#78: Finding Myself In A Faraway Place

It was when I saw Christopher Columbus pointing towards the pier that I decided I wanted to study Literature.

I was in Barcelona at the time. Leaving my family in the mall that stood on the quay I chose to wander into the city without so much as a map for guidance. Keeping my back to the sea, I had only a general sense of where I was heading, only remembering which direction the sea, and hence the pier, was, as I wandered through crisscrossing alleys with high Gaudi-an balconies and narrow European streets.

Though at first my only aim had been to explore the city- I had always wanted to visit Barcelona as a boy- very soon, I found direction in my journey. Crossing a busy intersection, I was forced to stop and read one of the blue road signs that showed what lay beyond which avenue and it was there that I read the three words that would shape my future: ‘Arc De Triomphe’.

The arrow pointed diagonally into a different section of the city. Thinking, at first, that it would probably not be too far off and that I would most certainly regret not seeing it if I turned back, I changed course and walked without thinking- instinct my only guide. In the course of the hour that followed, I walked a long way without success. At the height of my disillusionment, I felt that I probably wouldn’t be able to return because I had come such a long way off.

However, the strange thing is, everything was still beautiful. The air was still cold and comforting and the sun radiated hope. As I turned the corner- the last of many I had promised myself before- there it stood in all its red-bricked glory: The Arc of Triumph. I couldn’t believe it. For ten minutes, I just stood there- the sun shining on my shoulders.

As I turned to my wristwatch, I learned that it was bordering on six at the time, and within a half hour at most, the sun would set. Out of sheer practicality, I had to return.

My journey back wasn’t as straightforward as one would imagine at first. Though I had kept my bearings, I hadn’t accounted for the intermediate dead ends, or the meandering streets, and at one instant, was almost lost again. I had been walking for a long time and, in truth, begun to worry if I’d really be able to find my way back.

That was when I saw Columbus. Perched atop his two-hundred foot pillar, his right index finger pointing towards not only the sea, but as fortune would have it, the very quay I had abandoned only hours ago.

It was in that one evanescent instant that I understood the significance of everything that had happened that day. Of my instinctual wandering eventually finding purpose, of my will in pursuing that purpose, and its fulfillment embodied within the Arc of Triumph itself. It was then I realized I had to trust my instinct. To let my heart guide me in my endeavors.

While my wandering reminded me of how I had never been sure of what I had wanted to do until I was in senior year, the manifestation of the Arc at the height of my despondency taught me that, if I stuck with it long enough, I could convince my parents to let me pursue Literature- the subject of my choice- and not Medicine, as they had proposed for me. But, perhaps, it was the arrival of Columbus that proved the most significant of all, for, even after I had found my own Arc of Triumph, I had become lost, and though I had at the time, in some small part of me, regretted my decision to venture on my own, he had brought me back and reminded me that, as long as I followed my dreams, everything would turn out all right in the end- I didn’t have to worry- and, this is why, even now, as the better part of my extended family urges me to study medicine, I insist Literature is the only field I wish to go into.

Grey and outstretched, it was beneath the finger of the man who had become famous for getting lost that I found myself.

Upon mapping my route in the hotel that evening, I discovered that I’d covered more than six kilometers in my journey. And yet, the most important step I took that day, was deciding where my future lay.

Fin.

#75: Purpose

Since I haven’t blogged in a while and because I’m three-quarters of the way to a hundred posts, I think it’s about time I give this blog something it really hasn’t had despite it being a year since I started it: context. To be very honest, as far as I recall, my intentions for blogging weren’t exactly the purest. The very first blog I started was a sports blog. Football, to be precise. I wanted to be a sports journalist at the time and, well, as naive as it sounds, I thought I’d start a blog. Write about my favourite team. People would recognise my incisive insight just like that and I’d be writing columns for 4-4-2 by next Tuesday. Yeah. I was one of those kids.

The same went for my second blog, too. Though it was alot more personal than the old one, I wrote it because- and I feel slightly childish admitting this- I wanted a book deal. I’d heard about so many people who had been offered deals to write books based on the content of their blogs that I felt it would be easy. It was in my blood to be famous, after all. To be successful. Wise. And writing, too, at that.
Oh, naiveté.

It wasn’t really until I started this blog that I wrote for myself. For things I actually thought and wrote about because I had something to say. Because I had to get something out. To be honest, I’m not the most open of people. At least not about the things that matter. And I know that. The only way I can really say the things I want to, even if it isn’t anonymously, is through writing. The things I can never say in person, I can say on paper. And easily, too.

The funny thing is, I think in writing so much over the last year I lost sight of what my aims were. In the beginning, I honestly didn’t care about the number of views I got in a day. Just writing a post and publishing it would get me that high that we get from doing the things we love. But, lately, actually no, for the past few months or so, I’ve felt different. I couldn’t feel content without having checked my statistics, and then too only when they were… acceptable- to say the least.

I’ve seriously considered quitting blogging over it. It made me sad. Just thinking about how no one really cared about anything that I wrote. Today, though, I was going through some of the posts I’d written over the past year. And they brought back so many memories. And, well, I felt some were really well written too. So, yeah. That really was when I realised something. I write for myself. It might not have been the way I’ve always written- I’m not going to lie about that. But that’s the way it is now and hopefully always will be. If writing still makes me happy then there’s really not much else that counts, to be honest.

I’m very selfish sometimes.

Fin.

Quasi-

She stared at him, this woman whom he had never seen before in his life. She stared at him. Her face was disconcerting; a paradox of expression. Her eyes, deep azure stones set upon her countenance, worried him. They beckoned him closer. The rest of her, dark and furrowed, pushed him away. Who was she?

She sat cross-legged in the corner of the hut with her back against the wall, the wrinkles in her shawl mimicking the folds across her face. A baby’s head reared from beneath the cloth, its upper lip still wet with her milk. Confined, the two sat quietly as Kalashnikovs roared from afar.

The father had gone out earlier, but, never returned; by now, his body probably lay strewn along one of the city’s many roads, mouldering in a pool of blood, underneath the scorching desert sun beside the empty magazines and exploded shells that littered the despondent streets of Kabul.

As the incandescent sun beat down on the desert, it was evident that the hut had not been built to last. Its walls had begun to crack and bits of mud crumbled and broke off. The rag, which covered a large hole in one of the walls, that, too, served as a window, had torn, and light now sheared through the rent cloth, like sword through skin, as it blew about, wooed by the parched wind that would sometimes skim the edge of the windowsill as it raced past, crossing the endless expanse of sand and leaving everything behind.

There was a rapping at the door; the sound of bare knuckles tapping against rotting wood pervaded the quiet inside. Two men spoke in muffled Pashto- there was grimness about their tone as they stood outside the door. One loaded his gun and bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, sent bullets sailing into the sky. She had stopped staring at him and her eyes now watched the door.

At once, it bent inwards and recoiled. It bent again. Then again. With each strike, the curve became more pronounced. Wood began to splinter with the blows and they pounded it like her beating heart as it danced wildly inside her chest, besotted by the adrenaline that went coursing through her veins.

The door collapsed forward, sending a cloud of dust into the air as it hit the ground; light poured in from the threshold, through the floating murk, casting two shadows at the woman’s feet. As they drew nearer, she hid her son beneath the shawl and held him tightly. He began to cry.

Click. She was gone. And so was her son. The men, too, had vanished, and along with them, the whole of Kabul. It was darker than before the First Day; he could see nothing. He heard something, though; maybe an engine, yes, an engine igniting.

“God, I hate this country,” he said, lighting a candle. It was eight o’ clock.

Fin.

*Yes, I know the ending’s a bit of a mind-boggler (To euphemise, of course- I’ve got to keep it kosher here, you know). Think.

Side Post: Ambiguity

‘Draw your chair up close to the edge of the precipice and I’ll tell you a story.’

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Who are we, us literary types, if you will? Well, for one, we’re people, just like you, except we’re different. Obscure. We’re not always there at center-stage. We prefer working the curtains. Standing behind them, half-concealed, watching with a nervous retinal twinkle the actors and the audience and the show they put on. Their entrance, exits, metamorphoses. Their dances, and the glimmering lights above them, and finally, the curtain call.

We like to read a lot. We like to write a lot. In short, we like to talk a lot. To discuss. Everything. From the enormous, to the trivial. The avant-garde to the banal. The poignant, to the numbing. Everything.

Then, again, we don’t always think the same way as everybody else, or each other, sometimes, too, as a matter of fact. We’re heretic, errant, trod off the beaten path. And this is why we are ‘Incompris’ – Misunderstood. Because the world isn’t always ready to listen, to pull up that chair and sit across from us and listen to our story, to understand who we are, what we think, hear, and feel. It’s indifference, is what it is, more than anything else at least…

Some people have questioned the employment of a French word to represent a society that’s fundamentally concerned with English. Well, to them, I have to say that English is but a language- a means to communicate thought, expression and emotions. It is not the end in itself. It is the means. To connect, to release, even if it must be by silence, as opposed to speech.

In other words, what I’m trying to say is- what’s Literature without pretence?“

This is the introduction I wrote for the ‘About’ page of my school’s English Literary Society- being the President and all. Comments appreciated.

Fin.

#48: Moving Forward

Today, I am happy. For a lot of reasons, really, but chiefly because today I became the Head of my college’s English Literary Society. Good stuff, but now there’s so much to do. Not that that’s a bad thing. I’ll savor every moment of it, I will, because, before I know it, it’s going to be next year and I’ll be giving my badge away to the next person in line. So, yes. I’ve got to make this next year count. And I will.

I want to make this society the best in the school. Slap the Dramatics’ Society across the face. Kick the Debating Society in the crotch. Pluck a hair off the mole that is the Music Society. Ha. Sorry about that- I kid. That was me joking. Sort of a mean-streak there, yes? But, oh well. You get the gist of it, right?
Lovely.

Seriously, though: this year I’m really going to try and take this society somewhere. Going to win something for the school, going to set up an inter-branch journal, too, and, above all, hope to actually generate some love for the written word, really. It all starts with the belief and willingness to work, though. And I’ve got that. Onwards we go from here.

Fin.

#36: To Read (and Write)

Today I will read. And read, and read, and read. And read. I will read from the first break of day, to the last ray of twilight, till darkness not impede me. I will read every waking minute and build thoughts in my sleep. Today I will read, for light was meant for reading. I will not merely flip through pages, but will feel the words- they will speak to me and will carry me away. To new worlds, unexplored. Today, I will read. And read, and read, and read.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will write.

Fin.