, madness, bliss.

This point in time is as ripe as ever, to clarify on one minor point.
Genocide, rape and murder are crimes against humanity, no doubt. But the unthinking, essential madness in us, need not know that.
In fact, what might seem revolting in the case of Hitler, seems heroic when it appears in Newton; for it was after all a common, colourless, unbiased trait of pure madness that propelled both to drive on relentlessly, to heights previously unheard of, albeit in different directions.

As (nearly) rational humans, one would expect us to be able to differentiate between the essential force behind diverse actions ion one hand, and the variance of direction between them, on the other. Thus, what drove Hitler and Newton, and any other sage/musician/psychopath/saint/hero/legend, must boil down to one, common madness.

We’re all born the same.
What we choose to do with our most prized endowment, our madness, defines what we become.

All forms of ‘artistic expression’, are thus, simple desperate attempts at reaching closer to that which is truly us; an undying, unaffected, immovable, and essentially equal, madness.

--

Good day at work this was!

Solitary Confinement

On one hand this is the field for many a groundbreaking experiments on the self.
And on the other, the very thought seems to push one down a place, where distant music and memories of yesterday's feel are all the light one finds.

I'm not sure which way this one is headed.
We shall of course find out with time.
Till then, chew on this...

--

Har mulaaqat ka anjaam, judaai kyun hai?
Is tabeeyat, par har waqt, parchhayi kyun hai?
Agar na ho manzoor, toh na karo adaalat,
Magar dil ko bata jao, ye zaroorat kyun hai..

Through the darkness of the hollowing sides,
One sees many a fleeting glimpses,
Of a tomorrow untold, ready to unfurl,
Yet a thousand desires escape one's weary clutches,
As the darkened sky bemoans a day gone past,
Gone past, without a breath of life in the air,
Without that which lends all there is, to everything else.
Eternities pass one by, with little more than a sigh.

Immense highs punctuate one's lowly paths,
Yet unable to lift a gaining load,
What is one to do when the self plays to elude,
My dear, how far I am from you!

Is raat mein daraar aane na do,
Kal ki seher, par aanch aane na do,
Magar is hakeeqat se waakif kara dalo tum,
Aage ab aur, rulaane na do.

"The farther one travels
The less one knows"

"With our love,
With our love,
We could save the world,
If they only knew..."

. . .

This is...

The phrase forming the title shall reach its destined conclusion at a later point in the post.
This is my first attempt at breaking the "early to bed" shackles imposed by my internship. Too long its been since I indulged in some reckless insomnia, loaded with the goods at Nokia 5300.

Thus, here we are...

--

Through the haze in my head, worked up over several rounds around my new abode with this piece in place, I see glimpses of an epic; an epic struggle, a glorious rising, and an end that refuses to reveal its outcome.
Intrigued, I proceed to mine deeper. Wish me luck, and hold on tight...

A tired, dejected looking man walks around a barren field. Looking around one can see the look if anguish in his eyes, almost as if he were walking through the remains of a battlefield.
Why, he is. It appears the land on which he treads, is his own being. He finds himself gathering his own remains, after having been defeated in a long drawn battle.
But who was the adversary, who put our unassuming little protagonist on such a path of gloom?
'Circumstance' comes first to mind, but seems too convenient and concocted. It appears something more direct, animate, and downright real has overtaken the poor man. And with every passing second, the sense of loss seems to seep in deeper, and even mock him.
But just as you proceed to write him off as another one of those to blur into oblivion, he rises, and sings a song of praise. Short, sweet, but potent with many things intangible, but strongly perceptible. Puzzled, one asks him just what he had seen that prompted such a response. He smiles, looks around again, and then lies down on the ground, as if trying to hug the infiniteness of the earth.
One probes him further but to no avail.

Curiosity stirred, one is unable to leave him in his state. So one stays on, and watches as the clouds take their position near the sun, to form a kaleidoscope in 6 colours. Still wondering, one looks at the clouds, one's own hands, and the man still on the ground.
Suddenly, as the first drop falls to the ground, everything begins to makes sense. The very next instant, the man looks up at you, with just the faintest of knowing smiles. You, confused, shaken (just a little bit!) are fast to realize how you are part of a much larger scheme, one that is revealing itself slowly, but is as yet thoroughly incomprehensible.

The man gets up slowly, and you run up to him, inquiring about his condition.
He looks at you and says:
"In you I love.. You.. are the one.."
You stutter backwards, and watch the man smile, before he coughs and stumbles. You rush to hold him before he falls, and give him a hug. With that, he dies in your arms.

Finally, everything reveals itself.
You now know the truth for what it is, and always was to be. Tears well out your eyes when you realize just who it is lying in your arms.

You recall Nicodemus, and and the hymn he had been taught.
You feel wretched, and then infinitely blessed and loved the very next instant. And the latter stays on.

Then just as you look upwards at the heavens pouring down, you remember the promise that the man had made long back. And in the next 3 blinks of your eye, pass 3 days, 3 lives, 3 eternities, and the Son of Man rises in front of you.
All you can do is smile, cry, go insane, see the light, and then lie at his feet.

.

Epilogue:
Yes, you were the merciless perpetrator of a countless misgivings; you were the harbinger of the drought that plagued the man and his land. When the clouds came together, he knew you knew your true identity, or at least thought you did. You then were the one who redeemed him, and the cause to which he had given himself up. You were all that he had lived, and was now dying for. You realize this only after his collapse, and the opening up of the heavens.
In endless gratitude and love, you become one with him, in 3 blinks.

This is Khajuraho.

.

Epi-epilogue:
(For those still clueless)
The man died for you, but only after you redeemed him in his hour of doubt.
Upon his death, you realized the very meaning of love. And you rose with him, on the count of 3.
All of this was read out, in the span of those glorious 8 minutes 27 seconds.

.

For the uninitiated:
(Search for 'Khajuraho' here and listen/download).

"Hai Na" at the hospital...

This relates to my visit to a prominent Gurgaon hospital, a little over a week back.
Inspired Fiction -- Attempt 2.0.

--

I'm Palan.
Born a Tam, to parents settling in Delhi, in a clinic run by a doctor from modern day Pakistan, under a Sun that knows no difference between any of the above, I am all of 57 today. Working with a laid back MNC (yes, such hybrids do exist!), I'm generally chilling (if thats still the 'in' word today!)

But today's day is just a wee bit different.
I feel a strange way today, as if the roof has been torn from over my head today. It feels as if a wind that had been blowing for some time, till now invisible and very benign, had suddenly gained in strength, and managed to blow away the little polka dotted umbrella from my hand; as if my favourite TV show from Sunday mornings had just been pulled off air, and been replaced by a 'J'-serial; as if, the hand that had been holding my bicycle behind me just let go, and I, who had been floating on for the last countless years, just came crashing down, on an ever narrowing grey road that led to a dark void.
Today, my father died.

While I realize such an event should bring back memories from all the days past, from nappy changes, to first step videos, to "first day at school" blues, to "my daddy strongest" days, to "angry-young-man" days and related rebellions, to leaving home for college, to returning and still taking everyone for granted, to going off to work, and then never looking back, unless forced to by circumstance.

Yes, I see that wily old friend 'Circumstance' smile at me from the distance, just getting out of the Reaper's bed. Guess they were all in it from the beginning. And perhaps I was there in it with them, all along.

Anyhow...
As I had said, all of the above should have been brought flooding back to my consciousness, at this dark hour. However, overriding all of this, is the following, surprisingly clear memory...

It must've been some 35 years back, with my first ever internship just about to begin.
While I sat there, waiting for my turn with the eye specialist, I looked around the waiting room. Nicely done up it was, with seating space for 10 odd people, and nice arty stuff on the walls, to soothen one's senses, or to add more pseude value to the establishment, or both... one will never know.
Anyways, as I sat there, suddenly there came in a man some 5 years senior to me, wearing highly soled sneakers, and a casual tee and jeans. He rushed and sat next to a lady, probably in her late 50's, sitting in the row opposite mine. He grasped her hand, and slowly started to speak.

[Guy: G, Lady: L]

G: Ma.. They're done with the tests on Papa..
L: Haan...?
G: The doctor says that the signs are fine, just that..
L: Just that?
G: One more test result remains. If that is negative, then Papa should be safe...
L: Ohhh.. But Papa doesnt't even have sugar.. He should be fine.. Hai na..?
G: Hmmm.. Wahi.. Now lets see.. Hopefully there won't be a problem..
L: But you see na.. He doesn't even have BP.. Then how can anything be wrong? Hai na??
G: Hmmm..
L: Ab we'll jst wait for that one result.. And then Papa should be fine.. Hai na..
G: Hmm..
L: Hmm.. The test has to be negative. He just cannot be that sick..

The lady then went on to have similar conversations with 2 more people who came in then.. They seemed to be her daughter and son-in-law.

Now even though I only observed her for 8 minutes, her controlled words, fidgeting hands, and nervous glances everywhere were screaming out at all who cared to listen.

Never before had I witnessed this scene; one of potentially impending departure. There is one grief at having lost someone, but the sentiment is hugely different in colour, when you don't know what is to follow; when you don't know whether tomorrow you'll still have someone to fall back on; indeed, whether or not the dilapidated roof on your head will survive the stormy night.

For in her eyes, one could see that plainting longing for any word of reassurance; that look of despair that finds its way out in spite of one's best efforts to suppress it.
In her son I could see that growing helplessness, clasping the hand of his mother slowly nearing breakdown; that mind tearing dissonance, of having to deal with the cold news from the doctor, and also interface with his direly desperate mother.

That entire universe, in which there existed little more than those people at that moment, seemed climactically pregnant, with an imminent sense of dark, potent despair; the variant that can plunge a waning soul into the depths of blinding melancholia.

However, just as my mind was starting to look at the obituaries, there arose one, faint ray of light. And it wasn't from any burning embers.
It was indeed from that simple, unassuming, unrelenting, and eternally unyielding "Hai Na"; it was the sole anchor that could keep one from drifting away, while in this bottomless ocean of maya and the likes; it was that ethereal, untouchable, and pristine muse, called 'Hope'.

For without hope, one is already dead to all that lies, and more importantly, could lie in the future.

And thus, their universe, and all its darkness, seemed to me to open its eyes, slowly, to a gentle, caressing light. At least it seemed to be where they were headed, or perhaps where I wished for them to be.

While I don't know how things turned out for them, I know in my universe was born a tiny star.

Yesterday, that same star had helped me look at myself in the mirror, after all the dirt I had picked up over the years; after all the calls I hadn't answered back, and all the home visits I had postponed.

And today, in spite of all the wretchedness circling me like a colony of vultures, I know there is still some way left, by which I may atone myself. And while all may be dark right now, a path will come about, if not today, then tomorrow, else in another life.
That is what the star whispered in my ear, as I kept the receiver down, from that fateful call all of 34 minutes back.

Hope.
Believe in it I must, or perish a million times,
For the path is long and winding,
And above me hang a thousand deathly chimes,
But there is out there somewhere, a path, awaiting its finding.

--

"I'll be back"

Soon!

Yes, I miss you already too! :)

Overwritings in the Diary

This is based on what was narrated to me during a delightfully arbit chat-up some days back, in a comfortable corner at a McD, in turn located in the kilometre long mall.
Inspired fiction, or whatever fits..

(With Batra's permission, this could perhaps become a sidey add-on to the fasinating saga here :-)

--

I am Naman.
While you may know me from my days in the valleys of Ugar, I did infact spend a good 45 months in Delhi, during the glorious twilight years of my schooling.

I was sent to Mathur International School, one of the posh new ones in South West Delhi. And unlike today, the word "International" stood for some thing. The place boasted of an optimal teacher to student ratio, as also a tremendously jargonic concoction, which went by the name of "Culturally Receptive Attitude Procreation", or CRAP, in short.
While this feature boiled down to bird-watching at the kids from the various diplomatic missions et al, it was nevertheless a big "CV Point" for our institution at the time.

Anyhoo, the little incident I intend to tell you about today, is regarding Manorama, and her little blue diary.
Manorama, or Manu as she was referred to by those close to her, was the average bubbly, cheerful, idealistic, enthusiastic child of the 90's. Into her 15th year when our paths crossed, our mutual admiration for entities as diverse as Coldplay, Dagar Sahab and Manchester United meant we clicked instantly. And thus, soon enough I learnt more and more about this wonderful person, unfathomable in the depth of her thought, and irrepressible in the power behind her dreams. An IAS she wanted to become, and the signs were encouraging, to say the least. Anything she touched, would accept her as an apt pupil, and shower on her the choicest blessings. Thus one year into our friendship, I was astounded, when one fine day I realized she was into her 11th year learning Odissi; had unprecedentedly been promoted to School Magazine Editor, a year in advance; and, had taken up Economics as a 6th subject (while most of us grappled with the minimum requirement of 5), just because it caught her fancy after she stumbled across some book by Samuelson-Nordhaus.

Thus, she was the undisputed object of a multitude of emotions - affection to many, envy to some, pride to the teachers, and the likes. To me, she was just the iconic, unassuming, and incredibly humble embodiment of grace, courage and character. The accolades she collected at will didn't seem to come between our uncaring, blissfully light friendship. And for that, I knew she was more than 'just a friend'.

Then, one day she disappeared.
If not turning up to class wasn't bad enough, the countless calls to her place all went unanswered. With mobile phones still a few years away, this meant I, and the pretty much rest of the world was out in the dark on what grave mystery had swallowed our beautiful little butterfly.

Then, one cold winter morning, exactly 8 days since her disappearance, she returned.
But the bright hues previously resplendent on her wings had now faded; her smile no longer reflected her heart; and most of all, she was quiet like never before.
Soon enough, our entire ecosystem learnt from various sources, that Manu's mother had died in a bus accident. She had broken this to me the evening of her return, while walking back home. While I was left dumbstruck, I soon realized I had to stand by her, in this dark, dark hour.

However, such are such times, that the harder one tries to be of service, the farther one gets from it. Soon enough, I realized this, and backed off, minimizing my contributions to the bare minimum she asked for.

In retrospect, perhaps the single most important gesture came from our class teacher, Mrs. Prakash. In her early fifties, mother to two, she had lost her husband in the Kandahar hijack episode. To her eyes, we were all her children, and I mean that not in the cliched sense of the phrase. She lived by those words, and truly cared for every single one of us, irrespective of whether a student studied, played soccer, or smoked in his/her free time.

She gave Manu, a little blue diary, that would change her life forever, and then, years later, lead to this blog post.

As the eldest in the house, the onus of "making the house a home" fell on her tender shoulders, as did other domestic duties. Thus, the exquisite little muse that had been, soon found its wings getting clipped, bit by bit.
In this trying phase, when all else was leaving her side, and her role at home growing ever heavier, the diary gave her a confidante that transcended human barriers; it gave her, Anu, her pen friend that she would write to every night, in the safe recesses of that little blue diary.

I gauged the exact nature of her relationship with Anu only years later, when I chanced on her by-then-starting-to-wear-out diary, during a trip to Delhi for a family wedding.
For it was then that I saw Anu for what she truly was.
Contrary to my lofty expectations of an Anne Frank-esque soulmate and girl-friend, what I found was a barely animate punching bag, an endlessly blotting tissue, and in some ways, a soul mate that had given oneself up to one's other half, allowing oneself to be consumed in her unrelenting fire of pain.

For unlike what is the usual perception of a diary entry, written in an orderly/unorderly manner, in sequence/out of sequence, tidily/untidily, but finally, written so as to be able to recall at a later date; written, finally, to document one's thoughts, feelings and experiences, this little blue diary, had been different.

Each day's entry, was an unintelligible mess of overwritten text, sometimes twice over, and at other times over 6-7 times. While she had maintained each day's entry to the limited space allotted to it, she had made sure every single bit of information in her head found expression in those pages, rather, every single colour of every single emotion found its vent in that mortal canvas.

Thus, while a diary is generally a luxurious hobby facilitating the documentation of experiences and emotions that matter, to Manu, it was a bare bones necessity. To her, it was the one person who could withstand all the potent sorrow fermenting within her; it was that bottomless pit, where she could dump all the misery that life threw at her; it was the welcoming arms of emptiness, which would accept the remains of her deceased ambitions and dreams; it was the one companion, that truly understood, never questioned, and always offered its services without lending an air of heaviness.

It was that frenetic overwriting that formed part of her internal support system, that made that unassuming blue diary an embodiment of the most powerful of human emotions, and that led me to write about it.

The ways and means of human expression, and its infinitely hued facets, never, never cease to amaze.

Manu, God bless..

Almost back...

I am, from the minor eye surgery I had.
Can't wait to return in earnest, what with a 'thousand desires such as these' teasing my very being...:
1. Sad at CP
2. 'Hai Na' and essential human-ness
3. Overwritings in the diary
4. Rafa, you little...

Cheers duniya! :)

With reference to 'F!'

This was a small point which struck me as being pertinent enough to be mentioned along with a link to the original post.

Going about an average day running errands, going through medical pit stops et al, one was surprised to find another example of that which leads one to abuse (as per the post linked to above).
As stated then, society has this propensity of lending free layers of mind numbing perfunctoriness and "meaning-corrosive value addition", to anything which becomes relevant and available in the open. Though this statement is aimed more at language for now, it may be seen that it holds for many, many things.

Thus, for something to remain pure, it must, it seems, escape the limelight of social attention; perhaps even be condemned by society itself.
And here is where the connect struck!
Recalling this amazing novel that one unfortunately had to leave mid-way through, they came flying back, the views of the protagonist:
She observed during her initial days at a mental institution, that it was there, that people were truly free to do as they pleased. Unburdened and outside the circle of judgements and the ilk, several inmates actually stayed on even after having been 'cured', just to enjoy the freedoms bestowed upon them, by a society that had all but turned its back on them.

A sordid kind of convenience it was.

But that is where the linkage lies.
To be allowed to be free, one needed to be an outcaste, a pariah.
If that be the case with humans, then why not with one of the very tools that build a civilization - language; speech; expression.

How unfortunate for mankind this...

Dev.3 Done!

For those of you not aware of my fetish for this awesome movie, link.

Yesterday was the completion of my personal Dev.D trilogy. And though the impending timelines were stifling in their presence, the movie lost little of its magic.
All the music, all the colour, all the people, and all the life, came rushing on to me, enticing me just like on my first voyage there.

The thirst stands satiated, at least for now. The hope remains that the DVD, whenever it is released, comes with truckloads of extras and insights.

Till then, I bid the muse of Dev.D a warm goodbye, flavoured with the sincerest of gratitude, for all that it did to/for/with me.

May Sirs Kashyap and Trivedi dole out more such masterpieces, sooner, rather than later.

Cheers duniya!

Why we write

This shall attempt to be a reasonably brief expression of an experienced need, which one perceives to be one of countless motivations towards writing.

At the very outset, I shall consider the basic level needs of permanence and safe-keeping for posterity, that writing accomplishes, to be duly considered, folded, packed, and kept safely in that sub-conscious vault which houses other such factors of logic.

This, is where one begins...
Expression forms a major part of our existence. Much of what we do, is directly or indirectly aimed at adequately giving voice to that which boils within us.

Often enough, one reaches a point in the time-space-life continuum, where one knows something of "great significance" is there in one's little head. Said significance may be symptomized by extreme joy, sorrow, anxiety, bliss, melancholia, or any of the other assorted colours.
And often enough, in these situations, one is unable to quite place one's finger on one, or a set of reasons responsible. Even when one may feel comfortably in cognizance of the situation, chances are one is just invoking the lazy gods of convenience, and the slightest of scratches on the surface reveals an amorphous texture laden with confusion.

It is on such occasions, that I feel writing comes as a God-sent.
For when one writes, one is compelled to lend words to that which till now had just been a cloud of 'feel'. Words, one of the cornerstones of language and human intelligence, are inherently dual in nature.
While on one hand, a common standard of words with an agreement on the rules for usage et al, enables communication between two entities. Thus in a way, words indeed were most of what Boyzone had to take your heart away.
However,
Words are also restrictive in their usage. That is,
1. A word can only mean so much, and therefore it also does not mean everything else. Thus while there may be 2 universes within the scope of a word, that amalgamated di-universe does, without a shadow of a doubt, have a definite boundary.
2. If a certain entity/emotion/object has not been encountered often enough (in the open), then it remains an orphan in the language, i.e. with no identifier word attached to father it. Thus, till the time such a term is adopted, one's reliance on words means that certain things shall always fall beyond the realm of the express-ible.

This restrictive nature of words comes in handy in the context of writing, for when one writes to oneself, in one's attempts to remain faithful, one takes care on exactly what is expressed on paper/ on the screen. The fact that boundaries and limitations exist means that one is forced to quantify the previously entangled mass in one's head.
The conversion from thought to the written word, compels one's lethargic self to sit up, and work out just what is, and what isn't. Thus, in spite of the quantization error that invariably creeps in, the haze that had enveloped the mind gradually starts to fade, and one starts to catch glimpses of tha manic, smiling little child jumping around behind the scenes.

With a little bit of fortune, and much effort and concentration, the whole exercise of writing bears fruit, in one getting to know oneself a little better.
The monster that is one's mind stands reasonable tamed, at least for now.

With that, one gets back to whatever Quantum Physics/ Cricket/ Erotica/ Microeconomics/ Prayer one had intended to attend to.

And life walks on.