I Belong ...

I want everyone else’s life
I want what’s good in it
I want all their happiness
But I don’t even see their pain

I don’t want my life
I don’t want anything that’s bad in it
I don’t want any of the pain
But I don’t even see my happiness

A collage of other lives is what I hope for.
And my life is a tiny part of many other such images. 

Adulting

Sometimes I used to reflect on life
And about living this life out.
But mostly, I was just existing,
Loving the ability to "not think"

Sometimes I used to think about life,
And sometimes it used to thrill me.
Rarely it was bleak or scary,
But mostly it was just normal, I guess.

Sometimes I used think about family and friends,
One big love gained and some love lost.
But mostly I'd just sit, lost in my thoughts,
Or focussed enough to lose track of time.

Sometimes I used to let myself be available,
And tried not be so self-absorbed.
But mostly, I just thought random things
Things that were neither about me nor about someone else.

Sometimes I thought about others' lives,
and heard their problems out.
But mostly, I'm used to just solving things.
And that's really all I did when I heard.

But of late, I've woken up to the strains of living,
The difficulties that could have been mine.
I am told the colourful and beautiful stories of past
But somehow, I also see the horrors that would have been.

I can't unsee the "could have beens" anymore.
I can't not care now.
So, I guess my floodgates are truly open.
I can't just "not think" now.

I see colours but I don't see shapes!

I firmly used to believe that I am a person, an individual who doesn't go well with the institutions. I wanted to be a rebel. I wanted to feel like I'm more important than any organization. Any group wielding it's power frustrated me, making me feel like the world was unfair, that the individual had no hope against an organization.

And then I met him...

"What are colours, what are shapes?"

When he asked me this question once, I laughed at him. For it was so silly. Colours and shapes are... 

He continued, 

"Well, they're nothing, really. Scientifically speaking, they're a bunch of electrical impulses that our brain perceives and understands. Philosophically speaking, they are defined in more ways than I know of. But what are they?"

He took a pause and started, "When I walked into the room on the left, I just saw the bed, the red covers on it, the velvet pillows and the red draperies. But I kept staring on, and the rigidness of everything disappeared. The velvet was no more velvetty, the draperies were no longer held by the poles, the red flowed down into the floor and the bed was now just a pool of red. All I had to do was keep staring at the room. The room so familiar in colour and shape, but all the shape in it had vanished."

"What a loon!"I thought and wanted to walk away.

"Well, you can do this too, just keep staring at this room, just use your eyes and pull the field off focus. Your brain doesn't see the shapes anymore, but of course, we see the colours. The colours are now free, they've been let go, not bound by the institutions of rigidity and shape."

The rigidity that the colours were having in their existence is now removed. I've freed them. But they are still thereabout. I asked, "The red never goes, does it?"

He replied, "I closed my eyes and imagined the room on the left, and now I imagined the room on the right. In my mind's eye, the red room was no longer my environment. If you meditate for long enough, you can escape the room too. You can turn it blue, or like me, you can render it colourless."

So, now I choose to see nothing but colours, all around me... Colours that I can control. 

I don't see shapes. I don't see confinement, I don't see rigidity. 

So, I don't cry against institutions, because I freed myself from them. 

The institutions and I can now exist peacefully, mutually excluded in philosophy, but as always, sharing the same space, being the same entity, just like the colours and the shapes. But I can be sure that just like everything else, I'm temporary too, I'm imaginary too.

But who was HE? Well, should it matter? I can only tell you his colour and shape, but WHO he is, is a question far beyond the scope of descriptions.

Of wanting a future

What did I want? Did I want to live? Was there any point to living after being shot down in battle, rendered useless. I groped around to find a place to sit. It was inside a long hallway and the lights were blue - dark blue. As I sat, I saw my wound. A bullet had gone straight through my armor and all the way into my intestine. I didn't think I had any purpose to live anymore. And then there was silence, as beautiful as a garden on a summer morning. The silence was a great deal of change from the dull blue around me. It was green, it was yellow and it was definitely bright. I was a child again.

In my house, there were a bunch of guests. I really couldn't see them, but I listened from the upper end of the staircase. Could I know them? And I stayed there till they left. I didn't want to know them and I walked downstairs, there was nobody. The living room and the kitchen were empty. I searched for my parents and started crying. A deep desire in me for food made me want to open the fridge and scavenge. The fridge was empty and cold. The lights turned dull. And I walked back upstairs, crying, alone and the house seemed to get bigger and emptier. I could hear them, but nobody was there.  I wanted nothing more than belonging.

Bessie.

Elliots beach, Chennai (Madras), India. It represents the character of a city that has changed slowly but drastically. As the tides rise and fall, the cycles of the days in Elliots are almost set in stone, though written mostly in wet sand. 

As the morning comes, the sun peeps through the blue sea. But already, we see a few fishermen are in their boats, ready to row into the sea. And before long, they are back in the shores with their catch, welcomed to land by the horde of obese and old joggers that flock the pavements and never touch the sand. Their sweats are just as salty as the fishermen’s, “but why” wonders the young Raja, a 11 year old from the fishermen community. “Why do they run like that, everyday?” And he slowly drags the boat into the wet sand, leaving trails of the sharp nose and footsteps.


As the day grows older, the beach forgets the sweat and the fish. The boats are upturned, the fish drying on the shore. And there are the few stalls, selling soft drinks and cigarettes. Yes, smoking isn’t allowed on the beach, but again, this is India and rules are always optional here. And thus, the wet sand gets burnt by the cigarettes being put off by the people who are lost and know only one place to go to.


In the peak of the day, the wet sand is mostly left alone. Except by the occasional visits from the boys selling snacks there and the old lady fortune tellers. Why do they hang there? For the couples of course. Those college kids and office goers who escape the society’s harsh looks and sit on the beach for some private time. India is still India, rules of law are broken, but rules of culture are rock solid. “Get a room” is sinful. The beach is the couples’ haven and the wet sand is (almost) the only witness to their private lives.


As the sun dies, the couples leave. The families run the show now. And finally, the shops can earn some money for the day. Fast food is selling and the balloons are flying. Kites are ancient now, it’s flying lights that the kids seem to like. And of course, good old beach cricket is on the southern part of the beach, mostly being played by the kids of the slum. But kids from the richer, northern parts are more into frisbee these days. Isn’t that beautiful? They sweat the same, but they don’t wanna play the same. And the wet sand enjoys the tender footsteps of the children, of course, it knows no difference between rich and poor.


Cometh the night, the families leave too. For it is time for the college kids. Those drunk insolents who flock by the dozen, come and dive into the sea. “They die all the time” says the wet sand. Of course, the sands have seen so many of them being dragged back to the shore. “It used to be only boys, but that was a long time ago. Girls are also visiting these days. Drunk.” Maybe the rules of the culture aren’t as rock solid as the afternoons show us. Times are changing. Women’s rights are mostly good!


Post dinner time, the wet sand is freed of the occupants by the cops and the friends of police. They drive everyone out. Like they should. “Because murders happen.” “and rapes.” “So, get out!”
And finally, by midnight, the wet sand is finally alone, to continue it’s perennial romance with the Bay of Bengal.

And Bessie gets ready for another day.