The rays of the evening sun invaded my room, penetrating the walls I had created. If the beurguoise could create walls around themselves neglecting the downtrodden even I could. The cobwebs that shone in the corner, the pieces of a broken glass jar, the remnants of sleepless nights and a broken past all did one thing kept out one class of people from my habitat, the ceanliness obsessed who just cannot accept that everything is constructed of the same things, a past. The dirtier it looked the more interesting it was.
I woke up from one day of slumber to the dark glory of the night. The room seemed nice. Everything seemed to live its life. Specks of dust danced in the rays, the cobwebs swayed in the breeze as the spider dared to stay on, the aroma of tobacco, burnt and burning flew around.From the comfort of the dusty rag on my bed, I got up to see a huge white screen put up in the BBC. Walked around enjoying the company of a weird roommate who could talk about things I believed in.
That was what made Basim my roommate-he could talk things and I would believe it. I could listen and he would appreciate it. I could write that down and he would appreciate. Just another wheel in this whole wheeled system of mechanical bliss.
A motion picture was soon to be screened. One drenched in cliched imagination, stereotypical love, the loser winning the girl story. Too much addicted to variety, I moved around during the film, succumbing to the temptations of the parallel world I lived in. But time is a good salesman. Two hours of the film in parts had forced me to stand still and watch till the end when the roadside Romeo would walk away with the girl. I laughed at myself for the three parallel worlds I was present in during the same point in time and how reality differed from imagination but didn't differ from constructed reality.
Soon it was time for the celestials to play their games. The notes of a certain melodramatic song from that joke of a film had just started to silence the audience. And they roared, the skies. A brief flash of blue light, puzzled looks on faces and a a sound that promised to shatter the rhythmic noise. The Romeo walked towards the girl who was wet from top to bottom, not literally but in the ideologies of the cleanliness obsessed minds of our society. That was enough. Breeze had removed its mask. it was no longer the silent gypsie who floated around kissing flowers, it was the wind that had drowned many a ship. The white piece of clothe fluttered swaying more to the rhythm of the rustling leaves than the preplanned drama. The celestials would still not stop, they sent arrows down onto the earth. The arrays of people had broken down their formations and had started running for shelter, I had started to stop laughing and started smiling. The screen flew away, hiding from a hundred man-eyes that seeked to see more of that rustic piece of entertainment.
I went down opened my arms, closed my eyes and felt the only person who would still kiss me, the rain. By the time I opened my eyes countless others had joined me in the ritual, getting wet, going back in time. I was wet, I was wandering in a sea of people, with a chilled spine and numb brain. I walked relinquishing the joy I had witnessed for that puff of tobacco that would warm me. I could see the guard at the middle gate fiddling with the register, phone and everything that was there on his table. Nothing could get wet. All were records that the system demanded in order to administer all of us with doses of discipline. All of them were wet, surrendering in the war with the celestials. Meanwhile the trees out celebrated their arrival. I smiled again.
"Everything is wet in the rain. No more signing today.", the guard said and it felt good. Then I saw my roommate. He didnt say a word, and I didnt listen. I looked in his eyes and both of us understtood. Those games that brains play and eyes watched. Some eyes refuse to look us and they dont understand but those that catch, catch it fine. "Life's not bad after all he said." Life is not bad, its not bad at all.
The whole thing had me celebrating, laughing and smiling. It was as if all the people had realized that the world was constructed and it was time to break it down, to return to the earth, to be sons of the soil, to dance in the rain and not in front of the eyes of a thousand flesh hungry mongrels who stare at faces and arms but not the flow that has caused the show,to rebuild those thoughts that had been embodied and finally hidden in a thousand clay structures that looked beautiful in isolation. I felt good and Lennon sang in my ears...
"You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one..."
No comments:
Post a Comment