libraries

I am sitting at home with a lot of work to do. Work that I am not actually doing right now. I wish I could apparate myself to the library at my law school. I want to be at a library. I want to be surrounded with books, I want to be able to have the right books around me and I want to study. I want to then take a break for chai and then be back and read up some. I wish I were enrolled in a course. I miss research and I think that is a step ahead. The other day I checked at the ILI that for 25 rupees I can access their library. Going to happen soon.

I know I am blabbering but my laptop is finally working and I want to never stop typing. Hence the nonstop action.

By the way, the other day I realized that I may have been using a word - the metaphor 'anchor' - in this instance, in a limited sense. I have always seen it as a positive thing, something that stabilizes or calms one. I had forgotten that the same metaphor can be debilitating, a restraint, fastening one to things one wants to be free of.

Yeah, I want to be free.

PS: that previous post was very helpful to me. I happened to have written it around four years back when I was going through a major set back. It helped to think of pain as physical. I could take that then and I can take that now. I love myself for having written that (the few times I allow myself that).

Retold

It is the worst part of your life. Take it, accept it, live with it, drench your skin in it, let it permeate your body, let it reach the core of your sanity, your soul, your being..let it run through your nerves with the same ferocity as blood, let it crush your heart in a zillion pieces, let it rule you..don't run away and don't you try to evade. Like a marsh let it swallow you and like a marsh you swallow it. No good trying to find a way out. Give in. Stand still.

Give in for you know you won't ever be this sad again. Give in, for once you recover, the worst would have been over. Once it is over, you shall never be this way again. You prefer physical pain over this one? Then consider it physical. Consider it a whip ripping through your flesh. Consider it a bullet that hits your head and leaves you all bloody, consider it a boulder thrown at your face. But while you do that, consider it momentary, consider that it will go away, consider your mum will come and save you like it were promised in childhood. But first accept.

Never think of justice. For that you will never get. And why should that bother you so much? Everyone has reasons..and reasons are aplenty. Rub it off your memory and your soul. Die if you have to and then re-emerge. Love shall save you and love you have. That's the cleanser, the tonic, the nourishment. The worst shall be over soon, my darling. Till then hold me tight and you shall find me here when you open your eyes and realise the pain is gone. I'll be there. I am there.

Nameless

I sit. Lost and composed at the same time. Both my feet are ice-cold and my finger-tips jitter slightly as I tap the keys. It is not the first time either.

I sit as words beautiful and not, walk in and out of my mind. I wanted to write, but I am holding myself too tight. I find myself too cautious, too protective to be able to write. I lack the sweet abandon.

Time has never stood so still as it stands now. Separated from me. Perhaps in wait; for me to take notice. One glance and I feign how cheeky I can be, even as my heart races, afraid I will miss the bus.

Tippy, I am just 26!

I have just returned from the doctor's. My throat is aching pretty bad and I am a little sleepy because of the medicines I have just taken. I should not have taken all those doses by myself. Noted.

I had taken a little nap just now when I woke up to realise there was not that usual noise about that Tippy keeps making. Surprised, I sat up and looked around. No Tippy. I strained my ears to hear him breath or make a move. No Tippy still. I have looked under the bed and have been to all the rooms in my mind. There is no one there. No shadows. No tigers. No Tippy. Really?!?!

Am I really by myself? Has he left and left for good or is it my mind playing games?! Whatever it is, even if he is to return to his usual place in my head, I am not complaining. I am feeling better already. I am actually smiling. So was it THIS that was missing!? Unbelievable.

How old am I? 26. 

How old? 26. 

How old again??? 26! 

And how old is that?! 

Twenty fuckin six!

That's just TWENTY SIX, Tippy boy!

Tippy.

Everywhere I go, everything I do, I look over my shoulder and can feel your hovering presence. As if having you follow me around was not enough, soon you entered my dreams, leaving me cold and helpless. And since then and it has been quite a while now, you would agree, there is no getting rid of you.

I don't know why you choose to hang around, I have tried for you to lose your way. I have put on loud music so you won't hear me, I often changed my route to work, so you wouldn't follow, I dressed up different so you wouldn't notice me but everything failed. I even stopped writing so you would have no access to me. I stopped smiling in pictures, I stopped eating, I stopped walking. I avoided being alone. I locked me up in my room yet I knew you were lurking near my door, your nose twitching for a waft of a smell that might be mine.

Crazy as it may sound, I have no option but to meet you now and perhaps know you better. I have been so busy avoiding you that I never even took a good look at you. Enough of chasing and dodging - I want to now sit with you over a cup of coffee, no foam. Just you and me and all that we have to say to one another or have already said without really acknowledging the other's presence. There must be so much we want to talk about.

So there it is now. I will give you a name my stalker, and you may call me whatever you fancy. I will write to you. I will write about you. Here, I have already come up with a name. I will call you Tippy, suits you about just right. 

to myself - an old post.

Too much thinking has been happening and much less doing, lesser writing. A thought would give way for two weeks, only to be replaced by another despondent thought. This can't go on.

I need to feel free to write, to err. I must keep working, keep going on..perhaps all this is in the discovery of the self, if nothing more. I observe too much (or so I feel) I see too much and a conflict of thought is always in wait. It never bothered me before, but now it cripples me and weighs on me instead of setting me free. Even if one were to know one is a devil inside, the 'knowledge' of it must be liberating, no? May be not. All knowledge is not good. Or it could be that I am not ready to face myself yet. I might never be. And that is also perfectly fine, I want to tell myself. These chinks of self-doubt debilitate me. 

At times like these I think of the old self. Where so much commotion was there and because everything was happening for the first time I had the heart and the courage to face all of it. I knew nothing better than that. There was no real fear of falling or failing. I wasn't even thinking on those terms. I was earnest, yes and in that earnestness I would grill myself too. But I was not so conscious in expression. I was free from myself, my own bitter censure.

And so here I am. Making this effort to write. To talk to myself once again. To make me speak to me. To make a fool of me, if need be.

My infinite playlist

I am supremely emotional right now. For a change it is in a good way. I am not going to tell you what did it. But i am going to do that thing I once did on this blog. Tell you some things about me. In the present, from the past, may be to be. Will have one go at it, no sequencing, no thinking.

1. I have always wanted to be a father to a small girl..to bring her up like a father. Love her like a father would or should. (And because that can't happen I would be happy being a witness to this). I have wanted to be a mother too.

1.1 I have a mortal fear of tigers. I love them and adore them. But I have an irrational fear that a tiger might just walk in the door in any room I am in and attack me.

2. I took off bike riding with a complete stranger in Goa. He happened to be a young doctor from Kerala. I gave him a real bad time because of all the questioning I subjected him to. We were both stuck in Goa for an extra day so we hired a scooty and he taught me how to ride it. I accidentally accelerated the bike and before he could sit behind me, the bike and I took off and had a fall.

3. The same day just before I was to take my bus, I injured my toenail which as good as came off with all the blood and grime. And who rose to the occasion? The doctor.

4. I was recently driving and checking my blog when my car grazed past an auto. I was the one completely at fault - but just to calm the autowallah down I insisted it was not my fault but his. The fact that I had also had some beer and a little Brandy (for my sore throat) was soon forgotten.

5. I wore a saree in Philippines. My mom had made the pletes, pressed it all nicely and pinned it for me to wear. All I had to do was to ask someone to make sense of the ready-to-drape saree. It came out perfectly. 

6. I am presently aching, physically aching for a dog. Completely different note - a friend and I tried fishing recently. Of course, no luck. But afterwards did manage to bring a semi-dead fish back to life.

7. Got a dreamcatcher from Manila. Have started believing in astrology in a creepy creepy way.

8. Every morning I try to meditate and fail at it. Sometimes I fail because I fall asleep while at it. 

9. A week back spent an entire day at KL airport alone and sent pictures of signboards to my sisters.

10. Even though I am technically home since November, I continue to live from a suitcase.

11. I have picked up many books in the past month - and not finished a single one. I can't seem to.

12. I have a throat so sore right now that I haven't been able to utter a word in three days. All I can do is whisper or whimper. 

13. I really didn't think I would reach till 13 on this list. This is the most I have been able to write in months and months!

I love you, here!