Yesterday night a strange phenomenon occurred to me. I was, as usual after returning from my office, lying on my bed with a novel in my hand. Suddenly an unknown voice, as if from my within, started talking to me.
-Abhishek, imagine that... I ask you to leave this place right now, at once!
And you have to depart from here never to come back again. Suppose you can not say no to me. Or suppose you yourself feel like doing so. Where will you go? Any idea? You are not allowed to go to your family, your friends or your relatives. Nor to your organization as well. All the doors you can knock are closed for you now. Now tell me. Think for a while. You can take your time. You are standing outside of your appartment and you have to choose your path. Which path would you choose?
-What the hell is happening!!
'Hey dick! Get lost!', I was about to snap but didn't. I felt an impulse to ignore it but since it sounded interestingly challenging I let my imagination obey his directions and wander in the directionless world that the voice wanted me to see and feel. I saw the picture of the building I live in. It stood tall behind me and was ready to bid me farewell. I felt like turning back and looking at it but my ego forbade me. Bemused, I looked at the street and the shops arrayed along the both sides of it. I gazed at the various stalls of chai, pan and juice etc. I saw stray dogs who were an inseparable part of the picture. I observed people coming in and going out and doing their daily business. I felt I was seeing them for the first time though they looked somewhat familiar to me. The whole scene had a strange novelty. Perhaps I was too busy to pay attention to its mundane details. But now I was watching everything purposefully and hence meaningfully. I wanted to find my role in the grand play being played at the biggest stage of the world. I wanted to enrol myself in the institute which was better than any man-made one and which never denied admission to anyone. My future was lying at one of these ways which went through this point. And I had no clue about that. I knew as much about it as any passer by did. How curious it was! I was sharing my ignorance with people as if I was sharing my destiny too with them. How could that be possible? I vainly tried to listen to the voice of my intuition. Frustrated by the nothingness of my mind I began to look around in search of something unknown but useful. I noticed a man who took some goods from a shop, mounted on his bike and rattled away to some unknown destination. My eyes followed him till he turned round the next corner and disappeared leaving nothing but a small cloud of dust crawling at the road. 'Where would he go?', I thought. How inexplicably amazing is that I can't feel his experiences; his pain and pleasure, his small anxieties and big aspirations, his life! I cant even feel how an apple tastes to him! I can only imagine about him, but that will be my imagination, wont it? No matter how much I try, I can not be him. This thought made me a little sad. But I didnt disturb the chain of thoughts. I had right only on my experiences. And this was my only duty to live my life and feel my experiences. I was sent here to make my mistakes and learn my lessons. I was supposed to let my life live within me. I had to find myself and internalize him. Or rather I had to find myself and externalize him. But did I know myself? I had seen my face thousand times but never my identity, my self, my soul! How could I find him when I had never seen him? Who would help me recognizing him? Where would I find those eyes that would help me in seeing myself? Would any mirror guide me? No, mirrors only misguided. I remembered Dorian Gray*. This is what a mirror does to a man! A spasm of horror shook my spine. It's incredible! How often do we realize it? And what the hell was I thinking!! I had to make a decision. I had to move ahead. Do we know where to go when we are left free, completely free from every attachment and every bondage? I never ever pondered over this and now this question was demading an answer, inexorably, urgently.
I visualized myself outside my appartment wearing a T-shirt and knickers. My hair was unkempt and I was hardly looking like myself. I felt naked in the market.
- No, not this way!
- Fine. You can choose your attire and wear your confidence. See to it that it doesnt lose its luster with the crease of your clothes.
- Can I take my credentials with me?
- Aint they with you? What are you when you dont have them? Have you earned them or they have earned you all the luxuries you are having?
I again saw myself standing amid the bustle of market and beeps of cars. The sun shone over my head. I felt the heat and missed my air-conditioned office. The first drop of sweat tickled my forehead. Sweat! I had forgotten its existence long back. I used to sweat profusely when I exerted myself physically. Now it's all the things of past. I even felt like piercing my skin to see my blood too, if it still ran though my veins. Where was I living, away from my sweat and blood? I remembered I had renounced sports long back. My romantic-self rebelled against this realization. I asked myself that who the hell I was now? I had been the one who never stopped playing cricket in the evening even during my board exams!! What had I made of myself? Whose life was I living? What for?
I took a deep breath and felt the air. I opened my eyes and saw the broadness of the day with a childlike joy. I felt a strange new freshness in the air. I marvelled at a bird flying in the vast blue sky. And the clouds!! Cheerfully I imagined stuffing them into my pillow to make it fluffy! What a cool cushion it would make!! I gazed at the blue sky and felt the wind brushing my face. The whole wide world revealed itself to me, with all its immense and infinite vastness, for the first time or long after an eternity. And I realized that it's time for me to condition myself as per the new reality, infact the reality. I could not afford to feel disdainfully indifferent to its mundane business anymore. I had to fit somewhere. Yeah, fit somewhere. This is what I've been doing since I dont remember when. Still I was so confused how to do it without someone telling me where to do it.
Why was it so difficult?
First family, then relatives and friends. They formed a protective layer around me. They decided on my behalf in the various stages of my life and I comfortably played the role they chose for me. I was given healthy and tasty food without my having anything to do with farming or farmers. I couldnt live for five minutes without a fan but I was not to touch a single wire. Then schools furthered the superficiality of living. It was like sliding in a long groove without bothering anything about anything. Everything just happened. The schools took my years and gave me grades as interest, without making me face any sphinx-like question the real life poses later on. After all I had paid fees just to keep me from thinking, hadnt I? For years I had never been short of assignments and examinations, and numbers as well. And I learned nothing but numbers only. The sepoy mutiny in 1857, the production of tea in Assam is x and the GDP of India in 1994 is y and the minimum age required to contest election is z. Noone ever talked about my real face and the mirror which reflected my real face. Why would they? Now I realize that it's my personal question and I have to search the answer; it's my cross and I have to carry it on my shoulder. It's my right and my duty.
I was kept away from the real life by the many devices of society. Perhaps I was not mature enough for that. IIT Delhi, eventually the great red fort was also won. I had a strong shell around my body now. I was no more vulnerable. I was no longer at the mercy of the vicissitude of chance. By now I had subconsciously developed a sense of fear from uncertainty, from maturity, from reality. My natural desire to explore the wild world of nature had starved long back. I tethered my horse with a nearby tree and relaxed in the cool shadow in the splendid forest of Karakoram. I never had to suffer the scorch of sun.
Finally I found a niche' in the corporate world. Now I had to only follow the foorsteps of my predecessors and continue my journey in a large caravan towards a business school. Perhaps I wanted another shell around my body. And there were many social institutions which earned by mass-snailification of men and women.
Yes, all of us are snails. Safe within our shells we drift disgracefully towards a destination that doesnt beckon us. We've bartered our wings for these shells. But this sense of insecurity has pervaded our psyche so profoundly that no number of shells can make us feel safe. The quest for the next shell is nothing but an attempt to forget the loss of our wings.
The world had stopped being a huge laboratory for my experiments, my edification, my emancipation, my illumination and my salvation. It had reduced to be a playground. The shell-mongers have repeatedly said that it was a battle-field and we need their shells for our survival. Yes, we were not living but extending our survival.
God knows how many thoughts assailed my mind. I realized in the end that I have things but I am nothing! The voice had come to wake me up from my long slumber. It wanted me to appreciate the importance of being over having. I had exhausted my mind but could not imagine myself going out further than the first corner. I am still thinking about it.
I understood that freedom is coming out the these shells, these institutions, these certificates and degrees which define and delimit us. Renunciation of these shells that obstruct the sun and our growth would be the triumph of the being over having. We need to relinquish the petty rights which under-compensate the freedom we are made to forfeit for their acquisition. This is the way to humanization which essentially passes through de-snailification. It is, no doubt, a continuous and difficult process and a struggle within. But nothing of value or worth comes cheap.
* The picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
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