Roomscape 4.0

Watercolour on paper, 9″ x 7″

Ashes, Ruins.

I feel suicidal. Wait, no, don’t send me to a therapist just yet. Read this, you’ll know.

You know how you passively think of ways of ending your life?

You know you won’t go so far as actually hanging by your neck off your balcony as a tribute and a trophy to the world which led you off the ledge. But you still consider it, as you consider getting your head smashed in by a passing train, or imagine yourself being splattered on the ground below.

Would you know you died? Would there be pain? Or will it be a quick escape?

I have caught myself considering dying. How else do you get to go away? How else can you unenroll from this world ? This rush for money? This hunger for victory, this unending race for development? How? How? I do not understand this world. I do not understand this depraved, unstoppable force which is driving and dragging humankind to it’s inevitable end.

How many more cameras on your phone till you’re done? Till you look around you without a screen? How many more assistants on your devices till you go mad? Till your screams for relief are drowned out by their voices? Where are we heading? Why are we all so unheeding of the warnings? When do you stop? Why can’t you stop?

Black Mirror has been made, watched and forgotten. Just another dystopia to be wondered at. But oh you fools, you damn fools, that dystopia, that mindless, inhumane, senseless world is now. Oh can’t you see?

Once, just once, look at the Earth now. Countries ravaged, bombed out, people dead, killed in millions. Nature is crying out at the way we’ve been chipping away. We’ve taken everything, everything and some more of what was given to us. We are still thirsting like drooling hounds. And look at us. It’s all eating us up. Look at the Earth !

Yet, the factories roll on.

Why don’t you see that you won’t have enough food to live on. You’ll be killing each other. And after we’re done here, the Moon? Mars? We would eat away at the Solar system and the Galaxy if we could. This is not the greatness of man. This is madness, shameful.

We can’t even keep up the pretensions we’ve created to feel good about ourselves. Economies are crumbling, and how much money do you think you can print? When you see all that you rely upon rendered worthless, when you itch, and you burn, and you drag at every lungful of smoke that you get, would you know you lost then? When nothing would be a screen, everything so real, so real that you’d sooner die than face your utter failure, would you know you were the monster then?

Your follower count won’t matter. Your fame as worthless as your money. All you’ll need then is a handful of ash to kill your hunger. Your quadcam will capture in all its depth and intensity the pain and hopelessness of our times. All of us will stand alone in the crowd. No tears to cry, because it’ll all have been paid for, with tears been cried, tears rolling even now. It’ll be all on us. Our great ambitions, us playing God, crashing with silent death around us, the savaged lands. Ruins of man.

Stop now. Stop running to your destruction. Stop rushing over the edge. Stop. It’s still not too late. Come back, sit down, think about what you’re doing, think again.

Or should I just jump off? Hang? Cut? Be washed along?

Home.

A thousand words assail me every time I have thought of that realm. A profusion which has prevented me from putting down a single word on paper. Trying to write about yesteryear has led me to a mind empty of suitable words.

It was a year! ago. I had set foot on the sacred lands of Spiti. It is difficult to acknowledge that it has been a year already. Spiti never leaves. And that is what I have been trying to tell people. Everyone that I have talked to about my trip, know that I have failed miserably in conveying how I feel.

Spiti is home. I carry it in my bones. I have breathed in its winds. Every fold, every crevice felt like I’ve been there before. When I think back and see those mountains rising above me, I realise that is where I’m alive, that is where my breath lives.

I have never felt more inadequate with words than now.

I think of that place, and it manifests itself like another reality. An existence which isn’t. Until you have crossed the Rohtang pass, Spiti isn’t. For all I knew, Spiti was just in my mind.

Now, it always is. Spiti will endure. Time flows differently here. Time flows through everything that is still.

I know I’ll find it exactly as I left it. The sheer cliffs; the goats, the horses, grazing high up; the great river, the monastery, the sunset. The wide expanse which your sight can never span. The travelers you meet. The energy.

My Home.

Land of the Elder Gods

And I’m on the train back home. Back to Delhi. The place where everything is “happening”. But this is not a diatribe on Delhi. This is about the Himalayas. This is about the journey. This is about fascination, and peace. 

The road starts innocently enough. Climbing up the mountain gently, sleepily. Or maybe it’s sleepy after the train journey.  The road beckons you up, but not too much. You can still turn back. 

You haven’t been enchanted yet. There is still the city air to breath. You have your ties. You are looking forward to the trip ahead, but a part of you is still thinking about your home, about the goings on the city.

And, then the road turns, and things start falling off from you. Clean air. Fresh smells. Blowing wind. Whipping round your hair. You can take a deep, deep breath in. Your companions fall silent.  You fall silent. Having a conversation is pointless, seeing that all we talk about is petty, meager.

You’ve seen it before, felt it before, but the parts of your mind affected each time is different. You feel it every time, in every which way. The mountains are changing, every moment, they grow, they pulsate, they grow on you. They start looming over the road.  Grand monoliths, standing eons before we started crawling, growing taller each passing second.

You climb a few hundred meters. The ranges open up. The gorge beside the road deepens. The grass turns browner. The leaves more spiked. The mountains behind start to spread apart, showing an impression of the distance all the way to the very beginning. Beginning of all life. The land of the Gods. The Himalayas.  

 

 

The car steadily climbs on.  You try to keep every sight, every emotion, safely stored, remembered in your heart, in your camera. To write now. To write after.

There are memories of previous such climbs. Of such journeys. You recall them. There are glimpses of trees you’ve passed before, stones you’ve seen, bridges you’ve crossed. The cars behind you turn off to other places, humans going away. Roads carrying them away to the places where they are meant to be. 

You take the right turn. 

Civilization now is not buildings meant to sell, houses here are just to live. Villages are spread apart as much as the vista has opened up. Shoulders of the road just beyond the left tires, shoulders of the mountains now of full-grown giants’.  Rank upon rank of sons. All facing up to the elders.

At first you don’t notice Her. You are looking at eye level. There are the sons. You haven’t seen the mother. She is there. Behind them all. A brooding, looming, ever-presence. Your glance never leaves her ever. But that is preposterous, impertinent even. You don’t look, you are looked at. 

She looks at you, in you, through you. No one ever escaped her, nor will. She is going to keep seeing, unmoved, when we have destroyed ourselves. She has seen us grow into the monsters we are. She doesn’t cry. Her family is unfeeling. But in their presence, you feel.

You are awed. You are elevated. You want to bow. The higher Himalayas, the Himalayas, will make you want to cry. Cry for joy. Bitter tears of shame for ever doubted that there’s no one for you. Exalted laughter. Sweet tears roll away because you understand now that your fears, though seemingly real down in the city, actually is nothing in the scale of life, in the vast way nature exists. The peak stares unblinkingly down at you. You expect at least a smile, all you’ll get is stony reflections of the Sun. 

The higher you go, the road is deserted. For hours, yours is the only car going either way. Roads scratched onto the sides of the giants. Roads which won’t exist after the next rains. Or just a tiny shrug.

Her shoulders widen out. You see her majesty increase after each turn of the road. The climb is steeper. The air, rarer. But it’s not poison. It is peace. It is life. She is there. Always. Everywhere.

When you reach the town, you know that it is there in honor of the ranges beyond. The town is not nestled in her lap. The town exists because they allow it to be. All you know is humans are just too small to mean anything to the snow laden walls of rock. Absolute walls. You never think of crossing them. Because they never diminish in size. You climb one, you see the next, and others, shrouded in snow, in mist, in permafrost. A wrinkled plane stretching away till your eyes see no more. A plane of death for mortals. Serenity.

This morning, she has covered herself in clouds. The clouds do not move. They call others to cover up the whole range. Peaks lost high into the clouds, in preparation for the coming winters.

You try and imagine the cold up there. The life, the field of energy there. No human is alive up there. The energy is too much for us to bear. The Himalayas are majestic living beings. You feel the immense amount of energy emanating, reaching out, flowing over you, burning through you as you glance up.

You stand up to the mountains, human that you are. But you can’t measure up. You leave. Aware of your existence, aware of your tininess. You have to come back to land which is familiar, un-threatening.

Coming down, you remember her. You feel her presence. She is still presiding over the land. Looking away to the South. She is with you. She was with you. You remember how she stroked your hair. You remember how you fell asleep on her shoulder, how she slept beside you. You remember. You feel her. And you want her closer, to be more real. She is always there beside you, behind you. Just beyond the next turn. Always there to offer a place to you. 

And I’m on the train back to Delhi. A place where everything now seems crass. An anti-place. Anti existence. An affront to the Himalayas. A slight to the Elder Gods. 

Of Love.

What I’m writing may seem a contradiction. Maybe it is. But it is true.

I think I think too much. But such is the requirement for writing. Maybe that’s why I’m able to write.

Is a contradiction living in me? Is it equivalent to being a hypocrite?

But I find myself to feel anything close to normal feelings. Nowadays, the only normal to me is a dull anger, boredom, and irritation. Is it a mass symptom? Effects of social media? Miscommunication? I try not to analyse this. But I cant feel  happiness. I haven’t been genuinely filled with joy for years now. I haven’t looked forward to meeting anyone. Even if I dare have, it has been in vain. What is this?

Following is a small part of my underlying musings. The thought behind my vacant stare. The cause behind my quest for finding love again. Even if it’s not meant to last.

What I fear most, now, is falling in love again. The touches, the glances, the nights. The memories I’ll be afraid to cherish after you leave. Because I know, you’ll always leave. And after each break, my life force is taken away, a part of me, gone, every time. I’m afraid of the bright day, afraid that it won’t bring you back. I’m afraid of falling, falling dreadfully, falling eternally in love. In love with you every single time I see your hair waving in the sun. So dark. So bright. So safe. I’m afraid of love.

Nightmares keep you up nights. But doesn’t the same go for dreams?

And I dream of loving again. To forget every other stupid concern of this stupid world, and just look at you, and to fall for you. To build a castle of sand together, so beautiful, and to rule the world from it, until another chance wave washes it away. I’ll love you, that’s my dream, until it’s time for you to leave. I wake up all feverish and shaky from the dream, afraid that you aren’t there. But you’re here. In my head. In my dreams. In my dreams of loving again. I dream of loving you. You, the happiness in my smile, and the joy in waking up alive everyday. I will love you. Again. Till you feel the same.

Winter.

I won’t be writing about pollution. No, I won’t be writing about Syria either. Nor about all the wrong in the world. I’ll be writing about winter. My experience of winter and all the winters long gone.

“Long cold winters”. This expression is more often used to convey a sense of despondency, a sense of of loneliness.

I love this expression, not because I’m lonely, or despondent. We’re not talking of that.

I love this expression because it hides so much of warmth.

I love cold winters, they bring out so much of the warmth inside us.

Cold winters mean we can snuggle up inside sweaters and blankets, while life passes us by. We can keep ourselves warm inside our homes, while the world is cold outside. The cold makes us aware of our bodies’ inherent warmth, our bodies’ capacity to keep itself alive, of the heart beating inside, of the blood coursing through. Winters mean we can snuggle with our love, helping us live. No sweat.

Winter makes me think of a vast field of cold, dotted with little points of warmth. With every living being a point of heat, a source of life. Each conscious of its own presence, conscious of itself, being alive. And each as a life source, to every other. Knowingly or unknowingly, we help each other live through the cold.

Like light bulbs, throwing a halo of light about itself ( spherical wavefront :p ), we are like life bulbs. Swathed in layers, holding life in for ourselves, and ready to give life to anyone who asks for it.

I love winters. I wish I had someone to hug through the cold day.

So they say.

They say you should ‘move on’. Move on in life, just like everybody else is drifting along, like electrons in a wire, like all they see is the end at the end, and nothing in between. Or maybe I’m stuck looking at the past, stuck the wrong way.

I must not be morose; I have all my life ahead. But the past always seems to stick to my future, darkening it, saddening it.

They say you should stay positive. But what if it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever tried doing? I’m stuck inside a well, my memories weighing me down inside, and fear lurking outside. Either to push me back in, or into another deeper, darker crevice. But what’s the difference between one grave and another? Dead people, inside, secretly happy and envious people, outside. Happy for the dead. Happy that “At least, he escaped this”.

I’m not particularly fond of myself being this way. I’m bogged down, distracted, wasting away. I could do so much more.

Maybe it was what they say it was. Childhood fixation, an impassioned infatuation. But I don’t believe what they say. I know only to love, I never knew how to stop loving someone.

I may not be able to love that one person who left me shivering, broken, crying, wounded and helplessly alone and lonely. But I won’t unlearn loving.

I don’t need time to get all right, I need love.

They say you’re expecting too much when you say you need love. Uh-huh. Don’t tell me to be positive then too. Is it so difficult to trust somebody enough to love him? Or is it some weird human tendency to betray, and make a joke of the basic emotion, love?

Or am I just overreacting? Should I just move on? So that it doesn’t hurt when I move on next time? Or the time after? Hurting less and less, until it becomes a habit to “move on”. Should I just keep moving?

I don’t know. I must help myself. I must be happy. I must live, and let live. I must not sob to everybody who tries to communicate. I must not make people turn away in disgust, or in fright. I must stop being a “cry-baby”, without tears, just pain behind the eyes, and imprisoned memories.

Name please.

​I wrote my name somewhere. And then a curious thought struck me. What if my name had been something else, from the dozens of options available? Would I have been the same person I am now? Does the name decide what the mind is?
Generally speaking, the name is decided by the parents, when the baby isn’t even completely conscious. It can’t offer it opinion about the name. And mostly, the name sticks.
So, what name a person has reflects his parentage. And by inference, the type of family he belongs to, and culture. I refrain from using the word “class”, as it is discriminating, but almost always, even though we say otherwise, we judge people.
So, as is human tendency, can we, or should we, associate a name of a body to its intellectual or social “class”?  Do the names reflect parental culture? I would rather say yes. But, as is the rule, exceptions are always there. And of course, there are always “class neutral” names.
Still I think, what if my parents had named me Ramu?  Would I be writing this blog, asking myself, “what if I was called Soham?”
I write this because, we have a tendency to presume social standing even on the basis of names, amongst various other things. And, as you well know, intellectuality matters a little less than how the “society” sees you.

You think you can’t be you?

I’m sitting alone.

Looking around.

I look at all the people, sitting, talking, laughing. I think, why not I?

Is it my shortcoming? or is it an achievement on my part?

That I can be alone? Thinking on my own?

The way I see it, the masses need others to define the way to see life. They need their “friends” to approve of their opinions. They want reassurance that what they feel about their life,  about happenings in life are correct. Correct in the sense that the others think its correct.

I can’t understand why people are afraid to feel something which is unique to them, for themselves? Why should anyone approve of your thoughts?

Just to preserve social order? The semblance of civilization intact, while we could all but tear at someone’s throat?

Is this smelling of rebellion? I accept this is blatant rebellion. But not destructive rebellion.

You don’t need to agree with me. Mindlessly agreeing to whatever you are taught as “correct”, that is the last thing I would want of you. Just that, I would love people to have an unique identity.

Don’t go with the flow. A waterfall may be awaiting every other person at the end of this great river. You won’t want to be there?  When the the whole thing collapses? Crashing to your death?

Strike upstream. Or take any road you please. The woods, the scrubs, they will catch at you. You will be afraid of the dark, of the pain, of the wounds.

You’ll survuve. You’ll survive and do what’s destined for you. And you’ll not fall to  a burial under mass opinion.

And I go back to contemplating the world around me.

Does it end? Has it a beginning?

Lately, I’m feeling something. You may call it strange. Let me tell you, and then you can judge for yourself. What I’ve been feeling has lent me strength, and I’ll be able to live more freely.

I can separately feel my body and soul. It’s like, I can differentiate between my physical existence, and the existence of my ‘self’ as something which can’t be touched, only felt. This realization, it’s not in my mind every moment. It comes and goes. Every time I look at myself, and will my appendages (Haha, biology), let’s say, fingers to move, I know my mind extending up to them. I realize my brain thinking, and then my fingers moving. The fingers, in themselves, are just bones and muscles, which are technically dead. But since my soul is in my body, I’m living. Living inside my body.

This brings me to a very notorious topic, Death. Notorious because death is always thought of as ‘unholy’ and ‘inauspicious’. But it’s not necessarily so. It all depends on how you perceive death. If you say that death is the end of life as we know it, then it’s definitely sad. But what I think is, death is the ultimate liberation. The soul, rather trapped inside our body, can finally go back to its creator, God. A force which is everywhere. Only our bodies cage in our own fraction of that force to give itself life. I call our body a trap because our body is a physical structure. Only our bodies can feel things like pain, we bleed when cut, and we have to look after our body. We see, we hear. We have to think about our appearance. But our souls are beyond these. The soul feels love, it feels hurt. It alone has the capacity to know feelings which define us as living. Feelings which give us sense of our purpose in life, and which we frequently ignore in our pursuit of virtual, materialistic lusts like a house ( not home),  a car,  a post, whatever.

So, what I was saying is, death is, or death is not. Death is end of life, if we think of our bodies. But we are immortal, if we think of ourselves as souls. I’d been reading the Mahabharata, and the most famous part, that which gave rise to the Bhagvad Gita, is the crux of the matter about death.

Arjuna thinks “….What would victory mean?” I waited alone in endless silence. “I do not want this victory, Krishna.” There was still silence. “It means killing Greatfather, our uncle, our cousin-brothers, their sons who are our sons. And what for, Krishna? What for? A piece of earth?…..Murder gurus?…Greatfather and Dronacharya are my gurus, I venerate them. I will not eat blood-stained food for the rest of my life”…. When Krishna spoke at last his voice was cool and musing. “You mourn, Arjuna. Why do you mourn? Those who have knowledge mourn neither the living nor the dead.”… “Do you think there ever was a time when I was not or you were not? And do you think that any of us shall ever, ever cease to exist for a single moment in eternity?”…. Krishna repeated his words, perplexed that I still grieved at death. Neither in his embassy for peace nor in preparation for the war had he forgotten that we were souls that nobody could kill. His words thrummed in me as though we were all dead yet speaking to each other..

-The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata,                                                                                                                                    Maggi Lidchi-Grassi.

 

What I’ve concluded from this is, dying is not painful, nor should we grieve for the dead. Those who are not in their worldly trappings are a lot more free. They’ve attained God, they’re one with Him or Her, or It. Being alive is not related to having a body. We must know that even if people are not here in their bodies, they have not ceased to exist. We can think that they live on in our memories , but there actually was no moment when they were not existing. Everything is God, whose part we are. God was, and God will be, and hence, we will be too. Our presence in our bodies is infinitesimally small and inconsequential compared to who we actually are.