cogitated thoughts

It’s fascinating to see my pen making contact with the sheet of paper that I’m writing on. I write slowly, tentatively. The curvature of each letter and the slight untidiness due to lack of practice make me want to keep looking at the way my hand moves. The ballpoint pen’s blue ink that manifests itself in different shades depending on the amount of force that I apply at the tip of my pen makes my handwriting unique. There are curious stares from the people I’m in the car with. I never write, let alone write in the presence of my family in a car. But, I’ve been so wrapped up in a little blanket with small, intricate patterns that they think I’m building a fort around myself. No one possesses the courage to say it but there is realization written in everyone’s eyes. The realization that these are training grounds for life after college starts. We are too used to doing things together. I try to pay attention, to be interested in the little things. The anecdotes that seem meaningless and the stereotypical questions about what’s going on in each of our lives; things that are essentially embedded in car- drive conversations. These are the conversations that are being sketched on an easel placed in my head. I’ll probably never remember them, as they are at this instant. When I try and look back, it won’t be a sketch any more. It’ll be a painting. It might even turn out to me a masterpiece. A contemplated memory that’ll provide me with light at the end of any dark tunnel that I might have to travel in. I try. But then, I haven’t had this desperate an urge to write for so long that I decide to block myself out from the voices around me. And they let it be. Tacit understandings within families don’t happen too often and so, it’s a very gratifying feeling when they do.

The idea of having to make my own decisions is a little scary. I haven’t really allowed myself to feel the impact of the idea, yet. There are so many things to come to terms with that some times- no, most of the times I convince myself that it isn’t really worth the effort. You clean out your closet with painstaking determination and the skeletons just keep coming back. But, I would rather start at some point and make sure that I’m more careful the next time, even if it involves visiting occasional states of gloom. The aftermath of getting unexpectedly bad results is like having an over extended period of Monday morning blues. It’s slightly irritating to be so fickle minded about what I should be doing with my life for the next four or five years. Some times I think that it doesn’t really matter, all I need is a little initial interest to build upon. But these times are rare.

Time crawls past you slowly. On one hand you wish it would take in some Glucose and speed itself up while on the other you stand by and just watch. Who knows when you’ll get the chance to watch time again? If I want, I can divide twenty-four hours into different sections. I could allot one for Southpark, one for Kafka, one for Sylvie and Bruno, one for foolishly played bad tennis, one for other people and maybe one for myself; but this sort of thing poses so many dangers of turning into routine that I don’t watch time at all. I close my eyes and play music in my head. I suppose the future’s too enigmatic to think about. It’s a tad too challenging and so, I think about the past.

Last week, when I went to collect some documents from my school, the place was already performing the rehearsal of a play called nostalgia. It of course, still needed a lot of brushing up and finishing touches. I don’t really feel like paying a tribute to it right now. I’ll just tell you about the huge banyan tree that stands about hundred meters from my school gate.

I breathe in the air around it. It is the same air that I’ve breathed in the moment I enter my school, for the last four years. Like always, it reminds me of an ancient age. It has the ability to make me believe anything. Old things seem to have this strange attribute of making you forget that they were like all of us, once young. It views the world as a silent observer. It looks at it as though it could go on that way forever. Always being a part of the coherence and yet slightly alienated from the current. Every sway of its leaves, every movement in harmony with the blowing breeze speaks to me of its wisdom, of all that it has seen. I think about it and the noise in my head is silenced. Yes, that is exactly how I remember the banyan tree, at peace with the world and more importantly at peace with itself.

I feel a sudden jolt, look up and see that we’ve reached Kabini. I wouldn’t call the place untouched by civilization but they try hard to give you that impression. And if you have to pay them two thousand bucks per head for one day, who wouldn’t? We stay here for a day. They give us a programme that says Check- in- time 12 p.m, June 13th, Chuck-out time-11 a.m June 14th. It costs my parents a lot of dough. They make it a point not to mention the tariff rates. They tell us once so as to make the impact of the place more powerful. My family doesn’t believe in planning and fitting in schedules, moods and happiness into one frame. It decides to do something and goes ahead and does it. I’ve doubted the validity of the entire statement for a while. But right now, I’m just happy to be here; after a beautiful car drive, after a refreshing day in Bandipur, with the people that I love.

We dump our luggage in our cottages and rush to take a look at the place. I discover a comfortable rock by the riverside and sit down. I listen to the river for a long time. And then, I open the book in my hand, Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (here, you have a perfect justification of the phrase, ‘what’s in a name?’) and start reading. I have never done book reviews on this blog and I don’t intend to do one now.
But the book meant a lot to me. It was a gift from my Dada and it was too precious to leave behind. Anyway, I’ve a strong attraction to good- looking books. This one’s hardbound and black in color

A day’s gone by already and I sort of got tired of my journal style of writing. I get tired of things too easily. But the interest’s revived back at the same rate as its disappearance.
I’m looking outside the car-window. Shifting my eyes laterally from frame to frame of scenery. Each frame’s different from the next or the one before it but is a part of that stretch of the road, a part like the tree of coherence. I look at the four people that I’m the car with. The music’s been turned off at my request. I want to remain silent and they let it be. Tacit understandings within families don’t happen too often and so, it’s a very gratifying feeling when they do. I think about the last year and the diverse people that I had a chance to interact with. I think about how I’ve been influenced in a varied range of things, about the books that I’ve read, the music that I’ve listened to and the movies that I’ve watched. I think of this year and think about the major events that occurred in the last six months. I think about the number of photo albums that have been stacking up in a tiny cupboard in my head. I think about victory, happiness, flight, disappointment, sadness, denial, complexes, confusion and failure. And then I think about love, friendship, passions, blue skies, green trees, grey smokes, terrace tops, energy and hope. I think about how conveniently our brain can be partitioned into segments and yet function as whole, a part, if I may be allowed to say so, of the coherence. I think about this blog and realize with a slightly sinking feeling that I don’t possess the drive to update it anymore. I may of course come Bach. But right now, there is too much to catch up on, too much love to offer and to receive, to many things to set right.

For the first time in the last so many months, I feel like things are beginning to fall into place. I look at the road ahead through the gap between my dad’s seat and the car’s door and feel a finger nudging my shoulder a little roughly. I turn to my left and hear my brother asking me why I’m smiling like a half-witted ape.