The Fear of Writing.

Besides my loathing for pulp fiction, there is one other reason why I haven't dared ever to write a story. And though there is no way I could filter one particular reason from a body of unwillingness and outright lethargy and exhaustion, here's how I would like to try.

Every man and woman has a center of their being. It sounds rather idealistic, but there is one idea, one solo thing, that makes you who are, binds bone to bone in your body and makes you walk around on your two legs, be the phenomenon that you should be. And that idea, is beyond everything, almost everything, indomitable, uncrushable. It only has to rise, like a snake from your navel to your head.

Every damn story that has been written, that I have found and read, has reflected with honesty, its writer's intricate bonding with her this idea. The process of writing a story is like an endothermic reaction in which the writer comes to be, this person that she should ideally be, doing justice to the words she is scribbling across pages, leaving her footprint in every single stanza, every comma pushed between words, every semi colon inserted to space out one thought from another.

And I have no such idea, haven't discovered mine yet. Or may be I never would. Because I am constantly looking. I begin a paragraph by writing about a couple that lives in the middle of the forest, an unknown bird that sits by their window every night, a girl that's waiting for her roommate, how the wind blows today, how the clouds are strewn across the sky and likewise. And then, after a few hundred words, I am drained. Exhausted. I run out. Of thoughts. Of all conceivable fiction. Of all routes, that could lead me to become the person I should ideally be. The person my story wants me to be.

I am cowed down by embarrassment, humiliation of not being worthy of my own reading. And I tear apart the papers, roll them into a ball and dump them in trash.

I have seen the noble ideas that make people write, drive them to finish pages after pages. But in my case, there is no such.There is no spiritual snake rising from my navel to my head. I am blank, except for the empty center of my being. Which is soaked, soaked with lovelessness. And a terrifying solitude, which began as a disappointment, soon became a sorrow and has now turned into a writhing anger.

If I ever write a story, only this lovelessness will be scattered across my pages. And therefore, I shall not. 

Raising Hope

What have I missed? A few long full moon nights.Of a big moon hanging behind solitary buildings. Long chats and aching laughter. I have missed hoping. The art of hoping. Terribly missed it. How I used to place one hope on four pillars, each another hope. Like a complicated geometrical structure, each arm of which is a hope, some random wish that longs to come true. All by itself, like an unruly child.

What that unruly child doesn't realize is an entire world of things that could negate, crush and destroy mere delicate threads of hopes.  And entangle them in a way, life could never again dare to disentagle.

So that's what has happened. Threads are entangled, knots are tied, heart beats have halted, eyes have promised never to look up at the sky making forms of clouds, stealing dreams. The art of hoping is forgotten.

Ceteris paribus is a phrase from utopia. At every fork of the road, I take the most unexpected unwanted of turns. Sometimes, I head back and return to where I had begun.

In afterthought, hoping seems to be the most ridiculous of escapes a wastrel could engage herself in.

A silenced whimper

Do you know what a disability is? I hope you don't, that would be too unfortunate. We crib a lot over things that could otherwise seem petty. But we have no idea how it feels to have one unrecoverable lacuna. A void that no force in the world can refill, so much so that it forces you to a live a life with so many shortcomings. You cannot even ask what you did wrong to deserve this. The situation would drive you insane, wouldn't it? People call the disabled, differently gifted and special and blah blah, but the truth is so harsh, it's even difficult to look at it in the eye.

Once when I was a little girl, someone asked me what class I studied in. He didn't ask, he wrote the question down on the last page of my notebook. He couldn't speak. I was a little stunned but I said aloud, '5'. He pointed to his ears and shook his hand. He couldn't hear either, he was deaf. I wrote a '5' neatly beside his question. He smiled. I looked down and cried. I was very young to realize what this could mean, as in really  really mean, but I was so shocked, I wondered how could life have been so unfair, I cried. That was my first brush with a disability. Since then I have encountered it many times, but haven't reacted as much. We get used to such things, human beings that we are, we could adapt ourselves to almost anything.

But lately something has happened, something, and I can't be indifferent again. My heart feels so burdened that I don't know who to ask what question. I don't know how long to wait for an answer. The truth has never been so imposing, unchallengeable and ugly. A disability ruins a life, a bit after a bit, patient enough to cause the maximum possible amount of pain, leaving you with a faint ability of mere survival. It's very difficult.

But then John Nash was schizophrenic. I am awed how such geniuses make it through. Probably because they are geniuses. For the rest, the hoi polloi, surviving through every day, not breaking down every moment is the challenge at hand. God Bless!

Not for the Fainthearted.

She sat on the platform, clutching her bag, dozing off now and then. Teeth nearly tottering in the late December cold, waiting. She was supposed to switch trains at this obscure station, she was going somewhere. Eyes were nervous, heart coaxed her to return with the silliest of excuses. But some wish kept her from falling apart.

Trains went by, she awaited hers. Provoking stares, some lingering ones. Counting minutes, giving up in between, making tiny wishes. She was en route to meet the man her heart longed so much to meet. Wouldn't you call that silly? Why couldn't he come for her? Isn't she being a little desperate? God, isn't she scared? Travelling alone all the way? What if he's just playing her? What if her heart breaks at the end of it all? Would it be worth it? How much would she cry? Would she ever be able to trust a man again? How harsh could be the cost of following your heart? Oh dear!

But she spared not a thought. Was engaged deeply, in making wishes, as I said. Shivering and waiting. Breathing out mist, smiling, yawning, pushing away every force that wanted her to return. Chasing what she wanted. 

Unlike the rest, who move from one obsession to another trying to forget the previous, losing themselves in the process. Unlike the rest, who are afraid of a heart break. The ones who give up. Unlike the faint hearted, she waited, she moved closer..towards him. 

quagmIre

Asked to recollect all achievement since my inception, I fell prey to a marathon quagmire. After a few hours of rudimentary analysis, the plummeting trends were clearly visible. If clearly you perceive as an exaggeration, then faintly be it. Faint, but saddeningly understandable trends. Extrapolatable, hence saddening. I explored and found my reason for the same.

Brutal honesty being my synonym, I would tell you the truth.

I was born ambitious. Love spoiled me. In the quest for a complement, I shed me. Shed it gradually, painfully-gradually. Turned into a pessimist from an otherwise. Lost hope. Imbibed sarcasm. Couldn't be a believer anymore. Couldn't afford it. Shrunk into myself. Abandoned faith. Spat at conventions. Began a journey. Some journey.

Love spoiled me. Killed me. Taught me to live after death.

Marooned me in hell. Made me someone I a'int. Forced me to begin this journey. Some journey

rasiyaa aaja
haule haule ras barsajaa
hoton ko, mehkajaa
rasiyaa aaja

mute

idle afternoon.she sat on the chair made of cane, closing her eyes, breathing in large gulps, trying to take all the smells in. one faintly made its way to her nostrils, that of dried lilies from the garden. she followed it and stared out of the iron grille, her garden looked grey in the shade of the setting sun. all noise had settled down into a quiet siesta. she pushed the gate open, tip-toed over the thirsty land, barefeet.

the creaking sound the gate made when pushed, she was immune to. the distant sounds of a couple birds, lost in the golden sky, she was immune to. about the truck that nearly grazed her compound wall, she would never know, she never heard it.

she watched her sleeping cat, in the corner of the garage, and rolled the garden tap open. scanty drops of water made their way out, she had to roll it further. she dragged the hose to the tap, that could wake the cat she feared, all the noise that must have made..

waiting for the water to emerge from the other end of the hose, she looked at her toe-nails, it sure was time for a fresh coat of paint, probably crimson, probably purple, whichever she liked.

as the water lazily gurgled out of the hosepipe, she filled it into the cracks in the thirsty land, the dust that arose choked her. then she moved to her dried lilies, she sprinkled them one by one, wanting to bring each back to life..

as the smell of the earth rose, all the other smells too came alive. she stood there in the middle of her grey garden, trying to take in as many smells as she could, as many smells as there were. from the world that had so intentionally muted itself to her ears..

onyourfeet

it had been drizling all day long, she had stayed home, listening to ridiculous music
the day was decent, a broken leg, cereal for breakfast, cereal for lunch
the only oddity was that two old acquaintances had called and were sorry to listen about the leg
the accident that is,

it's unnerving how some incident, silly incident could turn life upside down
upside down for sometime, after which it certainly returned to normal
a new kind of normal that is, a normalcy with a certain realizations in place
she was walking across the road to get detergent, a mundane thing like detergent!

what was she thinking? problems at work, stupid boss, a stagnating resume
lack of time, she hadn't talked to her folks, for days
the guy in her life wasn't ready to move ahead, not even an inch
she was entangled, forgetting that it could get worse

only it did..
crossing the highway was like a favorite passtime, twice, thrice she did it
when someone made her wait for long, it was child's play
but who knew? who knew, she would get hit running across the street
to get detergent, she did her laundry at home, by herself, she loved the smell of clean things.

for the last two weeks, she stayed home like a log of wood, staring out of the window
wondering why had it happened, did it happen at all? wasn't this just a nightmare?
but as time passed, more of it, it settled into her, the gravity of the crashlanding
and that how much more better off she was than this
at least she wasn't stuck as literally as this..

it is pathetic, yes for the lack of a harsher word
how we never realise what we have until we lose it (with the understandable exception of body weight!)
like her leg, temporarily though
i hope she gets back on her feet, with some realisation, the only hard earned fruit of life

until she loses it obviously again, and life screws her only harder so that she earns it once again
you see..life is such a viscious cycle! duh!

I am writing this for the lack of a better engagement, at 4 o'clock in the night. Excuse me if you didn't get it or got bored as hell.