Balance
Balance. We humans as a race are obsessed with it. Every story, every song, every life needs to have a balance. The perpetual good vs. evil, where until the balance is restored no story is complete and if we think it is, we accused of thinking small, and encouraged to think from a larger plane of being. I am no different for however cynical I get (have got) there is that underlying glimmer that hope for it. Balance.
(Goodbye My Lover) And we have god, the great shopkeeper, ever ready with the extra cup of good or evil to set the balance straight. Life is easy for us, for the balance is out of our hand, and more importantly it exists controlled by some invisible strings. The connotations of helplessness that set in with “strings” make it too fatalistic and easy. But is it really that easy? For don’t we have enough tricks up our sleeve to control how the balance is distributed and aren’t we anyway too neck deep in our gentrified life to be not bothered, and isn’t the pain and joy that comes with this is what makes us live and not survive. And god there to ensure the balance of worry and bother exists and is maintained at the cosmic level. A contradiction ? Yes but one that, by virtue of working, ceases to be one
Just like me sitting here hoping that this vomiting of words is going to have an effect on the greater balance of the universe, which, even if it does, will be known to be only by my belief and not by my senses. At this juncture god revisits us giving the conviction for this belief to exist, becoming that self fulfilling prophecy which exists by virtue of its improbable inception and is equally true by virtue of its existence.
(So Long Jimmy) But too much of people to my liking, yet I am enjoying it. The contradiction is too strong and the urge of the reclusive side stronger. The darkness engulfs me, manifesting it in channels that I can easily accept without questioning my sanity. God comes in again this time in form of an urge to feel a temple. So I walk.
(Wisemen) Contradictions galore! My mind wavers at first, but then slowly draws comfort from the chord it strikes with the surroundings. The first part of my pilgrimage, or mental masturbation if you will, takes me about half an hour. In my loneliness James Blunt, gives me company making me feel lonelier, happier. His’ is a monologue, but I have nothing to add, nothing to contradict, only the need to listen.
And so I sent some men to fight,
And one came back at dead of night.
Said he’d seen my enemy.
Said he looked just like me,
So I set out to cut myself and here I go
(Same Mistake) The song is banging full volume thru my SE earphones, making me feel like a character from an Alejandro González movie, father time obliging , the world moving in slow motion as the headlights on a dark road look at me like sneering eyes and stares that pierce through the air conditioned interiors with filled disdain (or jealousy?) . I forget it’s the middle of the road. For a while the world stands still for me. The music penetrates deeper into my organism than what the stares could even dream off, a state of orgasm, but then the survival instinct kicks in guiding me to the footpath. The pseudo sense of machismo, creating a temporary hormonal in-balance, is countered by my sense of reality, at least at a subconscious level. The veracity of the situation is lost in my consciousness but captured fully by some vague part of me to whom I owe a lot. Probably some fuzzy act of cosmic balance to ensure that this piece gets written or just that I brush tomorrow? I understand the pretence of the situation but it does not take anything away from what the moment is to me.
(Your Beautiful) The ground grows softer, as the soiled remains of the deconstruction work that is currently going on in Delhi gets solace under my feet. Their new resting ground, as the city marches on into its tryst with new India. Is something under your feet trampled or is it protected till its eventual erosion from our memory? The contradiction strikes me. But for now the imprints that I leave on the soil, only to be washed by the next rain, gets some hope of care and remembrance in the picture that I take.
(1973) Images of 21 grams flash through my mind as I see rolled up glass left scattered after the last accident. My mind wanders into the realms of absurdity as I think about the people involved, and their family. About how it would feel for a kin to come back to that place which lay witness to the last few moments of a life never meant to leave so soon. To see a leaf dancing to the wind in front of their eyes, the same leaf that bore the weight of the splash of blood so close to that what runs in their veins? To have time running parallel and be able to reach out and touch that leaf during its herculean moment or smell the flesh blood but be unable to do anything. But eternal return consoles me with the knowledge that each moment, from your birth to your death all run parallel, not interfering with each other, but existing for an eternity. For it is the same with a book that one reads with each character reborn, different yet similar, in each mind that it comes across, sometimes taking more, sometimes less life that what the author intended more dependent on the neural pathways and experiences of the mind than the words from which it came, each stream running parallel to one other.
Balance. My hunt for balance is successful as I finally see the gate back to the campus at a distance. The sight is broken by involuntary pangs closing my eyes as James engages in his final vocal gymnastics for the day. And then all things in the world seem to fit again.
