See

It's a ridiculous wish I had. To see Khushwant Singh in person. He's the one who taught me how to live without shame. Now he is dead and gone. That's one item struck off like that. Sooner more than later, I am sure I will forget who I am. It's like losing sight of oneself. And it's a horrible thing to say. To become someone with no identity, wishes and aspirations. My autobiography could be named the autobiography of a corpse. Because my life is pretty much a list of things to be done, things to constantly worry about, work wise, life wise. I feel I have made too many unwise decisions and now there is no getting away from those. Like a vicious circle, the aftermath leads to the cause itself. And can't look out, look within. I am entangled such, I can't see. My biases are such, I don't think I even understand my environment very well. It's like being really stupid, immune to the obviousness of the world. I am so serious when I say I can't see, I can't see a damn thing. 

I need a filter, something that tells me what I should see, what I should ignore. Because there is so much fucked up stuff happening around, they all merge into a haze, I can't differenciate one from another. There is nothing definitive, it's all infinite and irrational. I feel small, incapable. And stupid. Like a failure.

A friend recently halted at a guest house by a lagoon on a rainy night because their car broke down on the way. In the morning when she woke up, the lagoon and the sea it merged into and the sky, everything looked like one grey screen of nothing. She stood on her feet and stared, unable to figure where the sea ended, where the sky began, they were all so homogenous. No sight of the horizon, of the distances we could go, of the persons we could become. Nada, nothing. Then, minutes later an orange sun punctured that grey screen. It rose slowly up the sky, shooting out rays, drawing out a horizon in front of her eyes. Separating the sea and the sky. Differentiating the closer from the distant. Showing her what exactly to see.

I want to see. Just like that. 

2 comments:

usha ramani said...

Visibility beaming through all the way, yet coated with verdigris, and finally the sun is out, beautifully written piece:-)

N!V said...

Wildflower, it's like you possessed me and wrote this post using my fingers. This is exactly how I feel.