My malaria days are over. And just when I thought it is time to restart life, with fresh vigour and lettuce, the problem surfaced. Innocently enough at first. In fact, so subtle were the begininnings that I didn't even recogize it as one.I can't hold a pencil anymore. Or when I do, I can no longer put it to paper and make it coherent. The lines are awry, tedious and communist. Like a reluctant dancer it flows for a while. And the mess is simply unbearable. Just yesterday I wrote a campaign for a fashion brand. It looks like a cow.
So this absence here cannot be simply blamed on sickness. (Yes, the health is still not what it used to be. I tire easily and am prone to bouts of fever. At the oddest seconds. It strikes. In the middle of a drink. While holding an umbrella. In a cafe. In front of a painting. I have learnt to ignore it though. It's not that bad if you get used to it. I think I will live. I have to. I am yet to meet Julia.) Everyday I opened this space and stared till the little pixels on the screen started assuming disturbing shapes. I could think of nothing to write.
Nothing that all of you will want to read anyway. I read other blogs. They are beautiful, heart-wrenching, sickly-sweet, life-changing, society-shaping, animal loving, socio-political, emotional trails of words that people read with tears in their eyes. Some even get goose bumps and email them to their friends. "Read this", they say, "It gave me goose bumps..". And all I can think of writing is like a personal, sometimes self-obsessed diary that seeks to malign everything that has been unfair to me. Or is in the process of being.
That seldom makes for interesting reading. I have been angry for a long time. And instead of moving on from this spineless anger, I periodically remind myself to remain just this way. The people that mattered have moved on. The noises that their scattered remnants in my house make are beautiful and unbearable. Like the photograph of an accident, taken in soft light. The stuff needs to be returned. Trinkets, bangles, CDs and smells. Packed and addressed to owner. Who wants them back. Who I still talk to in my head.
I deduce I am going insane. A condition that requires a shake-up. A manual reset. And I intend to return to sane mind with the pencil. The same one that is scrawling illegibles currently. And this is the first step. Towards better rhetoric.
And hopefully, a campaign that I can sell. Without resorting to con men tactics.
Cartoon courtesy www.markstivers.com. He's quite super. Take my word for it.
23 comments:
Good luck with that. You are one step closer to your goal by just knowing that you want to get some place.
Don't let your ego treat you that way. On the one hand, you believe you should be able to heal your mind so quickly after your body was sick (and no, I'm not forgetting the heartache). And on the other, you are underestimating your own talents and devices. Maybe when things come easily to us, we tend not to give them so much credit or value. Give yourself a break. Even in your heartache and fragile self, you are helping keep the world going in the right direction with your humor and insight. I struggle with the reality that my words are most significant to me, less significant to others, when I am subjective. And then, that's also the reason I can value those words.
Thanks for coming back. We will take what you lay down, warts and all.
Rock on.
educatedunemployed - yep. thats true. armed with a pencil here i am. liked what you wrote in your blog.
videoxy - i understand. it is a case of getting things easy. otherwise the humor would have long been extinct. the insight, far more cynical and biased than what is necessary. my struggle is more internal. and more vitriolic than this space will allow me to be. hence, i resort to words. and when that fails, the world seems darkish. your prod was most well-timed. honestly. and i shall lay mine down in a more timely fashion. have to. was delightful to have you drop by.
If there's one thing I'm good at, it's a good prod.
Thanks for having me.
phish, you shouldn't take yourself so seriously. i really think you will benefit a lot from vipassana or any other system that teaches one to observe oneself obejctively, even though i don't know you.
videoxy - you are good at a lot of other things v. and i speak almost as if i know you :)
smilingdolphin - you think? hmmm. maybe my reasoning has been too harsh. just waiting for the year to get over. fingers crossed, eyebrows twitched. good of you to drop by.
"The lines are awry, tedious and communist."
you could have fooled me! Or perhaps it only affects your pencil and not your keyboard fingers.
Oh Julia again :) I thought about bringing that song into my story (I'm talking about my character that is called Julia). I love that song :)
devilmood - keyboard fingers? hmmm. never thought of it that way. but a blank sheet of paper is still way too pressurizing than the screen.
and i have to read your story now, if your character is called Julia.
good to read you again!
absolutely great. i don't think your mind and your pencil have a problem.
Have been stalking your blog the past couple or so of days, and didn't get a chance to comment until now!
Came here through dharmabum's blog.. I like reading what you have to write. You pull me into your words, and make me forget myself for a while (I guess I am waiting to meet JuliaN haha!).. seriously, I salute you! I once had a German exchange partner called Julia. Lovely girl she was. Is… I hope. Alas, we are no longer in contact, else I would surely have introduced you to her!
You know.. perhaps a diary entry can make for interesting reading too.. after all, what use is a blog, if not to ‘vent’ in once in a while?
And congratulations on becoming insane. I hope you enjoy the ride… to further insanity or restored sanity.. whatever you please… good luck!
I was really into the Beatles growing up and I read that the song Julia, by John Lennon, was written about his mother who was killed when hit by a car. More dramatic and heart wrenching details say that he went to visit her, and moments after saying goodbye, she was killed in the accident...
have responded to your 'mean and nasty comment' on my post - please go see! hope you sold that campaign, with or without con man tactics - bumped into your boss on a goa flight recently. have a good year end.
This is more for your entire blog than just this one post -- Pigcell included. For your words and photographs. All windows I have spent hours looking out of, with some faint, some vivid recollections of what it was like to stand, sit, sleep in nearly identical shoes.
Thank you.
meraj - yes. after much ado and liver frying drugs, i am back.
d.h.roark - you are biased :) but honestly, i really thought thati had lost it. if only for awhile.
sunrise - it was such a pleasure reading your words. alas, if only i met you a little earlier then maybe i could have met your friend. anyway, i know there is my julia somewhere, sitting by a little cafe. waiting for me to walk by. maybe in some part of the world, a julian too. my vents are personal. whether directed at myself or obliquely referring to someone who i don't like. and now that you say it is okay, i can breathe.
its time for me to discover you now.
videoxy - i know! i read about it. but i am referring to julia as my song. an ode to the person i love. so what if i haven't met her yet. hey, wait a second, what if i have and don't know it?
smling dolphin - will do. you have a great end to the year too. best wishes.
void - what can i say? i am embarassed and honoured.
i envy you. you write really well. even when you say you can't. biatch! :P
oops..that last comment was by me.
yeeeesh....
i was gonna say something.....but i forgot.
you think you're the only onw who cant think of something to write?
hmm..give it some time...things will improve!! :D
and well, when u have a writers block, every blog seems better than urs. try concentrating on the time when u were addicted and how u thought u write the best!
anger is a purposeless thing, my dear friend, it only burns us. i am not sure about the details - but for a while, i used to be angry with unfair people too. and then, i started looking at it from their own shoes, and figured maybe they weren't all that bad - considering they were dealing with me ;)
glad to know your health is alright. remember - the mind takes a little more time, even though the body may feel completely well.
I didn't know the the malarial drugs had such side effects...pity I didn't blog when I had malaria :)
scribbleamus - heh. was good to have you here. biatch? yet.
mystique - :) i know i am not. and this goes out to all those who can't. at any given point in time.
nisha punjabi - when your profession is writing, time is not a luxury. so i struggle on. wrote something nice yesterday but. so maybe things are looking up.
dharmabum - you are correct. and ample proof of that is the fact that the dreams just dont stop. with or without the fire water.
jolvin - packed and sent a few with the longest proboscis' in the world. enjoy.
Ur tagged!
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