Elbow Room

खुद से दोस्ती करने को मन करता है
जब देखती हूँ खुद को तकिये से गुनमुनती
रात को गली के कुत्तों सा
भगाने को मन करता है

कुछ खाने को मन करता है
बेमन जब चम्मच को कलम जैसे लिखते पाती हूँ
यकायक उठकर कुछ
नया बनाने को मन करता है

मायूस यूँ रूठी आएने से
मुह मोड़ कर बैठी रहती हूँ
ठुड्डी पकड़ धुंधले मुह पर आँखें
बनाने को मन करता है

यूँ छोड़ रखा है खुद को
के पास जाते कतराती हूँ
डरते मरते खुद को खुदे से
बचाने को मन करता है

बेजान से मरियल कमरों में जब
दिन-पहर बेसुध हो जातें है
हाथ पकड़ ज़बरदस्ती खुद को
घुमाने को मन करता है

बारिश की बूंदों को मैं जब
व्यर्थ सा गिरता पाती हूँ
गुस्साई मन के हाथों में पत्थर
थमाने को मन करता है

बेचारगी में डूबे खुद पर
तरस तो आता है लेकिन
ठहाके लगाये मुझ उल्लू पर
कभी हसने को मन करता है

वोडका का वोह शोट ऐसे मारा था जैसे
तुमको किसी बेहेस में तगड़ा तर्क दिया हो
हाँ, था तोह एक नाटक जैसा ही--
पहले तुम्हे चाहने में वोह बन गयी थी
जो मैं नहीं थी, और अब तुमसे दूर हो कर भी
मैं मैं सी नहीं हूँ

आजकल आधी इधर आधी उधर रहती हूँ
किस बात पर बिगड़ना चाहिए किस बात पर हसना
दो बार सोचना पड़ता है
मानो तुम ही सब तय किया करते थे

सोचती हूँ जो कुछ देर और तुम्हारे साथ रहती
तुम जैसी ही सांवली हो जाती
जो खो गयी थी तुम में इस तरह
ज़ाहिर है, तुम से भी खोना ही था

“What’s got you all wadded up?” he drawls, toothpick in mouth, as usual.

“Don’t ask” I say, but then I start talking and tell him every bit of it, concluding with, “And worst of all, I can’t stop obsessing over David. I thought I was over him, but it’s all coming up again.”

He says, “Give it another six months, you’ll feel better.”

“I’ve already given it twelve months, Richard.”

“Then give it six more. Just keep throwin’ six months at it till it goes away. Stuff like this takes time.”

I exhale hotly though my nose, bull-like.

“Groceries,” Richard says, “listen to me. Someday you’re gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You’ll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place in the world for it – in a beautiful place of worship, surrounded by grace. Take this time, every minute of it. Let things work themselves out here in India.”

“But I really loved him.”

“Big deal. So you fell in love with someone. Don’t you see what happened? This guy touched a place in your heart deeper than you thought you were capable of reaching. I mean you got zapped, kiddo. But that love you felt, that’s just the beginning. You just got a taste of love. That’s just limited little rinky-dink mortal love. Wait till you see how much more deeply you can love than that. Heck, Groceries – you have the capacity to someday love the whole world. It’s your destiny. Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing.” I was actually crying. “And please don’t laugh at me now, but I think the reason it’s so hard for me to get over this guy is because I seriously believed David was my soul mate.”

“He probably was. Your problem is you don’t understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. Your problem is, you just can’t let this one go. It’s over, Groceries. David’s purpose was to shake you up, drive you out of your marriage that you needed to leave, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job, and he did great, but now it’s over. Problem is, you can’t accept that his relationship had a real short shelf life. You’re like a dog at the dump, baby – you’re just lickin’ at the empty tin can, trying to get more nutrition out of it. And if you’re not careful, that can’s gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable. So drop it.”

“But I love him.”

“So love him.”

“But I miss him.”

“So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it. You’re just afraid to let go of the last bits of David because then you’ll be really alone, and Liz Gilbert is scared to death of what will happen if she’s really alone. But here’s what you gotta understand, Groceries. If you clear out all that space in your mind that you’re using right now to obsess about this guy, you’ll have a vacuum there, an open spot – a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with the doorway? It will rush in – God will rush in – and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed. So stop using David to block that door. Let it go.”

“But I wish me and David could —“

He cuts me off. “See, now that’s your problem. You’re wishin’ too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be.”

The wretched agression which fuels his ego could win him the world if he were to redirect it. I think of him as an anti-Mahatma of sorts every now and then. Thin and bony, sometimes like a baby who can barely keep his chin up, he walks with me, happy for the moment, on the red soil paths. The green trees, the wind blowing our sweat dry, people excersing and doing Yoga, an old couple with a labrador, and a stick in hand to keep the monkeys at bay, the healthiness of the surroundings pulsating in jogging feet--he is such a misfit here. Everything inside him desperately soaks the wellness in the air like a thirsty dog laps water, like a band-aid on a wound.

His forced exile has given him what others may call...the gift of time. But its nothing short of Pandora's box. For most of us Time is a gushing river we can not bathe in twice; his Time however is a quiet lake that looks exactly the same at all hours, even the waves the winds paint on its wet surface are not random.

Everytime i enter his room, its as if time has ceased to be till i step out and the clock starts ticking again with a gasp. Strange it is then that the angry clock on his wall runs ten mintues ahead, as if forcing him to take cognizance. But he lies there on the same spot, in the same way, facing the same wall the paint on which seems to have stopped dead in its track trickling down, once liquid and colourful, now solid and caking.

The claustrophobia of his existence chokes me. Someone has bound my hands with heavy manacles to this side of the bed, i cant seem to break free. I am desperate to help him for his sake and my own. But i am afraid to approach him at times, like you would telling a war veteran that he must stop trying to gulp down in his drink the hideousness of the world he sacrificed his leg to save. You'd be afraid he might just throw his drink in your face and holler at you for daring to ask him to smile and let people think of him a mad fool.

I feel his pain. Its spread to us and become ours too. And that gives me authority to enter the room which has imprisoned time. And as i do, the birds outside stop chirping in mid-song, the people on the road freeze in their activities, the rain holds its breathe and the hands of the clock in the kitchen stop waving the minutes away...

"Its not the food thats stale, dad. its the drink."

He looks at me with bloodshot eyes that if you stare in them for too long you can see someone trapped crying out for help.

"Its not mom, its you."

He asks me to stop preaching to him. I try to tell him subtly this is not him. That this is what Freud called the Ego, what so many spiritual traditions call the 'False Self', that it is often a pathological term. He waves sheets of paper in my face, that say his blood tests and his urine tests, everything is normal. But how do i convey to him that the medical reports cant reveal the sickness he seems to be suffering with. That what he feels to be connivace of the rest of the world is a misplaced pride.

I sense I have a few seconds left to stop talking before he makes me his enemy too. I change the topic. And as a post-thought, i quit trying to avoid the fate this road he has taken must take us meet, i quit trying to find a solution. I realise there is no solution; the kind that i have frantically been looking for. The kind that the five years of english literature in my veins pumps into my idealist heart. There is no solution.

I keep up at nights, staring at the fan, feeling utter lack of any emotion as blank watery tears stream down my cheeks gently. I feel nothing. There is no solution. There is no solution. There is no solution. So i quit trying to understand the anatomy of his meloncholy in order to cure it.

'We defy augury; there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.'

There is just this. A readiness to face this meloncholy, and a tolerance, whose limits are not infinite. And as always, there is distraction. Rebellion sometimes is a kind of denial of reality.

So we walk in the green and red scenery, and i let him talk of his time, his time when it was a speeding train, and how quickly it did pass him by. I put some songs in the car i know he likes, and let him hum along. And discover a melodious voice i didnt know he had. I let him take pride in what he has created, and he looks across at me with wonder at his own genius, and for now, i dont break his illusion.

And at times it makes sense. At times its all alright. At times the sunlight gleams mellowingly through the clouds just so you can see the way ahead for a while, not in any ultimately enlightening way. Just thin occasional glimmers and rays that quiver with the leaves of the trees they peep through. Its difficult to keep holding on to the slender fragile ray for long; it melts in your fingers and disappears if you hold on to it too tightly and then there is darkness again. So you have to be patient. Yes, you have to be very patient...

Says Paul Varjack, “You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact…”

She stops dead in her tracks. It’s as if he is addressing her and not Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Like Holly, she has been running too. Running ceaselessly, running fretfully from something she is afraid to acknowledge. Running from that which threatens to change her world irreplaceably, irretrievably. As if ballroom dancing, swirling from one arm to another and hoping the music will never stop. City after city, people after people, distraction after distraction; like downing drinks after drinks, those that make everything forgetful, blurry-- hoping she'd never be sober enough to see what the real picture looks like. It’s ultimately useless, as Varjack says, because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.

In her dreams she sees the face of a monster, so close to her she can feel its breath on her face. Her eyes are shut and she knows from somewhere deep within that to be free she must open them and look it straight in the eye. But she cannot bring herself to do it and therefore must remain enslaved till that time to this phantasm of fear. And keep running.

Her state is what Richard Coe described as--

A freedom of a slave to crawl east along the deck of a boat going west.