Solitude. It’s a highly underrated feeling these days. There seems to be no space to take time off and listen to the sound of the rain falling in my backyard, on my roof, on my skin. No time to stop and feel the wind rushing through my hair, winnowing it and setting it free. I seem to have no time to stand on the road and watch the traffic whiz past, off to unknown and often disinterested destinations. No time and no space to watch people walk by and wonder where they are all running off to.
No space to stretch out my arms and embrace the stars wheeling overhead in patterns as old as time.
I stopped one day. Just stopped and refused to go any further. They wondered what I was doing. They even stopped and stared but no one had the time or space to ask “why”. The question was unimportant to them. It held no value for them and had no meaning. “What” and “how” were still possibilities but ‘why’ seemed non-existent
He was one of them too. He stopped and stared like everyone else.
They moved on but he remained…looking, watching, assessing.
His eyes were all I noticed-dark brown, deep down shot with golden lights that whirled around and asked me “why”.
A curious smile tilted his lips forward and made him ask “why”.
This is my answer to him.
‘ I stopped because if I hadn’t I would have disappeared and become Everyman. I would have been a motley addition to the rest of the crowd and would have walked into the same rut as everybody else. Another lost soul in the same damn fishbowl as everyone else. If I hadn’t stopped I would have lost my soul and not noticed it was gone… the emptiness would have swallowed me.
If I hadn’t stopped I would have died one kind of death. I would have been dead to the trees, to the wind, to laughter, to your smile. I would have died without tasting intelligence, without tasting love, without feeling your touch on my lips. It would have meant the death of feeling in me.
I cannot go on living without feeling. I cannot go on living and partly living. If I don’t stop the holes will be to deep to be mend again. I need the silence to scar in peace. I need the halt to make sense again. I cannot continue without thinking. I have recognized the fact that my integrity has nothing to do with morals and everything to do with the truth. I need to find that truth again-the truth I see in your eyes, in the way you smile…innocent.
I need to reclaim my innocence. I need you-more than life, more than death, more than pain or joy-only you, your love.’
38 comments:
Namrata,
"my integrity has nothing to do with morals and everything to do with the truth"... What a beautiful line to churn out! And I reckon such a crisp but deeply colourful statement can come only after deep experience and meditation...
The entire post was short and sweet. I myself am someone who advocates spending time for oneself and refuse to crowd onto the bandwagon.
By the way in the second line of the penultimate paragraph, there is an additional 'be' which I think you must have typed in haste...
Cheers!
Srini:Thanks a ton!!
Really sweet of you to take the time off and read the post..not to mention having the patience to sit and dig out typos.
Namrata,
Just caught my eye, the typo, that's all. I am trying to get rid of my at times over(t)ly critical eye, but have not contrived it so far.
I don't want to be cynical and say things like brown-eyes was probably a traffic cop..
So I'm not.
-
'tis important to strike a balance. While I'm (i think at least) fairly spacy, i'm also always battling to make sure i keep track of what's happening around me instead of drifting off and admiring cloud formations. :)
Srini:I waan't condemning your critical eye, it was a heartfelt appreciation on my part. It was just an observation and not a sarcastic comment at all.
Antickpix:thy name IS cynicism...I mean brown eyes was a cop?? He wasn't so there...
Spacey you are but there are different kinds of spacy(kevin being one of them..harr)
And may i remind you are the one who has a bird photgraphing obsession!!
ps: when are you going to send me that drag pic of yours??You must look cho cute in it!!!
Namrata,
Thank you.
i may be spacy, but Kevin is Spacey. :p
what picture in drag??
Namrata,
Im just noticed the Byron poem on your other blog...very interesting considering that we just stuided it in my poetry course. We are studying Emily Dickinson in my other English course eight now, and I do believe that I have been converted (I wasn't a big Dickinson fan prioir to this). Good choice on the Destruction of Sennacherib.
heyyyy yr back! and with an awesome post.. that was a great idea, and the execution's pretty cool too.
and jokes apart, the guy was me, wasn't it? :D
Rohit:I have to admit that The Destruction of Sennacharib was not my contribution. Mine still has to go up there.
Oh and welcome to the Dickinson fanclub.I have treasured her verse since my 9th.Love the ideas and the sheer simplicity of expression
Abhinav:How do I hold my head up after such extravagant compliments like these??
And jokes apart it wasn'tyou!!!
Sorry dahlink!;-)
Yo gitler..
"reclaim your innocence"???
when were you ever innocent,dudette? ;-)
Posh: That was uncalled for.I mean..look at me! Do I look anything other than innocent?/
ah..comments like the one left by poshgit really makes me wish that you had enabled anonymous commenting.
Antick: Your wish is my command..voila it has been enabled.
Yenjoy!!
so sweet you are.
it wasnt me??? ohhh thats too bad. my mum will be more disappointed than anyone... i think she nurses secret hopes that you will marry me.
This just got interesting.
Namrata,
Time for an update, one feels! (And yeah... if you do love lots of cricket - gladly, as your profile reads - and observe the phrases of certain commentators, 'one feel' must immediately hop into your mind)!!!
Do check out my blog if you can - and please - when time permits, albeit I doubt in terms of the sheer informativeness of thy blog on the one hand and cheeriness on the other - I checked out Ambrosia as well and Auden's elegy for Yeats is one of my all time favourites though long-winding - mine a chimeral shadow!
Abhinav: In that case I will gladly consent.To marry you and admit that it was you I saw.
Srini: self deprecation not alloweed on thi site. But will check it out definitely.
Namrata,
I am the last man you could pin out for a complex. But then the quality of my writing is a bit like that. Anyway, I vow there won't be anything even seemingly like self-deprecation!
ah gitler... say when.. tho i should warn you i watch jet li movies at least 3 nights a week. and often the same movie again and again.
Srini: "So sweet" to quote a friend of mine
Abhinav: I can deal with the Jet Li as long as you allow me to read at nights.Till, preferably, the wee hours of the morning.
Tomorrow suit you?
wow, you and abhinav would be the first couple (i assume) who'd both have 'headaches' at night.
Namrata,
Thank you! But isn't it supposed to be "sho shweet" these days?... lol!
Cheers!
PS: Do not know about you, I do not like the glottal-ising as it were of unvoiced consonant sounds!
yes, and not just the euphemistic headache.
come to think of it, i never have those.
Jet Li is an aphrodisiac?
Dudette... elucidate!
LOL, nice post. From whence spring these weird thoughts of innocence? I agree with poshgit!
Oh and i think the phrase is "chooooo chweeeetttt!" these days (in a goo-goo voice)
no, it's 'so sweet' only, i think..
(ducks the collective hand of majority smiting)
Namrata,
With your permission...
Antick,
I think it's 'so sweet' only. I actually do not like "sho shweet" all that much. Anyhow, I reckon it is the genuineness of the emotion that matters. Think I am becoming too emotional for nothing... will better leave now...
ah srini, so sweet of you to concur.
naan oru local bugger, so shall dole out a local comment :
enna ore feelings aa irukku ;-)
er.. jet li an aphrodisiac. i wish i could say ive had the opportunity to find out
oh dear git, the commenter vbk is that varun.
abhinav -
is that an invite?
antick - that varun? what scandalous backstabbing and inexact fables have you been fabricating about me? ...
vbk -
no stories.
just an sms.
Antick: I got the fact that vbk is THAT Varun.heh!!
He seems to think that he has been defamed.Maybe we should rid him of such illusions.
Abhinav: Does antick have to be taken seriously at all? He's daft.
VBK: Well from what i gathered from your comment..err..thank you(I think)
And antick, despite his inveterate love of gossip, has nothing scandalous about you.As of now that is. Que sera sera and all that.
you should send this to G... he'l be thrilled!
but dont get your mind set on the truth, git.. you'l only lose your way.. as douglas A says, when in fact the meaning is found, the universe changes itself to find an infinitely more complex meaning...the reason there is a meaning is so that we want to find it, and we wont find it so that we keep looking. god's an arrrrshole, as Va the Hun would say..
The "He" seemed like J krishnamurti. seriously :) that was a very K like post.
strangelove
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