Prashant's Solace

Image Courtesy: https://www.hippopx.com/   Abandonment, true to its nature, stays. There is a sense of depression. Compulsive thinking is killing. Less of activity and more of thinking. Scenarios and scenarios. Visualizations of the impossible. Killer demand of the present and reality stay unaffected. He manifests unwarranted comparisons and constant delusions. Health worries which never was a worry before. Lack of a social life for want of a socially compatible environment furthers incompatibility. Resistance and resistance to take the right call and make the right move. The worst; being let down, neglected, unwanted, unloved and unacknowledged. The past only makes it bitter. A bitter past which was no better than its past, led to a worse present which definitely looked promising for the worst future. This paradox should have made the present standing a worthy position by default. But it never feels so! Mistakes and unhealthy attachments grew. Momentary bonds grew, providing l

Here, I would simply like to quote some reflections of a character from Khushwant Singh's famous work, 'Train to Pakistan.' (Source:  https://archive.org/details/TrainToPakistan_201805 ) In a world where things being the way they are, one is often asked to comment on everything, especially, if one is a writer. And my mind goes back to this brilliant introspection of Iqbal Singh, one of the characters in this book.  Khushwant Singh's sardonic words through this figure are so relevant to these times. Words, which were first published in 1956, and may have been conceived way before that in that truly beautiful mind!  "Should he go out, face the mob and tell them in clear ringing tones that this was wrong—immoral? Walk right up to them with his eyes fixing the armed crowd in a frame—without flinching, without turning, like the heroes on the screen who become bigger and bigger as they walk right into the camera. Then with dignity fall under a volley of blows, or prefera

Multitudes are ablaze inside as I navigate the day.  The song and dance of the frenzied emotions which take on the veil of calm & ease is extraordinarily stifling. The body shrivels, launches into a fit of despair and yet what the world sees is a happy individual at work with collected poise. Carrying this commotion-filled body in deceitful exterior in a relatively less chaotic weekend traffic, the holiday sees us in a café. No sooner do we reach, than my sister is already into the laptop, while I open my book casually soaking in the atmosphere. I note a couple settling down; one diagonally in front of me while a girl sitting behind me, next-but-one table.  The day is still young for the coffee shop to begin its fast chores. The blank gossip emanating from the couple's table is too blunt to affect any interest, so I too dive into my book as my sister was already in her work which is when things started happening. Enter this guy, who completes the couple behind me and as one mig

Dried watermelon seeds fell from his jeans pocket. He had worn it after a long time, a faraway time, a time before this era. The era of Covid-19. That sultry day, in the intense activity of the classroom, seeds were among the many things passed around. He did not fancy those yet indulged in some and kept the rest in the pocket. Months had passed. The virus infused a workless monotony, him being almost always in shorts and tees, no occasion meriting otherwise. Studies seemed a distant affair. Routine became a distant memory. Because time got struck in the puddle of a virus. There was nothing to distinguish one day from the other, except news, which he had stopped following after a while. All his neighbours brandished information and theories just like the news and news anchors. Each more ridiculous than the rest. For some time, he too was convinced with one of the narratives and almost had become an advocate for it. But the excitement of this theory didn’t last long to save embarr

(Dawn of a cold morning. On a relatively isolated mountain top, they are silent. A word-war ensues.) SHE: You are an apostate. ME: Who, me? Huh... For that I have to belong. SHE: That's a given. ME: To you maybe. SHE:  Kid yourself, fine. But mine is the true language of the definitions of belonging, as we have known. So I can't be wrong. You are a deserter. ME: In that case I am not exactly happy. SHE: Then come back to senses. Back to a definition. Back to a solace of belonging. ME: Tribalism isn't for me. I stretch myself beyond ephemeral human realms. SHE: How? ME: You see the sun rising over the vast civilizational invention below us. It is 0600 hours. In about an hour the sunrise would unleash multitudes who would go around pretending to be from somewhere to deal with somewhere.     (Aurangabad- Courtesy Feroz Khan - LT)                          SHE: Just like we do. Point being...? ME: I don't pretend to be f

I wanted to publish a detailed account of a dear friend's wedding. So I copiously took some notes while going through the revelries, being very much a part of them. Or so my concerned friend thought! But those painstakingly gathered observations got lost with time, people and life. Majorly disappointed, I thought of giving up on writing this self-anticipated account of a much awaited event in our little lives. I never thought my straight friend would be considerate enough to take a partner.  Not that he was a misogynist or a misogamist. On the contrary he has gone out of his way to make women feel at ease, whenever he came across one. In casual parlance, he sucked up to people (read girls), especially if he ever got to know one. Even to the discomfort of his friends like me. He had attended the most number of family marriage functions as the rest of us put together and does so still, dutifully. Although he was, as they say, never 'matrimonially inclined.' But some trickery,

I am an eternal romantic in the broadest sense of the term. Some people, places, events, situations, mannerisms and even some self-reflection exercises create an everlasting spool of thoughts out of which I weave dreams. Motivational salience makes me revisit one such beautiful dream. A forest of dreams I fashioned, where one day, rather one frosty evening, just into the twilight she walks in... ...this girl, she walks all uneasy. Uneasy and unsure. I hardly notice her presence. But in her absence, anticipation of her makes me feel many things. Nervousness, plunges and contractions create waves of expectation in stomach. But nothing now when she's here. Her presence doesn't make me smile. I hope it never does as it denies her omnipotence here. She has a warmth about her that does not exude any aura. It's just there. Reassuring as ever. There is nothing in the world, fictional or real, that could be more important than just having her by my side. If I were ever

Sometimes he wants to burst out crying extremely loud and cry for all times to come. He doesn't want to stop at all... But nothing happens. The world is moving unlike what he might have assumed. Weakness he cannot show. In feigning, tears dry up. As here is a life to be lived. People to be dealt with. Work to be done. Maybe diseases to be prevented. You cannot be so privileged to cry. Crying is a long journey. It begins with a little hesitation. When you gather speed, you want to continue. A rhythm gets set. Afterwards, it is fairly easy. Then comes the dragging point. You try to continue even if there are enough reasons to make you stop. And then you stop. Either you realize the futility of the endeavour or the incentive to cry no longer persists. Even then, he tries to resume. He can't. He searches for motivation. Motivation to begin crying again. He picks up things, looks at things. He stretches his thought till it reaches the unreachable, thinks the unthinkable. He forc

An October 24, 2019 post by Zadie Smith in New York Review of Books, inspired this essay. So I would like to duly acknowledge it by sharing its link. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/10/24/zadie-smith-in-defense-of-fiction/ The human mind is a dumping ground for all kinds of thought-material. This is a pretty outrageous statement to make, considering the above article. But so is the use of the adjective 'outrageous'. This sort of conjecture keeps engaging me and my actions and hence unpopularity with certain individuals around me. It seems that confusion, especially in issues of the daily, from - where to eat, what to eat, whether to go on a vacation, if yes where to go, should I read a particular book or not - to major life decisions - everything is dictated by a pressure of definition, certainty, a defined state. Doubt has always characterised my decisions. Whether the resulting judgements (if I can call them that) have proved fruitful is another lo