Context from what I vaguely remember: I seem to be at a cafe, think I was visiting a different city for some reason, so I guess I was "functional". And clearly I was at a cafe as I wrote this.
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Random snippets of conversation float, unbidden, into my ear. “The market has spoken to you” “My team mate is visiting and I need to pretend to care” “We just returned from Vizag” “The steady state itself is unsustainable” “It is not working”
The café is suddenly loud with people living their lives. Someone is getting let down gently by a couple of investors who seem to want to pull their investment. A couple of people discussing work, jabbering in hindi with a lot of posturing, self-congratulations and projecting macho-ism. One girl silently sitting with her laptop – that proudly declares that she is a girl who codes. A mother and child just left, after the mother spent all her energy stopping the child from bouncing off every wall she could find. It is loud. Everyone is living diligently and yet it feels shallow, hollow, and someone of the words feel pretentious. A case of sour grapes maybe. Envy that I can’t seem to join the multitude.
The noise is annoying me. But maybe this is closest I can get to humanity today. So I endure it. The conversations scratch the inside of my brain. I can’t bring myself to empathise with the man losing his investment. I can’t bring myself to feel compassionate to the macho men making decision testosterone driven decisions. I can’t bring myself to celebrate the girl who codes and is proud of it. I can’t care because the itch in my brain is taking over my humanity.
I try to escape myself by reading a book. I re-read the same ten pages I read the last time I picked up this book. Bad choice of book – its about a comedian who hired a gun to kill him. The sheer ennui depicted in the book reflects my own so well. I wish I could hire a gun to train on myself too. I am too cowardly and, deep down, inspite of myself, too optimistic, to actually do something. Plus, I would want to fool-proof it and I don’t know how. Nothing is worse than a botched job. And so I turn to mindless things, frantically refusing space in time which would fill itself with anxiety and ennui and brain pain.
There is no reason for me to be like this. Genes, chemicals, I’ve exhausted all reasons and excuses. Maybe now I should just blame my stubbornness and cowardice. I keep thinking of a kitten stuck on a ledge inside a well. It is perched there precariously, its strength gradually fading. Well meaning and loud people have dangled a bucket on a rope for it to jump into. But the poor thing is too scared and too weak to jump into. A failed attempt means the cat falls into water, not attempting means the kitten either starves or loses strength and falls into the water. It has to jump, but it won’t, it can’t. If the kitten is lucky, there will be plucky, strong and kind man (usually it’s a man) who’ll climb down himself and grab the scared kitten and climb back up with it. If its lucky.
Suddenly the noise has died down. Most people who come to this café come in ones or twos. They need to rearrange their seating layout to reflect that. And its laughable they don’t have wifi.
I want to travel. I have no money and I can’t seem to plan and execute. I want fun. I need people for that, to do activities with me. I miss mom. I need an expertise. I want to play. I want to drink. I want to make merry. If I can’t have purpose, let me at least have shallow, fleeting moments of fun. I want a bias for action. I want a different body. I want a different personality. I want more money. I need a purpose. Existentialism doesn’t suit me.
Delhi is in flames. A part of it anyway. Just like a part of India might soon be, thanks to divisive politicians with divisive ideologies and the foolish people who vote for them. History has always proved that a divisive, fascist ideology causes war, bloodshed, pain and the death of entire nations, especially those which are multidimensional and multicultural. Whats that poem, First they came for the …
But people fall for labels so easily now – tukde-tukde gang,
anti-national, ISI agents, “liberals”, “leftists”, bhakts and so on. A label
gives you a reason not to engage with them anymore. And how easy it is to point
to the one bad apple who might have slipped in to write off entire barrels.
Dissent is now anti-national and not just another point of view. Opposition is
no longer a credible bulwark against autocracy having been discredited and
allowing themselves to fall into disarray.
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The rant cuts of suddenly, guess the coffee was brought to me, lol. Look at me spewing political commentary willy-nilly all silly..
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