Yes, it's that time of the year.
i always wonder where the years go, where the moments go. do the things we think, we say, we do, the moments that we witness, the feelings that we feel get stored somewhere? are they basking in the sun, getting wet in the rains or are they wrapped up in a blanket in a warm corner in a winter night ? probably they are.
'cause they all come back, sometimes alone, sometimes in hordes to pay me a visit at this time of the year. I look at them all again and try to strike a conversation and i realise that's something i have lost this year. i can't make conversations anymore. They tire me and i don't feel the necessity of words. i look at the year gone by and i look at myself . A blur, of plastic smiles, of words that don't make any sense or moments that are as stretched too long. The emptiness within has grown into a chasm that devours every moment that passes by.
i often sit in my room, looking out into the drizzle of bangalore through my window on the long nights that stretch into the morning and think about the emptiness. i think that maybe i could open a button in my heart, in my soul and stand in the same drizzle and it would fill me. such thoughts only fill the nights.
i sometimes try to strike a conversation with a stranger on the street, with the bird that sometimes comes into my balcony, uninvited and sometimes with people who are supposed to be mine. it's a chore really. cause i have lost my words. what do i say really? i would rather listen. no one listens you know. there are so many words spoken. the words go up, one on another. i think a bridge is being built. i look at the words, the construction with a cynical interest and then suddenly it comes crashing down. i am disappointed. i realise, bridges can't be built on bricks alone. the feeling that binds them together needs to have the right ingredients. i don't have them anymore. so i don't speak. i hear. i mostly hear the bridges breaking, but it is better than trying to make one of my own that i can't even lay a foundation for.
yes, the emptiness. it's teaching me things. to lay off the load. to be calm in the storm that rages outside every moment. life and death. being and un-being. non-negotiables in the negotiables. does it matter really in the end? the end of maya ? someone once said to me that the biggest challenge people face is to cut the chord, the umbilical attachment to things, to people. and i think about that. i think is it that difficult? i have lost what i never had. twice this year. it left me empty. and i think again. am i empty because i chose to be? maybe. but it did help me in a way. to cut the chord. of my attachment with many things. i still can't grieve. i laugh, i sing, i talk and after the role is played , i go back without the baggage of feeling, to my emptiness. it surrounds me protectively.sometimes, i look outside through it , i try to touch the laughter, to feel the tears maybe even anger, but i just don't. every person lives in their own cocoon, maybe of fear, of love, of anger, of satisfaction, of insecurity or security. maybe, to find the real person is not that difficult. all you need to do is to break your own cocoon , break the other person's and then begin. but it is a task and i don't enjoy it now. so i let the words be. let them rest a while and grow stronger. maybe someday i will find the ingredients and the right design for a conversation. till then i am happy to be numb.
