Stay Sharp

If life has taught me anything in the past 14 months, it can be summed thus. Stay sharp.

Its been a while since I sat down to write something personal. Laziness, procrastination, writer’s block – I can blame it on a lot of things. And yet. How will that help or change anything? I did what felt right.

When I felt I had ran out of words, I didn’t write. When I realized I had nothing worth writing about, I didn’t write. Sometime I was out of the self recognition that is writing. Sometimes I felt the need to not have an opinion, any opinion. Maybe it was too much trouble. I don’t remember.

What I do remember is that words evaded me. Like my slate was blanked out. Unfortunately I was the criminal as much as I was the victim. Straightjacket has amazing ways of engulfing you within it.

But even Straightjackets wear off with time. The fabric stretches, tearing itself apart from yourself, building stress on the very binds that tighten it. The only war is then within yourself. When you  yourself, it is a game of patience and building resilience. You are your biggest enemy. And who then is the victor?

Words need to pour out of me for as long as I remember. Unspent, unspoken words begin barricading against your own mind, building dams that just get bigger and seemingly unconquerable with the passage of time.

Initially I tried fighting back. I would spew a few words here and there, mainly for others. I thought money would be a good motivation. I could not be farther from the truth. I tired myself with no results to show. Where was the passion in it anymore? After a while I stopped completely. Quite akin to someone lost in the desert. I was completely surrounded yet I was lonely and alone, miles of nothingness stretching around me. As with human dehydration, I felt depraved. It’s been months since I have had real conversations. I was parched. I just lay down, waiting to die. And death evaded me too.

And just like a straightjacket, desert too wanes away. The night brings to life what the day takes away. It is hope. At least it looked like that one night when the moon his behind clouds allowing the twinkling stars to glitter away.

I had drifted through months of being the only conversation in my head. The only one I cared about anyway. I was hiding behind a wall. My errors had now become my excuse. The slurry of words in my head, swirled over, sinking me deeper, creating mountains that got higher till I could not remember the light. It had been too long. The silence was comforting. Acceptance had begun to take roots.

Right about this time in a narrative, one expects a tall, dark, handsome, cape wearing, horse riding  superhero to show up and rescue the damsel in distress. I wish it was for it would have made it easier somehow. That is never the case with me.

Back to the straightjacket then. Time and duress had laid the threads bare. But even then these are not the fights of the meek. And I felt blunt. And while being blunt has its uses, I knew it is not what I needed. For when the victim and criminal both tire out together, the resulting limbo, stretches like infinity. It can then depend on who makes the first move or who hopelessly surrenders, especially when both are entwined within the same body. Where does anyone go from here?

Just about the moment when darkness began to engulf everything around itself within it, a tiny twinkling ball of gas, light years away from myself lit up something within my soul. I am not yet sure what it is. But this piece of writing that you read right now is the direct result of it.

The glimmer of hope it gave me gave me just enough impetus to tug hard at my self constraining straightjacket. I feel free now. Like being able to breathe after holding your breathe under water for a long long time. Parts of me are still held back but I believe I not only can I break free from the very fabric that holds me, I can mould it to shelter myself when the time comes. I would rather use it than get caught in it again. Even when I do, I would rather be prepared with the sharpness of my mind to break free with ease. The kind of sharpness that comes from learning and growing and conversations. The kind of conversations that not only move your heart but exercise your mind. I want to, need to, have to stay sharp.

And so do you!
Welcome Back!!

The Written Word

I have been addicted to the written word as far back as I can remember!

Books, magazines, words that create a thousand new worlds - never fail to amaze me. I still read and wallow into new worlds which always adapt me as a welcome listener as the stories weave themselves around me and together we reach the high points of castles in the air. Oh, the exhilaration!

I take the local train to get to work everyday. When I am not reading I like to simply watching the milling masses of people all around me and oblivious to me! People all around me. Ladies of all ages, earphones plugged in, listening to music - few enjoy those rhythms. Some talk to their train buddies or travel companions. Some bargaining and buying cheap stuff off ware sellers. Some just looking away everywhere and no where in particular - their eyes seeking answers hidden to the crevices of human brain constantly holding back a smile or maybe fighting the salty water from seeping that regularly collects at the edges of their eyes.

And some read.

Reading here is not exactly inclusive of the last minute preparation or repetition test or exam. It is not even inclusive of those reading technical books or school/college text books or reference books. I speak of those who read for pleasure. Those who read because a book calls out to them. They just need to know. The need to know what happens in the next chapter, next page, next line. Those who cannot put the book down.

I have noticed people and their expressions when they read - totally engrossed in the storyteller's art. The feelings cannot hide. The hero of the story never hides. You got a duty to fulfill, another life in the wings that awaits you. A life that is not so ordinary or maybe more ordinary. Common solutions to uncommon experiences and vice verse.

Here is my question: When you read, when you are the hero or the bystander in the story - how does the story change or affect you? Does it make you any braver, less hypocritical, more open to ideas, more close to relationships? Does the book really leave you when you move from one book to another. When does a book really affect you - touch your heart? Even when it does touch your heart - what does it really do to you?

I like to think books affect us all differently. We are different and unique. What we see, seek and go through in our lives are all same and yet unique. When on a beach - we all have different feelings - some feel warmth, some love, some eternity, some hope - the idea is that it does not leave you unaffected. You cannot be indifferent to the sea/ocean. Similarly for books. You can love them or hate them - you cannot read them and pretend it didn't happen. The effect it has on you will differ from person to person based on personal learning  affects, effects, experiences, sympathy, empathy, nature, behavior and so on.

So when two different people going through two different types of life expectation and experiences are reading the same lines from the same book would it be weaving similar stories? Would the warmth from those knits and knots feel the same? Would it pinch in the same places?

When authors write books is it more important to tell the story? Or do they even need to think the story will create different weaves and interpretations that even they might not have thought of?

What do you think?