White and Hot

From a very young age, I have been acquainted with anger. I wasn’t an angry child. I have just seen anger up close. I wasn’t an angry teenager, either. But yes, I was a very angry young adult. Now, that I am veering towards being a ‘woman’ (as I would like to think) I believe I understand anger. I know where it stems from and I am almost never wary of angry people until they’re out to throw things at me or manhandle me (both of which have happened). Most folks scoff at angry people. I think when a person is angry he/she needs to be understood and not reprimanded. In fact, I appreciate anger.

I have been extremely angry for close to 4 days now. White-hot blinding rage. However, I think my achievement lies in the fact that I haven’t misdirected it at anyone – not my mother (as I usually did in the past), not the government (easiest punching bag), not my friends nor my job, no one. For that alone, I believe I need a pat on my back. *promptly pats back* I have spent a lot of time understanding where this fury is coming from; specially after the calm and serene times I have been experiencing and writing about, on this very blog. I also don’t understand why I should be angry given that I took the mini-vacation with my childhood friends recently. But I think the answer lies there.

Since this post is an attempt at deconstruction, I think I am very angry with myself for not giving shape to all those things I wrote down on my recent trip to Bengaluru and back. The visuals are clear in my mind – that of me putting down words on paper while I sat on a table with a glass top, the sunlight hitting my neck, and with two magpies for company. I have those poems and stories written away in the notebook and they have not been opened. Now, I am not so vain as to think they’re masterpieces, but my anger stems from the fact that I have not been writing as much as I should. Enough of the vacation, the healing, the growing. It has got to stop.

There is a mass of inertia inside me which is happily basking in whatever season that comes along, and it doesn’t move. The fact that it is happy doesn’t make me want to change anything. It’s coming to a silent sort of decomposition. I must arrest it as soon as I can. I am not going to make grand commitments like my friend AamilTheCamel did when he committed to reading 130 books this year. You can check out his challenge here. Although, I admire his grit, it’s just that I would never be able to make such a huge pledge. If he does it, I will present him with the expensive gift as we have agreed upon. However, my point is that I cannot make such a promise to myself. But in this rage, I find myself reconsidering. Why can’t I make a hyperbolic promise to myself? How about writing 100 poems before this year ends? Or even just the 7 short stories I intended to. Whatever happened to concrete decision-making?

In this small moment, I try to hammer away at my inertia by writing this post. I fan away the cynicism that tells me I am too blissful and comfortable to make any sort of change. I redirect my anger inwards so as to melt this blob of inertia that stalls me. Something must move. After saying that I was happy to sit on the wooden bench, I wished there would come a time when I would feel something tug my heart. So what if it’s rage? Anger is a good thing.

Din guzarta hai is firaak mein
kuch kar jayenge hum
Dil rehta hai is intezaar mein
kisi cheez par mar jayenge hum