Prologue
(Yes that’s the title of this story)
An interesting word; depicts the intricacies of the future and the past and how do they affect the present. Very strange. Do actually people move beyond this? I doubt; most of them (all age groups) hardly come to terms with this very fact of life. They fight and then let it go to move beyond.
For most of us it remains a prologue till the very end; yet defining us; refining our identity with every word that is written to describe it.
“Five years hence you will be successful; this world would surrender at your own sweet will. Your acceptance of yourself would be replicated in other’s eyes, with the jaws of conditionality broken”.
I didn’t know how to react to this statement of the fortuneteller;
with umpteen elements of agony of the distressing past haunting me every morning, the abysmal chasm of the present accosting me with that ever so sarcastic smile and the ruthless mysteries of the future strangulating every thought of a peaceful sleep that used to strike my eyes at night, my realm of thought had completely outcasted the action mechanism;
Now, I only used to react.
It was twentieth rejection of the year, hundredth of the career and x minus hundred were yet to cast their shadows; but at no point in time did I feet the linearity in the progression. With each and every sneer, the complexity of this function kept on increasing exponentially and now this multitudinous and multidimensional expression was becoming increasingly difficult to multiply; any act of doing the same used to be marred by continuous acts of retrospection. Everything I possessed, from my hat to the stinking underwear were an integral component of this equation. A single variable to the left wouldn’t have been able to withstand the blitzkrieg which used to bring along widespread destruction and commotion; (Not outside, but within). The buttons on the shirt and the zip of the pant had already surrendered. Several times they had made violent attempts to disown their existence but this recalcitrant pig would not relent (my self retaliates!!)
How else would you define a well structured definitions ‘which’ refuses every bit of reasoning that anyone used to offer to ‘it’ as justification. Yes! ‘it’ and ‘which’ would be appropriate, rather than ‘who’ and ‘him’ as these relate to living concepts, not in my domain as of now. What was more ironical was that everyone else but him had begun to accept ‘that’ definition.
What else should I have done? That enormous chasm within this skeleton was conspicuous to everyone but me. I, by now, had learnt to live with it, with all the strengths and weaknesses, with all the peculiarities and commonalities. Sometimes it used to make me feel restless and at times the restlessness used to compel me to accept of an unworthy existence which someone in my name was living.
Stop! Did I mention unworthy? If yes then you (yes you, you who are everywhere) are the one to blame for it, for never in these 10 years did I ever think of being unworthy.
I don’t know what criteria do people use to term time as worthy or unworthy; but to me they were the most consequential years. I had learnt to live with dignity; no longer did false pretensions use to seduce me. Now, I make the first move (always) and the intensity is so fierce that it takes hours to put me off. Of course! It makes me feel out of the world, an ineffable feeling altogether! Such is the ferocity in my actions that mind shuns away for the next few hours from heart. The urge to repeat the events is so high that intoxications of highest order come to my rescue. I never fight back; it's something which gives me a sense of life. The warmth is so simmering that I take off all my reservations.
Standing upright, submerged in naked thoughts, I view myself in the mirror, trying to search for nothingness; and nothingness it is in the most abstracted forms, revealing nothing.
In the morning, during my trip to the office, I used to preen my dreams in green lit leaves draped in sun’s fluorescence; that sheen of sparkling radiance on them used to completely stupefy me. Benumbed, repeatedly I used to say to myself…
“if you can acknowledge it, its literature;
if you can appreciate it, its poetry;
if you can absorb it, its ecstasy; n
if you can imbibe it, its eternity n infinity!”
I used to feel happy; very happy indeed; was transcending from second to third stage.
The lake ensues, reflecting clouds’ madness in the ripples, which constantly disturb the symphony of continuity, but somehow they never disturb the serenity of reflections.
I used to find myself right there, besides the clouds, in the tiny droplets of molten dreams which possessed the same sense of senselessness as the one in naaz’s smile; alone yet indulging.
Unaware, of the ruthlessness prevailing in the claustrophobic sentience which I often mistakenly interpreted as ‘close associations’, I used to desperately long for those moments; but I wasn’t willing to accpet them as it would have diluted that writhing sensation that gave me such platonic pleasure. Masochist is what people call me. Stupid! Aren’t they? You need to feel it to be judgmental. My eyes light up thinking of those moments.
Was there anything missing in my life? Introspecting numerous times I feel there was a huge void within. What could I have filled it with? Not with those associations! Certainly not!
I still remember that scrabble on my notebook that I use to stare at, everyday, almost at the same time…
The seeds of agony now germinating in full swing; its spring time, they say; so get ready for atrocious winters. With every passing day, this void keeps on increasing and any attempt to resist or explain my self of this development results in another spiteful dialect which only my heart can decipher. The smile on the face aggravates this experience so melodiously that one can’t help enjoying this symphony. It’s so peaceful; but then one is termed as a masochist. Whose fault is it? Mine? If yes then can someone explain me how?
Yes! This is how it exactly was.
Every time, it ended in a smile (contradictory though) with salty drops of transparent tears flushing some painful memories. (What often used to come to my rescue was this transparence). At times I think where all these memories get stored. Where the hell is that garbage collector which I can smash or at least refresh?
Ha ha. (I am crying! You fool.) This was only a thought. I never wanted that; for
with lot of pains and sorrows used to accompany some joys that were far too influential in deriding my sorrows.
I still can’t forget those closed eyes that revealed all what was required to define my world. That soothing orange, fine blend of sun’s orange, leaves’ green and sky’s blue. How desperately I wanted that repose, that tranquility, that stillness within me. Everything used blow off to the unconscious to the very extremes of a closed loop, the starting and ending points exquisitely entwined; regurgitating in my blandish formulations, though trying to keep alive but being denied any and every opportunity from nowhere.
Suddenly the nudity of where, why, how, when used to baffle me and I used to retaliate in ways so unique to myself. It used to be an agonizing synthesis of answers, people used to offer in return for more terrible questions, they themselves used to put forward.
Where was I in the picture? I don’t know, but somehow I always felt being involved in whatever I used to listen, hear or sense.
Then it all used to begin…Speechless, dumb, deaf, blind; aloof in my own world, chatting incessantly with quarantined solitude, smiling at its impudence, fighting atrociously with that sepulchral silence which used to unceasingly ignore me;
and the result: some more pain, some more joy, some more quips and taunts and some more...
Those forced commitments, false pretensions, stale remembrances of ‘present’ used to race away at the speed of light. To the outside, it was a spastic, spitting on this whole world, barking at their hypocritical indifference towards their own formulated silhouettes that appeared to be mere manifestations of hysterical ripostes offered to quench that thirst which used to be concomitant of those dirty conundrums. It used to be so nauseating. From inside it used be very peaceful as if, as if everything is over (at least nearing completion); here, here I used to experience that fourth dimension (else ways it always used to seem as if I am chasing that inevitable defeat that desire to be on the top (of what? Even I don’t know!)).
Well, that is all I could muster in these few years.
As I turn off the lights, let the lashes fall, the incessant conflagration exuviating from broken dreams glitter in the coruscating darkness of time, lighting all my failures and apprehensions;
the accusations are far too heavy to handle…
a failure as a brother,
a failure as a son,
a failure as a friend and most importantly
a failure as an individual;
my report card as always: in the red.
Oh! How much I detest these strange coincidences!
Oh! How much they love me!
For everyone, this nomadic interpretation of human existence is now like a summarization of prehistoric madness encumbered with the atrocious necessities of present; don’t know to what extent it is true; but can’t completely deny this in entirety;
How afraid I am of these stillborn dreams; these stilted manifestations of penumbric carcasses trying to intersperse between feudalistic temptations of capitalistic thoughts and spasmodic yearnings for deliquescence… Does it happen that way?
It's not possible!
It's not possible?
Why don’t you listen? It doesn’t happen that way?
You can not enjoy your guilt!!!
That’s absurd! That’s contradiction of the very assumptions which dignity boasts off! (Ah! that word so much like itself; it gives you that deserving comeuppance which you desperately wish to avoid)
Who cares? Who wants to live with dignity?
But what or who makes me guilty is again not even worth respecting (leave listening to); behind these husky shadows, they are stolid monocraps flabbergasted by every variation which they themselves put forward to move ahead.
Time n again I remember what grandpa used to say: “everyone is right in his or her own way, but child the problem (or the solution) is that there is only one right way as there is only one right destination”. But why did grandpa forgot to tell how to search for that way? Was it that he too ended in the dark? No, no what rubbish.
The reason was, I believe, that Destination as always is ‘The End’.
(a long pause… can not be quantified)
It's already three in the morning. Lets end up here (with where it all started):
I want to keep on fighting, want to keep that hope alive, that one day when I will sleep at night, I would only have the past by my side, no mysteries of future to resolve, absolutely nothing between me and my self, traces of supreme peace all so palpable, a sense of belonging to everything I have been associated with in my life, and lots and lots of respect in my eyes for my-self.
Let's forget the world till then; let's sing n dance n dream n love; They say it takes time and then you would slowly learn how to love to hate this world which hates to love you, for the same reasons for which you love to hate the reasons which this world offers as justifications.
Amen: says naaz. And we go to sleep to once again get lost;
(I can still hear this sound! Who is it?
Is it the dew drops kissing the leaves; or is it (?)
as if, still, something is yet to be said;
as if, still, something is yet to be felt;
Is that you Naaz? Or is it the leaves?
“Shut up! and let me sleep”.
Is that you Naaz or is it this wind?
“Just shut up!!”)
