(Here are some sounds from my home city to accompany your reading- http://soundsofmumbai.in)
The air hangs heavy with the smell of monsoon, sweat, sweets
and colours. A sea of people envelops you amidst the cacophony of drumbeats,
conch shells and celebratory chanting. You’re lost (and somehow found, too) in a
subliminal chaos. The noise is oddly calming. You feel one with the people and
the surroundings. Like you’re a part of this large living machine that works in
a strange harmony. Feeling one and
infinite has become such a cliché thing to feel, but you feel it nonetheless.
And it is as deep and meaningful as when Charlie had felt it.
“And in that moment, I
swear we were infinite.” – The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
Did I forget to mention where you are? You’re standing on the
seashore. You’re looking on as your dear friend, your dear Lord Ganesha is
being immersed in the sea. The week of celebrations, honoring the
elephant-headed god, has come to an end.
“The murti (idol) is
viewed as a temporary body and is then returned to Nature by submersion into
running water, such as a lake, river or the sea….
The process teaches us detachment and to
realise that life is short and that our own body, which we cherish and pamper,
will one day be reduced to ashes and base elements.”- Pt. Damodar Sharma
You look at your best friend standing next to you. She is
crying, she cries every year. She hates
celebrations because they always have to come to an end. She has always been
the emotional one, giving herself the freedom to feel things and get attached.
As you reach out to hold her hand, your eyes begin to well
up too. Not because the festival has come to an end, but because she is crying.
You never really learnt an appropriate way of feeling emotions, so you have a
tendency to feel your emotions through her. Your grandmother had always wanted
you to be more like her.
Your vision’s becoming hazier. You’re all alone in a pool of
dark cold water.
And you’re drowning…..
I woke up in a colourless world, to the monotonous lull of
the refrigerator and air conditioning. Lying in bed, I stared at the gray
ceiling as my mind tried to get a grasp over reality. Taken aback by the
dullness of this world, I felt disoriented.
“….I was far away from
home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen,
hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel,
and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked
high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was
for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody
else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a
ghost.” – On The Road, Jack Kerouac
I was in my dorm room. I turned over to check if my roommate
was still awake. But her bed was empty. She must have slept over at her uncle’s
place. It felt strange to be all by myself in the room. Sleeping alone was
something I had to learn to get used to after I left for college.
I used to always sleep with my grandmother until then. Some
people called it unusual, some thought it was cute. To me, it felt like the
most natural thing in the world. My grandmother was my home. I don’t really
have a home anymore. I don’t know why I ever left.
I didn’t like thinking about leaving home or abandoning my
grandparents. So I decided to stare at my bookshelf instead, hoping to find
some solace there. I had a set of ten of my favourite books that I carried with
me everywhere I went. They were like an extension of my self or vice versa. I
have often suspected the latter.
“If you practice being
fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are
sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.” – Illusions,
Richard Bach
It was at the beginning of my high-school years that I had
decided to choose to populate my world with fictional people and imaginary
friends since reality had been too disappointing. My life has been a mimicry of
an ideal fictional world ever since.
An old entry in my diary would say that I took immense pride
in my choice, in the fact that though I lacked the teen spirit that Kurt Cobain
had once sung of, I wasn’t lacking at all in the spirit of Holden Caulfield,
Esther Greenwood, Philip Carey, Jane Eyre, Harry Potter, Howard Roark, Donald
Shimoda and many more. I have taught myself never to regret my choices and I do
not regret this one. But I do wish I had been less indifferent.
“breaking on legendary
beaches: in faith
we shall board our imagined ship and
wildly sail
among sacred islands of the mad till death
shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.” -Tale of a Tub, Sylvia
Path
