In The Silence Of My Solitude - A Novel (Part 28) -- Final Part

STOP

Dear Friends, I don't hate you.In-fact, I don't hate anyone, as I think hate is a useless emotion. I don't love you either. Because, I have no idea what is love.

Then, I wonder, Why am I warning you?

Friends, Stop reading right here.You may not like what you are gonna read. Especially, some of those friends who think of themselves as beautiful, and those who strongly believes in the moral order of the mainstream society, and those whose experiences are that of the sanitized version of reality either through censored- movies or censored- books or via censored- experience.

Every moment of our life people tell us what to look and what to experience. Our life became a huge censor cut -- not appropriate at any age, any time, or epoch.If for a moment if we assume that we are our experiences, then let me tell you this, We are fake. We experience what the collective society wants us to experience.What we experience is not life but a day time television family serial. Life does not happen in the society. Whatever we experienced is not authentic. Life happens only on the edges of the society.

I know that for a fact, because I went there.

You see, the society is like a hologram, and the mainstream is an illusion.  But, the information to create that illusion is created by the people on the edges.

Mainstream is static, the edges are dynamic.

So, start reading from here only if are ready to face the edges.

I warn you.

              
        In the heart of darkness, behind the bushes, invisible to any human, I waited. I waited for 1...2...3 hours. The rain stopped, moon shined, and the crickets and frogs started their noise business. The hut was in my view, lighted by a kerosene lamp, with the beggar laying on the bed staring at the top of the hut.

Then, just for couples of seconds, there was silence. No sound at all. Then, as if it was a cue, and as if he was in a trance, he got up from the bed, came out of the hut and started walking towards the north direction. I followed him.

Instead of taking the road, he walked through the fields, and he walked, walked, and walked, for close to 5 kms, and I followed him. Now, the area we were walking looked like barren land, and full of soil. Then, suddenly, he started running, and ran I after him.

I ran for a furlong, and then slipped and fell down. When I got up, I noticed that I was at the edge of a small hillock over-looking I didnt know what. I took a couple of steps, and there it was, the Godavari river in all its glory. It was huge.

One wrong step there, I would have dived down 30 feet below in to the river Godavari.
I stood there on the edge, with the humongous moonlit river before me. It was the most beautiful and scary thing I have ever seen.

                        "So, you suffered enough?". It was the beggar. I nodded in agreement.
"I don't think so", he replied, "But, I will let you come with me, with one condition. You should obey me without asking any questions". I nodded again.

A small boat was waiting for us down below. As we approached the boat, he whispered to me, "That thing on your wrist is your pass, and only it will save you tonight".

There were two people on the boat, and one of them asked him, "Who is this?"
"one of us", he replied.

The boat sailed for close to one hour downstream, and I noticed the stream getting faster, and I was able to hear some noise resembling some drums.

We stopped at an island, and I was able to see many huts with their twinkling kerosene lamps.

  We entered a large hut lighted as sublimely as possible as if to say that light is not their best friend. Groups of hooded people covered from head to toe sat before a stage. The central part of the stage was illuminated by a top light. We sat in the middle of the crowd, and the beggar whispered to me, " What ever you see, don't say anything.Just don't say anything.Promise me".

"Promise", I promised. Why would I say anything?

Without any announcement of any-kind, a hooded figure came on to the stage. Because of the top light his face was invisible, almost looked like those of image of death in western movies.

"Comrades, lets start the game of suffering", and left the stage, and the lights were out.
I was able to hear some noises on the stage as if people were arranging things. 10 tense minutes went by.

Lights on.

The same person (I hope so) on the stage, but this time, something like a huge box fully covered by a black cloth was behind him.

"Comrades, I just came to know that today in our presence there is a special guest for whom we were waiting for many years. He is one of ours. No harm must be done to him", he announced.
I heard a whoosh of murmur and it die as fast as it came.

He then dramatically looked at the audience and pulled away the cloth covering the box. It was a cage with a naked women inside. Looked like she was sleeping, and her back was in view to the audience. She looked almost like a model, perfect shapes and size, and a light-brown skin tone.

Probably a skit, I thought. May be it was a wish. I really hoped that she was acting. I really fucking hoped. Because,

A new character entered the stage, and a terror passed threw my spine and I shivered. Does this nightmare ever stop?

A huge, ugliest Armadillo walked onto the stage. It was twice the size of the armadillo I had seen on the Ataka. It opened the cage all by itself with a flick of its tongue and walked into the cage.

Its a skit, right?

It looked at the audience for a couple of seconds just like a magician looking at the audience before his act. It then brought its face near to the woman's and started licking her which woke her up. Then, started screaming. A scream of horror which I had never heard in my life ...either in real or in movies. It was definitely not acting. It was a reality play, and it was happening right before my eyes.

She screamed and screamed, running away from the monster armadillo towards the  edge of the cage. She screamed for a minute, and then collapsed.Her nerves couldn't handle any of it. The monster just sat there at the center like a pet dog looking at the audience. A kind of encouraging murmur whooshed through the crowd.

Lights off. The central part of the stage was lit again, and the speaker started his speech.

"Comrades, What is suffering? Why do we suffer? More importantly why do we suffer with the knowledge that there is no end for our suffering? Usually for people, when they suffer, a hope that their suffering is not going to be forever, balms their pain. But, there is no such kind of balm for our pain. Then, why do we suffer? The answer : We suffer because we carry the sins of the every organism. We literally carry the sin of the bacteria inhabiting in our body, slowly eating away our skin, our body parts; but have no fear, it can never reach our heart, the only organ which defines us.If at all there is something as free will, and if at all humans acted as if they are in control of their actions, then we wouldn't be sitting here. Our paths met and our destinies intertwined because of only one reason : Mainstream society's will to survive, and making us outcasts by defining ugly, beauty, and fearsome. Isn't the bacteria killing us just to survive? In that sense, whats the difference between the society and the bacteria inhabiting us. Then why is sin applicable only to humans? Because humans think that the are in control, and that arrogance which they are not in control of makes them think that they are in control of all the organisms in the planet. "

"Our father, the God we believe in, never gave any special status to humans. Every human is like an ant. If we see this society from upstairs what we see is an ant colony.No difference."

"Our God is a leper, and will forever be until life exists.In the beginning God created energy and matter in his own image, and said let there be chaos; that was how this universe formed. All was well; God glided through one planet to planet, to stars and to galaxies. He loved it. He loved the silence. Then why did god create the universe if he loves silence? To feel his own existence. But the chaos created a desire in the inanimate, a desire to see copies of themselves, and that's how life formed. There is only one sin  : Desire. God suffers, and as a servant to the God, we too suffer because of the sin of Desire."

As if that was a cue, the lights were turned off, and moment later turned on again.

Armadillo at the center of the stage, and a beautiful scared shitness, naked woman sitting at the edge of the cage as if to go away as far as from the Armadillo. She was shaking, crying, and started shouting.. "This is a dream, right? This is nightmare, right? Where are my fans? Where is Mama and Papa? This is just a nightmare. I will soon wake up from it. Just a night mare"

The Armadillo which was sitting at the center of the stage, just like pet dog, started swinging its tail, and opened its mouth to show its teeth as if it was laughing. Then it walked  towards the crying model, and started licking her vagina. Within a minute, two things happened in quick succession. One : She vomited, Two: She organsmed. Then, she fainted again.

The speaker started again, "Comrades, I hope you observed the two desires which bought her down. The desire to survive and the desire to procreate.  There is one of more desire in her which sealed her fate -- her vanity -- her desire to attract. That's why we selected her.She is the vainest woman in the whole country".

Next episode : The armadillo sat on her and started fucking her with her tail. Blood started oozing out of her vagina, and it was difficult to find out if she was shouting orgasmically or shouting in pain.

I couldn't hold it anymore, and I shouted, " STOP IT".

The armadillo stopped its fucking, and sat there on its tail obediently. The girl was in shock..and was convulsing, and soon became unconscious.

The speaker replied, " As I expected..You didn't suffer enough"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Suffering brings you to truth. Suffering, is, the, truth", he proclaimed.

"let me ask you this", he continued, " given a choice between knowing about your mother or saving this woman, which one do you choose?"
"That is ridiculous", I replied angrily.
"Ridiculous? I am not asking a hypothetical question. Its a real question, and you have to choose either one of them. If you choose to save this woman, You would never know about your mother".


I stood there for a minute feeling all the guilt in the world because I knew what I was going to choose.





                        "The last hut on left", he finally revealed, and said, " No one follow him".

I slowly walked out of the hut as hooded figures watched me with  curiosity. The anxiety built up in me. This is it. This is the moment I am waiting for. After all the drama, finally, it is just a walk. A walk to the last house on the left.

I saw him, the midget, guarding the hut, the same midget I had seen on that night in the moonlit backyard of dad's house. That meant only one thing -- my mother came to see me.She was right there watching me. That meant she was okay, that meant she remembered me.

The midget did not stop me. It would have been a huge mistake if he stopped me. I walked into the hut. A small figure was sleeping on a small bed with shadows dancing around from the light of the kerosene lamp.

"She is sleeping". Some one whispered. "She is dying".Some one said.

I slowly removed the white hood covering half her face. No, She was not my mother. It was a woman with no nose, lips eaten away revealing her teeth, and with skin..god knows what happened to it. The smell was horrible. Then she opened her eyes and  I recognized them -- It was my mother's eyes.She was my mother.


I sat on the bed taking her hand in my hand. No fingers left in that hand.

I looked into her eyes, and they revealed me the whole story -- A story of a mother waiting for her son. A story of a mother who went through hell, and continued to go through it, staring at the wall all alone..all alone. What did she do to deserve that?

What did the nurse do to deserve the things I had done to her? But, I was not in control of myself. Then again, were the situations which led my mother to this moment, were in control of anyone?

I began to see the truth in lepers theory of the universe. I am not in control of myself because of the desire, but I am a product of desire. Life is not supposed to happen, but it happened, and God is suffering because of it. But, the fact of the matter is -- God is a victim of his own desire -- his desire to feel his own existence. What a vain God.... this leper God.

How do we measure suffering? How many types of sufferings are there? Do we have a spectrum of sufferings?

In the spectrum of sufferings, I believe, Leprosy is on the extreme end -- the extreme suffering -- A physical and emotional hell, slow death, stigma,untouchable, unseeable, unthinkable.When I use words like stigma, it may appear as if I am appealing for the mainstream societies help. Fuck that.

Hasn't this society defined words like beauty?  Hasn't this system created concepts like 'fame' and made everyone crave for it? Hasn't this system made everyone crave for acceptance?

But, is the world of societies and cultures, in control of itself?

Everyone of us, every organism in this universe, is a machine  controlled by desire, and that desire is same -- a desire to survive -- a desire which started life on this planet.

I wanted to sleep in my mothers lap, or may be just wanted to touch her feet. I slowly pulled up the blanket she was covered in ..I couldn't find them..I pulled up further..still nothing..I pulled up futhur..and there I found it....that she was just a half woman -- she was just a slab of meat -- like a chicken on the butchers table with its skin pealed off (skinless) with no thighs..but wings still flapping involuntarily, a sight which makes you want to take a knife and stab it till stops its movement, a kind of movement, a kind of instinct which is more horrible than death.

I looked into her eyes. They were content, and full of satisfaction, and happiness. Is it because of me, or is it because she found the truth?

Then I broke down, and started sobbing, " Ma, whats the truth?"

I felt down in a swoop beside her, putting my arm across her torso, and  sobbing like a kid, burying my head on the pillow and her ribs.

Then her hand touched and consoled me, in the same way a mother consoles her infant. I didn't know what happened...A film of my life ran backwards in superfast...adult, teenager, kid, infant, single-celled...and then....silence..complete silence...in the darkness.

A silence which is not silent because of the lack of sound...a darkness which is not dark because of lack of light...but because of solitude...a silence and darkness which defines themselves....and they was no static, no murmur, no background light..nothing. Nothingness!

In essence, I reached a moment where there is no desire. There is no thought. There is no image. There is no sound. The silence and the darkness are just words to describe that. It is not a feeling either. It is not a glimpse. It is just nothingness...there is no observer and the observed... there is no me....there was no I....complete depersonalization...except a brain which recorded the event..or an illusion..and may be got confused itself because of lack of emotion.

But that moment of nothingness was just a moment, and the film ran back to present tense.

Then, I noticed that I relaxed completely...there was no anxiety..no pain...just peace..calmness..and
tranquility. Then I feel into deep sleep, and for the first time in my life.. with no bother about whats gonna happen when I wake up...no bother at all....


         I woke up to the sound of the drums as if there was a party going on outside. My mother was sleeping peacefully with her hand on me. I gingery came out of the room...and people -- the lepers, were dancing around a fire...and it was difficult to see whats happening, as it was still dark. I walked closer to the fire..and there it was.... the head of the model, and beside it, the head of the armadillo.  I felt nothing.

Then the dawn broke..and the twilight twilighted..and I ran towards it..making sure that no one was between me and that moment of dawn. Somehow, it filled with hope....a practical hope from the truth of nothingness. I came to the edge of the river; looked as if the river had no end. I sat there and started watching the moment of dawn. It was beautiful...and my heart filled with joy... and planets were visible...and then a huge red ball rose from the waters...and filled me with optimism and hope...saying you and me brother, whatever the ultimate truth is....whatever it is..the immediate truth is that whatever happens today..tonight..in the darkest hours..I will rise...and shine. Talk to me brother.

After that orgasmic event....I went back to my mother.

Mom, " There is nothing ultimately....but the sun rises...until the desire goes away...and, with it, the life".

She smiled.

"Ma", I continued, " Do you have any desire?".

She looked into my eyes ...and we made eye contact..and understood each other.

Then I slowly walked towards her, sat beside her, and wrapped my hands around her neck...and started strangling her...

She looked into my eyes....and then..she didn't blink..

She found her silence...in her solitude.

Yes, I killed my mother.


                                                                THE END.

In the beginning..

In The Silence Of My Solitude - A Novel (Part 27)

                                                           31. Mirror and Mother

     The next day afternoon, I went to a skin specialist as soon as I woke up, without even brushing or taking bath. The doctor confimed my suspicions -- that the senseless skin on my wrist was nothing but leprosy. Before he started his usual 'dont worry' stuff, I ran out of the office. I didnt want to waste anymore time. I wasted enough, may be I was already late.

      First things first. I went to the nearest internet cafe and typed ' Armadillo leprosy', and there it was before my eyes..thousands of search results.

Mycobacterium leprae infection has recently been detected in wild armadillos in Brazil. Leprosy is still endemic in Brazil and although its transmission is mostly by person-to-person contact, many cases report no history of previously known leprosy contact. It has been suggested that other sources of M. leprae may contribute to the transmission of leprosy in some areas. Our objective was to investigate whether contact with armadillos is associated with leprosy. A case-control study was carried out in Brazil. Data was collected from 506 leprosy patients and 594 controls on exposure to armadillos and age, sex, place of birth and living conditions. Univariate analysis and unconditional logistic regression were conducted to investigate whether leprosy was associated with exposure to armadillos.


 Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that direct exposure to armadillos is a risk factor for leprosy in Brazil.
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A scourge since pre-biblical times, leprosy is a chronic disease that produces sores on the skin and mucous membranes and infects nerves, producing loss of sensation in the affected areas. Clinically, the disease appears as two types. In the more virulent form, or lepromatous leprosy, the numerous sores contain many bacteria; in the milder form, or tuberculoid leprosy, fewer sores appear because of the body’s immune response to the infection. Signs of the disease often do not appear for many years. While leprosy is rarely fatal, it can cause permanent disfigurements .
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Thirty years ago, the number of people worldwide with leprosy was estimated to be between ten to twelve million. Since the introduction of multi-drug treatment, the number of new cases reported in 2004 has been reduced to 410,000. Despite recent efforts to eradicate the disease, full control of leprosy has eluded populations in Southeast Asia, India, South America, and other tropical areas of the world. New drugs may still be needed to control new cases resistant to current drug treatment.
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Strangely enough, in the 1960s scientists were researching leprosy by injecting the disease in armadillos for experiments. However, they found that many of the armadillos already had it.
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India continues to record the highest number of new leprosy cases in the world followed by Brazil and Indonesia.

Leprosy stages a comeback in Bengal

A leprosy patient is someone who has a skin patch or patches with a definite loss of sensation in early stage and other signs include one or more tender enlarged peripheral nerves; the presence of leprosy bacilli on the slit skin smear at early stage. In late stage, it presents with deformities.It is important to note that deformities caused by the bacilli in the late stages once treated are irreversible.
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I don't need to mention here explicitly, but I would like to say that the images of leprosy patients were nothing less than horrific. Surprisingly they were all, especially the patients in late stages, appeared like the fearful armadillo I had seen on the ataka. It was as if they were all becoming into inhuman and grotesque Armadillos, slowly and surely.

I tried to imagine my mother. The same mother who was called as the most beautiful girl in the whole village; Yes, the same mother who used to sit before the mirror, applying coconut oil to her long hair, admiring her beauty; the same mother who thought her only strength in this cruel world was her beauty; applying talcum powder to her face...I imagined her taking the talcum powder in her hands..I imagined the smell..I imagined the smoke-like image.

I imagined her wearing a Saree. I imagined her wearing gold. I imagined the jealous looks of her friends...looking at her assets and her face.

Mirror and Mother.

"God, what happened to her face!!! It is not the ugliness I am talking about..it became weird..she became inhuman..a devil..a satan",  my Dad's words reverberated.

Is it possible for the leprosy to change the shapes of the face without outwardly manifesting itself???
I looked in the mirror, didn't notice any change.

There is no question about one thing : Leprosy does not kill. Leprosy is the real living hell.

There was no psychoanalysis, no internal mind talk, no intellectual masturbation.The pain was intense. But, I enjoyed it. I fucking enjoyed it. Because, I deserved it.

The goal was clear : Find mother.
If she is alive, do I have the guts to face her? I dreaded the image of her.

The search re-started again. What prompted me to drive to some remote village? What prompted me to go into a hut? Why was that kid watching that particular channel? Why did I sit there?

Paul Newman hit the balls. The balls dispersed.  After that, the balls are not in control of newman. They follow rules of physics.

The balls : Me, Mother, and the Kid. Our lives were intersecting.

                                            
     The ever increasing pain in my heart cleansed me, it gave me energy, it pushed me. A new man of action was born, a disciple of Sherlock Holmes. The Hound of Baskerville became the Armadillo on the Ataka. Nothing bothered me anymore. It was as if I found,once again, whats wrong with me --- I lacked motivation. Now, there was motivation, pain, and inspiration. There was anticipation. There was passion. I was a mad artist.

  What a clarity!! Pain mingled with peace. The mind giving up to the soul. In all the chaos of the mind, I found a meaning..a sense of purpose..a light house guiding me..telling me to just follow it. There was no doubt.

  I drove to the town, the town where everything started. I parked my car before the library..and tried to sleep. In the morning, as soon the library was opened, I ran inside to the surprise of the librarian. He didn't ask me many questions, and pointed me to the old news papers section -- a huge room full of old news papers.

Fortunately, they were all sorted by the date; I rummaged through the dust and spider web filled papers, and finally got a bundle of papers during the 2 year period before my mother's disappearance. I started reading each paper looking for any bizarre incidents that had happened during that period. When I reached the 10th paper, I decided that it would be impossible for me to wade through all of them, and besides, I didn't know what I was looking.

As I was about to give up my search, an old man asked me if he could be of any help. I asked him  straight-up if anything bizarre had had happened during that time period two decades back.

"What do you mean by bizarre?", he asked.
"Anything to do with animals and skin diseases", I replied.

He thought for a while, murmuring to himself, '"Bizarre..bizarre...bizarre", and then asked,"You mean like a circus?".

"May be". I replied impatiently. Something was telling me that time was running out..that I had to move fast..without knowing for which event it was running out?  I assumed it was plain old anxiety with excitement and anticipating the moment I was gonna see my mother.

"Yup, a circus did pass through this town during the time period you mentioned"
"What was so bizarre about it?", I interrupted him
"Well, nothing bizarre about it."

Think, old man, think.

"Okay, can you give me the time period during which they passed this town", I asked.
"Oh that's easy. It was always during the festival season during the month of October..try 2nd week", he said.

It didn't take much time for me to find an article in the district edition of the newspaper.

Animals escaped from the circus. People are advised to notify the nearest police station if they see any wild animals. They are also advised not to feed, or play with them. It is advised not to approach them. The circus owners seems to have told the police that among the escapees there was also an animal which was touted as the freak of the circus, a fearful looking animal. But as of now, no one has seen such animal. 

That was it. I searched for more articles in all  papers that month, and found nothing.

An ugly looking leprosy carrying Armadillo was the freak of that circus, and one night, it escaped along with its compatriots. It found a cozy ataka and found a borrow in it..in the same house me, my mother and father lived....

I started to think up a story trying to tie all the loose ends, and it all made sense...and none of it felt fantastic
That fierce looking armadillo made my mother behave crazy, and because of that no one believed her. In the end, my mom realizing that she contacted leprosy left the house partly in shame, and partly to protect me from herself....

A neat tight story....but where did she go? What happened to her?

  My thoughts stopped at the beggar, the beggar in my mother's village, the same beggar I declared as crazy. His words reverberated in my mind.."You didn't suffer enough...didn't suffer enough..."

  I drove to my mother's village. It was raining, and a rainbow appeared on the horizon. It was beautiful, the rain I mean;never liked rainbows.They are creepy.All illusions are creepy.

 The sun bunked classes that day as the depression and  rain took over. It was already dark, almost, when I reached the village. I drove to the beggars hut.

"I think I have suffered enough.Now tell me what happened to her", I asked him politely.He was on his bed smoking his home made cheap cigar.

"What you talking about?". He appeared incredulous.
I showed him my wrist. He noticed the white patch; I did notice change of colors in his face.But he was adamant.
"I don't know what you are talking about", he replied.
"All right. Think about it. I have suffered enough, and you know it. I will come tomorrow. Think about it the whole night". I left.

I parked my car at my relatives house, went inside, talked some shit, and then came out through the backyard with no one noticing me. I walked in that darkness to the beggar's hut; hiding myself in the bushes with his hut insight; I waited.

Continued here..

In The Silence Of My Solitude - A Novel (Part 26)

                                                              30. In Search Of Solitude

On that day, I came out from my office,drove out of Hyderabad in-order run away from myself or to find myself. I noticed that I was watching the rear view mirror as If some one was following me. I finally stopped, looking for a petrol station, when the car cried for petrol.I already drove 100kms out of Hyderabad.

 It was a small village, typical of that particular area of the state -- house made of rocks, huge ones, instead of bricks; a small fire camp somewhere; a goat herder; old people sitting under trees wearing shawls made of some animal's skin -- a sleepy village. It already became dark and the yellow fluorescent street light replaced the sun.

I was told that the nearest petrol station was 20kms away from the village. I noticed that I was exhausted, and decided to drink Tea, walked into an old hut which looked like the only hotel in the whole of the village. It was a small hut, two rooms; with a table, 2 chairs and a TV. A kid, 8yr old, probably, who was watching the TV announced by arrival. An old woman took my order for Tea and disappeared into the kitchen.

As I waited for the Tea, every second produced hundreds of thoughts and images, and they attacked my operating system I installed in my mind, the operating system which was based on the concept of power for power sake. It was like a stop-motion video of Caracas getting eaten by the scavengers and I became a mute spectator of myself. I realized that the operating system is as good as the hardware -- my memories.Then something happened -- I entered deep in to my mind and the image of the carcasses and operating systems disappeared. Was it the kid, the hut, the TV or the solitude with the thought that I was a away from the civilization? I didn't know. But I entered my own mind, and imaged it like a room. It was  a room full of people having a party, forming into small groups; drinking,chatting, arguing; ignoring me -- the host.

I noticed something peculiar in that scene -- everyone resembled me, no they were me, even the women and the kids. I approached a group of three;  a women and 2 men; one guy was telling a story. They didn't notice my arrival almost as if I was invisible, but it appeared to me that did notice me but were just ignoring. The guy who was telling the story was also holding a foot ball in his hands.

"2 year old. I am crawling..and I am going under the bed", he said and threw the football to another group. The guy who caught the football continued " 24 year old. I am fucking a girl on the bed", and threw the ball to some other group. The story continued, "15 yr old. I am looking at  a nude magazine", and the ball throwing and the story continued.

I realized that they were telling my story, albeit in a non-chronological way. Who am I? I am just a story. A boring story. Then some one threw the ball to another group, a group of people wearing black from head to toe, just like a burkha. One of them grabbed the ball, and then they ran as if to escape from me. I ran towards them shouting ..who is it..who are you? ,  They escaped in to small room.

I entered the room, it was empty except for a mirror. I walked towards the mirror, expecting to find myself..to find....myself. I was not in the mirror. I was nothing. I was a...nothing. Everything else disapeared from the view, just me standing before the mirror with no image of myself in it. Loneliness...terrible loneliness. I tried to shout but no sound came out of me. I tried to move..but couldn't.Anxiety built up..and then..I heard..

"Sir, Chai"

The scene changed. Now, I was in a small room in a hut, with TV on, and a kid watching it, and a hot chai before me. Back to reality.

I starting sipping the Chai trying to make sense of my mind. Who am I?

looked like the kid changed the channel. It was National Geographic;A kids program about animals.

I took one more sip of the delicious Chai. Who am I?

The anchor on TV: Hey kids, today I am going to introduce you to a very peculiar animal...you will find it mighty interesting..you wanna know about it?

Yesssss...the kids shouted.
anchor : First, lets take a break.

Ad about a shampoo followed by a car commercial.

Who am I? I am nothing. I am just a story written by someone..and it is not in my control. If I am just a story, why are those people running away from me? What are they hiding?

The kid changed the channel again. A Telugu movie.Familiar song.He changed it again.

Anchor: Kids, I know some of you are shy. But, don't you worry, I am going to show you the shiest animal on the planet...


Yes. I am just a story. A love story, a tragic story, an adventure...a mystery.

Anchor : It is so shy that it always live alone. It is a solitary animal.

Those people who ran away from me  are the puzzles in my story.They are the mysteries in my story which need to be solved.

Anchor: You may ask why it is solitary and why it is shy/ Nobody knows.But, I think it hides away from us, because it thinks of itself as ugly, and don't want to show its face to us.


A man is a story. But, who writes the story?

Anchor: Hey kids, tell me this, If you go to a forest and if you find a football, what will you do?
kick it..some kids shouted. take it home..some others shouted.
Anchor: Never do that. Never ever do that. You know why?
why?
Anchor : Because it is not a football.
What is it?
Anchor: It is our shy and solitary animal.It has the capability of rounding itself as a football just like snail..to protect itself..as it has very thick skin.
Wowwwww
Anchor: Never go near it.Okay?
Why? It is going to bite us?
Anchor: No. Dont go near it. It carries a horrible disease called leprosy.
leprosy?
Anchor : Yes. Leprosy, a horrible disease..which makes people ugly.
ohhhhhhhhh noooo..
Anchor: You want to see the animal?
yesssssssss
Anchor : Before that, lets take a break.

The kid changed the channel again..this time to a news channel, which kind of surprised me.
I left some money on the table and walked out of the hut..towards my car.

A shy and solitary animal...a football..an animal which can round itself into a football...ugly..disease..ugly....it hates itself...don't touch it..why? why? it carries a disease...horrible disease...a horrible disease....leprosy...

   A FOOTBALL...UGLY..SOLITARY...DISEASE...FOOTBALL...HORRIBLE....LEPROSY
...LEPROSY..FOOTBALL..........FOOTBALL?

Some of them were familiar terms, and I made a connection, and my heart began to pound. I ran back into the hut, grabbed the remote from the kid...and started shouting,"Where is it? Where is the channel?
"What channel?"
"National Geographic"
The kid grabbed the remote and changed the channel.

Anchor : Hey kids, you wanna know about this mysterious animal?
Yesssssssss
Anchor : First, look at this video.

An animal the size  of 10 times that of rat, slowly rounded  itself by its own skin...into a football. It just looked like a football.

Anchor : Kids, Meet Mr.Armadillo.The most strangest animal on the planet. They are notoriously shy and they hunt only during night. We left our cameras in the jungle...and see..what they captured...

An armadillo was walking straight towards the camera..with its eyes reflecting the light. I was able to notice the resemblance between the armadillo and the creature I saw on ataka...except the one on the camera looked like a beauty queen when compared.

THE CREATURE ON THAT ATAKA IS AN UGLY ARMADILLO.

Anchor: Now, tell me why you shouldn't go near armadillo.
Leprossssyyyyyy ..the kids shouted.

LEPROSY. My heart skipped a bit and I looked at my wrist.

I ran out of the hut.

As I drove back to the city, I experienced a potpourri of thoughts,emotions and feelings..as I tried to connect all the lose threads in the story..and once I got the clear picture of the whole mystery...I stopped the car. I walked into the darkness, looked at the moon and the stars which knew everything; and as if to wash away their image and my sins, tears formed in my eyes blurring their image; and I cried..and I cried..and I cried.

Cried like a baby...cried crazy.....and I whispered to myself, " Mom, I am sorry".

Continued here..

In The Silence Of My Solitude - A Novel (Part 25)

                                                          29. The Pond

What are you thinking, My dear Friends? Are you disgusted by me, and disgusted by yourself for rooting for me all this time? Or, Have you come to conclusion that I am just making it all up, and that it is impossible  for a character to behave in such a way, that too a character which gave lectures on love, humanity, consciousness, and what not, a character which declared proudly that he has the ability to understand himself and others?

If that is the case, let me just say that you are ignorant of this thing called mind, and laws that govern it.Let me also add that it is an act of self-preservation which makes you feel that you are better than me, putting yourself in the camp of virtuous,cultured,compassionate group.

So, let me ask you this? Have you ever broken someone's heart? Simple question right? During those times you rationalized yourself that it was the right thing to do, haven't you? Just remember that moment, those times; the pain was too much, wasn't it? It was almost as if you were compelled to do it. Then, you took a decision, but was that decision really your decision? or the result of the laws of human mind?

A mind is a pond. Emotions are those waves of disturbances, and the thought is their source. The laws of the pond, whatever they are, are designed for only one purpose : To maintain peace in the pond. It will do anything to counteract those waves, and the only way to do it is to change the very nature of the pond, where the waves are not waves anymore, and the thought which produced the waves becomes impotent.

The nature of the pond is nothing but the philosophy of the mind at that particular moment. Knowledgeable or not, ignoramus or not, the nature of every mind is to find a solution for its chaos. There is no good or bad in the realm of mind. There is only right thing. Every man at any moment is doing the right thing at that particular moment. Every moment is a perfect moment, and there is no escape.

Are you the pond or the child playing near the pond?
If you are not that  child, then keep your judgment glasses to yourself, and let me judge myself.

My judgment : I had gone insane, not of a clinical one, but a moral one. I became the king of the narcissists. The pond changed its nature to preserve, and that process was out of my control.

   The train bound to Hyderabad on which I escaped with my 4 lakhs of rupees after systematically breaking the heart of a poor woman, stopped somewhere in madhya pradesh in the middle of night as if to say to me that we were both at a safe distance from Delhi, from the scene of a horrible moral crime. The man who played god got down from the train to relieve himself in the nature.

  It was dark outside. I felt a sense of bonding with that darkness, as if it represented my mind.A thought of guilt passed over the horizon like a shooting star, and died down. No, it didn't die, it was killed by the philosophy, by the newest operating system I installed in my mind. All those emotions of empathy,sympathy, compassion and love, became viruses to that system, and it had good security mechanisms to protect itself from the intruders.

 I was one among those super-men who went through hell  to realize the truth.The truth that the weak but fox-like cunning humans invented those concepts of compassion only to bring these super-men down. The super-man, the lion, realized that, and he had nothing but contempt for these foxes. The super-man escaped from the clutches of the morality the weak had imposed on him.Nothing could bother that super-man anymore, not even his own memories; he knew what he wanted, he knew the purpose of his life. All he wanted was power....by any means necessary.

  His experiment of playing-god gave terrific results. First, he selected a weak human, found her vulnerability, and played the game. He patiently waited for 6 months for the fruition of that experiment. Every moment during those 6 months, the thought of playing god pushed him. He didn't see a person in her -- he saw the whole humanity her - the humanity which is the scum of the universe. The same humanity which was full of weaklings like his mother, father, relatives, strangers,beggars .. who tried to make him suffer, who stood between him and his potential. Now, he realized his potential, and the experiment proved to him that he can play god only if he rejects the morality of the society.He also realized that given a chance, even these weaklings want to play god, but they cant,just because they are weak. Even his father,who lectured him about life as a game, he himself was a weakling. He gave too much respect to the weakling society, and that was why unable to burst open through the mediocrity.

  I hit the humanity at its sweet spot -- its vulnerablity -- Love. I used the same concepts these weaklings taught me to keep me down. What a revenge!

There was no guilt, no moral obligations, no mandates. I felt free. Freedom finally!

           I wanted power --- that was all. That motivation drove me. Arjuna looked at the mango, only at the mango, not at moral leaves, or at the judging branches. Arjuna, arrow,mango. That was all.


                                                            30. Success Is Easy

                                                                    

Millions of weaklings greeted me as soon I stepped out of my train into the great city of Hyderabad. Yes, they were all weaklings,the smelly cockroaches, rats about to be trampled by the super-man. They just talk, talk and talk..I am going to do this..I am going to do that..and all that. They read self-help books, philosophy books, religious books...so that they can talk and talk more. They look at the richest man on the planet..and say..hey he is my idol..I wanna become like him..I will be him. But they can never become what they want to become..because they are weak. As simple as that.

One of the characteristics of these weaklings is jealousy, that's what they thrive on. Weakness begets jealousy. Whenever a potential super-man escapes these weaklings, they burn with jealousy. They will do anything to bring him back to their level. For a moment, jealousy unites all these weaklings making them powerful. That is why, the super-man needs to be careful, he needs to understand these weaklings first. He should show his potential at the right moment, and he should escape only when he reaches the escape velocity. The super-man needs patience.

This jealousy of these weaklings is strong only when the super-man is in sight. But, once he reaches his escape velocity, and reaches the stars and become a star himself, that jealousy turns into slavery. He becomes their idol.  He becomes their master.
                                
The super-man should also understand that these weaklings are not moral, even-though they talk morality. He should be very careful with the trap they set. They are also sentimental fools, ignorant of the fact that behind their sentimentality is a desire to survive. They delude themselves that their relationships with others have a deeper meaning, conveniently forgetting the fact that they started all these relationships with a objective of a need to be fulfilled. Most of them are delusional, conditioned to believe in god, taught to prostrate before him, and beg him.

    I, the super-man, studied these cockroaches. Yes, it was hell to live with them or talk to them, but I was patient...just like I was patient for 6 months with that nurse...

     What is power? Power is the ability to achieve a goal in least amount of time. The difference between others and me was that power itself became my goal -- I defined power by power itself. What is the goal of the sun? Its goal is to exist powerfully, and I became the disciple of that sun.

 I applied for jobs in information technology, as I had a masters in that subject; got selected in one of those companies which rents out cheap labor to myriad of companies in look out for cheap labor in third world countries. The first rule to understand in order to grow is the system of hierarchy : Boss,big boss, bigger boss, the ultimate boss. The second rule is to understand that every person in the organization is a self-hating fool in want of some praise to feel better about himself. Knowledge of the system and human psychology.

  Following these rules, within 6 months, I reached a position where I was able to command close to 100 employees under me. I bought an apt, and then bought a girl friend.



  The shallowness of my girlfriend amused me to no end. I didn't want deep thinkers, because I knew a thinker would find me..would find my hatred of the humanity. All she wanted was to shop around, going to parties, and showing off.

What can I say about these shallow people? They shop, party around,get drunk and get fucked, and in the night they hug you and cry; making you wonder what has happened to the same jollybean? Shallow women has a very limited understanding of themselves, and unable to face the confusion in their minds they try to run away from themselves finding some solace in the material things. But, in the night, they breakdown, holding their lover asking him if he loves her or not.

The stage had been set for me to conquer the world. I had a great job, money, and a sexy girl to fuck. I was waiting for the right time to back stab my own CEO and grab his position.

Then the night mares started.

 Initially, I lost couple of hours of sleep, and then I began to dream whole nights..vivid dreams. During the day, I was in control of myself, with my philosopher, with my motivation to conquer the world; but in the night while asleep, How can I be in control of myself? I dreamt about mother, about that creature, about some one getting raped brutally, and when I looked a that person..it was me. I dreamt abt a child getting murdered,  a beast eating a man, the woman beside me becoming in to a centipede.

The dreams became so vivid that I began to believe that they really occurred. I went to doctor, got myself a few sleeping tablets, but they worsened the dreams. I began to dream of beasts with huge bodies and strong wings, flying all over the moonlighted moors.They flew towards me, and when they approached.. I saw myself in them.

The dreams became soo horrible that I dreaded my own sleep. I started to drink zillion cups of coffees every night to ward away the sleep. My day and night became living hells.

On one night, I locked myself in the bathroom, and I shouted to myself : I am great, I am awesome, I am invincible. It didn't help, and the obviously not so invincible character I created seemed to be slipping away from me.During one of those nights, after showing myself to throat pain, I sat in the balcony and started watching the moon.

"What are you looking at?", my GF asked.
" Looking at the moon", I replied.
"What there in the moon? It will there tomorrow too.It wont go anywhere".she declared.

The beauty is all around us, but we take it granted, and refused to enjoy it. That thought of beauty lead me to the thought that the anchor of philosophy I had, the character I created was slowly melting away from me, as if to say that it is not the real you. You are something different.

Then, the itch started, on my wrist; and then it soon became numb, forming into a white patch within a few weeks.

I just ignored it.

Continued here..

In The Silence Of My Solitude - A Novel (Part 24)

                                                                    29. I.Stand.Alone

Obviously, I didn't die.Obviously, I realized that when I woke up from my coma 15 days later, on a disgusting floor of a government hospital, disgusting even to a beggar standards.

 A fat,short female nurse shouted, "You have a family? You know why you are here? Because, you are talking English.You looked like a learned man. Who are you? Are you a learned man? why are you not talking? funny man  you are..you know what you were saying for all these 2 weeks?? 'I stand alone'..what is that? What happened to you? Who hit you? ".

I smiled at her.
"look at your smile", she smiled.
"What did I say when I was in coma?? Can you repeat that again?", I asked.
"You used to say I stand alone and then murmur about something..philosophy ..I guess"
"I.Stand.Alone", I said to myself.
"There you go again". She laughed.
"How many days am I going to stay here?", I asked her.
"You were supposed to be out of here many days back. But, I requested the doc. You know, I like you. But you can stay her for only one more day.Call your family mean while. I will be back".

               That night, I didn't sleep at all. I didnt even try to sleep. I thought about what she said , and as to why I uttered those words. I realized that I was not in coma for all those 15 days -- I was in a dream. A dream in which a man lost his faith in humanity, making him cynical and cold hearted. An old man with a huge mustache  appeared in his dream within a dream, kicked his ass and set him straight.He revealed to him the real nature of the world. He said, " You fool! Look at you! How weak you are! Your father forsake you, you friends forsake you, the humanity forsake you. You know why? Because you are not powerful. Don't you get it? You have the intelligence and capability to become a superman, but now you  became into a half-man because of your fucked up philosophy. My blood boils every-time when I see a man like you screwed by the rest of the imbeciles in the world."

The man asked, " If I was powerful, would I have found my mother?"
The old man replied, "You idiot! You need that bitch because you became weak because of your philosophy. If you are strong, you don't need a mother"
The man asked again, "But, how can I make peace with my memories?"
The old man replied calmly, " A strong will needs no peace. It is above and beyond the memories".
I didn't question him. I didn't want to question him. What drove me to accept him? --- HATE. Hatred towards the world. I lost faith in the humanity. Everyone left me -- my mother,father, relatives, friends, beggars..every one. I stood alone.

    I thought about the dream the whole night, and in the morning when I saw the sun rising in the horizon, I knew a new man was born in me..once again. The sun sealed the deal for me. I didn't perceive the sun as sun  that morning. I saw power, I saw glory, I saw a supreme will. Oh sun, the great sun, No one can touch you.No one can even look at you. You don't need to make peace with anyone. You burn away your memories. You are above and beyond all these cockroaches. In-fact, when you burn away your memories, these good-for-nothings bastards live and survive from the resultant glory". A new man was born, a new man who didn't need to chase mysteries, or find his mother, or make peace with people or with memories. He didn't even live on earth. He was above and beyond. He said to himself," Father, you are wrong. Life is not a game. It is a war, war with the weak, the majority who wants to drag the great to their level."

                "How are you doing today?", the same fat,short nurse inquired that afternoon, disturbing my thoughts. I gave a smile, and looked in her eyes. "You look fine. You look confident", she said genuinely surprised.

"Can I tell you something.... You are the most beautiful woman I have even seen in my life". I flirted with her.
 There was a glow in her face as I expected. She laughed, and asked, "Who are you?".
"You got some time? Can we go somewhere private?". I implemented my plan.

I already inquired about her that morning by asking  fellow patients and other nurses. she was 40, a christian, widowed, no kids, and living alone. That was all I needed.  She stole a wheel chair for me, and drove me towards the canteen. "Okay, tell me now", she said.

I started my story, " You asked me 'who am I'? You know, the reason why I am here right now, and the reason for  the situation I am in right now...is because I asked the same question. The riches my dead parents left spoiled me. I did lot of bad things all my adult life. Finally, one day, I realized that I was living a meaningless life. I questioned myself 'who am I'? I left everything and went in search of my soul. In the Himalayas, among all the Buddhists and sadhus, I met a pastor  who showed me the purpose of my life --- to accept Jesus as my savior. After baptizing me, he advised me to go and find myself a soul mate, mandatorily the one who accepted Jesus as her savior. I searched for my soul mate all over the country...in vain. When I saw you that morning, I knew I met my soul mate"

She remained silent for a moment, and then started laughing.

"What non-sense are you talking?You are really a crazy guy".she couldn't stop her laughter.
"Well, its up to you to believe it or not. God is my witness", I interrupted her.
"Why don't you just shut up, crazy man". She was still smiling.

"Alright! At-least can you do me a favor? Can you transfer me to a better bed, and can you let me stay her till I recuperate?", I pleaded with an addendum, "What would Jesus do?"
"Sure.Will do", she replied.

I knew. She fell for it.

   It took me exactly a month to convince her that we were soul-mates and one more month to convince her to let me move in with her.

For her, it was all a miracle, some kind of magic. Here she was, a 40 yr old woman, fat, short and to tell you the truth some insensitive fellas might even call her ugly...and moreover she was widowed and most importantly ..a lonely woman. She thought herself as cursed, and gave up her dreams of a romantic and secure life. And then, suddenly out of nowhere, a man came into her life, a dying man who was saved by her ...the story of such could only be read in romantic novels. A man 10 years younger to her, a learned one, enlightened one, plus a man who was born again twice....only the lord himself could create such miracles.

In the end, the word soul-mate turned out to be an empty farcical word used by desperate lovers who sees what they want to see in their partner, at least during the initial euphoria of the relationship.

I noticed dramatic changes in her after I moved into her apartment. She started to take care of herself, became confident, started to smile a bit more than the usual, and generally behaved in such a way as if she finally found her happiness. She also become extremely pious, and dragged me to church every Sunday. As far as she was concerned, my existence in her life was a proof for god's existence.

She pampered me in such a way no woman would pamper a man in any kind of relationship.I have to tell you that I have never experienced such kind of comforts in my life..its not the materialistic comforts per se, but the way in which she debased herself to make me comfortable, her almost slave-like service to the master...that was something unique in my life. Moreover, she didn't ask anything in return, all she wanted was my existence in her apartment.

Her devotion to me was not about sex either, as I already told her my firm 'belief' that sex outside marriage is a sin, conscious of the fact that I was giving her hopes about marriage. But, she never broached the subject of either sex or marriage, almost as if she didn't want to change the status quo. Her situation was like that of woman who has a costly diamond  securing  her financial future, but seldom wears it  from the insecurity of getting robbed.

I myself behaved like a perfect gentleman -- boosting her ego by  praising her beauty, flirting with her, and making her feel wanted and I never even once hurt or made her cry. We soon become the perfect couple in the history of coupling.She displayed me to her friends as if I was her Olympics gold medal, surreptitiously checking up on me to break up the conversation the moment she thought there was a mutual attraction developing between myself and her female friends.

After 6 months of that relationship, after I completely recovered from the physical trauma, I have to add though ---- there was NO emotional trauma to recover from,...I proposed to her in a christian way just like they show in Hollywood romcoms. You should have seen her -- a 40 yr old short fat not-so-visually  pleasing woman jumping up and down in her nurse dress -- the money shot of those sappy happy-tears scenes in the same romcoms. Infact, her life itself became a movie which fulfills the romantics dreams of middle-aged women...on the screen. She was on the top of the world.

Marriage date was fixed, and arrangements had been done. She borrowed money to the tune of 5 lakhs for the marriage, and spent almost 1 lakh on her shopping itself. She giggled just like a teenage bride when she tried her wedding gown. On the night before the wedding, I kissed her and told her that I was the most luckiest man in the whole world for having her as my wife, and I promised her I would take care of her for the rest of my life. That poor woman sobbed like a baby, she wanted to say a lot....but just uttered 'I love  you soo much',  'thank you ..thank you', ' I will do anything for you'...and then hugged me, and even before her tears dried up, she fell asleep.

In the morning, her 6 0'clock alarm might have woken her up, and having found her bed empty, she might have called my name, and then she might have knocked on the bathroom, searched for me in the balcony, and then calmed herself saying that I might have gone to the shop to get my newspaper. And then, after waiting for an hour or so, she might have called someone, and then in extreme anxiety she might have opened her side drawers only to find 4 lakhs she had kept there.. missing. Then realizing what had happened, she might have broken down, shouting hysterically with her disheveled hair, feeling lonely.....and finally going into depression the same way I had gone exactly 7 months prior to that.

Something else happened 7 months prior to that : I had gone INSANE.

Continued here..

In The Silence Of My Solitude - A Novel (Part 23)

                                            28. Depression = State of mind + Self-Talk.


It took exactly 2 months for that new man to become old.

The new man worked on the preposition : In India most of the mentally ill, left by their loved ones, become beggars out of necessity. He did his research, and found :

1. Most of the beggars live in cities.
2. Begging could be lucrative.
3. Mentally deranged beggars belong to a lower caste among the religion of begging.

As usual in any world, begging world has its own hierarchies, almost as if hierarchies are the building units of any world. A power structure must exist to keep the world together. I could write a non-fiction book about that world, but let me skip that for now.The modus operandi was simple : Go to a particular area, show them a photo, offer them money, and wait. 'Yes sir, I have seen her..just yesterday morning, near that temple'. Then you give them on lecture on honesty,which of-course they ignore, and then you offer them more money to take you to the oldest beggar. Then you show the photo and ask them to dig up their memories.Money works, but a bit of sentimentality along with money works much better. "Look, either way I am gonna give you the money.So, please be truthful.She is my mother".

 Temples, railway stations, bus stations, hospitals, tourist spots : High density beggar areas. I searched all of them, ofcourse with no result. After a week or so...

"Ya, I know her", an old beggar replied, when I showed him the photo.
My heart skipped a bit.

"Follow me", he commanded. He started walking along the railway, and I followed him. It was already dark, and the only light was the diffused lights from the cars and buses on the road adjoining the tracks. A woman on the side  of the track smiled at me, and out of nowhere lifted her Saree to her hips exposing her genitalia or whatever left of it.No, it was a man. The old beggar walked for a kilometer or so, stopped, turned around and signaled me to come to him. As If that was a signal, two strong woman, actually eunuchs to be correct, stopped me in my tracks.

"Brother-in-law, we need your wallet, baby", said a eunuch sexily.
It was a setup. As soon as I came to know that it was a setup, I surprisingly felt some relief,  the source of which I couldnt fathom. Either I wanted someone to hit me or I wanted to kick some ass  to take out my aggression that was building up in me. Whatever it was, I didn't betray any kind of fear in me either in my face or body language.

"Sister-in-laws, Come and take the wallet, baby", I offered them.
They didn't make a move. They didn't expect my move.
"But, let me warn you right now. The first one who touches my wallet will be dead", I warned.They looked at each other, and one of them said, "Brother, you are too naughty", and left me alone.

No one messes with a fear-less man.

               I went to Chennai, and then to Mumbai in search of beggars and their worlds. Finally, when I reached Delhi, I was already out of money.

On that day, as I started walking along the shops located opposite to the New Delhi railway station, I realized that I had reached the end, the end of my physical energy, emotional energy  and financial energy; that my search through the cities became a way for me to warden off the depression; that I became a machine going through motions; that the darkest hour I faced was not really my darkest hour; that the transformation into a new man was just me hypnotizing myself; that I was going to die right there as a homeless and hopeless. I quickly stopped the thinking as I knew that it was a double edged sword. The self-talk sometimes takes you right into the middle of depression quagmire, or sometimes it lift you out of your spirits.  'You are nothing.You are a loser'. 'You are the best.You are awesome'.What if depression is just a self-talk resulting from the state of mind?  What if...

Depression = State of mind + Self-Talk.

where Self-Talk = thoughts resulting from the mind trying to conform to the conditioning of the society like money, fame, security etc...and defining a man using those as building blocks.

So, does it mean that the psychic pain is directly proportional to the development of the human civilization.  Are we all fucked??

I realized that the only way to ward off the self-talk was by talk itself, and I started talking to myself.

"Motherfuckers!", I shouted. That shout startled people around me.

"Cockroaches, piece of shits, assholes. What you all running for? Why you look busy? The world is coming to an end. Die fuckers die. who am I? I am that. I am the one. You want a story? Once upon a time there lived a whore. Thats it. The end. Theory of relativity...my ass. That fucker Einstein stole it from me", I continued my tirade.

People started laughing at me. There was  a look of immense satisfaction in their faces. It was as if they were saying to themselves, " Thank god I am not him. I am much better. I am fortunate".

Please, bro, don't do it.
its over bro, its over.
there is hope, bro
I have no choice bro, I am done. I cannot face my mind.Its too late.

I started singing. "He understands blue mountain..oh he understands my home...where the blue berries are blooming..I am gonna make some blue berry wine...."

That was how my descent into temporary induced outward insanity started.
People watched the charade for a while, enjoyed themselves and left.

I was hungry. 5 rupees was all I was left with.What could I possibly buy with 5 rupees? I could buy some fruits, but for how much time would they stay in my stomach before it cries again?

I sat on the footpath, beside the wall. The cars were honking and people going somewhere. Whenever my head spins, I get this keen sense of sound. All those people going somewhere, somewhere important. Then I heard a sound of coin dropping on my feet -- it was one rupee coin. As I was looking at it, it dawned upon me that I earned my first rupee as a beggar. That thought repulsed me. Me?? Beg?? R u kidding me! I angrily threw away the coin. I noticed a young woman with torn clothes begging 5 feet from me. I got up and sat beside her. She looked at me with the same way Microsoft looks at its competitors, hostile!

I said to her, " Look here fucking slut. I am not here to beg"
She didn't quite get my drift.
I said, " The thing is that, society already reserved different sections of the street to different people. Right now, I belong here"

I guess a light bulb moment  hit her -- she smiled at me, put her forefinger on her forehead as if her forefinger was a gun. No, it was not a gun -- it was a screw driver. I realized what she was implying, and I laughed. She laughed back. Mad people ..Welcome. She implied.

I was a beggar by position, and a mad one by nature, and a madder one by lack of will to beg. I wanted to understand my humiliation. "Why am I humiliated to beg?" One country is begging from the other, one employee is begging the employer, one interviewee begging the interviewer, the godmen begging from devotees, bride grooms begging from the brides.Some one is begging for love. Everyone is begging from someone.You may say that they are not begging, that they give something in return.

The beggars give back too. The beggars give back the sense of " I am better", a sense of proud and fake "altruism".The sense of "I am better than someone" is essential for the illusionary world we live in. There will always be begging, just like prostitution, just that the style changes a bit.

I had all this understanding. But, I refused to beg. I could not run away from the programming, from the false pride.

Beggars.Fucking assholes they were. People romanticize poverty too much. The basic nature of all human beings is survival, and  in this society survival became synonymous with greed. Fucking beggars stole my shoes.

I spat where I sat. I shat a few feet from where I slept. The smell of piss and shit was horrifying for the first few days.After a few days though, it felt like home. I ate from food left on the roads, near marriage halls..and wherever rich people partied. But, I never begged directly by asking someone. No matter how much I wanted to run away from the pride, I still felt proud in the fact that I was better than these beggars, by not begging. Whats the fucking difference? I refused to answer that question.

A month after my experiments on the sidewalks of the street, I got bored of it. It was the same shit everyday, the same struggles every day. No difference between a software programmer and a beggar, in the sense that a man gotta do whatever he gotta do in a day to survive.  Lie, cheat, steal,beg; sometimes in the name of law, and sometimes in the name of morals and most of time just by being animals.
I was disrespected by the patrons(?), spit and hit upon sometimes. What horrible things did I do to deserve disrespect and saliva. Between throwing away food and trash can ---- I exist. I was the in-betweenist scavenger. That was my contribution to the society.

Well, some people thought that I was not contributing enough.

On that night it was drizzling, as if the rain wanted to take away the heat and shit on the streets. I didn't eat food for the last few days as the marriage season was over. My clothes were torn completely and what ever left needs large quantities of detergent.My hunger and weakness took away the shame. Its like when you are dizzy and about to fall, you just give up all your shame. You have to!

The cool breeze made me sleep. Nothing can beat the nature's AC. I slept like a hibernating bear at the end of her hibernation. I slept looking at the sexy wall poster of some new Hollywood actress. I dreamt touching her boobs and caressing her ass. She spat on me, looking at me with disgust. I gave her a tight slap, and she became my slave. I told her to get down, and I dropped my pants.I was about to cum when I felt a sharp pain on the left side of my cheek. Who ever disturbs a person during his/her orgasm must be shot to death. Never mess with the 'high' of a person..either it is power or orgasm.

I woke up from my dream to the realization that I was being hit like a street dog..by three obviously angry men. They were not uncouth or in any way belonging to the street. They seemed to be educated, working class men, with their in-shirts and boots. I wondered why they were angry. I had an erection and it came out for air through the large hole in my pant. I knew the basis of their anger. Limp dick was fine..erected ones not so. I was the 'mad' 'pervert' beggar. I deserved some boots on me. I could see the anger in their faces, and the disgust on the faces of onlookers. They wanted punishment. They were part of the stoning.

Then, some brave guy among the onlookers got an idea, after I gave up my struggles. He took  a large rock and dropped it on my head.I was asking, 'Why?' 'Why?"..Tear automatically came, and the wounds on the other parts of the body became small fish. The big fish was the wound on my head. My head started bleeding, and the tears got mixed with blood. I never saw such amount of blood in my life..it formed a puddle around my  head. I guess, the sight of blood stopped their lynching. Either they felt bad for me, or they remembered the laws of the land. I tend to believe the latter. Then, I went in to coma -- unconscious and then to deep sleep.

I woke up to the sound of crickets. It was all dark, but I could hear the sound of the traffic. It must have been  midnight.I was wrong. I woke up because of a rape in progress...or lets just say necrophilia or more accurately comaphilia. It made me laugh.Words came out, when my body lamed out.

                                                   
                                           The difference between great men and others,
                                            is that, great men don't get erection
                                            looking at the powerless.

It startled those perpetrators a bit. I guess they thought I was dead. The fact that I was conscious didn't stop  them. The fact that I was learned didn't stop them. Someone pushed a dick in my mouth, and I bit it with all my strength. Wrong move, rapist!

I don't exactly remember what happened next. I spit out a bit of dick along with its blood, and then I saw a fat man down on his knees shouting with pain. A few seconds later, some rocks were dropped on my head. I wished newton saw that amazing power of gravity. It was not lynching, it was postmortem.

Then, I died. I thought I died. Whats the fucking difference!!!

Continued here...

In The Silence Of My Solitude - A Novel (Part 22)

                                                            27.The Lone Sailor

I returned back to my pad in Hyderabad. The black cloud of depression hung between me and my soul. I tried to remember my 'practical philosophy', but it didn't help.  Some one said 'Depression is anger turned inside'. It became true in my case. I was angry with myself for not  finding my mother. I blamed myself. I self-sabotaged.

I started smoking, drinking, and found some solace in masturbation. I jacked off away from my soul. I stayed at home for weeks long, only coming out for some food. The solitude turned in to loneliness, a terrible loneliness.

The fact that I did what I could did not give me any solace. That depression killed my confidence.
I am loser. I am a lazy bastard. I am dumb. I am good for nothing.

Look at the world. The world is progressing, you are digressing. Look at your friends. They are rich. They are enjoying their married life. How blissful they are!

The situation, the so-called 'reality' of the situation -- the financial situation was  not encouraging either. Just had enough money to survive for couple of months. That was all. I had some options left though, one of which was to ask from my friends the money they borrowed from me.

My friends, here's where you come into my story. Please try to remember what some you had said to me. Let me recount.

'Find a job yaar'
'Hey, what happened to that guy, that guy who never cared for money'
'You are a hypocrite for asking me money'

Some of you even stopped talking to me when I insisted that you owe me money.
Then I realized something about myself, my attitude towards money -- I had a false sense of prestige towards it  as I asked people money instead of demanding their return.  I falsely despised money and I realized on that day that money is neutral...

Then I realized one thing  -- I was being dragged to play the GAME OF LIFE  --- interacting with people automatically made me a player in that game -- that It is impossible not to play that game.

Yes, I was dragged in to that game of life, and the result : Jealousy.

I became jealous of rich people, happy people, poor people, lovers, prostitutes, dogs, cats, and the even rocks. Jealousy burned me. I tried to stop it, I tried to observe my mind, but it became impossible. The sea was too rough to anchor. The lone sailor drifted aimlessly in that thunderstorm.

 
That night, the lone sailor woke up from his sleep. It was all dark outside, not even the stars to keep him company. A dark threatening cloud hung above him. He wanted someone -- anyone to talk to. He wanted to touch,he wanted to hug, he wanted love. He imagined his friends, his father, relatives, the strangers, the society...saying 'Who asked you to venture into the sea you idiot? Dont you think we all are happily living near the shore? We knew the risk. That risk is the situation you are in. Face the risk'. The sailor hung his head in shame, and accepted his defeat. He gave up fighting. Then he cried, he cried for the first time in a long time, with tears rolling on his face, he shouted, " Mama, where are you? Let me sleep in your lap. Just once. I need your vuyyala. I just want to find that solitude. I want that silence. Come to me wherever you are".

I looked at the cloud.It was not as fierce as it was few moments ago. It rained tears for me, and slowly it dispersed. I felt an instant relief, and my heart became light resulting in me finding  my soul.

I triumphantly came out of the depression by giving up my fight against it. The sea calmed down, the storm died, and the anchor dropped, philosophy got restored, and the mind started observing itself.

I realized on that night, that sometimes I gotta give up something to get it back. I gave up the control of my mind to control it again. As soon as the confidence returned, my desire to find my mother came back in full force.

I thought that I  became a new person that night as I faced the darkest night of my life and came out of it. I hypnotized myself that I became a new man...just like those millions of people who finds Jesus, who goes to swamijis and ammas, who goes to yoga centers or even people who fall in love for  the first time...temporarily hypnotizing themselves that they found a new path, that their life changed forever, that a new person has been born inside,deluding themselves that they found permanent happiness and that it is never gonna leave them again. Just say something bad about their new path..trust me..the relationship is over!

I shouted at the society, at my friends, at the dogs and cats, at all those people who snickered at me during that dark hour, " I faced the storm and it passed over. Now it is coming for you, but you are least expecting it. Sorry for you, chumps. The biggest risk is not taking the risk"

Yes, I was over -confident, and over-reacted, but that statement came from somewhere deeper in my mind,  a place where truth originates, at-least the truth I thought as truth.

Continued here...

In The Silence Of My Solitude - A Novel (Part 21)

                                                                   24. The Search  

A man got to start somewhere at some time with something in order to achieve his goal.I am not talking about planning, brainstorming or theory. I am talking about practice. I am talking about realizing an idea in the material world. An idea becomes complete only after realizing the idea. In that sense, an idea in theory is never complete, as the implementation of the idea changes the idea itself.

During those 2 months I changed many of my ideas, ideas about myself and the ideas about finding my mother.

As soon as I reached Hyderabad, I went to the oldest psychiatrist hospital, one of the only two hospitals that existed three decades back. It was an old building, neglect written all over it.

The head of the hospital, a 60 yr old  psychiatric professor received me with some curiosity.
"What can I do for you", he asked.
" I would like know about a woman, 25 yrs old, who might have received treatment here 25 yrs back".
My request surprised him a bit. As far as he was concerned, people come there to dump memories, not in search of them.

"Why do you want to know? Whats your relation to that woman? What was she suffering from?"
"She is my mother, Sir"
Mother sentiment.
"Can you tell me the whole story?

I told him just enough to pique his curiosity. After some more questions he took me to an old basement room where all the records of the patients were dumped, and I started searching.

Finally, the search came to nothing. No patient with my mothers name existed in those records..
As I came out of the hospital, I finally asked him, " Is it possible for any person to go crazy after coming in contact with some horrible image or some being?"

"There is a possibility of  temporary insanity. But I would definitely rule out the possibility of  a person going permanently insane after that, even though the episodes of breakdowns may reoccur".

                                            I spent the next few days researching on the internet. I googled, wikipead, yahooed, ASKed,binged.

animal + ugly
alien + ugly + fearful
animal looks like a horse, elephant, crocodile
freak of nature + mutation
the most fearful animal on the planet
the most ugliest animal on the planet
going crazy after seeing it

None of the images that resulted from the search had any resemblance to the creature I had seen on the ataka.  I went to the libraries, zoology departments and zoos asking people if they had seen or heard of such creature.

I made a list of all the psychiatrist hospitals in India, those hospitals which existed many years back. I called everyone of them, some of them helped, some didn't. I visited those hospitals which refused to help on phone.

During my final call to Delhi psychiatric hospital, I asked the doctor, " What happens to those patients who were abandoned by their families? What happens to patients who could not afford to pay? What happens to them?"

"Some commit suicide, some die in accidents, but most of them become beggars", he answered.

They become beggars. A beggar. A beggar.

I remembered 'the beggar', the beggar who insisted on permanency of mothers love, the same beggar who gave me 500 rupees as I left that village -- my mother's village, two decades back as a kid.


                                                                      25. The Beggar

I immediately packed my bag and went to my mothers village. Nothing changed in that village. The rat catchers still lived in the outskirts. Most of the youngsters left the village to the cities in search of jobs. Some youngsters took up farming. The only change was the TV with its cable, ruining the tranquility that once existed in that village. The old women who used to narrate stories of their lives, and the lives of their grandparents, reaching upto a century....were now discussing the stories of serials on the TV.

No one recognized me at first. Old people became too old and young people were too young. When I told them who I was, old people cried and hugged me, and the young people looked at me with curiosity which transferred into some genuine happiness later.

 That was the house in which my mother was born. I was born in the same house too. She must have written her diary here. She must have dreamt about a beautiful life here...and here...look here..she must have day day dreamed here. Look here, at the veranda, she played with other kids here. She must have sung some songs.
What was her world? The house, the school, parents, siblings, movies - especially bobby, friends..and what else? That was her world. She wanted to escape that world, so she daydreamed. She sat there under that tree in the backyard and dreamed. She dreamt about a knight in the shining armour coming to her village on a horse and rescuing her. That must had been the only  dream she dreamt. what else could she dream given the environment? Oh you feminists, fuck off! What else could you all expect from her?

Did she fell in love with someone before she got married? Did she fuck someone to control the raging hormones? What were her views about religion,caste and race?

Then she got married, and then got pregnant. She carried me for 9 months. She was here for the last  6 months of her pregnancy.  Yes, right there in that room, she went through labor pains for whole night, and in the early morning, just as the sun rose, I was born.

A nice husband and a fat son. Perfect life! Then something happened. Her dreams were smashed. She left. Abrupt ending.

Two days went by.On that day, I went in search of the beggar, to the rat catcher's colony. There were all together 20 small huts exhibiting shameless poverty. I asked for the beggar, and they pointed me towards the last hut. A small group of naked children followed me.

He must be 60yrs but looked like 90.
I introduced myself to him, and he recognized me.

"Where did you get that money?", I asked without too much of formalities.
"Money is nothing", he replied dismissively.
" You know my mother?"
"She grew up before me in this village. She is the most beautiful girl in the whole village, may be in the whole mandal"
"Do you know where she is now?"
"she dead. Wounded deer wont survive in the jungle"
"How did she die?"
"Truth will kill you", he replied as he shifted his gaze towards the top of the hut.

It had a hole, and the sunlight was falling on him, as if he was in the spotlight. If not for the circumstances, I might had enjoyed the beauty of it.

"Do you love your mother?", he asked.
"I don't know". What is love?
"You are not ready"
"Ready for what?", I asked.
"You haven't suffered enough"
"Why should I suffer?"
"Because you have to burn a bit of yourself to see the light"
"What are you talking about?"
"You know why men always think about vagina? Because they are curious about their birth place". He puked out of context.

 Then he started laughing, and during that bout of laughter he blurted out, "Okay, I will tell you the story".

Story:  "Once upon a time, there was a village, and there lived a beautiful girl in that village. Unfortunately, she was born in a lower-caste. Then she got raped by a rich man. She got pregnant. A baby was born. She gave the baby to rat-catchers. After that, they found her body in the river. That boy grew up into a strong man. He came to know about his father. He burned with rage. Then, he saw his sister, the daughter of his father. She took care of him. She became everything to him. His sister, a goddess of compassion. Then she went away. Then she disappeared. Thats the truth about two tragedies in his life."

I didnt expect that subplot, but it all made sense as to the reason why he showed love to me..in-spite of being a poor beggar.

"When was the last time you saw her?"
"On the day you were born"
"But, you said she died". I was irritated.
"Good people cant live for too long in this world".
"So, you don't know what happened to her?"
"I don't know, and I don't wanna know"
"Who told you your story?", I asked.
"I dreamt it".

That was it. I knew what was happening. I was talking to a crazy man, hoodwinked by his imagination sprinkled with some facts. Depression came over me as I walked out of the hut.
I heard him shouting, " You are not ready for the truth.You haven't suffered enough".



                                                            26. Portrait of a lady.

I met all my relatives. Everyone of them. Asking them the same questions again and again.

A : Beautiful woman. I tell you that.
B: Her eyes. Her best
C: Yes. Her eyes.Angelic!

A : She was naughty as a kid.
B: She was a good kid
C: She was alright.

A : She was very intelligent.
B: She was dumb.
C: She was okay.

A: She used to sit here and daydream.
B: Yes. she was a day dreamer.
C: ya..she was lazy.

A: She was selfish.
B: She left her son.
C: yes she was selfish.

A:  She used to be friends with those beggars.
B: She was a compassionate woman.
C: She cussed me once, when I told her not to talk to them.

A : She had no caste feeling.
B : She hated caste.
C: She was stupid.

A : One thing I can tell you -- she was not normal.
B: She sometimes behaved abnormal.
C: Some screws lose in her head.

A : She eloped with that guy.
B : She is dead
C: I know where he is.

"Who?', I asked.
C: The student.
"What! You sure?". I was surprised.
I called him, the student.
Student : That was a long time ago. I liked her, but she started behaving odd. I left the town for work. After many years, I heard she died..that she committed suicide. Thats all I know.
"Can I meet you?", I asked.
"Sorry, I am busy", he disconnected the phone.

A: stop this. Find a job.
B: Get married.
C: Let bygones be bygones.

I realized on that day, that the toughest task, the task which makes an investigator worthy of his profession, is the task of filtering the bullshit. People just talk shit. Moreover, what I realized was that none of these people cared for my mother, and more over, it is impossible to create a portrait of a character from the opinions of the people.

Most people live their lives always thinking about what others think of them, trying to adjust their behavior, even goals..in-order to please them. They would be shocked to know that people don't know shit about them, and they even rarely think about them. All they have are opinions..dime a dozen..formed through their own prism of narrow perception.

[A-Z] : You idiot! We live a boring, unfulfilled life. So, we create stories to create drama. We also give you free advice to feel superior to you. Now, get the fuck out of here.

Absurd. It was all absurd.

I just marched through the 'Shock Corridor' and failed to pick up facts from the shit of imagination....the imagination of the 'real' deranged.

Continued here..