meanderings

Coming back home. The mechanical turning of the key is not mechanical anymore. It is simply a turning of the key. Why must one invest it with emotion. Or burden with description.

After a point you realize its just not worth it…you’re worn out of the decadence, the drudgery, the damned nuisance that life has become. The point in time where you’ve tired of the solace that memory has to offer. The day when you wake up not wanting nor working towards redemption. Or meaning. Or purpose. 

Breathing. But that’s all. 

You pick up and spread out that old dusting cloth. And start dumping. Stuff it with all the gratitude, the ill will, the telephone numbers, even photographs - of a time you could recognize yourself, and of later ones when you couldn’t, and the semi-tattered book of ‘thought for the day’ that you’ve been fooling yourself with for years now – and then tie it up and keep it outside the gate for the garbage van. Yes, as a last minute thought, run out and shove the word “deserve” into the bundle! 

There’s more back breaking to do. A broken spirit might not have been up for it, but a deadened one doesn’t mind.

The cell phone needs a new number. Or a new owner. Either way.

The bed will go. Mattress on the floor seems just fine. The bare floor – even better. Your sprawling new bed will keep you ‘grounded’ in more ways than one.

There’s the television. The kids at the orphanage would love a 40 inch Plasma TV with surround sound, 200 Hz motion picture speed, deep contrast and USB compatibility (which none of them may be concerned with, but then again who knows!). The fellows should be here to take it away any time now. When you had been there yesterday, the warden had told you of the tremendous amount of good grace you had earned for yourself. That’s one more thing going into that bundle!

The whiteness of the walls has jaded. There are portions of the cement chipping off and patches of rotting seepage within seemingly empty frames (the remnants of more artistically inclined days). If you look closer, you’d spot the fungi dotting the landscape. Sometimes in the evenings, the flickering lights make it come alive (you really don’t know whether to feel bad for the fungus that needs validation of its existence from a struggling bulb that was never asked if it liked being placed where it was). May be ugly is the new pretty. Who is to say.

There’s a red hope buried somewhere in the much abused (for being unused) thesaurus. Jammed between Pages 228 and 229. Pages that might’ve meant something, but don’t. Today that hope must go as well. Where it belongs. With that one sepia toned photograph. In the bundle.

The books will get distributed, though you have chosen to retain the teakwood book shelves. You look forward to the bare book shelves (without books, would they be just another set of shelves, you wonder). The dust on them will not be cleaned. Layer upon layer shall be allowed to pile up. Until there’s enough to get into your eyes and stick to your face when you blow on it. 

The maid has been given instructions. She is to come this afternoon, so she can take with her all the groceries before they rot themselves out of utility. You will let her take a few utensils as well. Give away some of those clothes, not just the ones you will never wear, but you intend to shut your eyes and let your roving hands pick out a few of your favorites too! She will take the battery operated water purifier. And the wall clocks, even the customized one with the family pictures (though she may refuse to take it, who’d want pictures of strangers in their one room house). 

(Strangely) the Gods will not be displaced. Nor relocated. (Unless divine intervention convinces you otherwise). The music will stay. Whether or not it plays. The marks will stay. Long after the scars have healed. You shall have moved on to another kind of existence. But before that you realize that there’s one last thing left to be consigned to the bundle. So you walk out the door, and to the gate. Look out to see the bundle gone, and the garbage van disappearing at the end of the road. Alas! Your dreams shall remain with you.

the averageness of being

i am your average person. average = stereotypical, sometimes. average = mediocre, perhaps. average = usual/ ordinary, very much so. i am a standard packet of dreams, ideas and hopes that fill a million other hearts, and occupy mind space across the spectrum. nothing different. (and don't we all seem to strive to be that? your biggest selling point in this world is what makes you *different*, unlike the rest, worthy of attention...) 

someone once told me that its good to be average. because it'd make you strive to be better. whats the fun in being perfect (and i use the term fairly loosely here)...perhaps. my only reason for buying that argument would be because of the person who said it. there i go being average again - for doesn't your average person let sentiment intrude into judgment?

sometimes it is hard to live with this averageness of being. and you go seeking refuge in the supposed brightness of intellect and maturity of thought the world attributes to you (until the moment comes when you realize that such attributes are less (if any) about you and more about a benevolent spirit, a generous heart and above all a happy mood...)

often you realize your averageness lies in exactly what you thought was unique to you...like crying in the washroom. apparently, half the world does that. of course, men just don't cry, so we all know which half of the world i am talking about. an emotional scene in a movie or a song may see me going sniff! sniff! much like half the world. 

i used to have your average hopes of the future, some of us like to call them dreams...that the pursuit of happiness shall be complete...and one is happy and doing everything we were ever meant to do! you want to think your relationships, including but not limited to the family, are special. and then you reach the stage where you deliberately make plans for the evening to reach home as late as possible, because you just dont feel like being home, lest it turn out to be another slugfest! one can gloat on that until someone comes along to tell you - 'dude, what are you cribbing about? you are the average family. its not perfect for anyone. (not that you were expecting perfection!) and for many people, normal has always been abnormal, its always been troublesome.' true. so mine is the average happy, sometimes not so happy family. and the fact that i have seen better days makes me oh so average that i cannot begin to describe!!

and as this goes on you wonder whether to live with this averageness, or to rise above it so to speak. strive and all that. like you tell a hundred others. once again, the average preacher. i am also the average fool - the one who knows better, but doesn't help their own cause. 

do i detest the tag? i can't say for sure. i admit to fighting it sometimes. do i give up? yes. do i try again? yes. do i care? sometimes. does it matter? no.

the average in me seeks redemption just as feverishly as the non-average part of me (which is but a fignment of my imagination, and i let the illusion be)...i am still trying to figure out whether salvation lies in giving one's whole self to either one of these categories. until then, i remind myself:

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.

Alice: I don't much care where.

The Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.

Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.

The Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.

My daddy's BIIIIIIIGG car!

Over the last 4-5 years since my dad bought what was den advertised as "the big car"... the realization of that tag has hit one many times, and thrice in particular...

the first time, was when he bought it...i don't recall the date or the year even...but yes, we were pretty thrilled about it...i suppose most of us are, about anything new...especially smthn this size...

the second time was, and continues to be, everytime i go about trying to find parking space for this baby...or navigating it through streets narrowed down by cars mindlessly stopped (i refuse to use the term "parked", because one look at that which i describe ought to tell you that term is inappropriate!) on either side...

the third time, however, was the BIG realization...heading to a friend's place for dinner on my way back home from work, i had one last traffic signal to cross before i reached my destination...unsurprisingly, by the time i made it to the signal, it'd turned red (murphy!!)...as i stopped there, and took a look around, my realization came on its two wheels and stopped to my left, waiting like so many of us (traffic, the great equalizer!!)...the father was on the driver's seat, with a kid almost squatting between the father and the handle. 2 more kids sat sandwiched between their dad on one side, and the mom at the back with a baby on her lap. i looked at them. intently. one of the kids looked back. i smiled. and she seemed to wonder why, before she looked away. i looked inside my car. sprawling luxury. (yes, no wonder you're smiling - is that what the kid was thinking??) the traffic signal turned green. i paused, saw the scooter ride away, slowly but surely. my fellow car drivers let their impatience show with the shower of honking, and forced me to stash away that *realization*, until i found a quiet little corner to dwell on it. I managed to reach my friend's place, and find parking soon enough. Turned off the radio. Sat for two minutes, wondering. Traffic, in so many ways, the mirror to the world we live in. Turned off the airconditioner. the engine. And as i locked my car, and walked away from it, i looked back at it and thought to myself - My daddy's BIIIIIG car...may just be too big for me.