Going Back in Haphazard Lines

This exercise called 'The Self as Memory, or vice versa' by Joseph O.Legaspi is a free-write exercise which had me squirming in my seat when I first read it. But I went on to do it. By the end of it I realized the best part about free writing is, you don't have to care a damn about if anybody gets it or not. It's liberating, just like Joseph said.


8th September, '09

Thunder sounds like drums in the skies, pitter-patter, pitter-patter on the asbestos roof, the lovely intoxicating smell of rain on earth. I feel one with the earth, the heavens and myself. A rainwater stream flowing, twisting turning, bubbling with all the excitement I feel. Tearing paper from old notebooks, grandpa making me paper boats, to float, to play with, to drown. A rush. A strange happy rush. Hands smelling of wet paper, the lines all merging into one, leaving odours of life on my palms. Running in the streets barefooted, sometimes with rubber chappals, losing one along the way, breaking away from jail, a room with a lone streak of light, floating into my heart. Boats being pushed, pulled, stopped, repaired, discarded for better; Just like human beings themselves. All the lines fall one over another, jumble, twisting like worms which've suddenly found life. Flowing in the water to make beautiful patterns, a whole new water-world. Freedom on a wet rainy afternoon.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Awaken myself. Struggle, kick, bite claw into my own skin. It's part of my skin. Or so I keep telling myself. Why hold pain so tenderly in my palms? Sleep some more. Deeper, deeper. Walking through brush, and bramble. A dark, hot forest. Not cool like the ones I've visited when I'm awake. Stifling. Let go of me. Bag of salt on my back. Cool moonlight, wet green grass. A fine night for dying this is. And I died. Sparkling branches of some unknown trees, whispering nothingness. A light visible from far away, brighter by the minute. Fog descends upon us, me and the nothingness. A creature of light bounding towards me, full of light, smiling, toothless smile, through the fog. Am I in a Lord of the Rings sequel? Puts it's horn on my throat, and I laugh a guttural, mirthful laugh. A strange feeling of satisfaction. Floating above the world on the creature's horn. Being tickled by its beautiful, frisky tail. It smiles its smile again and pushes a little harder. A horn in my windpipe. A smile on my lips. A lightness in my heart. It is a fine night for dying, again.

Conservation Dilemas

31st July, '09

I joined a virtual cause called 'Conservation International' today. I joined it, no doubt, except I don't see how I can help except by joining, and probably donating some money. An indirect manner of conservation...?

I have always, as far back as I can remember been really into the whole conservation thing. I have very meticulously all my life remembered to bring back chocolate or other plastic wrappers back home to throw in the dustbin. I have always remembered to close the tap while brushing, and switch off the lights and fans in a room when I am leaving it. I have also, as far as possible tried to buy veggies from the local vegetable vendor rather than from the fancy 'Reliance' and 'Food World', even if it meant lesser variety for higher prices. But what more can I do?

Why has it always been so hard to organise a tree-planting community project, or to try and get the people from my neighbourhood to clean up the lake nearby, that is beginning to look more and more like a sewer each day? Leave alone getting people to stop bursting crackers on Diwali, the day after Diwali, I can't even take the initiative to get the kids from the block to clean up the paper from the streets. Instead we all wait for the MCH workers to come and clean up our useless mess.

It's difficult to explain to an average Indian, the importance of being environmentally conscientious. The concept is still alien to the housewife next door or the man sitting at the Kirana Shop opposite my house. To bring it up amongst these people means inviting ridicule, questioning and unwanted attention. Or at least, that is the fear. But it is a very necessary step needed to be taken as early as possible. It is the urban, ignorant, average middle-class Indian who is causing most of this mess. He needs to know about the consequences of his everyday actions. And he constitutes the majority of India's population.

Even if I can transform one such person in my life into an everyday practising conservationalist, I would've done my bit for conservation. The seed would have been planted, or rather dispersed into the wind, to fly in different directions and transform the world.

The Beginning and the End

5th July, '09

A birth and a death; two homes visited, two sides of life seen. One gurgling with the joy of things to be, and the other fraught with the pain and tenderness that comes with witnessing a life reduced to just loving memories. Today I was an onlooker to two parts of life where a person receives just unconditional love; A newborn oblivious to all the joy it has brought into a household along with its teeny fragile frame, and a deceased who is equally oblivious to all the praise and love that he may have never received during his lifetime.The farewell was just as tender as the welcome was.

But what of the senile beggar I saw being dragged to the footpath from the middle of the road, after having been hit my a motorcyclist? There was no one to fawn over his bleeding head, or even lay a gentle hand on his failing heart. All he found at the end of his journey were a few rough hands dragging him to where he would not be an encumbrance to the rest of the world.

The Working Class Life

4th May, '09

I sit on my couch, pulled outside my front door, with the world illuminated by nothing but moonlight, since there has been no electricity at my place for 8 days now.

In a country where generators are the major source of electricity, a failed generator can shove one's normal, routine life into darkness. Since light is the greatest gift of electricity to mankind, routines need to be rearranged to suit the availability of natural light. Meals, preferably are cooked during the daytime, showers are taken earlier in the day, so one can utilize the cool water before the sun is overhead to make it warm, even one's day begins earlier since sleeping in the heat is not much fun. Appliances dependent on electricity for their functioning like the television, refrigerator, laptop, mobile phones and the microwave become non-existent. Instead, neighbours walk over to each other's houses to convey messages, and impromptu gatherings become the pastime of the day. Clothes are hand-washed and sun-dried giving them a strange freshness, and food is always freshly cooked for storage is impossible. The evenings are filled with the sound of chatter and community dinners in candle light. Finally the day ends with rubbing oneself with insect-repellent and sleeping under the stars, gazing at a world bathed in moonlight.

Of course, this kind of a lifestyle has its disadvantages. For one, warm beer can taste awful. Also, it's not much fun writing when all you can see is the battery of your laptop blinking at you threatening to go off at any moment. But neither of these problems are exactly daunting. There are alternatives for both. But there are other problems that a situation like this brings which have no alternatives except finding a place that has electricity, like charging one's laptop and phone from time to time for use and of course the availability of internet.

Yet, these 8 days have been quite an experience, one that I had never imagined coming my way, to my doorstep. It has shown me a side of life whose glimpses I have seen many a time, in road-side dwellings and ghettos, even in the movies, but one that I maybe would've never known for myself otherwise.

The Rain Story

18th April, '09

I danced in the pouring rain tonight.

I remember running in the rain, with friends and green grass and grey skies. Three girls, celebrating their youth; We ran in circles, or large figures of eight, the exuberance of the rain doubled by the joy of being together. It was a freedom never felt before. A kinship I had never had. A moment shared by kindred souls.

I remember walking in the rain, bicycles half-drowned in the water-filled streets. Walking was not a choice anymore. School was just over and we had to get home through the flowing water. We strutted through the mud-filled streets, not half as embarrassed as we should have been, to be pushing our bicycles through water that came till our knees, in the pouring rain. Muck and filth were of no consequence, whatsoever. We were enjoying our little self-chosen adventure. It was only when we got home that we realised that we had collected a lot of our city's garbage in our soaking wet socks.

I remember chasing in the rain; Paper boats that my grandpa ungrudgingly made for me, being raced down the streets of my childhood, on our own little rivulets. Me and my friends, with only one goal in mind- keeping our boats afloat was more important than anything else to us. So we ran after them, with chappals and mud-splashed clothes, yelling, pushing, as fast as our little legs would carry us, part of the element in every sense. It was the age when one ran as fast as the boys one knew and fought just as hard. The freedom of one's childhood will rarely come again.

I remember musing in the rain. As I sat at my grandpa's old iron barred window, taking in the rhythm of the rain, the words came to me, as fast as the drops; A feeling, a surge in the lone dark room, filled my mind and I had to let it out on paper. And before the rain had stopped, I had written my first poem-

The rain the beautiful rain,
comes inside from the window pane,
it's only water wet and plain,
the rain, the beautiful rain.

A moment of such beauty, irreplaceable by any other, I had attained just then. I didn't know it then. But I know it now. And I will know it each time I am in the rain.

I danced in the pouring rain tonight.

Coming Alive

5th April, '09

I wake up suddenly, to the sound of the whistling wind outside my window. It is skimming through the trees, like spirits dancing on a full-moon night. I can hear the trees sighing, thankful for the respite from the summer's heat. I can see my backyard in my mind's eye, bathed in moonlight, leaves rustling, a piece of paper flying in circles, yesterday's clothes on the washing line, suddenly come alive. I tingle as I lie on my bed. I want to run out and embrace the wind, I want to be part of its madness. Suddenly, life feels lighter. All the dullness has been washed out of it. I feel one with the universe, I feel a warmth inside of me. Suddenly, I feel alive.

Saplings of Life

4th April, '09

I planted a few seeds in my new kitchen garden. Actually it's hardly a garden, just a little plastic box filled with mud, sitting next to the window so it can catch a few rays of sunlight. Yet when I woke up this morning and saw some tiny green saplings peeping out of the mud, I was overjoyed. I know now that they will grow into little plants that will help nourish my body and mind, a repayment much greater than the few drops of water I sprinkle them with each day. They give with no thought about whether I deserve their yield, whether I have worked for it. And I have not. I am just playing my tiny part in this whole cycle of life, I am the planter of seeds, nothing more, akin to the birds, the animals, that do it every day.

I will probably never have what they have, these saplings, but I hope to some day; this ability to give,without the expectation of anything in return, without once measuring whether the receiver deserves as much. Also, I hope to someday have their clarity of purpose, so imbibed into their existence that it demands no
thought, something that pervades their very being, they live to pass on their energy, either to another being, or just back into earth, from where they came.