the whole spectrum

From soni sori's handwritten letters, to stories of sexual abuse by those in the family,  to subtleties of "sahmati, poorv-anumaan, chaahat, chunaav, haan, naa, shayad.", to my own personal account.

The perks of being sensitive are downward spiraling.

reminder

I realize just now that everything I have ever done, been proud of having accomplished or been a part of, has been a result, not of any stated curriculum or compulsory coursework. More often than not, from a university point of view, it has been unnecessary, unasked for and even at times unheard of. It was pure initiative on my part when I went up to a speaker in a panel and asked for work, or applied for work even if I did not yet have the credentials, or did more essays than required. Not to say that I have accomplished a lot - it is just that it were the small initiatives where I worked to learn, toiled myself without pay, recognition or even a certificate of internship, that paid off. Mostly, it has been the one nervous phone call - asking people I found interesting in the field if they would let me work for them - for no pay and if they agreed, dedicating my self to the work. After college hours, on Sundays, during summer vacations and winter breaks. And I don't think I missed out on any of the fun either.

Why did I do it?

I hated being at home so avoided going back after college. Sometimes I was running away from the tragedy of a break up, sometimes it was curiosity and sometimes I was sick of the curriculum. But mostly, it was my dad's discouragement that did the trick! I had it in me to prove myself or die trying. I had a cause.

Why am I reminding myself of all this?

Because I need to recall. The appreciation is dousing the flame. I have stopped rebelling as much, or struggling if you like. It's not that I am encouraged now, just that I have stopped caring to prove - as often happens when you leave home. I'm 25 and I know where I can be. If I have to taste the sweetness of being where I want to be doing what I want to do - I will have to keep myself hungry, I have to keep the cinders burning.

You know it now, girl. xoxoxox

Me amo! Te amo!

Hey!

Today is another day! I am happy right now and for once I am going to write it all down without feeling that writing or expressing the fact that I am happy will take it away from me. God knows who put this into my head.. but as if following a superstition I have been ever wary of expressing my happiness in words.. perhaps it is a way of avoiding a potential 'fall' from the happy state. As if the expression might jinx it or perhaps the feeling will vanish. 

Right now as the moment stands - I am ready to forgive myself. I am also ready to accept myself. I am beginning to hold myself again, wrap my arms around myself. I am ready to love and be loved. I am ready to smile and laugh and work. I am even ready to try to love Bombay. (okaaaayy..ready to try, at least. hee)

I might very soon shift in with a friend within my locality only. Living alone is certainly not my thing. I can stand hating a flatmate for a thousand things, but I don't want to be the only person in the house anymore. After London I had started to believe I would be fine - but, no siree!

By the by, I got my visiting card made. After months I am feeling proud of myself. After days of agony today I can feel the sunshine. I am able to love freely! And even if this feeling passes me by and fear takes hold of me - I am ready to fight it and reclaim myself.

I must not let fear boss me about. Que sera sera.

Which reminds me that my lessons in Spanish are going beautifully. I am actually feeling more confident now than I was before. This week I shall take out some time and sit with it.. get a hang of the verb conjugations, glossary and write the two small essays I am supposed to write on "Mi Casa" and "Mi Familia". Looking forward.

Love you, me. Love you, you!

blank stare

Looking for myself. So depressed I can hardly look up and walk straight right now. I want to see less, observe less, feel less. I want to meet less 'kind' of people.. I want to NOT think that deep all the time.. I want to go back into old age and be happy, really happy for once..unmindful of things that I see. Once in another post I had written, 'If you can see Thestrals, you would have witnessed death'. I do not wish to see them now. I do not wish to see these things that bother me, make me feel I am not one of many. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? To see things, and to want to be one of many.

There are so many questions in my mind - when to listen to what and whether to listen at all. I run to my sister for answers, she is more like me than anyone else is - but even then, our lives are not identical - hark, far from it. I am ever able to talk to anyone in such language. Never. I talk in other words and sometimes they get it sometimes not.

Taking an aerial picture, what is it that's bothering me? Isn't everything fine? More than fine, any one else would say. Then why am I afraid to be happy when I am. Why am I terrified when I should be strong. 

I wish I find the answers, they will come to me I am sure. But then I also know that there is no learning, unlearning going on here, there is no right or wrong decision may be, there is nothing called fate, there is simply nothing to this life at all. THERE ARE NO ANSWERS. What makes you think your life is so important? 

Is it not?

I think I am having an existential crisis.

Update

Been and now back from Delhi. Holi it was - with friends - good fun. Especially the beer part. Loved staying at home, with mom dad and my sister.. missed Panther while trying to forget, went for walks and sneaked out at times.Had a few fights, some love too, had home-cooked food, brought some back with me. Never knew I loved Delhi so much and how dry Mumbai really was to me. I have stopped calling it Bombay even. I've stopped caring!

All through the flight back home - kept thinking why I loved Delhi so. Was it the roads, the lights, the metro .. and I realized it wasn't that Delhi was grand - just that Mumbai is unbearable (to me). We pampered lot in Delhi get frisked about all the time here in Mumbai. While in Delhi it is always about 'yes, I matter', here it is almost writ large on everyone's head 'you matter not, nor do I'. Quite an equalizer Mumbai. You are basically a see-through here. A cellophane!

My mom doesn't get teary-eyed easily, she never once did when I left for London for months on end. But she did this time. I couldn't figure it out. She said, 'because you aren't really happy there'. I did tell her I was fine and that I just missed being around her and my friends! But well. 

But I have friends here and I get by. :) Have missed two Spanish weekends, hope to catch up tomorrow. Have much to write. 

More later.

मातृभाषा

कभी कुछ हिंदी में लिखा पढ़ती हूँ तो सच लिखने का दिल करता है. सिर्फ सच. मानो सब सच हिंदी में ही बसा है और लिखने की देर है. मुझ जैसे प्रायः अंग्रेजी में लिखने वाली को भी यह यह लग सकता है, कुछ बात होगी हिंदी में. तभी शायद हिंदी किताबों में बूँद भर ही सही पर रस ज़्यादा ही होता है, स्कूल-कॉलेज के दिनों में हिंदी डिबेट हमेशा से ही मुझे अंग्रेजी डिबेट से ज़्यादा प्रभावशाली लगती थी. हिंदी-उर्दू की "मिलीभगत" में लिखी गईं कविताएँ भी थोड़ी ज़्यादा पसंद आती हैं मुझे. मानो की जो सच है, सही में सच है, किसी भी उपरीय-दिखावे रहित वह ही लिखा होगा इन कविताओं में. पर यह प्रेम काफ़ी व्यक्तिगत है. मैं किसी भाषा, देश, कौम से व्यक्तिगत लगाव से ज़्यादा कम ही महसूस कर पाती हूँ. लगाव इसलिए भी की मेरी माँ की हिंदी पर खूब पकड़ है. जितना अच्छा बोलती हैं हिंदी, उतनी ही कविताएँ मूंह-ज़बानी याद हैं उन्हें. बचपन से ही उन्हें हिंदी की श्रेष्ठ कविताओं को पता नहीं कैसे आसान-सी धुनों में पिरो के गाते-गुनगुनाते सुना है. कई बार मुझे रोते से चुप भी कराया है उन्होंने राणाप्रताप या झाँसी की रानी पर लिखी कविताएँ सुना कर, और कई बार सुना है उन्हें किचन में खाना बनाते हुए, वही कविताएँ गाते हुए. यही वजह है कि कुछ छन्द मुझे भी याद हैं. सही मायनों में हिंदी मेरी 'मदर-टंग' है. शायद इसलिए अनकहा स्वाभाविक लगाव है हिंदी से. लिखने को बोलो तो प्रायः अंग्रेजी ही लिखी जाती है; किसी से मिलूं तो अंग्रेजी में बात करना ज़्यादा आसान लगता है - शायद इसलिए कि हिंदी में कुछ ज्यादा ही अपनापन है, नए लोगों से इतने अपनेपन के साथ बात नहीं होती आजकल.

respirar

Breathe. Once more. And so on.

Eh.

Mind: Start writing, girl. Kick-start. S.t.a.r.t. Write as you read.
All that underlining is not getting you anywhere, neither is the
scribbling in the margins nor the endless pointers in that horrible
handwriting of yours.

Self: Eh?

flip-flop(?)

I don't exactly want to sound that I know more. I couldn't, for reasons more than one. But mostly, because I have realized for all my wisdom, we are all creatures of our past, we are all creatures of our fears and our mistakes and our doubts. Amidst all this foliage (or rubble if you like) we grow, we cull, degenerate and grow again. All through this time I had been sailing a fictional flag, floating on a fictional boat, living my life considering my self an enlightened being. Little did I know that the same books and theories that had me congratulating myself upon as having read, having elevated myself - were also in part taking me away from simple truth, from simple happiness and everything that on a rainy romantic morning I wanted. To put it plainly, it was actually taking me away from simplicity. It was taking me away from what I actually wanted in a world of what I desired. Want is simple you see, and desires have an imaginary wings to them - which on one hand give flight to our creativity - but are useless when it comes to looking deep within ourselves. They also waste a lot of time.

To continue, in the past one month I have almost come of age again. Such coming of age is not new to me. Happens every couple of years and I have always had an acute sense when the transition was taking place. As if it was puberty all over again. And I am sure even this, what I may call my metamorphosis here (to borrow a word from someone I briefly and sporadically loved) will go through another transformation. I don't say it as a disclaimer, I am not trying to protect my credibility. I say it as a fact that I must put for you to be able to understand what I am trying to tell you. The circle has no end, as is an answer to many a riddle.

I had begun to think till sometime back that I knew who I was, I knew what I wanted, I knew what suited me and what not. The operative verb of course being 'knowing'. Riding my high horse galloping the vagabond streets of desire and the mistake of thinking I 'knew' what I sought, had actually blinded me to what I simply wanted and needed. I had actually closed doors to what I was capable of. A self-styled enlightened being closing doors to knowing oneself! Isn't that disturbing? Yet I continued to do that. Continued to tie my limbs while chanting 'I am free', continued to gag my mouth while believing me to be breathing free, continuing to hold my heart down while believing me to be loving freely. It was then it happened. The dramatic realization.

I still don't know if I have reached stability. It is too early to deduce that part. But the fact that I metamorphosed, challenging my conception of myself, which of course I took constructively. Once the blinkers came off, I saw better as expected, but I also am beginning to accept better. I want to tell you, that as times will pass your conception of yourself might change, you might feel you are capable of much more sacrifice (for your self) than you ever thought possible. You may let go of 'this', the cause of your trouble - but I would want you to having done it knowing that you might metamorphose too and when that happens - promise that you will love yourself double as hard as you do. But, if you decide to not let go of 'this' - then know that you are capable of much, much more than you can imagine. You are capable of accepting much more than you thought you could and there might be some simple truth for you in there.

happy!

The day was long, I made the most of it. Wrote vigorously. I'm loving it. My work is making me look forward to life and times to come. My beliefs replenished, reaffirmed.. it is beautiful this feeling. Much like love! Everything is making sense - as if I can use each faculty within my mind, each cell in my body, each nerve is alive with charge. Just wanted to write this moment.

teri aankho ke siva duniya mein rakha kya hai!

my pages.

Just a random thought.. after having read Faiz's letters to his Wife.. it would be so lovely to be writing to someone.. in flesh and blood.. in ink and paper.. lovely to be writing to someone because there are things you want to write ..not things you just wanna tell and be done with. I used to do it in school - write letters to my friend, during the summer holidays. :)

On a completely different note - something had been happening these past couple of weeks. I don't know where I am - but it seems that I am losing control over how I feel.. the control is getting "outsourced" should I say. I am seeing things differently yet so scared that the happiness of it all has not got a chance to sink in. Somehow I fear even this will fall apart.

I am holding on to you, my pages.

Wayward

First thing first. Where I am. What I am doing today. The waywardness that has surrounded my life the past couple of days had me lose myself. Even as I traveled around Bombay  attending meets and training sessions and the like, I guess some reassessment of my self and my work is called for. Very often I find myself distanced from the areas I wanted to work in i.e. rural India. The fact that I am placed here in Bombay seems to me such a waste of time. "Things are fine here. Send me to the war-front!", say my innards. Ok but this is not the time for such commentary. There is work to be done and now. And no matter where I am situated - my work/academic research can still be done. And I can always travel 'there'. (hidden mockery in my own words.)

I love my job. I really really do. I love seeing things through the rights perspective. It is not an effort, spending hours and hours over reading and making sense of dozens of articles a day, taking notes and chalking out the contours of my own thesis. In short, I like studying and my fellowship here is giving me a lot of time to do that. But what has been bothering me? The fact that though what I am trying to say is very new in this organization,, within this set up, on the whole it is not very novel - much has already been written about it - do I really wanna give birth to a near-clone? From health perspective while I will have to explain things from the very scratch, over there i.e among people who have a human rights background I think I would only be articulating what has already been discussed, debated, agreed upon. Would it be better to instead take the discourse further or at least add something to it? I don't want to be bringing in an idea that (i fear) might be already stale. Is there something called a stale research? But then, doesn't research itself mean re-search? Phew, I don't know. The basic study is necessary for me anyway. So I should be concentrating on it.

I don't have answers but I hope I will in sometime. I also want to get my LSE assessed essays published - but somehow in the heart of my heart I tend to underestimate my work.  Within my mind it goes something like this - If I have been able to do it, then anyone can and so it is not good enough and if I face difficulties doing something - it must be wrong somewhere and so definitely not good enough. Do I leave myself with any choice here?

Bombay Hues

The ecdysis

I am becoming your Frankenstein's monster. You wanted me like this and there, you have it. You brought about this change, cast me into a mould that was not mine from the beginning. And I, as if lying in wait for the very change – became who I was not; and never even 'wanted' to be. The shapeshifting over, I emerged anew the way you would have me be. And now you feel wronged. You resent me because you fell in love with your own creation. Why, you should have known of all people that even as I sloughed my skin, to come out puckering and ugly, like a child fresh out of its mother's womb, I had ceased to be human in the process. 

My Ecdysis has happened – spineless that I am! –  at times even spiraling out of your grasp, my creator.

settled!

Heya! Apologies for a belated post. My house is now set and I have entered into a routine. I am reading on a lot apart from that required for my research and now that I do not have a necessary priority in terms of course work to do - my interest in politics, journalism, issues and the like is rekindling. Stuff that I had lost touch with like Indian law and politics - I am again coming back to it all, albeit quietly. Unlike before, there is no one now to discuss such stuff with, or to casually speculate or predict. Now I remember it used to be fun doing that in college days. I still don't have a subscription to a newspaper here. Must remember to get it done at the earliest. Right now I am making do with an unreliable internet connection. I have to get that fixed too. 

As far as work goes at times I find it hard to keep focus. I keep losing track on exactly what I am doing - given the fact that I am very much an outsider here. Often I am surprised by my own presence. And then I go looking for myself. Remind myself of my interest and take it from there - so every other day becomes the first. The year in London was important in terms of ideas and concepts - now is the time learn the practical aspects of it all. But again, it would be great to have someone to talk these things through with. Someone senior.

As usual, when left to myself my mental compass naturally points to literature (and not human rights, much to my chagrin). I had been reading Anna Karenina - it is strangely paced - at times very slow, at others just right. I am halfway through the book but I still cannot make up my mind about a certain characters - why doesn't Tolstoy tell us more about them - often while reading I find myself wondering about the truth of these characters - Vronsky, Anna, her Husband Alexei, Levin and Kitty  - half way through the book and it still feels like the curtain is still only half drawn. A couple of thoughts though. I have always been enchanted with strong-willed women - and that's why I like Anna. And yet, to not been taken further into the countenance of her mind and what she is actually going on there, instead to be simply told what she is doing leads me both - to take this book up and to put this book down. (In contrast - how beautifully Charlotte Bronte elucidated Jane Eyre's mind. I am still hopeful though.)

Another book I am reading in between is A Short History of Nearly Everything and I don't know what to make of it because whatever I learn I forget in no time. I do enjoy it. And it is a very very easy read - given that it is all about Science.

PS: I am joining Spanish classes. Declaring it here to make me really go and enroll myself.

Let go

When will all this end? The unrelenting guilt. The false guilt. The guilt that is not to be? When will it end and let me live? I know it is unimportant - but to me a malaise that I want to be rid of. Unnecessary, screeching, wrong and yet I cling on most obsessively. 

Train Post 2: later into the day

I land in Bombay today (or since I am coming by train should I say crawl). The 'city of dreams' it has been called rhetorically – I shall see what it turns out for me. I look forward to meeting my advisor tomorrow somewhere in Santa Cruz. There is a lot going on in the mind right now. Flashes from the conference, workshop safari, my blink-and-miss stopover at home and here I find myself in this train going from one Rajdhani (Capital city) to another. Intermittently, I also miss London. Unlike before. The missing is more in terms of pangs. Piercing till I shake it off. I miss London streets I was regular to, going to buy the grocery from Tesco. The most predictable of things are the ones I miss – like the chill, the rain, the slight shiver, the hostel and the hostel kitchen where I used to cook. I don't miss the monuments much but I do miss the nameless streets and people I met there. AND the tick tock of my boots! It is all in flashes too, places where at times I lit a cig, walked a bit, sat for mere view, wrote in the mind, talked on phone while on walks.

Eddying out to the present - I can see what makes India tick. No wonder from Switzerland to Tanzania everywhere Indians are known for their business acumen, more specifically how they 'capture the market'. Right before me is a handsome chap I presume to be a Gujarati. Got in the train at 6 am from Surat. I was sleeping at the time and was woken up for tea. This fellow has been talking of costing (coasting), increment, interest rates, selling (sailing), market price, products, competitors blah blah blah ad nauseam. All 'strategizing' in the world is apparently happening on this very train. I couldn't yawn more. A while ago I saw him reading a book (which got me to take note of his looks in the first place). Through the corner of my eye I caught the name on the spine and realised that even this was a business strategy kitaab! I now overhear that it has been gifted to him and it talks about the right to competition and strategy and how to make max. profit. And now that he is explaining to others he declares with pride, "the author Michael XXX says "don't compete to be the best compete to be unique." How I wish he would shut THE HELL up.

Everyone else on the bogey is listening with rapt attention. The earnestness on the chap's face makes me feel so sorry for him, his book makes me feel how poor we are, my lack of interest in this 'enlightening' conversation makes me feel like this train won't ever halt, and my being stuck in this cabin makes me claustrophobic.

GO DIE! (It kinda catches on.)

Train Post 1

Date: January 31, 2013, 

Somewhere in Gujarat or Maharashtra, 

Time: whatever it is it is LATE

I write this from the train. En route Bombay. As always happens with me, I wrote in bits and pieces last night. Not a word do I recollect although at the time I was sure of my unfailing memory. The train that I am travelling in – the August Kranti Rajdhani - is an hour late, because of fog apparently. I'm wearing a salwar kameez and feeling cold in the air conditioned train.

Last month was quite eventful. It breakfasted in the hospital, lunched in Tanzania and hopefully will dine in Bombay. Being a Delhiite I can't help but see Bombay with a little disdain. I am perhaps too used to the space around me - the circumference where my 'aura' prospers, you see. Yeah, I am a spoilt Delhi girl whose daddy gave her a car when she turned 23.

I miss having long conversations. I miss being inspired. Have been trying to find the right word for "prabhavit' (no, 'affected' doesnt sound right enough) I think 'inspired' could be one.

hard times

It's 2013 now.  Christmas, New Year have all gone by in the hospital. I rescheduled my return to Delhi to come home early so I could be with her. And in this time I prayed, I cried, I shivered – while spending sleepless nights in the semi-ICU ward. She is better now, though recovery shall take 2-3 months. 

Up in the Air

Date: 16-17-18 December 2012 (depends on which time zone I should follow while some 40,000 ft up in the air, in between continents and whether or not I have the energy to add or subtract silly hours.)

Place: Read above.

Time: Ditto

(Somewhere in constant motion, above a constantly moving earth – is where date, place and time have a threesome?)

I am still in the plane. Still 4 hours to go before I reach my destination –  London. I have been communting since last night and its already evening in Delhi - the place I started from. Travelling 5-6 hours back in time has its advantages. No matter how late your flight is, how much you have to wait at the airport, no matter how much sleep you have lost – you will still be arriving earlier than you would have expected. However, that is not what this post is about.

For so long I had been sitting, itching to type but didn't wanna make the effort to pull out the laptop and really do it. Because there isn't much space around me, and secondly, I don't really enjoy jotting down most uncomfortable of times – grief, gloom, tears and pain I can write pages upon pages about – it's the physically uncomfortable that I can't write much on.

But then – while watching a crazy movie (my third on this flight) I just started to write – in the head.. and it came out beautifully. Wishing to capitalise on the moment, I lunged for my bag, took out the laptop case, extracted the laptop from its case, sat up straight and here I am typing away 'feeling important' – the memory of what I was writing (in the head) having completely wiped off.

Nevermind, the laptop is here now. I will wait to return.

by the way.

And on a regular note - I bought myself an overcoat today. A khaki colored coat with a furry hood. I am sure it will keep me warm - and if it doesn't well, there is Zara and there is a discount. Gosh, I hate shopping so much that I fooled myself into eating a plate of papri chat just so that I could procrastinate a little more in the mall today. Shopping alone has its benefits. No one to judge you. I also bought a winter hat/cap, it looks cute in a fuzzy sort of way. London is freezing I am told.

My tickets for Arusha, Tanzania are done. And the trip is for longer duration than I had thought. I will be gone for good 7-8 days. Reach Arusha over three connecting flights and come back via two other. Upon return I am to pack again for Bombay and plan on staying put. Before that I would be staying in some part of Delhi for 2-3 days for orientation into the fellowship program.

Oh yea, did I mention? I won the Maternal Health Fellowship jointly awarded by Harvard University and Maternal Health Task Force. Hence, the London and the Tanzania and the Bombay. Gee. 

Lb ju.

exeunt omnes!

Not a shred is left. Not a word. Not a syllable that we existed. Is it that we love our selves so much or the fact that we essentially don't? Or is it the necessary absolutions of our people infested lives that some have to, just have to go? Sometimes they walk out themselves and at times we would have pushed them out and banged the door shut. Either way we suffer. No matter which side of the stage we find ourselves at the end of the play, it is all just the same.

This is not a piece wrote in any of the extreme emotions we are wont to feel at moments like these. In fact, I am surprisingly cool. It is just emptiness that's staring back at me. A strange emptiness - not the hollow kinds - but the kind that fills every nook and crevice of my daily life. The emptiness is all-encompassing, taking up all space there ever was, beautiful in itself and tranquil. Yes, it is very quiet and still.

Or is it simply that I am talking much more to myself, now that the noise (yes you!) is no more? 

I am such a hopeless brute, I am even enjoying this, right now, here.

sprawl scrawl

I am in bliss. True bliss..drunk in sunshine on my rooftop.hardly being able to write..but each part of me feels so soft and nurtured..like a newborn babe. Im so blissfully dizzy in a sleep that only sunlight and warmth can make possible. im sprawled on a thick blanket doubled up to give me some comfort and my body is covered from head to toe with ma's warm shawl..making me my own warm Eden..i can hardly open my eyes - i am that cosy -  but i am feeling supple and well slept.

The morn saw me get up early..snuggle upto ma..it being hers and my dads wedding anniv (35th!) after which I laced up my shoes..wore myfav puma trackpants with a jacket on top and went for a run. Twelve rounds and an hour later I returned home to have a shower, my breakfast and laze around and now I am on the rooftop .. with my book.. sleep now and then replacing the book..off come my glasses and I lumber on with my seista. Lovely lovely Delhi winter it is - best spent on lazy rooftops..sprawled and comforted - nothing could tear me apart from my drowsy heaven! muah!

Sent from Samsung Mobile

Home

There are times like these that the influx of all that needs to be put down on paper itself hinders the flow of words. There is then no train of thoughts, but an explosion of selfsame conclusions - some formed, some unformed, some stillborn, some deformed - elastic in style - the mumbo jumbo of a clogged mind.

And yet the love for writing brings me here. I yearn to write till my nib bleeds, my fingers ache, my mind is cured - till I can hear no more of the senseless din - till my chaos begins to make sense, take shape and bring to me a sense of accomplishment that only few care for. Of all those I have loved, its writing that's never failed me. May be because I never stopped loving it. I am aware though that even as I fill this canvas with words, I am hardly saying anything. May be thats the idea. May be I am not ready yet.

I love you my blog, my haven, my refuge, my holiday, my work, my shelter, my sanctuary, my burrow, my faithful home!

curled

It looks like a shoddy piece of patchwork, my life. In some other time I would have found beauty in any miscellany. Right now I just wanna lie curled up in my bed and close my eyes. I have forgotten to write poetry. Something I so enjoyed. I no more have the courage or the hope for it. I wish to go away somewhere far, too far from even myself. But pity we can't leave our past behind. And then, I am tired before I even begin to chart my course. Because I know the going away will do nothing.

There is so much noise it makes me cringe. It's making me want to hurl things against the wall - if only to seek that split second silence right after.

Blank stare

Considering what all is happening around me, I must not be doing bad if I have finally started reading Shakespeare. I don't know if I hold the books or they hold me. We get along well, that's all.

I have become so dextrous in arranging what should bother me and when that pain itself has lost its meaning. I have lost, I feel, the impulse that makes us grieve or pine. I know so much of myself now that even as 'answers' lay bare in front of me I no longer even want to get up and have a look. I am sure more lies ahead, more of me, more of those 'fine lines' that I so often talk about. But for now even this seems enough.

Last night, on my way from Connaught Place, I realized how this dexterity of the mind, this 'awareness', this vigilance rather - kills the spirit of spontaneity. Of making mistakes, seeking apology and keep going. But who can I allow myself to be that with?

I don't know if I make any sense to anyone reading this. I had better go and work.

This one is me.

All my life I have lived to love someone. 'Worship' I learned to call it. Struggling to worship a God that never was, praying that he exists. Him with a capital H. Even though I have been never been religious, in this regard I was the unrivaled, the alpha devotee. Or at least wanted to be. My savior he was to be. My 'tree' I would call him metaphorically. An abundant, grand, grandiose tree, in all its wooden splendor and life, to cover my whole being like a divine umbrella. A living monument of man, under which I wanted to simply exist, 'pick flowers', if you like. Yearning to be a nobody in comparison. Pining to become a speck as he would reign over me. Me the kingdom, he the King; me the devotee he the God, me a mere abstraction, he the very creation! And nothing less would satisfy me. Such brazen hunger for worship did not hurt my ego in the slightest. It did not because in my mind he knew it was I who needed to coronate him for myself! Oh! How important that he should not care! He would have known it was my need and may be nothing more. It was this understanding that was to mark our love. Alas, it never happened. And thank god it never happened.

Adding flavor to my delusion, I always had this beautiful imagery of a little girl sitting pretty on green grass, under that tree, her flower-printed pinafore and a little brooch in place. She sits unmindful of the world, of her own existence, save that the tree is her home and as long as she is under it no harm could befall her. I never knew what she feared, but she would keep plucking at the lush green grass near her knees and now and then fiddle with her basket. Her face had calm contentment writ all over it. This girl was me.

Never did I pay heed that this girl had no books by her side. Books that  I so love to read. She wanted nothing from life except to barely exist under the shadow of the man-tree, all she wanted was to feel safe even as no eminent danger was in sight. This safety was her idyll, her ultimate salvation. She had no ink, no pen, no paper. You see, she needs nothing from him! Just his presence around, as if to co-exist in his time was the reason she had taken birth.

All wrong!

Today I see the horror of such a dream. I dread what would happen to her if she were trapped in such condescending paradise. What good is the man-tree except for his banal presence? Doesn't she realize that it's her books, her pen and her paper that make up her life and have been her solace all these years? Doesn't she know the rest can be built and destroyed only to fall like a pack of cards and that all that really happens happens only in our minds?! Why have I been so afraid of being a writer? Afraid of being a 'failure' even before I learned to spell the word? Deep down I have always known I loved writing, but deeper still was buried my reluctance to accept it. The enormity of the thought, the responsibility of calling oneself a 'writer', added to it my ruthless criticism of myself stopped me short. Not only did it play a hindrance, it actually made me hand wave my own belief in myself.

The thing is I have always been afraid to fail. So much so that I didn't even want to acknowledge to myself that I have a dream. To want to see my name on the spine of a book - and even more than the name - I have always wanted to express . To me there exists no word more beautiful than the word 'write' and yet I have been so stingy with saying it out aloud. I still believe one has to earn whatever one calls oneself. Nothing is ever ours unless we earn it with our sweat. (I feel even less of a lawyer, than my degrees will have you believe). I didn't allow myself the chance. To accept that this was what I do and it is okay even if I am not able to prove it! My life is not being lived on a stage. If there was anyone I loved more, wanted to protect more, wrap my arms around - it is me. If there is anyone in whose stretched palm I would like to place something beautiful and for life - it would be a pen and that hand would be mine.

As I write this, I want to close the curtain on the imagery I have nurtured for as long as I can remember. I am not the kind you'd find plucking grass, sitting pretty and under a tree all her life. Maybe I was never that girl, maybe I no longer want to be.

Safe

Is my time to go come? Why do I have this chilling feeling. As if the realization that I do not belong here is complete now. That my time here is up and every single day spent in this place is taking me farther away from where I am supposed to be.

Last night I slept thinking of the 'cusp' of life. Thinking of how deeply I recognize it, and as an afterthought - how I wish sometimes I would let some things go unobserved.

Holed up in my room all day, it is an effort to go out, to face the world (no, not out of any shame, but of sheer boredom and denial). All peace, all of me, all of who I am is here, right here in me. And when I do think of going out, surprisingly the world outside as I imagine is not this. As if I already believed I had left.

I am writing voraciously these days, sometimes on paper, sometimes in my head. Mostly it's the head. I'm writing as I make my tea; I'm writing in the shower as I undress, and writing still when I pat me dry. Hurrying to return to my desk and type. But all this 'writing' is sporadic, of course. Scattered everywhere. There is no method, no deadline, no course it takes - words coming together in bits and pieces - in agreement with what I want to say; making me feel so safe.

to be continued..

But then, I want to immerse, and you might want to breathe still. I want to fly and you might wish to never part with your earth.. I want to look down deep into your eyes and you don't get it.. my biggest fears are the most useless. Pragmatism bores me.

I am complete.

The thing is that you have to try. You have to try and be the best of who you are. Take responsibility; summon all courage no matter how scared you are; if promised anything, even in passing, mean it, keep it.

"And then, I am there for you. I have really grown to like you..almost as if I were severed from you and could see you. Right there."

The duality must give in now. Converge. :)