Tuesday, September 12, 2006

close yet far

the more you do try the less shall be done. so what do i do? stop trying? not do? wait for the bolt of lightening, the manna from heaven, the gold platter to descend and bless me? it hasn't happened in the past, why should it happen now? when i wanted the job, house, friends, woman, i went and gave first, i took the initiative, i led from the front and then through good and evil, things moved, sometimes for the worse, sometimes otherwise, but things did move.

this time i hear voices, which mean well, asking, advising, extolling, requesting, ordering me to wait and watch. to see the roll of the dice, the flow of the river, to not go too fast, to not jump in.

why should i listen to them? coz i find my own voice not powerful enough? coz i am tired of being spontaneous and then being cut down? coz i am vary of walking down the garden path and turning around to find no one with me?

but then there is no one who can say for sure: me or the voices. this story has never been lived ever before. how will anyone know its outcome? this time has not happened, these people have never met, these emotions have never been felt.

the unfortunate part lies not in the being belted down, it lies in the subconscious fear of over stepping, of showing or saying or doing something that will be misconstrued as something else. the sadness is about meaning more and saying less. not interacting the way you would like to, but the way you should. true we all wear masks, so what is the great crime to humanity if i wear yet another. but then what if i don't want to wear a mask? what if i want to let go? what if i just want to lie back, stare at the ceiling and let my mind and my words come out without thinking them through? what if i challenge the fact that we are in the business of creating perceptions? what if i want to let go of the veils and be recognized for myself? what if i refute the fact that a projection would be closer to sanity than reality itself? what then?

posted by goldfluke @ 6:33 PM 14 comments

Friday, September 08, 2006


The first time he saw the image was in an airplane. He had got up to stretch while the plane refueled at an unscheduled stop and it popped up in his head. He had never thought of something like that ever. It was too layered, too complicated too dimensional for a thinker of his caliber, yet he fell into an effortless ease with it. It was actually like he had known the image before but never thought of it. It was different from any image he had conjured up: there was no pretense, no hang-ups, no ego clashes in it: fluid, smooth, pure silk. He didn’t think twice, there was no sense of distance or hesitancy he just embraced the image with his life. Conversation, the confidences, the dreams, hopes and fears flowed uninterrupted. Time and more time spent in its thought resulted in his life getting intertwined with it. Like creepers his thoughts and decisions were seen through the filter of the image. Starting from which movie to watch over the weekend to which project interview was worth preparing for to which friend was morally correct but still didn’t have any brains, everything was a subject of how the picture would interpret it. Life couldn’t be better. All he had been asking for in a companion was answered.

And then one fine morning, he walked into a meeting and saw this other image. He’s brows furrowed, there was something in the picture he liked and some stuff he couldn’t relate very well to. Perfectly proportioned in spirit and form with money and convenience built in. It represented the lift up the material hill he was struggling to climb, the padded shoes which would save him from the everyday thorns. The new image would give him trophy value; it would give him credibility, value in the eyes of the establishment, recognition. Not just another plane, we are discussing an escalator to another world. The emotional satisfaction of this image was low. That is what bothered him. Simply put, the image was built more in synch with what the world wanted to see vs what he wanted to see.

He didn’t know what to do. The choice was killing him: day in and day out he lived, totally numbed out, going through the motions, living life in second person, disembodied, like he was on cctv, himself watching himself. Not believing that he could be apart from the first image, not wanting to believe that he would miss it. Knowing but not acknowledging that life would go on. It was true that the lure of the second image was overpowering, but what of him and the first image? What of their perfect-ness? Will the new image’s flamboyance ever compensate? If he did let go of the first image, would he ever be able to return to it? Would image two and him ever meet in the same way? U cant hold onto images, sab anitya hai he would keep telling himself.

What would you do?

posted by goldfluke @ 6:44 PM 10 comments

Friday, September 01, 2006

meandering in a jet plane


life is too cluttered. i hate remembering you. i miss focus. simplicity scares me. forgetting is a curse. i wish our eyes could meet. i wish i were somewhere else. i feel fat in the mind and in the body. i hate dependence and yet seek it. i don’t have anything to wake up to. replying is a pain. helping you doesn’t help me. i say yes and mean no. i talk too much. i see you in other people. i just want a conversation. i want to stop thinking. i hurt myself to feel pain. the price of companionship is too high. do you still think of me? i want isolation. i can’t shake off my own sadness. real looks ugly. i refuse to accept my hunger. i want to drop my defenses. i want you to see me with my eyes. i want to laugh. the best choice to go with is the luck of the draw. i think i never wanted you. i feel envious of people with superior intellect. my eyes give me away. i fear that there is no piece of sky left for me. is trying over- hyped?

posted by goldfluke @ 5:27 PM 12 comments