Everything I have ever believed in is turning around and laughing at my face. And so here I am writing it all down and disgusted with the reality of it all. 

Work is work. It is not necessary that it reflects what you actually studied or makes use of your ideas, qualifications, passion and the like.

Work is work. It is supposed to pay for your food and lodging and that is about it.

Work is work. Leave aside all passion and just earn.

Work is work. Stop expecting to enjoy what you do. In the end it is all the same.

Work is work. It gives you a routine. You, who are so afraid of not having one.

Work is work. So you can tell people where you work and they can make a guess about how much you earn. 

Work is work. In the end perhaps everything really is a fluke.

a lot of me talk

Interestingly, all my 'prospective' blog posts are being converted to letters and being sent to a couple of friends. Friends I know nothing about personally but who I have begin to trust and listen to. Corresponding with them, knowing that they are far away from me, and in a way have nothing to do with my life is reassuring and adds to the trust factor.

Upon my return from Hyderabad I immediately left for Jim Corbett and Nainital with both my sisters and their husbands. At Corbett we stayed at a luxurious resort and as usual I enjoyed the breakfast spread on all days. In Nainital we stayed at a small hotel on the Mall Road which allowed me to sneak away anytime I liked and go on a walk to explore the area on my own. I remained eclipsed from the world and though at times the 'family' time became too much for me - me being not used to so much of it - but it was mostly distracting (in a good way) with all of them around. Yet, surprisingly I continued to feel like an outsider within my own family. Every now and then I would have a strong urge to leave, which I would suppress - calling myself an ungrateful wench now and then.

My first night here was full of fears where I would transfix myself at one place unable to move lest some calamity should occur. I am lucky to have a best friend who hears me out and is always there. I sometimes wonder why - yet there she is, so is my sister. 

In continuation to the last post - the offers have been coming in yet nothing really truly excites me. I might leave for Jodhpur before which I have back to back meetings the whole of the next week. I was far happier working for free for the same people that I now am working for money. truth be told I have been disappointed in people interviewing me except for the last interview where the conversation was so crisp and smart that it made the entire interaction feel like a page out of a book. I did make a couple of cheeky comments which i hope would be taken in the right spirit. 

There is a lot I want to write but I don't for the fear of being seen as someone who is trying to be different/thankless or thinks too highly of herself. If only I could put to paper how these are the very contradictions that have kept me disturbed. It was easy for me to work for free and still is - but extremely tough to work for a meagre nothing. I think so highly of myself that I wouldn't allow myself a single mistake - and yet I have corroded my self to an extent where I have no confidence in my self. 'No' being the key word. I dislike the idea of being alone yet I am always seeking to be away from people. I can't at times stand the night being alone in my room - yet I equally do not want to meet anyone. I badly want to work - as in the routine work, not the kind I am doing right now. And yet I have no enthusiasm, no hope, no purpose, nothing that I am now looking forward to. 

Sometimes I feel I am waiting for a miracle. Sometimes I feel since I am soon going to die anyway what difference does my working not working, responding to emails or not responding, meeting people or making excuses not to meet, really make? Why do we have to go through life? They tell me it is something to be grateful about - ok I am grateful - now can I please leave this drama I have no interest in being a part of? Make a clean exit? If I have life I must have hope (at least enough) to subsist. If I do not have it then what is the point in this lifeless rudderless thankless hopeless existence that is so in contradiction to anything I respect?

Since I obviously cannot take my life -  it is better to stand still and do nothing. But doing nothing is always more difficult. If only I could do that I don't think I would be writing about all this. I would be a monk.

This is an escalator that is not really going anywhere. But there I am. On it and heavens would fall if it were to make a move! Though I must continue to believe that I am moving.

Beherhaal, I will try to simplify things for myself by either making some sort of a map or flowchart or something. I might come back here soon. I am liking the taste of it here.

Neha

Hitherto

Hi! I leave for Hyderabad tonight. From not being able to take a walk down the road from my own house, I am now able to make a long trip by myself. Though not as confident as I would like myself to be, I am learning how to push the anxiety further. I am thinking more of the new places I am about to see, the long train journey on which I am going to finish watching what remains of House MD episodes and perhaps read up on the paper I am going to present. I am also reading Vikram Seth's Two Lives these days.

I will be starting on a job soon after I return. I am not overjoyed about it yet but I think it will be interesting, I will be taking up a complete different topic of research. I am also looking forward to meeting the experts at the conference and perhaps write to them upon my return. 

I am a bit more hopeful on the academic front too as I just received a very encouraging note from a professor from a university in the UK. Things are looking a bit better for me and I hope I don't relapse.

A couple of days ago I made a trip to Rajgarh, my nani's place in Rajasthan. I do not know what it is about that small sleepy town-village that helps bring me back to myself. We also visited the small temple of Ramdevji, a place much revered by my otherwise non-temple-going family. I secretly prayed. I fervently prayed. Not to the Gods, for I do not know if I believe, I do pray though sometimes and I don't know if it is really a God I pray to or just have a need to be really vulnerable sometimes. 

In Rajgarh I also met my maternal uncle. Interestingly he now has a cow her calf at the backyard of his huge house. I made friends with the cow, and actually had fun rubbing her back and feeding her on jaggery and fodder. I have always been very afraid of cows especially after an incident in my childhood when I saw a bull go mad and attack a kid from behind. So befriending this cow was a big thing. Funny too.

That is all for now. I am liking the fact that I am for once writing lucidly, away from the obscure way I had begin phrasing whatever I wanted to say. I will be posting some pics too. From Agra and Rajgarh.

So long!

:)

It is okay. It is all going to be fine. I am going to get back to being who I am and there is a lot to be happy about. I love youuuuuu!

N.

The end.

I remember writing about death when given an assignment on it for the spirituality page of the newspaper I worked for. I remember knowing nothing about it and knowing enough to be able to make up something that made sense to my barely out of teenage mind.

My first encounter with it, happened when Jimmy died. I was 13 and the loss was bigger than the sense of death. I cried each night it rained because I feared he was buried somewhere int he earth outside and getting wet in the cold rain. 

The second happened when I was 23 and Panther passed away. I watched him die for a month. I watched him thin, his teeth became even bigger and menacing because the gums were decaying. He lost 15 kilos of his 30 kilogram frame and became skeleton thin. I watched him die as I sat near him with a diary in my hand as I tried to talk me out of it. That night I didn't know if he would make it through the night. He was panting more than ever, as if he wanted to still breathe as much as he could. He lay on a blanket that was mine from when I was very little. A kids blanket. and then it started to happen, the breathing became thicker and he was now gasping for breath. His eyes became bigger and he was in so much pain that it was hard to look at him. Very soon a strange sound started to come out from his mouth, the sound of death approaching and as if he could see it. I do not know if he knew what had happened to him. Perhaps he did, perhaps not. He moaned in pain as I lifted his head and placed it on my lap to comfort him. I remember my silent tears and fervent praying for his pain to end, even if it meant he would be silent forever. My mom, ever the religious person she is, ran to get some Gangajal. Considered the holiest of water among us Hindus. She poured some drops of it in his mouth as he was taking his last breath. My mother even made it a point to recite from the Gita to him. Another one of our holy books. I found myself reading from one of the prayer books too. To keep myself from losing my mind perhaps. And because I didn't want to take a chance with him. 

And then just like that he went silent and lay still. His pink tongue lolled out from one side of his mouth and I shut his eyes. I must have sat with him, petting him, loving him, kissing his head and most of all talking to him for an hour before we were to take him away. It was past midnight and we placed him on a bed-sheet and lifted him up. We took him to the garden near out place where our house help had dug the earth so we could bury him. He was slowly lowered down. My mom emptied some packets of salt so as to keep other animals away. And we put the soil back in the grave, burying him. I didn't know what was happening then. But the scene plays on my mind quite often and I do not know how I managed to remain calm through that time. It has been four years but Panther refuses to really die. My mind refuses to accept he isn't here and I have to stop myself from asking my mom every now and then if Panther has had his meal.

I didn't mean for this post to be about Panther as much as about death. I have feared it a lot these past few months. And I want to get over it. I want to tell me that if it has to happen it will and such fear is unnecessary and crippling. 

I wish to face each fear and stare in its face till I fear no more. I do not know what will work. I only wish to get stronger. So much stronger than what I pretend to be.

भागना

भागना जारी है। खत्म ही नहीं होता। चलता रहता है साँसों कि तरह. बिना किसी बात के, मकसद के। शब्द छोटे हुए जातें हैं। पर भागना जारी है। 

in anticipation

A piece I wrote for a news magazine has been published. It can be found here. Sharing it here in anticipation that it I will return to myself seeing my name in print, even if only on the internet. 

Scream

Everything is falling apart. And I am the one ripping the stitches off. Falling through the crevice as each thread is severed, cut, abandoned. I can't seem to be able to make a move. There is a stoic silence in the mind, the silence of a thousand screams that cannot be heard. 

Ted Talk

I wanted to post this Ted Talk here that is so touching, especially the first 10 minutes or so. I felt as if someone was sharing my story. I also felt relieved that it is not only me but there are many who feel the anxiety I feel, ergo there are ways out of this, ergo I will be able to either manage it or be out of it one day.

PS: sharing things here is not easy for me. I fear being dubbed lazy, mistaken, attention-seeker and what not. I deeply fear not being understood and I do not possess the resilience to make a counter-argument. At times I am not sure if simple words that I have spoken are comprehensible. That is why also I prefer to write.

This once I am allowing myself to come out of 'it' and not be afraid. Not be afraid.

Anxiety

Imagine fear gripping you at every step you take. Imagine you are walking in the park and you panic, your feet, your gut, your hands shiver from the inside and you can tell there is something wrong - but you can find no logical reason to it. You feel nervous - so nervous as you might feel if someone held a gun to your head, or told you your house was on fire and all your belongings were burning to cinders. Your logical mind knows nothing of the sort has happened, yet your body is still reacting to the fear, as bodily reflexes do. It convinces you that doom is upon you and only this feeling this feeling of panic is true and nothing else. You end up a nervous wreck. ok, may be not a wreck at all times. But nervous and anxious and on the verge of tears.

Medicines help for a bit but you are afraid of those affecting you permanently. You gasp for breath but none is forthcoming. You realize there is so much hatred in you for people around and you try and try but are unable to get rid of it. And then starts the judgment. You criticize yourself about every single thing you do or have done. The criticism becomes hatred in no time and you hate every bit of yourself. Again convincing yourself that this and only this is the truth. The voice in your head that defends you grows meeker and meeker till it totally fades out. Leaving you with yourself - your biggest fear - your monster.

Soon it takes on your confidence. You stutter and cannot face people anymore. You want to remain eclipsed and you pray to die. You want the struggle to end, the voices in the head to go quiet but they don't and when they do you are too busy anticipating their return that you can barely live anymore. The voices further convince you that everything you have ever achieved was a fluke, a chanced occurrence or a mistake, that in reality you are a fraud even when it comes to something most sacred to you as your work. It hits where it hurts the most and you feel you know how it will end. 

You stop taking calls. You mentally distance your closest friends and family because you cannot trust anymore. You stop meeting people or when you meet you are so aware of the 'act' that you have nothing much to say to them. You pretend some more. There are times that you totally forget all nervousness around some people. You forget what you were going through and have a good time. The next moment you turn to yourself and there it is - standing in your face and laughing at you. It has you in its grip once more. Each moment of peace then becomes the lull before the storm. Even as you laugh you are aware that it is lurking behind you and this laughter will only make sure you fall from greater heights into deepest of pits.

-----------

I have been suffering from severe anxiety since past one year or so. It is the worst thing to have happened to me and I am trying to get out of it. Most people around me, actually everyone around me, haven't felt it and so I am unable to talk to them about it. It is difficult to share something that you know the listener would never be able to empathize with, no matter how hard they try. They try nevertheless, to give logical solutions to a seemingly illogical medical issue, which only adds to your delusions.

I am going to write more about it here. I am going to help myself get better. This is also just another effort at that. My most non-cryptic post ever.

self-eating

Where to take this fear that lives with me, lives in me night and day. It is difficult each step, each breath, each cry for help, each tear that is tearing me from the inside. I mourn. But what? Who? Is it not demeaning to even mourn? Demeaning to the very soul and thus lies the carcass on the guillotine of my heart, decapitated, decapacitated, putrefying. It reeks of the self eating. 

Ouroboros.

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!

Picture postcards

Rehan Par Raghu - Kashinath Singh

New Year

Happy New Year! I am posting here a pic I took recently and loved. I can go on looking at it for hours.

Kuttey

Faiz Ahmed Faiz‘s Kuttey (Dogs)

Yeh galiyon key aavaara bekaar kuttey
Ke bakhsha gaya jin ko zoq-e-gadaai
Zamaney ki phitkaar sarmaaya un ka
Jahaan bhar ki dhutkaar in ki kamaai
Na aaram shab ko, na rahat saveyrey
Ghalaazat mein ghar, naaliyon main baseyrey
Jo bigrein to ik doosray say lara do
Zara ek roti ka tukra dikha do
Yeh har ek ki thokerain khaney waley
Yeh faaqon say uktaa kay mar janey waley
Yeh mazloom makhlooq gar sar uthaey
To insaan sab sarkashi bhool jaey
Yeh chaahein to duniya ko apna bana lein
Yeh aaqaaon ki haddiyaan tak chaba lein
Koi in to ehsaas-e-zillat dila dey
Koi in ki soee hui dum hila dey

- Faiz

small world

Premchand-Prerna-Agyaya-Kalaakar Ki Mukti-Pingmalya-Aparodita

Farooq Shaikh-Wikipedia-Azhar ka Khwab-My Fair Lady-Shaw's Pygmalion-Pygmalion-Aphrodite

Christmas

For a while I had been shying away from showing my face here. I did not want to appear weak. I would come, talk in bits and pieces, disperse the thoughts, lest they should be interpreted. But as splintered mirror continues to reflect, I continued to write and they were all put into drafts but the broken words continued to give me away. 

There are times now I feel my time here is over, that I need to start anew. Perhaps start from the scratch  - a new blog perhaps - make a symbolic beginning? I don't know.

Baharhaal, it is Christmas today. I have always liked Christmas. Precisely because I was not born a Christian but a Hindu. While growing up it meant that it was a festival alright, albeit without the taam-jhaam that regular Hindu festivals made compulsory. A laid-back kind of a festival for us, manaya manaya nahi manaya toh bhi theek.

Heh. I will write again. Soon.

Charitraheen - Saratchandra Chattopadhyay

Shrilal Shukla's Raag Darbari

questions, questions

It gets a bit tough to work toward anything when the thought that everything is purposeless has kept one engaged for so long now. I am not being a pragmatist here, I have no qualms doing purposeless things, purposeless in a worldly way, I mean.

The thing is that I want to then take leave to pursue things entirely unrelated to my work till now. Why is it that sometimes my work (in the field I am in right now) does not leave me with a sweet taste in the mouth? Hungry for more the way some other things do? Doesn't it make me a scoundrel then?

OR is it that the 'other pursuits' are so sweet because they are the 'other'? And it happens to all of us?

OR perhaps I need some more belief?

London on my mind

I miss London when in Delhi. May be it is the cold. May be it is the need to be by myself again. Wonder why Tesco is missed the most. Grocery shopping was always my favorite.

I miss the London chill that surprisingly is less piercing than the one in Delhi. Or may be we were better prepared for it. I miss tick-tocking my way in leather boots bought cheap from Oxford Street. I miss cooking the way I used to, almost boiled bland veggies that I enjoyed having. I was never very social there, except for being with a few friends I hung out with. I miss the fact that so much was happening there, and yet I would most prefer being indoors. I hated meeting people in big groups. I still do. It is usually very few people, 2-3 max that does for me. Unless I also drink. Then I am everyone's friend. Yours too.

I miss our kitchen couch in the hostel. The blue and the red one. Northumberland Hall and then Butler's Wharf. Walks that I had near the Thames to clear my head. The utter confuse and the chaos inside. Queen's Garden. The photographs. The library. The Strand past Trafalgar Square, the ever busy Charing Cross. One green light and crossing the road in unison. On to the other side. Keep walking and a series of Subways and Pret A Mangers and the red phone booths which are never in use. Beggars on the street. Cold and wanting. The bent on the Strand and Musicals pass me by on the left. West End. Sagar! The south Indian restaurant with a north Indian waiter. He was so old that you felt bad placing order. Papadom. On way to school I would pass another Pakistani joint where one could get veggi samosa and coffee. In the mornings 50p could get you a coffee. And for 90p a coffee and a croissant.

On past the Kingsway. One more road was crossed with the crowd. On the left - Houghton Street. One or the other crazy thing kept happening there. But when nothing was on, it was nice. Wooden bench. And the Wright's Bar. Another place to get coffee. 60p. and for 90p a bag of chips they called it, was really a box of fries.

Black stockings, brown boots. Overcoats. Black hair. Black bag. Rushing to class. hating some lectures. Long thursdays. NAB. So many libraries on strange floors. I was busy, in semblance of love and it was very very cold!

It had been so long I had thought about London that I had nearly forgotten how it felt. That I lived there for sometime and now that time is past me. Mumbai will also be forgotten perhaps. But, no, I will be going back now and then. Have been in Delhi for more than two weeks but not really been out once.

I have grown to being an outsider everywhere. To know in the head that I am not here for long. Nowhere for long.

Correspondence

Last night two random things led me to read about two people who lived in different eras, but had written to their lovers till the time they died . One was David Hume who, they say, loved Hippolyte de Saujon, the estranged wife of Comte de Boufflers and mistress of the Prince de Conti, who never was quite Hume's, yet they shared an "intimate friendship".

Her husband soon died allowing her to wed the Prince, but he would not agree to marry her. Hume confessed his love for her but it wasn't reciprocated in similar fashion. Yet their friendship continued and they continued to write to one another.

He corresponded with her until the end of his life. In fact, he was on his own deathbed when news of the Prince de Conti's death reached him. Yet he took up his pen to commiserate with the greatest love of his life.

And at the letter's end he said goodbye: "I see death approach gradually without any anxiety or regret. I salute you, with great affection and regard, for the last time."

The other was Eloisa who loved Abelard. Their legend goes as far back as the 12th century and slightly varied versions of the story can be found on the internet. The one I find most credible is that Abelard was the teacher of Eloisa and a promising philosopher. They loved one another even as Eloisa's family disapproved of their love. Eloisa becomes pregnant and her uncles get furious at Abelard. She is sent away and in time delivers a boy. To pacify her uncles Abelard proposed a secret marriage, to which Eloisa refused, thinking it would harm his career. Abelard then convinces her to go to convent. Her uncles mistakenly think Abelard is trying to get rid of Eloisa and have him castrated. A eunuch now, his career is destroyed and he turns to religion, while Eloisa becomes a nun. Separated, they write to one another for twenty years and meet once before they die.

Alexander Pope in Eloisa to Abelard wrote of their legend:

In these deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-pensive contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing melancholy reigns;
What means this tumult in a vestal's veins?
Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?
Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?
Yet, yet I love!—From Abelard it came,
And Eloisa yet must kiss the name.

.....

Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose,
That well-known name awakens all my woes.
Oh name for ever sad! for ever dear!
Still breath'd in sighs, still usher'd with a tear.
I tremble too, where'er my own I find,
Some dire misfortune follows close behind.
Line after line my gushing eyes o'erflow,
Led through a sad variety of woe:
Now warm in love, now with'ring in thy bloom,
Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!
There stern religion quench'd th' unwilling flame,
There died the best of passions, love and fame.

.....

Not Caesar's empress would I deign to prove;
No, make me mistress to the man I love;
If there be yet another name more free,
More fond than mistress, make me that to thee!
Oh happy state! when souls each other draw,
When love is liberty, and nature, law:
All then is full, possessing, and possess'd,
No craving void left aching in the breast: 

.....

No, fly me, fly me, far as pole from pole;
Rise Alps between us! and whole oceans roll!
Ah, come not, write not, think not once of me,
Nor share one pang of all I felt for thee.
Thy oaths I quit, thy memory resign;
Forget, renounce me, hate whate'er was mine.

Occurrence and recurrence

We are always capable of fooling ourselves; as if events that occur, occur as part of a plan.

And as if the arrangement and the layout was our construct, making the events seem bearable, falling into their designated spaces in the grid of our understanding. We ascribe some method to occurrences and claim that some thought had gone into their happening, even when there was none. The smart ones among us also name them. Not that we are always wrong (for who knows?) but more often than not we might not even have come close to discerning why something happened. All what we think about occurrences in our lives are essentially retrospective, and by definition speculative. Thus, lust could become love, co-incidences could become fate, commonalities (common attributes) could become similarities (resemblance) and the like. Such freedom then and such burden, when one can write one's own past.

----

In an earlier post I had written about recurrence. I was concerned about content then - what would a writer write that he hadn't already put on paper before? I have more to write on that. The more things recur the more they lose their relevance. If one were to know that everything could or would happen again, the essence of such occurrence in it is own time would be lost​. And would it not then go on to spoil every chance encounter, every impulse, each spur of the moment? 

​W​here would go the sweet impatience? One that makes us do what we thought not, and (perhaps) ideally ought not. The stakes of omnia aut nihil, all or nothing and the joy of stealing that one moment - with knowledge that it is all or nothing, now or never. What better exercise in courage? 

Only if something were to happen once would we really have lived it; recurrence convinces that everything is a rehearsal. To some it may be a respite, to some it is no less than a sentence. Each recurrence could be damning, one is assured one will better it, one thinks one might be able to. Such knowledge is crippling.