The Autumn of our Lives

Fall...Or as we like to call it Autumn. The season of melancholy and contemplation. The liberator of the wool fabric and the redeemer of the tweed. Bring forth your cold and cover them with cloth. Cover them with layers and warm them up as they walk drudgingly along paths strewn with desiccated leaves.

It is the season which John Keats describes in his beautiful poem "To Autumn" as a "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness". It is the shortest of all seasons. Tucked casually between the dying days of summer and heralding the start of the blistering cold. The blue sky of the summer metamorphoses into a crepuscular gray seeped in coldness. The plethora of gentry that used to jaunt about in the summer, still do so, but not with the same joy, but with a reserved trepidation. I relish these months of autumn. Autumn or fall, call it what you may, they signify the same thing. They signify the Manichean area between warmth and Cold, between good and evil, between life and death.

The autumn of our lives and the fall of the summer. Heralded by the skies, and mourned by the trees. As I parse the sight and sounds around me, I am stunned by the sudden burst of coruscating color. Red, Yellow, Orange, Brown, Sepia and green, all dance together in a medley of vibrancy seen in the foliage around. This is the perfect time for a drive out into the wilderness. The perfect opportunity to spend time with yourself, sipping on hot chocolate and pondering on your place in the grand scheme of things. The autumn of our lives...That phrase keeps coming back to me.

Our lives are forever at precarious stages. Each person is in transitionary place. We are experiencing change, change in our workplace, at school or in our relationships with those around. These changes are akin to the colors of the season. Some changes are positive, expressed by the still resilient green, but most are caught between stages of strong emotion, expressed with the blood colored maroon and red, and some are neutral, like the yellow and the sepia, and some are emotions of death, signified by the shriveled brown leaves. Colors are like mirrors into our souls. When we look at a color we can detect our emotions and our complexities. A cheerful person looking at blue sees hope and life, whereas a gloomy person sees darker colors like red, laterite and black and sees the dark corners of his heart. This season reflects all of this. Forever associated with lonely lovers and brooding poets, this season is all about knowing who we are. Knowing our place in people's lives. However, our purpose should not be defined by others. Our dreams and our struggles are best known to us. Others may show a passing interest, but like everything others do, they are hoping that you present to them an apocopated version of it, short and easy to understand. We are our own guardians, our protectors and our own soldiers. Our battles cannot be fought by someone else; we need to develop the strength to do it on our own. When we find that the course of life is headed on the wrong path, we have to take the opportunity to turn it around. Be the captain of our own ship, be the change that you want to see in the world. Autumn is a grim reminder that if we do not change course, bitterness in form of winter is just around the corner.

I sit pensively in my backyard wrapped in the warmth of my thoughts. I find calmness in knowing that I am part of nature in its most seminal form. The autumnal wind blows heavily, like the speech of an elder, heavy and contrived. The geese scream loudly in the sky as they make their exodus towards warmer lands. I see families walking about hurriedly, huddled together, their steps crushing the leaves making an almost pleasant sound. The wind pierces and colors my face in shades of red. The grayish sky bleeds into colors of red and black. As I watch the “last oozing hours by hours” the world continues, and life moves on, and the approaching night reminds me of the purpose of our lives, our struggles and our emotions…The autumn of our lives, the shield given to us, when we fall down. All we have to do, is get right back up.
 

Scattered Moments

Moments, intangible pockets of time, sparse and undefined. Molded without any method, shaped by shapeless events that are formed into eternal memories. Moments, that stretch beyond infinity, and beyond comprehension to become interminable instances that define us. There are moments in our lives whose significance is felt even before the moment elapses. It’s omnipotent, like the ominous sky before a thunderstorm, like the absence of gravity before a fall, like the absence of sound before a heavy rainfall. Moments, strings that bind us but still throw us down into a rabbit hole deep and dark. Moments, these ethereal gems gifted to us by the heavens above, these are meant to be cherished, to be locked into the jewel boxes inside our hearts, forever.

The past week has been one such moment, no it has been a series of interconnected moments, like the notes on a symphony, intertwined some high mostly low. But resonate, each event like an iron cast onto our souls. I have written previously about the trials and tribulations that my grandmother has gone through in the past couple of months. Her suffering has been an ordeal unlike others, demanding resolve and strength. Both of which were not found in abundance in her fragile body. The trials that she had gone through reached a tipping point on the night of Sunday on the penultimate day of the month of august. My grandmother was rushed to the hospital and the paramedics who arrived pronounced that she had a heart attack. Her family rushed to her side as they have done tirelessly over many such nights. The medical saviors of humanity worked tirelessly to save her. They fought against a 72 year old body and its whims; they fought against her heart, which had stopped beating for 20 minutes. They worked like only one who is a medic can, they strived. Finally, to a crowded waiting room on the third floor of Saint Alexius hospital, they told us that her vitals were back and her heart was resuscitated. Relief rushed into the heart and minds of those around. Unfortunately like every happy message, this one too came with a catch, a double blind. My grandmother’s heart that had stopped pumping blood to her brain for 20 minutes had caused seemingly irreversible damage to her brain. She was now in a stage of unconsciousness, drifting like a vacant log on a nameless sea. Hours passed, followed by days each one burgeoning dreams of her recovery which were quickly squashed. Multiple doctors pronounced her brain, her central processing unit, the corpuscular mass of tissue and fat, the think tank of our existence as dead.

Panic seeped in like the murky waters from a stormy night, followed by acceptance and then sadness. There was nothing that could be done; our pleadings had fallen onto ears which were not listening. Our tears streaked down our faces unseen by closed eyes. Our hands held her limp body hoping for a miracle. But in life, there are no miracles. She was no more. My grandmother, the mother of my mother and other mothers, was not going to survive. The doctors switched the ventilator off, a decision that was more difficult that we were willing to accept. The entire family drove in to stay around her, to be near her in her last breaths. It was a surreal moment, a desiccated body in the middle of the room, diagonally placed in the middle, her face moved in the direction of the holy land, and around twenty family members covered in cheap blue plastic coats for protection against parasites and diseases. Twenty seemingly non terrestrial visitors hovered over the one who was the most human among us. Religious words were chanted, passages, and paragraphs from the holy book were loudly recited hoping to make her last moments easier. She, she just lay there, taking each breath with difficulty, her eyes still shut in stubborn resolve. Her lips parted and gasping for fresh air to flush her lungs, we chanted. Every child, adolescent and grownup was in the room and was enumerating the holy words, there were tears shed, few were loudly wailing, The pneumatic device fluctuated and displayed numbers indicating contradicting health reports, more vacillation on the medical device’s behalf, a sudden drop of about twenty points in the oxygen consumption, more tears, more chanting, the numbers were drastically low now, inhumanly low, the human body reduced to a machine whose life can only be determined by a gauge or measuring device, a sudden cry from a mourner and I look up at the device and down at my grandmother’s parted lips, she took one last hasty breath and then she did not breathe anymore.

The precise moment of death is quite different than one imagines, literature and cinema has enumerated it to be seeped in dramatic effects. Reality is quite different, the human body does not lunge forward inhumanly, the machines connected to it do not beep erratically, and the pulse does flatten but it does so in a gradual almost surreptitious manner. Death in fact is not one moment, for us, the group of people who were huddled together bound by the fabric of family, the moment stretched over 10 hours. 10 hours of knowing in our hearts that our loved one was no more. She was medically alive but all other definitions, she was not. Our grief continued for 10 hours, where we saw her gasp and prayed for her life and her death at the same time. Death is almost deceptive in its simplicity, it snatches people away by the hundreds, or if not thousands every single day but when it does it to a person that we know, the impact of it is almost devastatingly brutal. It knocks the wind out of you. Our grandmother, the woman who fought a losing battle with her body for the past 3 months, finally gave up.

Moments, tiny broken fragments of this journey called life. Dispersed and dissimilar to all of our defining experiences but still formed in an unforgettable shard that pierces our heart and stays with us forever. Moments of joy and happiness, of laughter and teasing, of tears of sorrow and tears of bliss, of dreams and nightmares, of gratitude and angry tirades, of warm embraces and the coldness of the night, of the birth of a child, of the pride of a parent, of a newborn grabbing your finger, of an elder wiping your tear, of the aroma of the freshly baked meal cooked at home, of the kiss of a loved one, of the last breath of a mother, moments, tiny in their duration, but they last for a lifetime.

Daydreaming at Midnight

Gusts of wind momentarily wake me up from a prolonged trance. The mist in my eyes clears up and the clouds in my mind get pushed into a dark corner as consciousness awakens. I find myself careening into the blaring sirens of an oncoming truck. I suddenly yank the steering wheel to my right, dragging the car along. It took me a few moments to realize the event that transpired before. I tried to recollect the reason why I had lost attention to the winding road but could not do so. I was shaken, but when I thought about the reason for my trepidation, it was not because I almost crashed head first into another car potentially killing myself, but rather due to not being able to re-immerse myself into my day dream.
As I drive through valleys of paths uncharted and clogged with the flooding waters of a virulent spring, I look out of my windshield. Rainwater splashes on it but is quickly cleaned away by the wiper set to the motions of a low intensity. The splashes of a few drops fall onto it, stay there for a nervous duration and then multiply in their intensity, several others join in, as if magically born like weeds on an agrarian lawn. They continue splashing and trickling onto my peripheral vision until they succeed in completely blinding my sight. The scene that I see is not unknown to me. It is a blurred view of life, objects appear expanded beyond recognition and tiny spots of light appear almost ominously gigantic. The scene reminds me of the many day dreams that I have been experiencing for the recent few years of my life. Suddenly the wiper awakens and in a majestic swipe reminiscent of the stalwart swords of the knights of middle Ages swinging away at the millions of rain drops from my vision. Reality awakens me yet again. The mind suddenly found asunder in its naked actuality that suddenly is exposed to the existence of the world. I increase the intensity of the knight of the raindrops. Tonight will be a night where the sword will defeat the water.
The sky is tinged with incredible colors; there is sepia seeping into blackness which it drenched in a crimson elegance. The pale gray of the evening hour tries its best not to be replaced by the darkness of the pouring rain but is fruitless. The sky is also a mute witness, like me it is also not in control of its destiny. Its cloak like existence over countless of lives is ironic because the sky does not control its own. It follows a path, of dawning light and dusky nights. It continues in such a mundane routine barring nights like these where it sees a sudden burst of activity. But all of this does not add to its continuation. The sky delights in its embrace of a mundane melancholy and the recent festival like fervor does not feel characteristic of its expanse. As I drive away to the familiar confines of a comfortable home, the sky looks back in discomfort and defeat.
As I pull up into my driveway, I notice the absence of reality around. All those who surround scatter away like ants running away into their hole. There is a dearth of familiarity around and suddenly I feel almost alone in the vast expanse of the sprawling city.
I turn the car off and sit in silence. The storm lashes at the roof of the car intently as if taking my staying inside as a challenge to its might. I exhale coldly, the sound of my breath almost seeming alien to me. I still could not recollect the day dream felt earlier and yet there was a change in me. It was almost like the dream had awakened me to realities hitherto not felt but the absence of its recollection had suddenly trust me back into the confines of a dungeon that was desolate and unnerving. It was calming, sitting inside a metallic box twisted into the shape of a car. It was almost therapeutic in the sense that incongruously the storm comforted me. It seemed to match the state of my mind. The empty expanse of the world and the vacant gaze of the drenched trees match the vacancy in my mind. I feel strangely uninhabited, unaware of my own existence. I look around towards the lawn at nothing in particular noticing a couple of scurrying rabbits. Rabbits on my lawn, strange visitors to an unfamiliar house. I wonder at their lives and ponder upon the complexities of their existence. If my existence is so turbulent, I wonder if rabbit life is calmer. Not expectantly. Lately, the world seems to match my meandering existence. We are all unsatisfied and uncomforted and acutely aware of something missing. The feeling of emptiness felt within the mesh of bones surrounding my ribcage is too omnipresent. I cannot possibly be solitary in this trial. I look up at the sky trying to find the familiar gray seen before but could not. The sky was dark, the gray replaced by a very murky crimson. The hour was late and the sky was defeated against the force of the storm. I get out of the car and proceed inwards. The perpetual battle with bleakness will continue in the shelter of this house. It will continue but unlike most battles, there will be no victor. The storm continued unabated all night, millions of raindrops fell and were soaked up by the thirsty soil. There was something that was lost between the silky dawn and the shattering dusk but I could not define it, maybe I never possessed it in the first place.

The Unpredictable Stagnancy

The ever grinding wheels of life bring forth many destinations and scenarios. Some carry a visual splendor, an image that elevates the experience of viewing it into a pious feeling, and some push you into the depth of decrepitude, function as shattering place markers in our shallow lives. The events that have led my life to this point, do not transcribe to either. Sure, I have had the fortune of living moments of elation and I have had moments of despair. But these moments function in a fragmented fashion, they act as spices, sprinkled over a larger entity, some spices carry a tantalizing taste and some are not so pleasant, but at the end of the day, the spice of life is essential a ‘spice’ the real flavor of life is found in our monotony and our daily rigors of existence. Our life.
Lately however, I find myself questioning the meaning of the direction that life has been taking. There is an air of unpredictability albeit a sense of stagnancy about that has stalled movement. Heavy words aren’t they. Do I even understand them, I wonder. Let me deconstruct it, break myself down, strip my flesh out layer by layer and muscle by muscle and understand who is it that I am and what is it that I would have liked to accomplish and how is life stopping me from doing so. A sense of unpredictability. Yes, that is easy. The past 21 days have been exactly that. They have been a roller coaster of emotions, the highs of elations balanced by the pits of despair, moments spent in sweet happiness rejoicing over the sound of someone breathing and moments of despair over the same sounds of breathing.
The human heart is a victim of a fabric of association, we associate feelings with people who are associated with us and latch onto them for comfort. These people may not necessarily do much for us, but exist in a fallacy bound by a sequestered tradition that festoons and wraps around the vessels that carry blood to organs strange and undefined. They give us comfort in their existence. My grandmother is one such person. A frail woman of 73 years old, she has withered harshness in life and has withstood seasons and geographical dislocations. She has recovered and survived cancer and poverty. She has lived in misery but never lost her pride in her family. She imparted values onto her children and govern her house on her own terms in a society that does not let a woman do that. Her lack of education, itself a result of a forced marriage did not make her limp, but almost acted as a buoy, made her steely resolve stronger, she made sure her children got the best education. She wasn’t always successful at this, because resolve and tradition are two mortal enemies. The strongest of resolve finds itself crumbling in alacrity in the face of tradition. But still she did not give up. She sold her earthly possessions, in order to get money to feed her children. She started trading traditional Indian clothes, almost becoming a buffer between the merchant and displaced friends and family members. Not a year went by where she did not carry a large suitcase filled with clothes, ready to sell them to whoever showed interest. She tried.
And now, after 73 years of relentless fighting for every single thing in life, she finds herself failing to the most unexpected of foes, her own body. She finds her senses failing her, basic needs going unaware and left to be taken care of by watchful eyes of her family and the workers of medicine. She fights a battle but it seems careening on a cliff that is abysmal in its height. This is where the unpredictability comes in. The greatest inheritance that my grandmother has is her family. A watchful, opinionated set of children who fight often but love their mother without precondition. These guardians have had a harrowing few days and watching them has been difficult for me as well. We find ourselves latching onto any good news and erupting in a guarded hope, hope that lasts for days few but then is trust into darkness again. A few days of good heath displayed by grandma is matched by a couple of days of bleakness, the ominous knot in the stomach with an underlying feeling that despair is around the corner. Unpredictability.
Now where does stagnancy come in? Well, unpredictability itself has become stagnant. The ever twisted river of life has stagnated itself into delivering news of melancholy. There is a defeated air around. My mother is depressed. She finds stagnancy in her efforts to revive her mother. She spends sleepless nights with a watchful eye over grandma hoping that her condition does not deteriorate. She is unprepared for the eventual moment but in an almost surreal manner is aware about it. She has not found acceptance. My mother has not given up. But she has tired of the stagnancy of despair and has tired of the familiar seesaw of our lives.
Families give comfort to each other and act as blankets of reassurance. They shelter us from the storms of worry and give us warmth in indemnity. Often nameless wanderers rediscover a forgotten family and are suddenly brimming with happiness, rejoicing at the one person who cares for them. Within each family however are people who are called guardians. These are the leaders who guide the ship and work towards steering everyone towards a better future and preserving unity. My mother is that guardian. People often ask me about my childhood in passing muster. They do not ask with interest but they ask with a disenchanted interest. Why is it that I talk more about my mother and seldom about my father, they ask. Truly, why do I?
When I look back at my life and recollect all the memories and experiences, I am momentarily frozen. The familiar image of a misty world suddenly springs in front of me. Our lives in dilapidated homes made with red brick and built with a cubical aesthetic suddenly appear before my eyes. I remember all the struggles I have had, with studies, with emaciation, with eccentricity and I am suddenly aware of an undeniable fact, I do not see my father in any of those images. The ubiquitous presence is one of my mother. She finds herself at all events, happy and miserable. She is the guardian of my family of 5. She has relentlessly fought for us her entire existence with almost a maniacal intensity. She thrives in her duty and his guarding of her children with almost a ravenous passion.
Today when I see her physically detest the thought of spending another night in worry at the hospital, I find myself feeling helpless at her helplessness. I am not as upset about my grandmother because I understand that the human body is not immortal, it is a timid branch of a massive tree, if one branch breaks and falls down, the tree will continue in its expansive growth. I am upset at not being able to comfort my mother. I find my purpose and my fabric within my family devoid of meaning. What is my worth when I cannot even comfort my own mother? The wheels of life have indeed stagnated. My existence is mired in immobility. I am the soundless and faceless man, screaming in a sea of nothingness, does anyone hear me? Does anyone…

Drowning in Melancholy

Strength, a formless existent entity, the shape of it unknown, the size of it undefined and the physical capabilities of it, relative. It is something that exists in invisibility, but when it chooses to expose itself, the veracity of it, undeniable. Our capability for displaying strength under adverse situations continues to astound me perpetually. But sometimes events and situations that we are involved in get so aggravated that our capacity for sustaining them shatters. We barricade ourselves continuously but after a point, this guard shatters and we drown in the impending storm. Consumed by the waves that bind us, our existence becomes a meek version of its past.
I visited my Grandmother yesterday night, the sixteenth day of an ordeal that does not seem to end. I entered the hospital, now a familiar terrain in its polished and brightly lit hallways. I walked lethargically and without haste, listening to the sound of my own footsteps. The footsteps seem almost symphonic, like musical beats, played by a maestro who has not his gift of melody but has lost his desire to play. The footsteps feel devoid of a desire to exist in the habitat that they were being created in. I may not have spent much time here, may not have done my duty in imparting comfort to the troubled in my family but I have still tired myself of this place. The chemical scent that consumes everyone, the yellowish light, the pictures of smiling patients all seem to rile me. And so I walked up to the elevators, called on the wood-paneled enclosure, entered it smelling the familiar scent of decrepit and artificial wood. I wordlessly instructed the wood-paneled elevator to take me to the required floor.
The familiar chime of the arrived floor woke me up from a momentary daydream and I departed the elevator hesitantly. I walked past the cubical waiting area, now reduced to a cluttered and symbiotic room crowded with other visitors, each one there for a relative or friend. I walked down a narrow corridor, under the shadow of the outstretched wooden bust of the nameless saint, a bust whose significance if any lost on my unsettled serenity. I entered the Intensive Care unit, a bustling industry adept in its fight against the grim reaper. I shredded the floral printed curtains and entered the chambers that housed her, yanking them with a nervous urgency.
I was greeted my members of my extended family crowded into a tiny room. Grandma herself was seated in a chair in the corner of the room, past her bed and adjacent to the medical gadgetry designed to save her. I awkwardly waved at her, mustering a pathetic smile which probably looked more sinister than comforting. There were conversations galore across the room, the train of which I was desperately trying to latch on. There was some talk about a medical procedure that was evidently suggested by unnamed medical experts. There was an air of effervescence around, like a cauldron threatening to boil over. There were words exchanged, some flagrant and some in a casual surrender. This ordeal has been extremely taxing for all of us who are involved and our temper and patience has been on the edge of precipitous infinity.
I look at my grandmother who has metamorphosized into a frail almost inhuman version of herself. She appears exhausted, drained out of the resources that give us the strength to put forth our defense against the harsh terrain of reality. A couple of orderlies arrive and prepare to put her back into her bed. They help her in her attempt to stand up. She struggles, lumbers heavily and is unable to support her featherlike structure on her timid feet. She collapses into the trained arms of the nurse who then proceeds to pick grandma up in her arms. She lifts her up almost like a baby and deftly carries her to her nightly resting area, solitary and a bundle of corpulent wires. The orderlies then looked at my grandmother with satisfaction, like the monotonous satisfaction of a teller after the completion of a transaction and departed with the same haste as their arrival. We were relieved, caught up in our own two dimensional existence, happy at being spared the undesired task of spending another night in nervous apprehension. I smiled at my grandmother hoping to impart a sense of comfort to her, but was greeted by the shattering image of seeing her sob inconsolably like a child.
Tears trickled down her gaunt cheeks. These were not tears of weakness; there were tears of surrender. Tears, tiny droplets of saline fluid, created instantly by us as a visceral reaction to emotions. They formed Pinstripe Rivers running down her face, creating a map of almost a desert like aridness. People rushed over to console her, but I stood my ground in a corner watching her in almost a captivated arrest. Here is a woman who has been on life support twice, has not eaten in 5 days, can barely talk, has not had a drop of water to drink in two weeks and now she cries because she cannot walk on her own. I suddenly realized my selfish reaction earlier. I talk of strength like it was a virtue that I possessed, but in reality I was weak, a timid weakling, a battered car heading towards a stone wall. Strength was in the fight that my grandmother is fighting, wanting to be independent even when stripped of all life and physical capabilities. She doesn’t cry because she is weak, but she cries because she is close to giving up that fight, she is tired. The relentless battle that her body and age has inflicted upon her is winning and she finally realizes that. Her defenses crumble and we all struggle to try to pick up the pieces. We muster works of encouragement, words that sound hollow in our disbelief. My grandmother, the mother of my mother, the unifier of disparity and the upholder of togetherness drowns in melancholy and all that we can do, is watch her crumble.

Wish for Horses

I walked on cobbled pathways on a beautiful afternoon, the sun shimmering upon me with a mellifluous splendor. The morning had just witnessed a bout of showers and the air was alive with the scent of spring. Momentary showers bring respite, they bring changes to the scenery, they splatter creation with tiny shards of tepid water; some rush indoors to escape from it and some stay out to bask in nature shedding a few tears. I do not understand those who rush inside to shelter themselves from rain, acting as if their entire existence would be drowned by a few drops of liquid life. In fact, this day should have been the perfect opportunity for those caught in their stilted life to take a momentary respite. But still, as I walk tracing invisible footsteps I am surprised to see the absence of commotion.
It was a typical day of an early June. The rain departed and the world was suddenly flushed with a yellow light like a dollop of honey spread generously over a slab of bread. The sudden rain is quickly dried by nature’s own drier. The wonders of our existence continue to astound me, simple moments that take my breath away, finding joy in basking in the rain and then drying myself in the sun, being part of nature, part of fauna, being almost inhuman in my existence and strangely liberated from the confines of a physical body. There is a joy in me that transcend time, that transcends space and that transcends my existence.
I walk contemplating the complicacies of life when I noticed a sculpture of two horses gallantly running. The image was of a mother and her child, I could tell this more because of each one’s size relative to the other rather than any physiological accuracy. The statue was actually more granite than stone, a color that was dark brown and took on almost a black appearance covered them. The larger statue had a composed appearance, like a new mother typically is. She had an air of reassurance, of warmth and kinship that can be felt throughout. The smaller statue, of the child was a little more diminutive. The child was asunder, it was gallantly treading along, frozen in a midair leap, like grasshoppers on a rainy day. A bust, a statue, A three dimensional picture, I did not know for sure what to call it. All that I did know was that my heart was suddenly immersed in radiant feelings of comfort.
What was it, about this picture that comforted me? Was it the craftsmanship of the sculptor who carved a seemingly lifelike image from a block of stone, an entity that could not have been more devoid of life? Or was it the actual image? I think the true answer lay somewhere in the middle, wrapped in a masked covalence, hidden and unseen to the wandering eye. The answer lay in the rooted confined of my existence, stalled with a hemmed in extravagance.
Recent events have added to the meanings that I seek in life. The purpose of our existence, the answers that are sought in glaringly invisible lifestyles are furtively unanswered. The potential for losing a family relative has added my longing for comfort and has increased a sense of detachment to the world. As I squint my eyes, trying to shield them from the glare of the sun, I gaze in enraptured at the image before me. Why does this sculpture allure to me? I think it’s because of my personal struggles for comfort.
The image reminds me of the bonds shared between a mother and a child, reminding me of the tenuous bond that has the potential to be fragmented in our lives leaving all astray. It reminds me of the majestic nature of horses, the earlier form of carriage for human kind, a tireless warrior, a source of transport and a pallbearer of freedom. The horse has for generations served man with almost a servantile surrender. Its reeks of nobility, its poise is undying. The horse has the potential to carry us to great distances, transport us to a different world. It can help us escape persecution and has weathered storms. The image of a mother and a child galloping shows the forever circle of existence. The basic teaching imparted by creation transcends all species and kind. The horse stands tall, perpetual and as a beacon for all that we seek in our lives. We seek a liberator; we seek a being that would take us away from the madness of the world and onto better times. Religion has taught us to be kind to horses, recognizing their almost spiritual existence. Standing here on this unnamed street and with a heart that is vulnerable in its careening juncture at pettiness, I wish to be comforted by this granite monument. I wish for horses.

The Sound of Thunder and Rain

I wake up to the sound of thunder and rain. The rain splashes the roof with an effervescent fury and the thunder loudly announces the lightning that preceded it. I groggily look at the timepiece to check the time, 6 in the morning. It is not light outside and yet is not completely dark. The outside, as perceived through my windows appears like a satin sheet draped over the world. A dull grayish tinge appears in the atmosphere just like the gray that exists in the hearts of all those who sleep at this early hour. There are those, countless faces who are probably in the nascent moments of their day, untouched by the luxuries of a holiday, they rise to carry forth a day just like any other. And then there are those, for whom this day is a blessing. A day in which they can catch up on nights spent in vagrancy; A day that they can dedicate towards the craft of immobility. And then there are people like me, who neither are fraught by worldly duties nor can afford the luxuries of nonchalance.
The mind wishes to embark on a carefree journey, sample moments of a recaptured past, a thought akin to a faint misty image like one gazed from a rain soaked glass window. A past with few worries, and fewer duties; one where the dawn of a day is announced by the crowing of the hen and the scent of wet sand, A day where the waves of the sea thrash against the shores in a routine that speaks of comfort. A world so perfect, that it does not exist in the physical world.
The mind does not function in its typical exuberance at such an hour, the clock ticks silently unlike the loud and jarring ticks of ancient timepieces. I lay for moments uncounted, caught in thoughts that have neither form nor function. As the sound of thunder and rain continue to pound life as I know it, I momentarily wish to be outside getting drenched in the storm and for once reclaiming a dream that was never born.

Insignificance

The day dawns with a damning silence interspersed with the drumbeat sound of the wind. The birds chirp enthusiastically, singing songs dedicated to the sunlight. The sunlight glows mightily, searing in its power and magnanimous in its grandeur. It shoots its rays around in a gesture of strength and power. The sun, this beacon in the sky, the sole source of all life, our guardian angel, It gives life and also extinguishes many.

My thoughts on this day are slightly morbid. The grandmother continues her fight against bodily disease and all of us are caught amidst circumstances that seem poised at a precarious juncture. They seemed careening off a precipice that has an abysmal fall lurking. She has been fighting a battle against her body for what seems like forever but is in reality, Ten days of our lives thrown awry into a vortex of emotion, a few moments of hope followed by nights of depression and fear. My mother has spent the majority of her time here travelling from hospital to the house, the sleep cycle has been thrown off, she barely eats, she sleeps laying a watchful eye on her mother who has been reduced to an entity barely breathing and a body emanating various tubes and wires more tenuous than a workman's office. Hope battles the same battle that my grandmother is fighting right now, she tries but the physical capacity of success seems to be diminishing.
I lay reading a book, the sunlight falling on my blinking eye lulling it to sleep. I blot out the sun with my hand, shocked by the power of my outstretched palm. I can block out the sun, deny it the joy of searing me and drenching me in my sweat. I regain my composure, realizing this newly discovered gift. If only life were the same, if only you could block out moments sorrow and desperation with the stretching of an outstretched palm. If only you could deny the disease and the dilapidation that force themselves into your body and gnaw at you incessantly. If only you could lie under a cool shade of the mangrove and stay there perpetually and become part of a natural tradition that has stayed with humanity for thousands of years. If only.
We are all seekers of a cool shade, searchers of comfort, and wanderers of a world too diminished and fraught with despair. We are gifted with a body that holds brilliant accomplishments but also is a harbinger of horrifying destruction. We, our bodies, our minds are all tired models of ingratitude, barely carrying ourselves, carrying a weight far greater than our comprehension, forever searching for a spot of shade, a few moments of comfort. But when we do not find this, we are shocked into reality of admission, an understanding of the seriousness of our mortality. The realization dawns on me today and cements my heart into a block as heavy as the cider blocks in the trunk of a swerving car.
Our lives have almost been thrown off balance, our regular lives replaced by a seemingly never ending cycle of visiting hospital waiting rooms and patient care centers. I carried forward this cycle tonight; I sat in the waiting room thinking to myself about the complexities of our existence. An outreaches wooden bust of some saint glares from one corner, surrounded by seats which appear neither comfortable nor particularly harsh. In fact, that seemed to be the theme of the room, light beige wallpaper, neutral ceilings interspersed with fluorescent floodlights defined this room. A large picture adorned the wall, an autumn walkway with dull sepia leaves conspicuously strewn around, a picture that oddly has a spiritual quality to it. Maybe that picture is a cruel way of getting those waiting in the waiting room to start accepting the reality of death at a subconscious level. It is a cruel way, seemingly ineffective but still made an impact on me.
I return from my brief stay at the hospital and let the night die its death. It’s my way of feeling significant in the large insignificance of all that surrounds me, this world and we as tiny creatures, who for fleeting moments are delusional into thinking that our lives are within our control. I will let this night bleed to death, like the deaths of countless others who were snatched at various stages of their mortalhood, snatched from families and rendering them limp. As the dying seconds draw close and I fade into a turbulent sleep, I hate the world for all that it takes from us, I despise the helplessness that I feel and in the grand scheme of things, I feel a growing insignificance.

Chaos Reigns

The visual crutch that I use in everyday life broke and rendered me into a handicap. Well, it did not break in the true sense of the world. The crutch is not really a crutch and I am not really a handicap. Logic gets mired into a convoluted mess when left in my restive hands. The fact is simply this; the tiny cylindrical entity of silicone that I so trustingly place in my eye fell out from its moist enclosure. It fell into the unforgiving expanse of this world and into the harshness of all that lay under it. It fell through the sky, travelling a distance far greater than its entire existence. It travelled not by its own accord but got yanked out by the mysterious force of the gravitational pull. It was a victim.

The world has lost the semblance that I had in antiquity. The images that form on my cornea are now confused and chaotic. Figures twitch in absent surrender, themselves victims of a fate beyond their control or comprehension. The figures themselves have no comprehension of their perception. They are not aware of the insanity of their appearance in my vision. They do not know how manically their entire visage dances in my existence. This got me thinking. If our existence is so mired in our own reality, why do we care about how others perceive us? None of what they say about us, or think about us should matter, right? But how often do we concern ourselves with lives whose reality has no bearing on ours. How often do we descend into the tired depths of despair when we get an understanding of the ulterior intentions of the other? The answers ring a shuttering truth about the fundamentals of our lives. We live, not in a bubble but in a communion of bubbles. We live not as one but a conjoined unit that lives with others, breathes with others and effectively bases itself on others perception.

But is that the best way? I wonder fleetingly as I stick a scratch paper over my eye to blot out its power of vision. Vision, a power that is irreplaceable but it can be quite a grievance when not at its peak of function. Is the best option in life, to base our existence on others expectation? I do not think so. Too often do we concern ourselves with an enduring struggle to flow into a mannequin of others expectation that we tend to forget about our own? Our existence, our precious definition of our lives becomes a convoluted mockery. We stand not as a mute witness but more as involuntary participants in a strange game, the significance of it lost on our infant minds. We allow others to mold us but in a larger system, allow ourselves to lose our significance.

Who are we, what is our purpose, what is this grand plan that we are seemingly part of. Are we bricks of a larger monument, tiny blocks all collected together leading to a larger purpose, or are we like a grain of sand, in an expanse of a desert, miles of nothingness, purposeless and comfortless. Who are we, are our lives with a purpose, do we live it with a purpose that we chose and whose existence is defined by our carefully crafted attempts at redemption. Or does Chaos reign? Chaos in our ways, chaos in our lives, a mish mash cluster of events which we so innocently are trying to fathom, Chaos….

The Deprivation of Significance

I find myself pondering at the crux of civilization. I reflect with a very vague sense of perception. I sit at a precariously positioned desk typing words fervently that paint pictures that lie embedded in my mind. These pictures do not conform to any particular shape or form. In fact, they can hardly be called pictures. Pictures are more vivid, brimming with life and a factual representation of life as we know it. In a picture, you capture moments that are frozen for generations. It is a moment, that if not captured would forever escape and be lost in the annals of all the moments that define us. Each picture when looked back upon elucidates the definition of our history. So, yes I am not painting a picture.

I am purging myself of the thoughts and the vague forms that flash inside my head. These flashes are like dim lights, in a miserable lounge, masking the faces of all the patrons in an attempt to cloak their emotions. The face is the most reflective mirror of all and it becomes a goblet brimming with our inner self, overflowing with our secrets and our deepest thoughts. My deepest thoughts overflow from this goblet and drip callously onto the floor emanating whiffs of an acidic silence. The aroma captivates me, drowns me and yet in a strange manner, liberates me.

Often, I find myself caught reflecting upon the giant wheels that turn moving this great civilization forward. Countless stories spin around in this giant vortex of information, casting visions of the world as it being shaped. I read them and I find myself greatly troubled. There seems to be an unearthed sense of ailment that has affected everyone in the world. There is much discontent at the decisions that the pallbearers of this world are taking. There are lives lost over reasons that are difficult to comprehend. Anarchy is being touted as patriotism. Narrow divisions amongst ourselves are being widened like a gash carved on the face of an innocent child. I sense that the world is headed for divisions. There is a fragmented partition of those who demand action from greater powers and the others who do not want the powers to control their lives. This is not an issue that is domestic to any particular country, but stands true for all of mankind. We are victim of crimes that we commit. We kill and are being killed. We try to bridge divisions but are also confining ourselves into narrower walls. We exist and still are forgotten. We have deprived ourselves from the basic tenets that ameliorate us.

Anger wells in the streets in a foreign land. There are scores that are killed in riots. Our lives continue without even a momentary reflection on our fellow species. We concern ourselves more with the superficial clothing of a commercial pageant winner. We theorize over her ethnic group, her lineage and her religion. Some among us proclaim it as a victory and a statement supporting the plaques of diversity and there are some amongst us who lament the rise of political correctness and suffice it with conspiracy theories. Political Correctness? You reduce your existence to a reflective output feeding off the flourishing designs of the fourth estate and claim to be of significance. Do we not realize that what matters to our existence are not such trivial pursuits but awakening from this trance. We do not, we do not even try.

The visions in my head are now fading away slowly. My brief anger slowly subsides and is now drowned in the clear waters of fatigue. I sit morosely, realizing that I too belong to those who were deprived. The only difference is that I am struggling to free myself from these powerful clutches. My ramblings may not be extremely reflective but are still relevant to my disposition. They stand testimony to my fervent attempts at sensing a larger role for me. Whether I ever achieve that role is but to be awaited.

The Advent of Futility

The rite of the everyday arrived today with an abrupt force reminding me of the rigidity of life. There is an incessant cycle of existence that is defined by a routine that never fails to exhaust. There will always be the weekend and there will always be the Monday. I will not pretend to be one of the many who lament the arrival of this despised event, mainly because that reaction appears too commonplace in our lives. Too many of us work at jobs that we don’t like and too many of us complain without failure. Frankly, the entire process reminds me of the futility of life.

Am I to be a nameless blade of grass in this evergreen expanse of lawns that always conform to an established tradition? Is my existence so utterly devoid of perseverance that I will, for the rest of my life hate one day of the week? People who choose to associate themselves with this thought process forget that we are essentially who we aspire to be. If we wake up in the morning and proceed with our rudimentary lives with a sense of resignation we destroy a small part of ourselves everyday. We accept defeat even before facing battle.

I don’t proclaim to be a saint. I am not any different from the sea of people that pass me by as I walk these crowded streets. I am also part of the entire system of resignation. I wallow in futility not wanting to escape or own up to my actions. Today I realize that what differentiates me from the nameless faces around is a sense of awareness. I am aware of my plight and of all those around. I realize that in order to change the fabrics of your definition, you have to stand up and proclaim divergence from futility.

My day started and departed in a hasted frenzy. I fought my battles with vigor and determination. I won some and also lost a few. What was lost was not important and nor were the victories. What mattered was me standing up and fighting. The Advent of futility was met with defiance. As the moonlight falls upon me, lulling me into a warm surrender, I drift onto lands fabricated with the tiny grains of the sandman. The Battles for the night are only just beginning.

Minutes Before Midnight

A restless midnight dies down to give birth to a new day, a day which holds plenty of promise. It’s a day that is anticipated by millions of the workforce with bated breath. The tired craziness of the weekday is tolerated only due to the promise of today, Saturday, a workforce soldier's reward for leading a life of discipline and courage.

This Saturday is different. I wake up with the entire day ahead of me but with no tasks on hand. It’s a luxury that is priceless and extremely gratifying. Lifetimes are spent in leading lives that conform to the rules set by others. We wake up each morning and go to jobs that we do not like and be nice to people who we don't like. Our expectation for this life is that after 5 days of relentless surrender, we should be rewarded with a couple of days to ourselves. Two days, where the rules are set by US. No tasks, no duties but a calm surrender to the numbness of nothingness.
This day was the same, Blankness on my mind and a book in my hand and the sun tricking down through the skylight in the living room, Perfection.

As has become a weekly routine, I was itching to make my way to the bookstore. It’s a pilgrimage that I make every week to a used bookstore. Whiffs of decaying papyrus make their way into my stomach as I walk through mountains of book stacks. It’s an indulgence that I cannot abandon. I go there every week to find which books are now on the clearance section. Then I purchase them and with great ecstasy, arrange them into my bookshelf. I started about a year ago and I now have about two hundred books. I travel regularly, often a great distance. The rewards are precious and the risks minimal. Such was also the case on this day; I obtained some valuable books after bartering it with worthless clunks of silver, more popularly referred to as money. Money in exchange for dreams and a surreal experience that will change you, a good deal I think.

Of course, I have probably not read more than a few handfuls but the thought of their presence amidst my surrounding has a calming effect on me. I derive intelligence by knowing that I have Faulkner residing in my house. Steinbeck has also found a home. These eminent authors are surrounded by various other literary stalwarts. Ernest Hemmingway lives here and so does Tennyson. These are residents of homes that are formed with thoughts towards literary rewards. We treasure these books because they comfort us and they reward us with knowledge of stories and lives that exist in different dimensions. They also help in shaping our philosophies and our values. We read about the consciousness of many protagonists and question our own. And cloaked amidst all these questions are daggers that carve the men and women that we become for the rest of our lives.

The rest of the day passes by with an uneventful haste. Minutes pass by intermixed with talks and words that are exchanged with others who live around me. Words those are not substantial and definitely not constructed without any ulterior motives. These are words of casual surrender, words that act as tenuous strings designed to hold relationships together. These do not demand a lot in their construction but do require their birth. You cannot expect the bonds of relation to last in the stormy weathers of life without any reinforcement. Words are our reinforcements against each other. They give us comfort and can also cause great pain. Like fire, formed to essentially help us live but can perish us when used incorrectly and without regard.

The moon rises and extracts the light from the world around me. I hear sounds of sickness that have affected the mother and thereby myself. I am reduced to making unpleasant sounds which I expect, with some futility to alleviate my suffering. How does one fall prey to the hostile whims of the body? Where do all our defenses disappear to and leave us standing naked in the midst of deadly storms. Each moment passes by asking me the same question. I stand witness to a day born and quickly killed. All that was lost and gained was a feeling of absence, Absence of meaning and absence of satisfaction. The body lulls into derision and the wounds left on my life and suddenly forgotten in the shattering rings of the last few minutes left before midnight.

The Balance of the World

I woke up in the morning with a deficient feeling of wakefulness. Time ceased to exist and all that was lost was forgotten and in a different era. The souls that screech out towards the heavens announced a paean of a lusty and hurried ingratitude. In the realms of all that connects us with the elements of our surroundings lay fragmented strands that sow us into harmony. I was lost in the nightly bliss of sin and pleasures of sleep for moments not short enough to remember but longer than most would ascertain. I had failed to realize the effect of a good night's sleep. It is heavenly, and I woke up with a restored mind raring to exist for another day.

The day is a Sunday and is a mixture of sadness and happiness, Happiness at the prospects of indulging in some casual moments of unity with the soul, and sadness due to the ominous foretelling of the days to come. Truly, this day is one that complicates the concept of pleasure and relaxation. The feeling is similar to what a man on death row would feel if he was told that he could have one day of freedom during which he could do whatever he wanted, but would be killed the next day. My freedom is similar. For each one of us today is a day of freedom marred by the thoughts of tomorrow. Once again, we soldiers of routine will be thrust back into battle. Wars will be fought in the business world and existences would be forgotten and realized in the infinitesimally small blimps of the world. But let me leave that conversation for another day. Lets make today about Today.

So wakefulness greets me with a cheerful smile and embraces me with warmth. The body is still weak, drained of the energy by the relentless attack of the bacteria. It’s a harrowing and daunting battle. Little do we realize of the effects of the tiniest of organisms in life. Bacteria, an organism that exists in a miniature world unseen by our naked eyes. But unseen is not unborn. Because invisible to all those around thrives a different dimension of existence. Millions, no Billions of tiny organisms are born, multiply and die in seconds. One such bacterium, a definite relative of the common cold had decided to be an unwelcome guest. He has weakened my body but has yet to have an effect on the soul. My free soul on this free day will not let mere bodily dysfunction affect its disposition.

The day progresses with a startling pace, I look at all that surrounds me and make mental notes of actions to be taken and reactions to be expected. The blanket of greenery that adorns the backyard and the front yard screams for attention. I look at it and am aware of its suffering but still do not attend to it. Procrastination is the virtue of the tired and downtrodden souls and I am the same. I will attend to the grass when its time arrives. It’s close though, and I realize my folly, but that time is not today. I have never had a yard and such work is alien to me, somewhat similar to the unworked that get thrown into the fires of a new task and fight their way out of it. Such tasks which demand close attention are not ones that I enjoy and do not necessarily entertain. But every moment has a un-moment, the exact opposite of existence that seeks to negate the positive and negatives in life. It is a structured balance established by the artists who have shaped our world. We exist as mere puppets dancing to the strings pulled by a force that is not understood by us, but definitely not ignored. Hence unwritten laws are followed and spoken rules are broken in defiance. Hence the grass will be attended to, the thirsty plants will be quenched and some who pine with hunger will be fed with mounds of corpuscular nutrition. This is our world and our burden, which we will attend to. I live in this playground and therefore will follow the rules established. The casual freedom that I have been rewarded with comes with certain preconditions. It is my small allowance for playing a role in the grandness of our existence, the balance of the world.

Musings of a Wanderer

Diminutive and stoical silence transcends around me. I wait for moments aplenty staring into the glaring silence of my computer screen. A plethora of thoughts slosh inside me waiting for me to sketch them out. Unfortunately, I am at a loss. Not a loss akin to the vagrant wanderers on nameless streets, not a loss akin to the absence of meaning to the depressed soul, but a loss that an artist feels when he runs out of canvas paper. I am an artist who ran out of canvas paper.

Writing has always been easy. From Infancy, I have found comfort in the flat stiffness of paper and solace in holding a blunted pencil scribbling away my thoughts. Writing has always been cathartic; it helps me unwind and helps me brood over my own thoughts and observe them from a distance. Writers have always done this; we transport ourselves to a different dimension and reflect on this current one. These reflections can be refined and some can be extremely erratic. My thoughts have often been the latter.

I have often been faced with a peculiar conundrum when asked to define myself. Am I really a writer? What have I written recently and more importantly, are my writings of any substance. Well, I take a pen or pencil and I write words and that should be enough evidence to qualify me as a writer. I do not feel ashamed to label myself as such and moreover do not feel dishonest. But if you ask me whether my writings have been substantial enough, I would be faced with a harsh reality, the brevity of which weights down my confidence in declaring my identity.

You see, my writings are not really writings, but more a pondering rambles of my state of mind. If I feel elated, my writings reflect a brightness and elation that would be difficult to ignore. However, if I am despondent or melancholic, my writings transform and change into a different beast. They transform themselves into monsters and beasts, each foretelling a story soaked in a different mood. I used this to my advantage, writing erratic and refined stories mired in tradition and besought with all the dreams that I had left untold. From my youth, I had a natural inclination towards masking my thoughts and ideas. I liked to maintain a mysticism about myself and being reticent helped considerably. The childhood was also marred with stories that I did not wish to retell anyone but also wanted not to forget lest I find myself repeating the same errors. Hence was born the Poetic sentence and my baptism into Poetry.

I am not a natural Poet; I have never studied the forms and the structures of this glorious style of story telling. I do not know the difference between a quartet and a sonnet. But still, I have written poetry my entire youth and through most of my adult life. I find an incredible ease in twisting a basic idea and presenting it in a new format. I wrote poems about sorrow, about love and also about all that was lost in life. This gave me a great source of pleasure. I could finally not hide under the mask of a writer. I could strip all artificiality from my skin and expose my true identity, I was a poet, Well, I still am a poet.

Poetry has a infinity to it that is hard to describe. You take a basic story and you cloak it in words and retell it in a voice that is distinct and omnipotent. This had a lasting effect on my writing. I became extremely verbose and started expanding basic sentences. Of course, this had a lasting effect, both positive and negative. The positive effect was that my language skills improved considerably. I began to develop a voracious appetite for the literature. I began devouring words and works about words continuously. It was a rewarding experience, the basis of which defines my existence to this very date. The negative effect was that my literary skills became confined in the narrow walls of poetry. I couldn’t write a sentence without reflecting on the veracity of its literary content. This has to change.

The past few months have been a revelation. I have emerged from my own shadows and discovered myself in ways that I did not know exist. I have begun to write more often and produced works of a more potent poetic quality. However, I wish to write a more current and relevant body of work, because despite its beauty, poetry is largely confined to the tired minds of diminished wanderers. We are gentry of a population yearning to escape the rituals of life and we embrace a craft that is not universally accepted. Being proficient in this should not preclude anyone from embracing a different path. This blog is my attempt at achieving that. I could have done this within the boundaries of my earlier blog, I could have. But my though process was different. I am not working on poetry on this particular canvas. I feel like “dreams for an insomniac” severely constricts me from exploring more adventurous themes. I do not want my work to be judged, especially when its in its infancy and developing. I want to work on honing my writing skills, not in the poetic realm but more in the long form.

This is the first entry in what I hope should be a regular trend. I will try to write more often, creating essays and stories of different lengths and obviously of varied quality. This is a place where my mind, the eternal wanderer will reflect on life in all its glory. It will muse upon stories as varied as the tireless winter is to the glory of the summer sun. It will be my attempt at creating a distinction, in my craft, in my dreams and more importantly, within me.