The Kaleidoscope

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, inspiration comes knocking at my door. I look around, I glance behind my shoulder, I like being alone, I confirm my solitariness. And then I begin to write. But nothing ever materializes beyond a page. Then thoughts get arrested by the anticipation of an audience and the inappropriateness of it all. And then I stop.

This has been happening for many months.

J.S. Mill was right. One has to write poetry (in this I include fiction) assuming there is no audience at all. “Poetry is feeling confessing itself to itself”. But what kind of a confession is that then really? Even Catholics need the confession box and Calvin needs a Hobbes. What is the point of anything confessing itself to itself? Pray tell.

And yet the fear of being read and read into, the uneasiness of misinterpretation, the lack of courage is a reality that suffocates me. Where is my Hobbes? I used to have one. I don’t have one anymore. It is tragic. My Hobbes and I drifted apart when more than just distance came between us. Life happened and though it isn’t as tragic as it seems, it is tragic enough.

But I am digressing and I should try not to. So writing with an assumption that one can be read is a really scary proposition. I admire the guts of authors who write autobiographical works and get published. I admire the guts of blogs that chronicle a personal life without giving a damn. And hard as I may try, I don’t think I can even become it. That is sad. And have I lost out on you already? Yes you – you who reads my blog once in a while, my fortunate patron, the known and the unknown, the blurred past and the etched forever, the berating friend and the appreciative acquaintance – have you taken me off your RSS feeds already? Did you not have me in the first place? Did you plan to have me initially and then wrote me off as just another person who got married and became boring? I don’t blame you if you did. I haven’t tried to redeem myself much except just write a “oh-i-am-going-to-vent” post and then chickened out. Yes that’s all that I have done. Characteristically enough I haven’t carried out what I claimed, I have announced and then disappeared. It is unusual if I do finish something I take up till the end. I am the queen of incompletion, of half-heartedness, of initial euphoria and immediate disillusionment.

But I really do want to write for there is so much to write about. I want to pen down pages and chapters from my life. I want to mention the twisted story of the man with the heart of coal, I want to confess my lack of feelings for the boy who died, I want to say how sometimes when death doesn’t move you, you can question your monstrous self for years. For years and months that have passed, I have had moments of madness, euphoria, disillusionment, depression, betrayal, elation, fulfillment, epiphany – notice that there is nothing banal about these emotions, nothing as simple as happy, sad, indifference, no – these are the big words, the specific adjectives, the things that express the precise state of mind – I like it that things have been dramatic, larger than life, immensely exciting – things that can be recalled in an anecdote or make a fit subject for a late night confessional chat, things that can still make my gut twist, that can still make my throat knot up. I like it that I have had a fairly exciting life where I didn’t let impulse cower to the mind. Sometimes I regretted, sometimes I didn’t. But mostly I am just glad that the youth was a kaleidoscope and not a microscope where I didn't sit back to analyze but somersaulted with the colors.

And I want to write about the people and the episodes, all the shades of the kaleidoscope need to splatter across the white sheet of paper, the fear needs to be covered with a splat of dark humor, the puns and the digs need to be highlighted with a fluorescence.

So why do I fear the interpretation, the detailed investigation, the repercussions of such scrutiny? Why do I fear the microscope when I have already played in the colors?

From the Laugh of the Medusa

An excerpt:

“Time and again I, too, have felt so full of luminous torrents that I could burst-burst with forms much more beautiful than those which are put up in frames and sold for a stinking fortune. And I, too, said nothing, showed nothing; I didn’t open my mouth, I didn’t repaint my half of the world. I was ashamed. I was afraid, and I swallowed my shame and my fear. I said to myself: You are mad! What’s the meaning of these waves, these floods, these outbursts? Where is the ebullient, infinite woman who, immersed as she was in her naivete, kept in the dark about herself, led into self disdain by the great arm of parental-conjugal phallocentrism, hasn’t been ashamed of her strength? Who, surprised and horrified by the fantastic tumult of her drives (for she was made to believe that a well-adjusted normal woman has a … divine composure), hasn’t accused herself of being a monster?”

-Helene Cixous. (The Laugh of the Medusa) - Read it!

Die Blog Die

I’m officially sick of writing about the weather, the season, all things happy and all that la la la! No, I do not know what to write about these days. I want to make this blog more personal than it is. Then I want to write about how, what and when I really feel. Then I want to be somewhat like my tall friend whose writing has this sharp, acidic courage that mine could never achieve. I really want to vent. But this blog is now not personal. And that is excruciatingly annoying. It is only my fault that I let myself go. I think it was the greed of getting some comments on my erstwhile no-hit blog. I think I was a bit tired of wallowing in that anonymity which now seems to be such a luxury. In between all of that, I have resorted to another privately tucked in scrap on the internet, but this one is still my oldest, my favourite. Blogspot is still comfortable. Tumblr is a step sister of blogspot. I was never much of a fan of wordpress. And this red and white and black header is still what is typically me. This strange, senseless title of schizophrenicsalad given to me long ago by a friend is also a part of me. And with this blog now becoming a yawn-inducing machine, I don’t know what to do to revive it again. How I miss the venting and the bitching. Being older sometimes comes with a disclaimer. Politeness and all the shitty jazz sometimes just strains and drips itself into your writing. And this is how we all become dull and insipid. And this is how a perfectly good blog dies.

I am almost tempted to let it die. And restart again. But like a nagging, incomplete story of the past, this blog also seems to have the last 6 years of my life. A lot of it has been deleted for god knows what politically correct reasons. My curious cousin discovered this blog thanks to my negligent brother who discovered this blog thanks to my negligent internet history. So all the sex had to be erased. All the smoking had to be gotten rid off. All the bitching, the drunk episodes, the stoned scribblings and the massive stupidities I have done in my first post graduation days and after had to be let go of. What is left then to write about? The god damned weather, the city and more of the bloody city, the monsoon and so much of the monsoon, my annoyingly unpredictable health and maybe some food and ofcourse the oh-so-often swimming posts? No wonder I had to resort to a new link. Who wouldn’t? Who can live with this boring crap?

So even though I do want to kill this blog, I am going to try to let it stay. And maybe care a little bit less about appearances? And write a little bit more about the strained relationships and the blooming ones? Maybe I can write about the fantastic poems I come by thanks to some friends? Maybe I can post interesting videos I come by on days? Maybe I can light up a bloody cigarette and not wonder who is reading about it. Oh by the way, if you listen really hard, the lit cigarette is not quite so soundless. The small noise of the thin paper burning really does make me want to pull out another one. It’s like diwali in your mouth.