The Dreadful Delusion

Maverick woke up with a start, a sudden scream escaping out of his parched mouth. Hundreds of small beads of perspiration had formed on his forehead, which slowly trickled down to his brows and shone under the minuscule light coming through the gap in the wooden window. His face was pale and the eyes had a terrified look. The same old blood-curdling vision was back to haunt him again.

At that moment everything seemed all fuzzy and dizzy. His heart was beating hard and loud and the senses had seemed to have intensified. However, nothing seemed to bother him at that point, not even the irritating sound of the water leaking out of that old rusty tap, or the bed that creaked dangerously with the shift in the weight of his limbs. He was staring straight at the wall in front of him. It had sheltered his family from the sun and wind and rain for decades, but the unrelenting resilient fellow was wearing out. It had developed fissures and the lime mortar had peeled off giving way to the rough grey cement in patches.

What if the world we see is an illusion—and that our dreams an impression of reality.

Suddenly, a car screeched past the window. The loud piercing sound sent shivers to the already scared Maverick. Curious, he hunched his body to the right and opened the latch to the window. There was an abruptly parked car out on the street, and strangely enough, in that pitch dark and ghastly quiet night, the man had let the headlights on. Unable to spot anyone, Maverick moved a far little too much and stumbled down the bed onto the floor with a loud thud. He fell to his sides and thankfully, there wasn’t any injury to regret. And just when he was about to shake himself up, his eyes went up the wall—again.

But this time, he spotted something different. The change in the angle and the illumination from the car outside depicted those blemishes in an altogether different light. He moved closer; he looked deeper. And sighted into those edges that familiar grin—the devilish creature with a sly smile on his face. It was all very prominent. Very noticeable. Three days and three nights he had kept himself awake. To avoid this nightmare. To avoid leering frighteningly at that monster holding a stained knife in one hand and a decapitated head in another. The head that had the same eyes and nose and face and hair. The head that looked like his own. The head that was his own.

What if being asleep also means awakening to life—or death!

A striking reminder of his dream, the head kept on dripping blood—one drop at a time. The monster with the fiery red eyes kept grinning all the time as the drops took wing like a house on fire and came down in a rapid succession. It was like Maverick had been nailed down to the point of nothingness as he watched the drops become a stream of blood under which people were drowning. To his wildest horror, they were his family, his mother and father and brothers. He could hear their cries, feel their agony, watch helplessly at their futile attempts to save themselves. He peered as they choked on his thick blood, burst into tears as their head went down and then came up for the final time. “Don’t,” he sobbed. “Don’t go, please!” he cried.

Why does it feel so real? Have you ever given a serious thought to reversing the concept of imagination? What if the world we see is an illusion—and that our dreams an impression of reality. Is it possible that there are split personalities existing in ourselves, each being dominant in their own sphere? What if being asleep also means awakening to life—or death!

Why do I have this terrible feeling that I myself am a calamity to the people I love the most? Am I that deplorable a person? What if you had got me wrong all this while? The things that I’ve fed to you all this while weren’t what you thought it to be—will you forgive me?

A Walk Into The Void

Under the luminescence of the munificent moon, I was walking in a daze on my way back home. A drop of rain fell on my forehead and trickled down to the corner of my lips, but not before soothing the eyes that seemed weary of gazing out far into the darkness. Usually, music would be my faithful companion on these solitary strides, often instigating me upon losing to its mood. Today, on the contrary, I was lost into a void, and that too without anyone’s assistance.

I wasn’t thinking about anything—not the Kashmir unrest that I was worried an hour ago, neither the overhyped atrocities inflicted on Dalits nor the alleged political vendetta Narendra Modi-led NDA government was holding against Kejriwal & party. It was as if my soul had transported into some other dimension only to be rescued by that very cold sensation which—prepended with the slithering of droplet—stirred me up from the trance.

I could see the lush green reeds, fresh from the recent downpour, swaying by my side and shining brightly under the headlight of the passing vehicle. The fragrance of sweet mud filled my nostrils. I couldn’t help but breathe a sense of tranquility enveloped my body. A couple of seconds later, another drop followed the trail; this time, it caught hold off my right cheek only to behold an overwhelming coincidence that the tears-from-heaven rested perfectly aligned in a straight line—which was only possible if I had my mouth closed and stretched. Oh boy, was I smiling; or, was it merely an expression that I wore a veil on most occasions? Relaxing my facial muscles, I wiped those pearls off my face… they were sour.

Ever since childhood, I was attracted towards agony. In the novels that I chose to read, I flipped through pages looking for heartbreaks, melancholy, dreams and passion far beyond imagination. “I was afraid of being rejected, yes. I was also afraid of being accepted for the wrong reasons”: this was the golden excerpt that I stripped out from Eric Segal’s ‘Love Story’. But it was Jacques, a character born out of Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’, that I found quite profounding: I envied his ability to seek out depressing experiences and admired him, for even I, at times, want to enjoy being sad and mopey.

Has it ever crossed your mind that the people you see every day are just not right—that they are some sort of alien creatures who possess the same nose and nails and eyes and ears like you but are so different—or maybe because you don’t belong here… or anywhere in this world. You’re trapped in a purgatory of the urban and rural divide, of time and generation gap that is soaring it’s depression with every passing second.

Happy cultural failure. Happy emotional failure.

Upon reaching the Noida 16 metro station, I stole a glance at my watch. It was 13 minutes past 10. I waved my hand to an e-rickshaw and enquired: ‘Bhaiya, Hanuman Mandir chaloge?’

 

Losing Myself

This is getting hard. I think I’m losing myself; losing to the dark devil living inside me. He’s sailing me into nothingness. The productiveness… ah, the productiveness is all gone. The creativity, the flow, the charm—everything seems to have taken a back seat. This is even scarier than having my laptop smashed, my fingers chopped, and being confined in a cell. I’m straying on the same path I’ve travelled a million times: there’s little food for thought. He’s eating me up bit by bit, pulling me into things that are of little importance. I’m losing my focus, my meaning in life. It was my choice, my escape, my cowardice to have left the space vacant. I thought I could get away with an excuse. Oh, how wrong I was!

I feel like a hen in the grasp of a butcher writhing in agony, waiting for my throat to be sliced open. It’s cold, very cold. There’s not a single shred of cloth covering my body. It’s a shame I had never experienced before, not even when I was found guilty of stealing money in an assembly of a hundred students and teachers. The blood in my veins has thickened. The oxygen: They’re having a hard time climbing up to my brain. My eyelids seem heavy. They want to be rested, to be closed upon each other. Shall I free them from the pain?

“Don’t. Please don’t!” cries my heart.

I oblige. I can’t say ‘No’ to him… No, Never! I can’t debate him, I can’t reason with him. He’s been left broken many a time but is still standing strong with the soul. Oh, you’re a beauty! A true beauty of selflessness. So I force my eyes open. I know that this moment is short-lived but I endure the pain. I’ll fail, yes that I’m sure of! But I’ll make sure my journey gives someone hope. Struggle is all I’ve done throughout my life and struggle is what I’ll do to stay alive. My battle is against eventuality, and I’ll fight till the end.

And as my eyes go weary, my thoughts stride down the memory lane to the days when I was preparing for my Board papers. Waking up till late night—solving math problems while listening to the local FM channel—was a bliss I experience no more. The race against time, the continuous scratching of lines and letters, the world of supposition…. Where have they gone?

I remember cycling down my way to school and admiring the simplest things that I have lost sight of. We—my very dear friend with whom I’ve lost contact—rode on the mud and the asphalt, through the plains and the potholes, and the dust and the rains. We would race to a distance, challenge each other into riding with our hands behind our back. Oh, I never won anyway! The other times when I was alone, I’d see how many counts I could make without opening my eyes. “Oh, you shouldn’t try that!”

I’ve always looked for the motivation outside—into the movies, the books, the people around—but how foolish of me… I forgot to look inside! I find that I’m improving. It’s like the sums I solved into my solitary nights: the more I practise, the better I get. With every drop of ink, with each stroke of the keyboard, I get more power to seize the demon inside me. And sometimes my dear Mav, this is why I pull up my socks and breathe in the silence and serenity offered by the descending moon. Wanna join me for a walk?