722 words
I didn’t write for the last few days because after I had shut down my laptop on Friday there was nothing in me that wanted to pick it up again; not a single feeling that tended towards writing on a screen. On Friday evening I took a picture of the still world in my mind for safekeeping, for writing about later. The sky was ashen-blue, somewhere the sun was starting to set, a gathering of birds was creating a riot in the trees that lined the pavement, and the urban landscape was marked by green patches of grass, overcast old trees, and a quietness that even people who were filing out of buildings to return home couldn’t disturb. It was as if the week was being wrapped up until to open again later.
A friend pinged me on Saturday evening asking if I use an eye cream to alleviate the strain of screen time. I said I had spend the whole day weaning away from screens, and that seemed to work every time. Although, I did furnish an eye-cream recommendation and applied eye-patches myself, what really works is putting these beasts away. I look into the distance like they always asked us to, and spend time washing vessels, of which there are many. Sometimes I consider what if something were to happen to my eyes, and the thought itself is chilling. So, I take my breaks; and dust old bamboo curtains to hang them up again, inspect the loss of my rose plant from the society’s flower bed where I had planted for sunlight (One), journal about the previous week in turquoise ink, paste stickers to my new journal, and go out in the neighbourhood for pani puri and Diwali mithai.
After finishing Rachel Cusk’s novel Outline, I had made a mental to write about conversation, about the way words tend to reveal an interiority of human existence when you meet some people who are good conversationalists themselves, and attentive listeners. Her book is full of truths that people will tell about their lives nonchalantly in gatherings of small and large. I felt as if a heaviness was put down — just like the Friday evening had put down the heaviness of the week — and people were able to talk about their lives freely, without fear, and with the knowledge that life tends to be this way. It tends to be complicated, and staggeringly beautiful even if all you’re doing is tell the story of how you hated your dog, and someone will respond with “maybe you needed to get a different breed” instead of launching a diatribe on who you are as a person because of what you have said. I found her novel to be immensely cathartic and wise because of the stories people were saying about their lives. How often do you get to do that now?
Last week, I had a conversation that I really enjoyed with two people who I had not expected to sit down with, and I loved how it afforded space to be someone other than who I am usually. It offered space to slow down and imagine how stories can be told. As I was making notes in my journal, I realised I have read six books in October ever since I decided to “put everything away and meet my reading goal”. One of the stories I read recently is about a post-AI world in Bombay which doesn’t mention technology or AI until the reader is 50% into the story; and even after the reader is made aware that the characters in the story are enhanced humans programmed to deal with their complex feelings in a business-like way, it does not stop being a story about a small South Indian family living in Sion. Only a skilled storyteller like Anil Menon can do that. But what I’m saying is that launching head-on into my home library has reminded me, once again, that stories are about the story, and about people, and good stories change your insides.
Presently, I am reading Heart of Darkness recommended by a dear friend, gorging on Diwali faral and mithai, taking in the fragrance of the abundant trees that have bloomed about my neighbourhood, and getting ready to see how this week unpacks, and lays out in front of me.
amarllyis 