A Midsummer Night Dream

Birds that seed prisms on their tails..
And roost on the lofty chambers of divide;
Scared to a flutter
By a girl's pitter patter
Flies off in an arc...

For a moment there is a rainbow..
A blinding stream of light
Lucid when the eyes are closed
But opened only to Darkness.

Insanity

"Behind mock-ceremony of your grief
Lurked the burlesque instinct of the ham;
You never altered your amused belief
That life was a mere monumental sham. "

What is the brink of insanity?
To not know yourself,
Or to overstep humanity?
To be bitten,
To lock it within.
Writhing in pain,
In humiliation.
Time and honor?
Illusions of civilization.
Reality..
Creating, disrupting,
Deluding vision.
Aching in happiness,
Booming in sorrow;
Fading hint,
Of a labeling morrow.
Stillness leading to motion,
No need of any volition.
The lines all blurry,
Images all scurry,
Fallen in an eddy,
That takes you within;
Then all is even.
The world looks into your face
Instead of you facing it,
They call you insane;
But they’re the ones losing it.

my existantial crisis

this is an attempt to seize my whirling world of perceptions again, to be able to comment on the experience, if not control it. it has been a year since i last wrote, not just on this blog, but anywhere. as a result i have been suffering an anguish, the thought of expressing which leaves me exhausted. my writings used to contain a certain vigour and perhaps, a certain vanity, which was it's halmark. that 'energy' seems to be sucked out of me and the very thought of writing, which invariably entails invoking thoughts and emotions leave me weary. that vanity, that sense of being in control when i write seems to be lightyears away from me now and i am left with shivering fingers trying to compute wavering thoughts into words.

it is asthough i have exhausted my ability to feel and have rendered myself numb, except during the painful sporadic fits. it started with a tingling sensation, which was not too difficult to ignore intially, but eventually took over my body and mind and left me gaping at the pace of my life. i did and said things as if i were an automaton. there were brief spells of recognition which passed by me even before i could grasp the shock of where i was; or should i say- what i was.

it is with a lot of courage that i have used the past tense because i know that i still run the risk of meeting myself at the turning of some dark alley and being shocked at the prospect of what i am. i have been grovelling, for as long as i can remember, for a mirror that reflects the various dimentions that i exist within, so as to decrease the shock-value at various junctures. when i tried to turn my gaze upon myself, it was words that helped me do so. without their aid i feel lost! not to mention completely vulnerable to the feeble perceptions that world around holds up to me. however, it is now time that i muster up every iota of strength in myslef and take charge.

those who know me will be able to relate this trait of mine to the state of my room. it is usually in a catastrophic condition, resembling an area affected by a violent tornado (there is method in the madness, i always vehemently proclaim!) until it reaches a point where i can't take it anymore and then it magically transforms into an excusitely and accurately pruned and groomed garden. however, the precision soon begins to suffocate me and the order eventually disintegartes into the cherished 'salmagundi'.

even though the struggle seems to be an existantialist one, where the action, atleast at first, appears to be futile, i cannot disregard the momentary satisfaction that i derive from a job well done. i have proclaimed often enough (and quoted simone de bouvoire to back myself up) that i hate housework because there is simply no end to it! the furniture that you dust today shall gather frustrating amounts of dust the very next day, the clothes you so painstakingly wash will be soiled sooner or later, the dishes that you wash with a sense of achievement will be greased yet again! how is it any less than sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hill? despite my victorious argument, i find myself succumbing to these petty basics urged by own needs and habit and as reward, i have a fleeting moment's satisfaction.

as i try to clamber my way out of the pits that i have found myself over the last year, my epiphanic realisation has been that the greatest folly of human intelligence is the hope to perpetuate an experience. as the corny old proverb goes, " nothing is permanent except change". however, the theory of change itself, entails within it, the theory of regeneration and as certain optimists would say, the theory of evolution.

what comes to my mind now, is the words of an aquaintance who said we don't go round in circles but infact we follow a spiral trajectory, moving up another level each time we reach where we started. even as i quote her, i wonder if the differences in levels are not merely imaginary constructs, in order to give a sense of purpose to the otherwise inane human existance. perhaps there is a difference, perhaps sisyphus devices new methods and covers the length of the hill in a shorter span of time and therefore relishes a moment of exulatation in "achievement" before he is thrown back to the starting point. perhaps the starting point is not always the same point, perhaps it is moving upwards and the distance covered is impercptibly diminishing; yet there is no hope for sisyphus' salvation, is there?

even camus who made a case for sisyphus' happiness was not bold enough to grant him redemption. what i retain most from his enchanting worldview potrayed through the myth of sisyphus are the last few words of the tract - " one must imagine sisyphus happy."
there are two words that strike me significant in this statement- must and imagine. the cynic in me cannot help but point out the desperate need for positivity as implied in the word "must" and the incredulous nature of human emotions that need to be catalyzed by their strongest weapon against all that is unfair in the world- their imagination.

so, here i am, in response to the imperative of camus' "must"and am subsequently struggling to find relevance in shelley and keats so as to be able to reinstate my rusted motor of imagaination. if in the process i begin to grow tedious, i beg my readers to be patient; i must imagine my dear bought Ithaca round the corner... i must wait for the evanescent godot to appear before me any moment now...

bereaved

it is now empty
where your talisman i wore
you've sailed away from me
i search you still on shore.
it is so vivid in my mind
that day you passed away
watching the stars shine
my feelings to betray.
betrayal!
that is what i felt.
to fly away and leave all behind
life's togetherness undermined..
it seemed to me an easy recourse
in steeped the feelings of remorse
turn back time and make it stop!
i pray to the inanimate laptop.
come back and hear me out!
the hoary walls hear me shout.
how could you leave, it's so unfair!
the mouse squeaks in it's lair.
i seethe at the insensitivity of time
inevitability be deemed a crime!
in death you have excluded me
that is my grievance against thee.
come now and defend your case!
i look up and see my own face.

words

The one thing that I most distrust, is something that I cannot do without.

It is an extreme case of dependency from which there is no escape. It is an existantialist crisis wherein ignorance probably would have been bliss. Knowledge of the fact that you are being betrayed is inconsequential when you know your dependence on it is, in anyway, an imperative. For instance, you know the air you breathe is polluted ( atleast if you live in Delhi, you undoubtedly know so) but you cannot very well give up breathing for it! Neither is it feasible for you to give up your established life and source of livelihood to move off to a place which is less polluted. You know you are slow poisoning yourself but you really cannot do anything about it. Exasperating, isn't it?

That is the relationship I share with words. I distrust them highly because they are the most relative things on earth; (Hell, one word could be interpreted in a million ways! ) and yet I cannot seem to do without them! Language, seems to me, an extremely crude method of expression and yet I resort to language itself to express how crude it is!

Nature seems to abound in more profound ways of expression and yet, we, too inadequate to transmute to any other way, embrace language articulation as our only way.

Eve, in Milton's Paradise Lost says, "Language of man pronounced by tongue of brute and human sense expressed? The first atleast of these I thought denied To beasts, who God on their creation day Created mute to all articulate sound; The latter I demur, for in their looks Much reason, and in their actions oft appear." She later learns that the gift of language had been bestowed upon the brute by consumption of the forbidden fruit. Shouldn't it therefore have followed ( in an evolutionist teleology, not a creationist predetermination), that humans who were already endowed with language, be equipped with something greater, having been made privy to the knowledge of good and bad after consuming the very fruit? Afterall, ( stepping outside the religious parameter), good and bad being relative concepts, would require a more profound method to elucidate their meaning. However man remains oblivious to any such method and thus struggles eternally to bridge the gap between subjective experience and it's representation in words. The Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament, in section XII, verse 37, says, "For by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned." It is refering to one's judgement day in heaven, but even if it is not god who is judging us, what we speak is often rather decisive in our social relationships. It is no wonder that the Greeks paid so much attention to rhetoric!

However assuming rhetoric to be an application of one's understanding of semantics, with 'a finite meaning inherent in a lexical unit that can be composed to generate meanings for larger chunks of discourse', is unacceptable to me for the sheer reason that it is in variance with what I perceive. Truth- conditional semantics, seems to me, an oversimplified way of studying linguistics. I would suggest that the Sapir-Whorf Hypotheses and Cognitive Linguistics are closer to mark when it comes to understanding communication because they acknowledge individual experiences and the environment of language users.

Richard Bach in his book 'One' speaks of parallel lives stemming from alternate perception. He says each person must attain his own enlightment, for as soon as one tries to enunciate one's knowledge, it becomes open to interpretation and mutates to subjective perception. Moreover, even a person's own 'enlightment' is mutating with time and experience. Therefore, perception is not just subjective but also transitory; and to encompass that in words, itself is a difficult task. Further, the folly of language lies in the fact that the listner will interpret those words entirely according to his own perception, even if the speaker is talented enough to restrict the arena of interpretation by careful choice of words.

It is as if different individuals were inhabitants of different orbs of existance and to communicate with others on their seperate orbs, they send words as flighty messengers. These messengers, even when sent to the same orb, are recieved through different portals at different times and therefore shed or gain relevance with each variant.

Verbosity often results in the loss of meaning and brevity is not my strongest point. Thus to elucidate my meaning, i quote George Eliot-
"Our words have wings, but fly not where we would."

Could there atleast be a tracing device so as to know where they flew off?

On "Growing Up"

I have always wanted to race with time and fastforward the process of growing up. Infact, i do not remember much from the age of 11 or 12 because most of it was spent speculating what it would be like to be 16, 18 or 20. Now, at twenty, when I hear my friends talking about their childhood, i sometimes feel like i have missed out on something. On the other hand, each person's life is his or her own unique story and mine was meant to be written this way.

One of the reasons for this enormous desire to "grow up", I recognise now, was to have my parents take me seriously. I would feign unnatural maturity and courage, all for the sole purpose of gaining an entry into that forbidden realm that my parents seemed to shut me out of on the grounds that i wouldn't understand. Not that my parents didn't give me love or attention. Infact, for most parts of my childhood, i was a spoilt little brat who got what she wanted even before she could ask for it. But what i wanted was somewhat different.

I suppose I was a child who didn't want to be treated as a child. I wished my parents would confide more important things to me and entrust me with responsibilities. Whenever i tried to help out with household chores, i was rebuked and sent off to play. When I tried to ask my mother why she was upset, she would tell me i wouldn't understand such things. It was perhaps a sheer sense of helplesness that governed childhood that made me anxious for adulthood.

A particularly observant adult had once come up to me and said that adults are just as helpless as kids. It's just that they have perfected the art of pretending that they are in control. I was embarassed at being discovered and looked at him as if i didn't know what he was talking about, quickly moving away to hide my blush.

Now, standing at the threshold of that much coveted domain, i recoil and wonder whether i really want to cross over. Adults teach children, almost on a default mechanism, that one must never lie. However, most of adulthood is premised on selective focus, hazing out the parts that don't feature in one's scheme of well-being. For instance, patriarchy is men's justification to overlook what they do to women, and the bourgoise coins up terms like 'Social Darwinism' to absolve themself of any social responsibility towards the proletariat. A common strain between all of these is that they essentialise certain norms on which they base their tautology. ( Notice how conveniently i have excluded myself by using the third-person pronoun!)

The major difference between an adult and a child, from where i stand, is that a child asks questions and an adult simply learns to overlook things knowing that if all questions were to be answered, a whole established system of norms would be turned on it's head. Perhaps that is why most revolutionaries are young and most status-quoists acrrue a certain seniority, both in terms of age as well as in terms of rank. However, we come across many revolutionists, disillusioned from their cause and dejected into poetry as time passes. Adulthood seems to be synonymous with a certain acceptance of things as they are. It's a bleak picture to see the avant-garde conform to the precursor of social acceptance viz. lying to oneself.

Perhaps fighting the tide seems easier to me now, than it will to a future self. If i were to the read this very post years from now, would i smile off my infantile whims, or sigh with a sense despondency and quickly turn away from it? Or would I read it with a sense of accomplishment at having managed the difficult feat of keeping the child alive in me?

At this juncture I am reminded of the story of my grandmother and me ( I call it 'the story', because i have no recollection of it, only repeted recountals from various relatives. ) It all began ( for me) when i asked my mother the reason behind my extraordinary term of addressal for my maternal grandma: the vernacular word 'danda' which translates to a stick or a rod. She explained to me that when i used to be tiny, i asked a lot of questions and it so happened that one day when i was out in the gardens with my grandma, i had exhausted her with innumerable "what is that?" and "why is it like that?". So when i turned to her with a bewildered look at having seen the bamboo stilts being used at a nearby house under renovation, she said what roughly translates into, "That's a danda; and if you don't stop asking questions, thats what i am going hit you with!" For some reason the animated gestures with which she said so, struck me as funny and i burst into a fit of giggles. Then on, until the day she breathed her last and for that matter, even now, she has been my 'danda'! Perhaps, it is even apt, for I never stopped asking questions for as long as she was with me.

This very danda of mine, wizened with age, was to say to an older me, " don't ask so many questions. A person who questions so much, is never happy in life."

Uptil now i have not conformed to this axiomatic advise of her's. I know it was given with the best of intentions and with a sense of tender protectiveness that I defied so often when she was alive and miss so dearly in her absence.

It would be presumptious of me to say there is no truth in the statement of the lady who had witnessed the better part of four generations in her lifetime. However, at this juncture, when i am about to step over into the world of adults with an unsure, trembling foot and with no danda to pick me up and sail me over, the way she did with all other thresholds when i was a child, i pose a definitive question (yet again!) : what is adulthood?

Is it a disillusioned acceptance of the state of things ? Or does it entail a sense of responsible self-reliance, wherein you make your own choices and bear their consequences entirely by yourself?

On one hand, when you conform to societal norms to be accepted into the realm of adulthood, what you are giving up is the child in you who urges you to ask questions and know 'why?' In other words you are belittling the importance of asking questions. If you do this, you find ratification from the majority and sense of secure well-being. It is not that if you take this path, you will not face strife and pain. But what will happen is, that you will notice that most people are party to that same strife and will derive your solace from that.

On the other hand, if you go the other way, you are dismissing the idea that adulthood has anything to do with conformity at all. What you are then asserting is that the act of asking questions maybe child's play, but to be able to actually answer them encompasses true adulthood. In this case, you would probably have to undergo more strife than the first case, but you would be better adept at dealing with this strife because you would know the cause of it, instead of trying to fight off a ghost that you are not allowed to name.

Again, i really can't say whether these are youthful theories or whether they shall stand the test of time. All I know is that if adulthood reequires me to give up asking questions, I am going to be in denial for a looooong time to come. On the other hand, if it means i get to hunt up the answers to my own questions, I sure am 'game'!

echoes

The blogging world is much like the black hole of cyber space. The anomalous ideas that it sucks in from all parts of the world, adds up to the matter of it's behemoth gravitational center. It is also true that it deludes those who view it from outside; one must be a part of it to truly know it's nature. Thus, here I am, sending my abstract musings into it's center in the form of echoes that fill up it's empty abyss.

Echoes, because ideas always have precedents, originating from some level of the unconscious (whether collective or personal); echoes, because they are mere reflections. Even though they are perceptible, their very existance is suspect. Thus, they endlessly fill the abyss and yet when we see it, it continues to remain empty.

The world is too huge to fit within the lens of the camera. Thus we choose a point of focus and in a Single Lens Resolution camera, which undoubtedly gives the best quality pictures, the surroundings blur out. That doesn't however mean that the rest of the world does not exist. Human perception, like cameras are handicapped with limited resolution. They fail to encompass all at once. One of my favourite urdu couplets by Mirza Galib reads, if we cannot see the ocean in a drop of water and the whole in a particle, man's vision is but a child's plaything.

Plato said that humans are capable of only having Opinions on the Idos of things, taking for granted ofcourse, that the Idos remains constant. However, being of a cynical, materialist worldview, I automatically write off the Idos as mutable; and then, all we are left with is an Opinion of an Idos that once was. Hence only a fleeting reflection that soon dissolves and leaves us to painstakingly build our Opinions again.

My view would infact render man's vision a child's plaything, for indeed, even when we come close to viewing the ocean in a drop of water, the drop has already evaporated and we are left wondering if the ocean was but a figment of our imagination.