Resolution!

Keeping in mind the snobbery and discomfiture of lesser mortals, I must say pain is a rum thing. As I can’t pride myself on being particularly soused, the choice of this expression might not make it to the top drawer. Nevertheless, I’ll stick to my expression; it smells better than fetid intellectual oeuvre.

Now, of all my blasted sensations, why do I keep rambling on being pained? And, of course, why so much fuss on its being a rum thing? The first question is actually an extension to my queer character. I have always been someone who rather easily succumbs to pain, or so I have been told. It only fits most convincingly into the puzzle that is me. I eat, drink [only water] and make merry to enjoy paroxysms of pang. I agree, it’s convenient and useless and mostly self-inflicted.

I said 'rum thing' with no intention of weaving a clever pun. It has just been an expression that loosely describes the inner dichotomy of the fact of me being pained. Shoving a certain Thomas Jefferson of the previous sentence, the dichotomy actually touches the nerve-centre of this slightly eccentric piece. The happiness of distress is something that is quite akin to my nature, I am told. It’s a perverse pleasure, my friends constantly remind me. However, this pleasure is not without an obvious affliction. The feeling of being in the deepest pit for some silly reasons, and may be for some great ones, is of paramount significance to a withering soul. Withering, I say, because it survives on small things, fickle promises and devil knows what! It is unreasonable and taxing to the ones I love, I understand perfectly. Yet, the bouts of severe depression, even the easy solutions of anti-depressants fail to revive the dying bits of my soul. My fault, entirely.

This paragraph intends to dole out a little apology to the wrong notions I may have conveyed in my insecure moments. By nature, I am not a despot. I prefer not to change my friends and foes; I love them or hate them as they are. Perhaps in some corner of my subconscious there lives a pampered little brat, who makes fuss over trivial things like having a drink or smacking a goodfellow. I have decided not to give indulgence to this pestilential little devil. If there is any sort of agony from now on, I shall stomach it. It’ll save the day, err, the night of my loved ones.

Taking a cue from the epitaph of a poet who wrote the most boring epic in the history of mankind, I am going to sing of shepherds, fields and heroes from now on. At least, they don’t manipulate the contour of thoughts in fruitless agony.

Je Lekhara lekha hoyni

This is just an imitation of soul-searching, not quite in the most erudite way, a la the best minds public places have ever seen. Just a timid and tedious effort this is going to be, clumsy in its proposition and uncertain in its presentation. However, I can always claim this to be a perfect representation of my rather untidy thoughts. Without a thousand glittering words, or irrefutable brickbats of a logical kind, I seek to state my confusion about something that has been bothering me for quite some time.

It's about having the last word. Now, what's a last word? I must keep out the possibility of a Godmouth here, as I do not intend to take a course in religion. In mundane reality, a last word is supposed be the final statement in an argument. It might be some expression of a hegemonic intellect, or, more likely, it may be described as the cry of a lone raven when everybody is asleep or dead in their nest.

..................................................................

what is it that always haunts me at times of distress, like little pin-pricks all over your glowing skin? I don't know the answer, perhaps I never will. Yes, not to be under the shadow of great minds can make you a little shaky, especially if you are a loser, more so if you remain the same. What is greatness, but a word full of pompous intentions! People think otherwise, though. They nurture their intent, keep it warm and feed it with their ideas and lo! What happened to be a word even just a little while ago, has become something like a palpable piece of make-believe! Ideas are dangerous, they breed what we do not ever intend to feel.

If not for dispersing ideas with liberal ease, why do I keep scribbling on like this? I often ask myself. After a casual fling of orgulous introspection, I arrived at a simple solution.

I write. Because, I just might.

Knaadina tomaar jonye, tumi bheshey jao paachhey....

Unrest. Just a strange itch in the eyes. Silly, silly moments of rumination. Bland and brown moments of uncertainty with a touch of green. Seconds melting into minutes, minutes into hours. Voices telling me- "Thine is not the Kingdom".

The weak spirit quickens to rebel against probability. For the tea-flavoured paradise and the lost lilacs. A crowd flows over the neon-sucking pavements. Rickshaws glide by.

I stay awake. And wait for rains.

Bujheo bujhini mawroner shawmokaaley
Thnot bhijey-jaawa Beethoven-rawng aalo
Thawmkaano chokhey thir bijurir aanch
Rawktopukurey tokhkhuni jhawlkaalo...

Muhurto jaay jonmer mawto, awndho jaatishmor!

Reincarnation happens to be the word for Us.

Period.

In all of my years, a hermetical desire to circumvent the usual furtherance of being alive has prodded me to the end of tethers.

And I wish my blood were just a bit thicker than this.

To begin or not to begin, that is the question. Tirelessly, the clamouring of rushing waves speed into the abyss of multifarious malfunctions of human lives. At one hand, the immense energy points towards a futile future, stuffed with mundane probabilities; while on the other, a veritable waste of inner struggle that could alter the way you perceive reality surges forward amid the opera of humanity. And yet, the mediocre craving for restraint, the urge to get back to the point of no-serendipity!

There is a strange melancholy associated with the sense of being alive. The indefatigable joy of living almost always covers this subterranean impulse of one’s renunciation of everything worldly. Thus, we live within a two-fold reality of our own. Most of the time, we remain a paradox to ourselves, a syllogism with no conclusion.

Probhu, nawshto hoye jai

Every sound of this decaying phrase is like a futile couplet. I try and try to make it intense like a black hole. I so want it to suck in my laughter my pain my nothingness my faculty my frailty. Yet, I fail. Not a glorious failure. It’s more like the death of a street rat, unnoticed by all. Time is, time was and time shall be no more for its ignoble existence. His two-penny worth in eternity, that is.

It’s easy to be good. There are so many flagstones on the footpath of that street and so many streets in that city and so many cities in the world. You can afford to be good without knowing the cause of being good. At times you even cower beneath the shadow of everlasting goodness and the tormented something inside your head calls for a rebellion. Eventually, this deviation from the holy equilibrium hits home through the dynamics of a natural cobweb. And the listlessness of noble intentions reigns supreme.

As the day drags along the path of an uninhibited eternity, a mimsy touch of her ivory- fingers haunts me to the absurdity of being alive. O, how I beseech thee, our merciful lady of the harbour , how I want thee to touch my lips with your pale fingers and guide me to the dark niche of oblivion. But that is not to be.

I grow old and I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. That says everything. I’ll live till my soul turns into a dead man’s skin. I’ll live to haunt myself to life. Some people have it this way.

In every sign of the sun, in everything you do, or intend to do, there falls the shadow. Beneath every charming lightpost, upon every cobblestone, there falls the shadow. I go my way; you go thine. The shadow hangs in between. Sticky and stubborn.