Stony Thoughts

In a place where humanity is sandwiched between the endlessness of physical oppression and the dead-ends of psychological suppression, it is hard to give form to one’s expressions, leave alone addressing the question of as to how to find deliverance.

This question has long pestered me, in that, either I have to frame my answer in terms of so called moderate, progressive & enlightened set of didactics or in terms of violent, militant, belligerent ideological perspective smokescreen put before our eyes. And to top it all, either way I am relegated to extremism, which, in current times is a vicious thing to get tagged with, however glamorous it may seem. Thus, I am left with no option as an option and no choice as a choice.

Mind is a restless dog, it keeps on barking, till either it dies or ends biting what unsettles it. But that applies to the normal dogs, strays and pets included. Unfortunately, there is a third type too, the ones which are confined in open spaces, tested, doctored, drugged, illtreated, pampered as and when suits the hunters. They portray a wonderful picture of what otherwise the golden words of Gertrude Stein composed, “Everything is so dangerous that nothing is really frightening”. The only exception in our case is that it is dangerously frightening.

The answer, if this is taken to be one, made me wonder as to how shall the (state) guns fall silent, when ironically their reckless booming has constitutional sanction, which in our times is a global epidemic. Somehow the voices inside my head bailed me by shouting out, that, these can be made silent only if you have bigger, better canons, not the cannon fodder only. Not that I don’t care for human life, I do, to the extent that would love to give away my own in order to save another one’s. I might sound senselessly paradoxical, but that is exactly what I was made to breathe in, gulp down, grow up along and live with-paradoxes. In my homeland even paradoxes can go by contraries. Given the atmosphere that I live in, I cannot be principled and upright, because firstly the moment I try to be, the despotism will make it sure that I am the only mute spectator to my own cold murder and secondly, my red hot blood will certainly inspire my fellow brethren to get killed bare bodied rather than being alive with this absurd cloak of Uprightness. And forgive me I am not so great a soul to be ready to undergo such persecution. I am a usual person with unusual responsibilities to shoulder just as every one of you has to, it’s the one me that adds up to billions of you.

In this terrible standoff between me the common man and I a duty bound principled person, that my oppressor has successfully put me in, I am exposed to nothing but annihilation either of my conscience or of my being. These intrinsic sentiment oriented reflections of mine are no less significant than the external reality face, because both of them in essence are borne of a sense of fear, threat, oppression, vulnerability, intimidation and helplessness. I feel just a bullet away from having nothing to lose, and when I arrive at it, I might consider the option of “Similia similibus Curantur”.

You may think of me as a weird irrational person who has lost touch with sanity, because in your world work and happiness largely fill the spaces of your available time, but my world has been filled with gloom, redundancy, desperation, death and destruction. Moreover, I can hardly afford to keep a dog who must bark at my oppressive intruder, I have to do it myself. Even after changing the tactics and altering my strategies, the only thing worth that I realised was that enemy and bullshit remain perennially unmodified

Now coming back to the question in question, It was only after some long sessions of ponderings and deliberations with myself, I had found a possible enclosure to drown my confused, mangled agony in, and I did pour it out there, only to find it turn into a stone in my hand, which I unhesitatingly hurled at my oppressor, not to hurt him, just to kill him right-away, to make him understand what it is like being in a consistent state of pain & sorrow. Adversely, his eyes seem to be as dark and hollow as the barrel of his gun through which he shoots death at me. Thus the answer continues to evade and appear in fits and starts, playing hide and seek with my already blindfolded humanness. As of now, with this thought knocking hard at the morose walls of my numb heart, I neither feel sad or happy, nor accomplished or botched. How soon will this feeling transform me needs to be seen. But transform I will, as long as the spirit of resistance replenishes my being, as long as I am alive. Is not the life itself a sole humongous reflection of perennial struggle and strife, was not I taught that contentment is death disincarnate.

Is it possible for me to reverse the way my thoughts process. Maybe yes, only if I can fix them around the triangular ambit of Past, Present and Future. Yet when I try to attempt the same, I don’t find any triangle, rather it is just the present chasing and scuffling with the past and the future trying to restore the calm, and this orgy goes on circling around with me at its centre. Caught in between this ruckus, I can neither concentrate on the variance without nor focus on its implications within. But why at all should I be so curiously poking my nose in such a hotchpotch, didn’t they keep saying, Curiosity killed the cat and truly so. I am not an Alexander having a million strong army and an endless treasury at my command. I am just another common average man having a lot to fend for, and be responsible for. I have to secure my career, look for sustenance, help my parents, look after my personal and family interests, get married, raise children, feed them, and educate them so they can be a succor in my old age. However, what if after investing so much in me, my parents, my family and the children who I've already started to feel as my respite in my fading days, what the very if, one fine morning or golden evening my children are delivered unto my frail arms, all bloodied and sullied, with the same cold stone locked in their palms that now is staring me in the eye.

The thought yet again renders me blank & dizzy, only these words ringing all inside all around:

“Don’t play for safety – it is the most dangerous thing in the World.”.