cogitated thoughts

I’ve always wanted to write. But somehow, I’ve never been able to bring myself to sit down and actually write something. Initially, it was because I thought I couldn’t write. I’ll probably never know the reason but I think it was because writing is something you get addicted to. Maybe I didn’t want to get too involved in something like that; an obsession is definitely not what I need right now.
Yeah, I’m wondering myself why I started writing. But really, there wasn’t anything else to do. Sometimes I wonder if creativity scares me. There seems to be too much of it everywhere; some of it real, some of it a complete farce. Maybe I’m afraid that one day I’ll lose the ability to create, completely. I don’t want that to happen. Creating something gives me a pleasure that nothing else does. It is as though I’m creating a territory of my own. Playing the guitar does that to me. The feeling is like power, like momentary bliss; well, whatever it is it gives me partial peace. The reason I call it partial is because I know that the feeling won’t last long. I might as well enjoy it while it does but I know for sure that I’ll move on one day. I guess that is when you lose your innocence; when you start ‘knowing’ things , when you realize things before they happen, when you tend to think about the future more than you think about the present. I like the way kids keep asking questions, but I’m always hoping that they’ll never get the answers to some of them. Figuring stuff out leads to depression. I’ve seen it happen to others like I’ve seen it happen to myself. I used to spend a lot of time, earlier, thinking about the universe and its origin, about the purpose of my existence and clichéd stuff of the caliber. At some point I was desperate for an answer; and then I realized that if I found out the answer then all I would receive was a few moments of triumph; after that there would be nothing to live for.
I suppose we get on with our lives because there are so many unanswered questions.

It is nice to put things in such an abstract manner. They are just normal things individually but almost bizarre when they are put together. This sort of writing gives the impression of being incomplete but then that is what I like about it. I read a book called ‘Mirrorwork’ a while back. It was a collection of short stories by Indian writers and all the time when I was reading it, I kept thinking that the writer, just sat one day and started writing about some vague incident in his life; no beginning, no end but he just kept writing. Books like that are more realistic because they are so much like life. That is why I can’t comprehend how people write huge novels; the same story, the same characters, the same plot all through the book. Irrespective of my cribbing, I still read a lot, it is good entertainment and in bits and pieces a book always makes me think but when I finish a novel with a decent ending I get a content feeling , when I finish reading a book like Mirrorwork I feel….nothing. I just pick it up, any point of time, read a little and then get on with my life like I’d stopped for a drink while I was running a race.

I wrote this a while back:


REFLECTIONS


A crack in the clouds,
A streak of light
I open my eyes,
To face the light

A silence surrounds me,
I take the beauty in.
The sun sets,
The moment is broken.

There was repose,
Now it is gone
I long for freedom,
All I feel is void.

I feel so weary,
I wish I could put things right.
Confused about direction,
I feel devoid of thought.

Here I am,
The world passes me by,
Desperate for refuge,
I feel the strands breaking away.

I feel so weary,
The silence hangs still in the air.
I long for a manifestation,
I feel devoid of hope.

I close my eyes,
Disturbed and preoccupied.
I wait for the light.

I’ve been reading a book by Graham Greene. It is strange how the book is based on a set up that is so outdated and yet, I can somehow relate to it. I suppose all these writers belong to a particular genre. However unique or different a book is from the other, it always follows a pattern. It is as though the writer has a special area in his house, that he goes to every time he writes something.

I’m not like that. I constantly need to reinvent my surroundings or my mind automatically switches off ,but ironically once I choose a spot to say study in ,I get so attached to it that it is almost hard to let go. Like it is hard to let go of a lot of things that you know you don’t require but you are so used to it that it becomes a part of your life. Maybe that is how it was with them as well; the writers I mean.

I wrote the 11th standard final exams recently. Not that it is of great relevance; I mean session ending exams are something that happen every year! But even then at the end of each set of exams I’m filled with something that comes very close to ecstasy. It is as though for that moment you just don’t bother about what life has in store for you. You live for that moment, enjoying the magnitude of your freedom. The feeling is pretty short lived; in my case it lasts for about two hours. But it is a good feeling and you just need things like that once in a while.

I just finished reading ‘the heart of the matter’. Contrary to my views expressed earlier, this book was strange; stranger than usual, I mean. There was nothing wrong with it; it wasn’t abstract, it was just too…complete. It was like going through a movie and seeing ‘the end’ on the screen. Only this time the ending was too definite. You had no choice but to accept it, there was no other way of going about it. The protagonist was a guy named Scobie. He was pretty morose and depressed and everything. He seemed to be devoid of any comfort. It was one of those books without the standard clichés. I don’t, as an unwritten rule like books which have too much religion in them but this time I guess it didn’t matter. I would’ve written about the whole story but it seems unfair; I don’t know to what though.

After I finish a good book, I can’t do much. Starting another one is definitely out of question. So, usually I go for a walk or just sit about doing nothing; and all the time I keep thinking about the book. Actually, I think about the characters more. You can’t think of a story for too long; reality comes in too fast.
At the end of the book, Scobie dies and all through the book, I thought that death would bring him peace… but it didn’t seem to. That’s why I called the book’ too complete’ because I wished he had had it, peace I mean. I’ve always hoped that death is something that should be ‘the ultimate thing’; no strings attached, no hitches, no nothing…just a definite end…like the book.

There have been so many instances in my life when I, like most of the other people my age, question the point of my survival…maybe because the situation I was placed in seemed like an impasse. But then the hope never dies out completely. Anyway what matters is that I manage to get through stuff somehow.

I’m in this place called gymkhana club, Wellington in Ooty right now. Wellington is one of those places which could be mysterious but didn’t quite get there. You don’t need to figure stuff out, you understand. Gymkhana club is definitely out of this world. It is this perfect defense set up, complete with its weekly parties and fancy meals. I don’t generally like overdone things but here you don’t care, everything fits in too perfectly!
The last three days have been amazing. I’ve been going for walks around the golf course, surrounding our cottage, and have also watched golf, polo and tennis being played. I used to live in Wellington when I was about nine years old so of course the whole place is masked by nostalgia. Its funny actually, I mean I never sat and thought too much about the place earlier but when I visited it again…it brought back too many memories. It has been the best posting my dad has ever had.

In the mornings, everything is tinted with this freshness. I mean you don’t wake up to the sound of an alarm clock; you wake up to the sound of birds chirping. I can’t really put the beauty of the whole thing in words…it would be doing too much injustice to it.
That’s the thing about beauty. Sometimes it just rushes at you with so much force that you don’t even have time for thought. You just let it fill you up and suddenly there is no room for anything else. Its like this silence that surrounds you, everything else goes away and all you feel is the emotion. Sometimes I almost cry. So in a way I’m glad that beauty doesn’t come my way too often, at least in large quantities; otherwise if I really tried hard enough, there would always be something beautiful in everything.

It is funny how sometimes I’m just waiting for an opportunity to give up; to just leave things and run away, with no direction, no logic but to just keep running away, and then I watch the sun set and the beauty almost kills me. I feel so small when I look at the sky, magnificent in its attire and my problems just creep away, ashamed of their insignificance. That is when I realize that the earth isn’t that bad a place to live in. Nature doesn’t give me happiness, but it gives me courage and that is sufficient. I wake up in the morning sometimes, see the sunlight seeping in through the spaces between the curtains of my room’s windows and just know for certain that my day is going to be fine.

There are too many emotions involved with living on this freaky planet. Sometimes it is just too much to take, I feel like I’m having a goddamn heart attack half the time. The worst thing ever has to be the feeling of being in love. It is especially crazy if you are in love with a good friend or something; because then almost all the time he’ll be doing or saying stuff that just about kills me and then I’ve to scream it out.

QUERIES

An echo in the night,
I hear my own voice.
A reflection in the mirror,
Questions in my mind,
A silence haunts me,
My eyes have lost their light,
I need comfort,
I knock at the door.

Empty glances, hollow stares,
Greet me all the time.
I close my eyes to the pain.
I’m falling,
He walks away

I look in the mirror,
Images of the past,
He sees them too.
I guess it was happiness,
He looks away.

Am I on the cross roads,
Like everyone else?
But for once I know which way to take.
The pain is blinding,
I long for hope
The mirror is shattered,
I wander on.

I see the horizon,
A glimmer of hope,
I hold out my hand to him.
I close my eyes and feel the breeze
I’m falling,
He walks away.

People, books, music… a lot of stuff kills me too often. I guess it is normal, once in a while but it is crazy if it happens too often. Like yesterday I went for this dinner ‘party’ someplace. Definitely defense set up…by which I mean that you’ve to apply all the forms of etiquette that you know of. There aren’t usually any kids around my age and anyway even if there were I’m not the kind who has too much luck with people. I’ll probably get a bunch of phonies, you’ve to discuss the damned Indian economy with. Anyway, getting back to the point. There was a bunch of girls, fresh teenagers and everything. I mean I bet they struck days off the calendar waiting for their 13th birthday or something. They kept talking about Hindi soaps and stuff. There was a guy, a year younger than me who was really funny and kept cracking everyone up. And of course there were about a gazillion kids. Kids freak me out sometimes. I mean they are like the rats in ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’!

So, all the time I was just reading this book called ‘the catcher in the rye’- J.D Salinger. People who know me well enough will tell you that I’ve read the book roughly about eight times. It is an AMAZING book. The narrator is a guy called Holden. He has this really cool lingo and everything. I couldn’t get over this book, still can’t as a matter of fact. It depresses the shit out of me almost every time I read it but then I read it completely as a book only twice; the other times I just open a page and start reading. There are too many things in it that just about killed me. This guy, Holden, he keeps talking about really normal stuff that every human is bound to go through, but it is just the way he puts it that you start looking at stuff with a different perception.

Most books are the kind where you know that it is a book. The writer probably thought the whole thing out for ages and had it all planned when he started writing and I’m pretty much sure that he kept reading the stuff he’d written from time to time, just to see if it looked alright and everything! I would be pretty pissed if I’d to write for the public or something. That is why catcher came as a pleasant surprise, because all the time you get the impression that Salinger wrote because he just felt like it or something, not for money or fame or whatever; just normal stuff in the blandest language ever, no flowery stuff involved. I love stuff like that. Stuff like that makes life worthwhile for me most of the times
p.s: nah!ofcourse i didnt do all this in a day! just put it together today.pretty jobless or what?!:D ¶ 10:54 PM