Maya’s inconsistent mumblings:
I was wondering, no not wondering, thinking, not thinking. I was contemplating- no…sounds too broody and heavy completely unlike me or my thought process. What a loser I am, after spending some time with him I ended up sounding like him! He is definitely infectious… Yep I got the right words- ‘I was getting into flashbacks, in fact a series of them and of course I was the central character in all of them. And if I try looking at myself into another time and past situations I feel I had deliberately fictionalised my existence. I have stories no facts no dates and all that happened with me has blurred and there is an air of vagueness about the past but now I know what actually happened and why I am like this. Like what?- don’t know, I too do not know, perhaps it is too knotty to explain in sentences or in words. You have to get inside my mind, my heart, have to go through all had passed upon with out a sigh and hush the most important thing of all –“Nobody should know except you and me”.
Not very long time ago I went to a not a far, far away place to study. It was August 8th 2006, the heat was scorching in Delhi: the capital of India, a small black dot on the map that is how I had always known it before coming here. Far far away from the Howrah suburbs, Delhi was a distant land, of old forts, monuments, markets, which had still the intoxicating smell of exotic perfumes and fervour of the Mughal food, the history of the Rise and fall of Empires and politics were the curious mixture of ideas and images that came into my mind whenever I thought about this old historical city that witnessed the making of the Indian democracy. It was my admission in Jawaharlal Nehru University that gave me the opportunity to visit this historical city. It was a sunny afternoon and the sun was piercing and after sitting in the auto for good one hour, a ride through the strikingly clean and well maintained roads of New Delhi I entered through the North Gate of JNU. It was a day of continuous confrontation with reality that was nothing like the world of my ‘imagination’. First the ‘planned city’ that was ‘New’ that had a striking contrast with the ‘Old’ and then this University, a place that was so “different” from any other University that I had seen, a place that was at its greenest best in spite of being a part of the city. I was lucky enough to get a passing glimpse of a peacock in the first few minutes of my arrival. Well that was the better part of the story, the autowallah stopped the auto in front of building that the students directed us to. It was the Ad-block (administrative block) from where the process of admission and registration would start. I studied in a college that was fairly political but I had never seen such posters, made in different colours, highlighted with quotations, there were posters everywhere, demanding MCM, criticising the administration, lampooning each other, Che was the dominant figure in the posters of the parties that were left-oriented. This was my first visual encounter with the campus politics. I got my folios from the registrar and instructions too regarding the dropping of folios in different places. The first thing that came to my mind was- “Too COMPLICATED!” and then I was fretting that how on earth could I ever do all these things alone, in one day, that too in a campus where one has to walk miles before getting somewhere how I prayed to God to send me an angel for help. I lazily remembered my Grandma’s words: ‘Miracles do not happen, not anymore, this is Kalyug’ and asked the guard the directions to Dean of Students office which I half understood and started walking, searching for somebody who would be sweet enough to take me to the place. At last I found two boys walking a little bit ahead of me, I increased my pace, walked to them, interrupted them in their conversation and asked them for the directions. They showed me the office and instead of disappearing like all angels do they waited with me in the queue helped me with the entire complicated process that intended to make me self-sufficient but instead exhausted me at the end of the day.
Ok note this phase of my life this is important not because I came to a different land to study but because it is here the curse of thinking, contemplation and retrospection befell on me. No don’t start forming any arguments in your head they are of no use because you still don’t know me. Let me get back in time and take you to the eventful section of my life. My life is very eventful, not in a very grand fashion but with a good number of twists and turns. Now there is a problem- I can’t remember things very precisely, there were so many things that happened- all to me, nobody else was around, not a single soul, I was trampled mercilessly- nobody bothered, I wailed and withered in pain, how I suffered- nobody cared. Now I do not remember what exactly happened but I know that this would not repeat, not with me. I don’t care, nothing matters. There should be justice; I would be all that, that I never was nor could I would have ever dreamt of being. I realised somewhere down the line that no one is fair there are no sports in real life but the people like games in which they can cheat, kill and steal. Reality sucks! Does it? Or am I imagining things? I see the world around me as I want to see. Is it ‘just my imagination’?
It is in this forbidden forest of knowledge I realised my metamorphosis from Peter Pan to a Vampire who is thirsty for more and more blood. Now, i.e., this moment when I have promised to be truthful to myself for once and to u I would like to share that now I am hanging somewhere between pain and pleasure. I have not given up innocence completely nor have I yet confronted the pangs of parching thirst. This is what I dislike the most about my present situation because I want to be thirsty as I know very well that I no longer belong to the land of innocent play. ..
I was wondering, no not wondering, thinking, not thinking. I was contemplating- no…sounds too broody and heavy completely unlike me or my thought process. What a loser I am, after spending some time with him I ended up sounding like him! He is definitely infectious… Yep I got the right words- ‘I was getting into flashbacks, in fact a series of them and of course I was the central character in all of them. And if I try looking at myself into another time and past situations I feel I had deliberately fictionalised my existence. I have stories no facts no dates and all that happened with me has blurred and there is an air of vagueness about the past but now I know what actually happened and why I am like this. Like what?- don’t know, I too do not know, perhaps it is too knotty to explain in sentences or in words. You have to get inside my mind, my heart, have to go through all had passed upon with out a sigh and hush the most important thing of all –“Nobody should know except you and me”.
Not very long time ago I went to a not a far, far away place to study. It was August 8th 2006, the heat was scorching in Delhi: the capital of India, a small black dot on the map that is how I had always known it before coming here. Far far away from the Howrah suburbs, Delhi was a distant land, of old forts, monuments, markets, which had still the intoxicating smell of exotic perfumes and fervour of the Mughal food, the history of the Rise and fall of Empires and politics were the curious mixture of ideas and images that came into my mind whenever I thought about this old historical city that witnessed the making of the Indian democracy. It was my admission in Jawaharlal Nehru University that gave me the opportunity to visit this historical city. It was a sunny afternoon and the sun was piercing and after sitting in the auto for good one hour, a ride through the strikingly clean and well maintained roads of New Delhi I entered through the North Gate of JNU. It was a day of continuous confrontation with reality that was nothing like the world of my ‘imagination’. First the ‘planned city’ that was ‘New’ that had a striking contrast with the ‘Old’ and then this University, a place that was so “different” from any other University that I had seen, a place that was at its greenest best in spite of being a part of the city. I was lucky enough to get a passing glimpse of a peacock in the first few minutes of my arrival. Well that was the better part of the story, the autowallah stopped the auto in front of building that the students directed us to. It was the Ad-block (administrative block) from where the process of admission and registration would start. I studied in a college that was fairly political but I had never seen such posters, made in different colours, highlighted with quotations, there were posters everywhere, demanding MCM, criticising the administration, lampooning each other, Che was the dominant figure in the posters of the parties that were left-oriented. This was my first visual encounter with the campus politics. I got my folios from the registrar and instructions too regarding the dropping of folios in different places. The first thing that came to my mind was- “Too COMPLICATED!” and then I was fretting that how on earth could I ever do all these things alone, in one day, that too in a campus where one has to walk miles before getting somewhere how I prayed to God to send me an angel for help. I lazily remembered my Grandma’s words: ‘Miracles do not happen, not anymore, this is Kalyug’ and asked the guard the directions to Dean of Students office which I half understood and started walking, searching for somebody who would be sweet enough to take me to the place. At last I found two boys walking a little bit ahead of me, I increased my pace, walked to them, interrupted them in their conversation and asked them for the directions. They showed me the office and instead of disappearing like all angels do they waited with me in the queue helped me with the entire complicated process that intended to make me self-sufficient but instead exhausted me at the end of the day.
Ok note this phase of my life this is important not because I came to a different land to study but because it is here the curse of thinking, contemplation and retrospection befell on me. No don’t start forming any arguments in your head they are of no use because you still don’t know me. Let me get back in time and take you to the eventful section of my life. My life is very eventful, not in a very grand fashion but with a good number of twists and turns. Now there is a problem- I can’t remember things very precisely, there were so many things that happened- all to me, nobody else was around, not a single soul, I was trampled mercilessly- nobody bothered, I wailed and withered in pain, how I suffered- nobody cared. Now I do not remember what exactly happened but I know that this would not repeat, not with me. I don’t care, nothing matters. There should be justice; I would be all that, that I never was nor could I would have ever dreamt of being. I realised somewhere down the line that no one is fair there are no sports in real life but the people like games in which they can cheat, kill and steal. Reality sucks! Does it? Or am I imagining things? I see the world around me as I want to see. Is it ‘just my imagination’?
It is in this forbidden forest of knowledge I realised my metamorphosis from Peter Pan to a Vampire who is thirsty for more and more blood. Now, i.e., this moment when I have promised to be truthful to myself for once and to u I would like to share that now I am hanging somewhere between pain and pleasure. I have not given up innocence completely nor have I yet confronted the pangs of parching thirst. This is what I dislike the most about my present situation because I want to be thirsty as I know very well that I no longer belong to the land of innocent play. ..
Comments
After a lone walk i could have a small realization -Someone somewhere is there to soak and swallow all of your pain........
i think very few of us remember clearly the past..
and the blurriness of the past is what makes it so interesting to remember because as maya says "reality sucks" and who cares abt it anyway..