The bridges and walls between us

Above all, do not mistake me for someone else - Friedrich Nietzsche

It is human to misinterpret. In a conversation, the absence of misunderstanding is a rarity, an exceptional incident, rather a fortuitous coincidence when perhaps all the planets of the solar system align themselves.

While reading this you will subconsciously fill (or not fill) the gaps between these letters and words by different colours of varying shades and that'd determine the picture thus formed. So I'm just providing here a template my dear reader, you are going to be the creator. You are going to create me uniquely and I'll live for a few moments in your mind. My existence will be at the mercy of the frame of mind you will be in while reading it.

But please don't over-misinterpret me. I know it's a futile request because you are bound to do that. Often you invent me and play all sorts of games with that image of mine (For example you see me as aBhishek and the next guy sees me as abHishek and so on and so forth. I think I am abhishek aspiring to grow up and become ABHISHEK, my ideal man, my hero.). You begin to like aBhishek without my knowledge and perhaps even without yours. Then you tend to associate extravagant expectations with him and try to truncate my persona in order to fit the reality into your invention. You refuse to acknowledge the existence of abhishek and his dynamics (because he wants to be ABHISHEK). And ultimately when you relent and submit to the truth, you don't do it without a feeling of contempt and derision. Then you reinvent me (according to your will and whim and your newly discovered truth) only to punish me for your premature (mis) judgment. The irony is that it is done, frequently done, without any feeling of hostility. This is normal. I admit even I do it.

Here is an interesting catch. It's very unflattering to realize that it was not you but your falsely conceived image that was loved and honored by one you valued. It is quite insulting and can cause a severe inferiority complex to a sensitive person for a long time. At the same time it's not your image but you who are subjected to post-disappointment sarcasm and scorn. Agreed that you receive affection initially but for a person of character the life of his/her image is not very long. Sooner than later the individuality asserts itself with an 'iconoclastic' force. Again, I agree that sometimes the image work works favorably for you when the order of the events are exchanged but I guess that's not very probable. I am saying this because people instinctively want to like you because they need the warmth of your intimacy to protect themselves from the dreadful chill of isolation, a pandemic threat to the post-modern man. So they look for the reasons to like you and they think that they have found their reasons, in your image.

We live in cosmopolitan crucibles and we communicate predominantly by a common language (say English) which promises to surmount the psychological barricades or gives us a delusion of cluttering up the cross-cultural fissures. But I feel that language is a grossly overrated tool of communication. I feel this because I've had experiences which has taught me and made me realize that the meaning of words vary not only trans-culturally but also trans-personally(if it means anything :) Especially the words which contain emotions in them greatly alter their intensity and thus meaning according to the frequency of their use or abuse by various users or abusers. That way the language facilitates not communication but miscommunication between individuals which can cause disastrous consequences. Its is said that actions speak louder than words. The communication becomes further difficult when even actions display the same behaviour. Then they lie louder than words. Let me elucidate.

Till std 10th I was in absolute Love with comics and cricket. I had an enviable collection of rare comics and I used to keep it hidden and safe from the predatory gaze of the world. Not even the girl who was my teenage crush had had full access to this treasure of mine. Now I've a nice collection of books at my place and even my father can't obtain the key of my bookshelf without my prior permission. Here you might like to daub my face with a dark shade of insanity for all I care but that's not the point. Suppose I give one of my books to someone then it's an statement, an act pregnant with message. But as I've already mentioned, the real creator of the picture is one who sees it. What if my special one fails to appreciate the hidden feelings behind this seemingly trivial gesture of mine? And this does happen with each one of us. And this does not leave a very good taste in your mouth. Relationships gets embittered, poisoned and die untimely due to misunderstandings engendered by wanton nature of words, actions and their (mis)interpretations. What you consider valuable might not be of same value to me because our values differ. We ascribe different values to different things as per our sansakar(yeah! they dominate our actions not our philosophy. Don't get confused over this.). You can find myriad instances where you would have felt the same way. The notable point is that we still communicate. And as the existence of life defies the law of entropy as if it doesn't even recognize it, we communicate, royally successfully given the potential of the cumulative threats to it. It does happen, I don't know how. But the credit should not be gratuitously imposed on language.

We communicate not because of but despite language.

True friendship and true relationship sustain the post-disappointment shock, they stand the test of time. "Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival."- C S Lewis

Love happens not because of something, but despite everything.

I don't know if it was relevant or not but it is one of my recent observations. And it fits in the same pattern(not because of but despite) which often exposes the lacuna of causality. I owe this to Prof Srinivas who taught me Language and Communication in IITD. I couldn't understand his comment (you get jobs not because of but despite your being IITian) but it struck me because of its brilliant purple colour. You didn't understand that? Hmm... I had anticipated that. Words you see.

listen to this....

This is the painting which I liked most in Louvre. I admit I have never been into paintings so I lack any technical background to appreciate them properly. But in the first glance only this one appealed to my sense of beauty as well as my emotional state of mind at that time. I had written a paragraph but then deleted it. I realized the futility in writing about it. How many words can create an effect that this painting does? So friends, look at it and listen to what it says to you. I'm sure you'ld have a different story to tell.

IIT-JEE and the skirt of Sania

Without wasting words I'll talk straight to the point.

Why IIT-JEE? Absolutely right or approximately right, this system was never wrong. Nothing succeeds like success and IITs have made their mark almost everywhere on the globe. Without world class infrastructure and faculty(Do you know any world class scientist or Nobel Laureate from IITs?) what else has made it so popular if not its students? What was so drastically urgent about the pattern of the exam that attracted the attention of our honorable human resource minister?

Why not primary education? Why not anything else like basic health? Aint they in pitiable conditions? Dont they concern millions of poor people? What else deserves the immediate intervention of govt?

Similarly why Sania? Who is she? An individual, An Indian, or a Muslim? And I've read something like "fundamental rights" and "secular nation" in my book of civics. Shouldnt those who threat the basic tenets of our constitution be punished? Instead of bringing them to books, how about curtailing the freedom and privacy of the girl whose sole folly is her being Indian and successful! Disgraceful!

Why not the thousands of bar girls and prostitutes who also follow the same religion? Dont they need the generosity of their religious leaders? Does Islam approve the exploitation of woman? Perhaps it does. And perhaps it also approves of the terrorism and mass-killings of innocent civillions. Does anyone remember these self-declared guardians of Islam issuing "fatwa" against Dawood Ibrahim who is not only a killer of thousands of his compatriots but also a murderer of already precarious peace and harmony between Hindus and his very own 'brothers'; the brothers who were made to bear the post-blast heat of riots. Isnt he a traitor to his own community? Ok let them decide this for themselves.

I can say more about the specific points pertaining to these topics but I'll abstain from it. It's a trap most people as well as media is falling in. The merits of something is examined only after the scrutiny of the intention that engenders it. Here the only purpose is news-making and nothing else. To be true the imbecile statements issued by the directors of IITs didnt shock me at all. I think they are losers, they are fallen from their ideals and are deployed where they are only beacause of these 'virtues' they have.

For God's sake let IITs and Sania leave alone. They will make the nation more respectable than all the ministers and religious leaders together.

tujhse naraaz nahi zindagi hairaan hoon main

I am no Howard Roark. I have no super-natural powers or skills. But I wished to live my life with full control in my hands. I had once seen some dreams. To fulfill those dreams I had made some plans too. I wouldnt say that my dreams went unrealized. Some of them did come true but not in the way I expected them to.

Well, I am standing dazed and shaken before my life. She has taken up my charge. Perhaps she considers me too naive to be left to myself. And I've quietly accepted her dominance coz I see her steering better than I do.

A walk to remember

Camera doesn’t capture everything that is beautiful. When I 'actually' discover (appreciation is somewhat like discovery, isn’t?) beauty, I do nothing but see and feel it. That's a moment of absolute oneness with the subject. I lose my sense of meta-reality(read meta-consciousness). For a moment I am too engrossed to feel even joy. That's when I discover; I see the beauty, our beauty. In other cases when I know that something is beautiful, and everyone knows this, I lose my interest in that (at least partially), perhaps because there is not much opportunity for me to discover anything there. I find my eyes, my subjectivity absolutely redundant there. Everything is known, studied, researched, documented, pictured, said and heard. There I take my camera out. For instance I asked my friend to take my snap with Mona Lisa in Louvre, Paris. I don’t remember myself looking at that painting even for a minute.* For me it is just famous, not beautiful. For me Mona Lisa is a symbol of this-is-what-an-artist-can-do-with-a-woman or this-is-what-a-woman-does-to-art, period.

But when I took my usual post-dinner walk along the river** in Aschaffenberg, I cannot tell you how profoundly enchanted I felt by her*** divine beauty. Wrapped in the inexplicable mystery of night**** she dynamically assumed mysterious colors and insane dimensions. I would sit and stare at the river and would rejoice in her company. I looked into her eyes. She appeared to alter her expressions according to the shades of my moods. And then she slowly engendered a whole spectrum of illusions in my poor besotted mind. God knows how many unearthly ideas sprouted in my mind. I am scarcely able to recall all of them now. But each one of them seemed to be so ineffably strange, even to me.



Good Heavens! Could reality be so beautiful? She rendered poetry, music, art, everything superfluous. She made the reality richer than the dreams. How singularly surrealistic everything seemed to me in the warmth of her tender embrace! Every sensation seemed too fantastic to be true. The experiences I had were so novel to believe and so elemental to express. My conscious seemed to float blissfully in a wonder-world where reality mingled with the imaginary. I either was dreaming or was more awake than I’d ever been in my life. Perhaps people feel this way when they are intoxicated or when they are on the verge of death, I don’t really know.

I felt a strange lightness of being, as if I was just a soul without any form, any body. And I seemed to see then what was otherwise invisible, not only to others but also to me. I saw or I think I saw a horizon slowly rising from beyond the dark curtains of the background, luminous with a dim whiteness, making everything visible in the pitch-ebony of the night.

Surrounded by an impregnable serenity she showed herself more clearly. Her contours, nebulous with mist and foliage, triggered so many imaginations. Imaginations, by numerous, awestruck and earnest eyes, curiously caressing her curves peering from behind the translucent veil of darkness. Sometimes later the quivering images of the trees, arrayed along its sides, caught my attention; trees hesitatingly bending over her as if begging her permission to kiss her moist lips, the delicate petals parted by the dark glowing nectar! And then I saw the mischievous sparkles in her numerous eyes and the million moons melting in them... ohh as if she had chosen me to know her innermost secrets, as if she had been eagerly waiting for me since eternity only to bless my ignoble life with a meaning, as if she herself had been craving for me with her outstretched hands trembling with a burning passion, throbbing with a living desire. What a flattering delusion! Or was it true? Whatever, she was dangerously, mortally charming and nothing else seemed to matter. I eagerly drank her fragrance that was generously wafted into the secrecy of nightly atmosphere. Perhaps I was getting insane with ecstasy. I held myself for a moment and pondered over the compulsion that made me go to her every night. Was it a command of my destiny, my inner longing that had brought me there? I let myself sway with the tune she played; I dropped my defense. Pouring her ethereal beauty into my hypnotized eyes she stripped me of my sanity as well as my innocence and even my sight for a while. Looking into her eyes almost made me feel vertigo. Her unexplored and unfathomed depth invited me deep within her. I was not sure how long I would be able to resist that temptation though I knew I had to pay for it by my life. But my heart felt overwhelmed with gratitude and awe; just like, I ventured to imagine, someone would feel after committing the first original sin with an unknown village belle under the mask of anonymity and in the veil of darkness.

What a celebration of unadulterated sensuality it was! An uninterrupted orgy of senses! Life seemed to be utterly vulnerable after witnessing such divinely a spectacle, and life seemed to be more worthy to be lived than ever before.

Apprehended by an unknown foreboding, I closed my eyes. For a moment everything came to a standstill. But before I could return to my consciousness I heard a soft whisper in my ear. I felt that she said something to me, perhaps something deeply meaningful, or perhaps something utterly flippant and playful. I didn’t know exactly. Perhaps she didn’t say anything at all. She usually surprised me with her moody behavior. And that's what made me her slave. I heard the lost tunes of many unheard serenades in that silence that seemed to hide so many untold tales in the inaccessible alleys of her timeless memory. I took a deep breath to restore the lost rhythm of my heartbeats and opened my eyes. Turning my head upwards, I looked above in order to escape her sight and return to normality. I didn’t see many stars in the sky. I saw a large school of white clouds swimming across the sky as though they were moving purposefully to some destination. Suddenly I felt as if I was lying at the bottom of a huge ocean gazing at the gigantic tortoises sailing at the surface. What a weird thought! I closed my eyes again and visualized myself lying on the bed of my beloved and looking up at the sky. I saw colorful fishes running over and stars dancing at the wavy screen creating delightful patterns. After a while I saw myself dead and my hairs undulating by the gentle strikes of my beloved. I narcissistically reveled the sight of my dead body but then my sense of morality reproached me. What a morbid thought!

The first one or the chosen one? I reflected on that. Now I can't and I won't say this beauty to be untouched or unseen and I am sure that many before me must have come and felt the same illusion of exclusivity. But this uninterrupted illusion seemed to be more real than reality itself. She surely knew the art of making love. She knew the indispensability of the elements of spirituality for the fulfillment of the senses. She knew the significance of unconditional surrender. She knew the importance of the illusion of unassailable exclusivity.

I saw even myself coming to her in different times, as different beings. Sometimes as an old priest, fallen in his own eyes, who sought atonement with his own stained soul. Sometimes as a young soldier, kneeling down before her, stained with tear, sweat and blood, who vowed to win his dignity back in the next battlefield. Sometimes as a frustrated poet, sometimes a confused philosopher but always as a seeker. And she had always provided the courage and strength to find the answers of the questions the life essentially poses to every seeker. She had always inspired life in my dead soul. She had always showered affection like a mother when I needed it the most. She had always sent me back more energetic, more vigorous, and more capable to face the death inherent in life. My heart felt deluged with reverence for her.

A sudden flapping of the wings of the ducks broke my trance. God knows what made them panic; perhaps I might have made some movement though I am not sure. I admit I was alarmed by the noise. My heart would have skipped a beat. I stood up dazed and shaken at the steps and watched them sailing across the river. I looked at my watch, it was quarter past one! I sat there for around one and a half hour! It was high time that I go to bed. The next night was to be spent in the bus to Paris so this sleep was very much needed.

While coming back the distinct swoosh of wind flirting with the leaves echoed, nay, haunted in my mind for long. The horror is still vivid in my mind. I felt that she was sending her envoy to keep me from going back to my world of light and levity where everything had a universally understood meaning. The world of unanimity where there was no place for imagination and multliplicity of meaning. I turned back to see the last image of my fading dream. I saw her receding with a self-assured smile. As if she knew very well that I secretly harbored a vague wish to die in her arms as dictated by my unalterable destiny. As if she knew that I had to come to her for the final atonement. As if she knew that she was the only way to my salvation.

I entered my room where my roommates were enjoying some movie.

- had your walk?
- hmm…
- took so much time? met someone there?
- yeah..
- god knows what do you see there?
- god. What else?


Next to next morning I found myself in Paris. I saw the famous Eiffel Tower. We took a lot of snaps there though none of us could remember a single minute when we actually appreciated its beauty, just by looking at it, mesmerized, spellbound. We just took pictures.



*It was this observation which prompted me to write this essay. Nobody was seeing Mona Lisa, everyone wanted to be seen with her!
**Main. Read 'Mine'. This is a tributary of the river Rhine.
***Please allow me, the 'kafir' lover, the personification of the river, the beloved.
****I love night! I am absolutely in love with it. But please, let it be clearly understood…my night has nothing to do with the night of 'nightlife' which I hold with utter contempt. What a waste! What a mindless underselling of the sublime!

musical mood:
- tujhe bulaaye yeh meri baahen (Ram teri Ganga maili)
- lag ja gale (Woh koun thi)