One got to be insanely fair-minded to acknowledge the fact that thoughts, yes, even a single thought has the supreme power to imprison you not just for a few hours or days, but for a couple of years or worse for decades together. Suddenly and rather involuntary one is injected in this word bubble, as if in a virtual cell of one’s own making, only this time to intuitively and more so helplessly peer out, gasping for a new lease of life and yet help for some inexplicable reason always invariably seems to evade the pleas. Very much like the gramophone needle caught in an almost invisible minuscule groove in the otherwise smooth black plate compelling the needle to repeatedly repeat itself. The orchestra of the voices in the head is set in unspoken motion.
Faraway in some corner of my sleepy village I can almost hear dear Laura Branigan singing… “All the voices in your head calling, Gloria, Gloria?”
And though most of us move on, yet, there are many others, who we assume lag behind and are thereby alienated. These sensitive beings get so very overwhelmed by their own unprocessed sentiments, that unceremoniously and unexpectedly they find themselves imprisoned in these bubbles. It is like a nightmare unfolding, gripping and ungripping and then spinning off at an incredible speed to a different world altogether. A world that ejects thoughts that fail to align with the contemporary age and times. And thus, a poète maudit or an accursed poet or artist is born, living a life outside or at times against society.
Dr Alan sounds incredibly true when he croons “Stop bugging me, stop bothering me, stop fighting me stop yelling at me, it’s my life…”
The challenge of living in two parallel worlds takes its toll. It’s the intense negotiation between sanity and insanity, and the frightening possibility of the latter emerging victorious, that bears one down. The thought that the insurmountable conflict at a very determine moment of time, can devour gems absolutely is indeed disturbing. Robin Williams, Van Gogh, Whitney Houston, Guru Dutt and many others, reading about their achievements in one world and a sense of helplessness in another, evoke pure compassion and an insurmountable sense of loss.
I savour the immortal renderings of Geeta Dutt’s, “Waqt ne kiya kya haseen situm..” and permit it to hunt my soul. In my mind’s eye the black and white image of an exquisite and graceful Waheeda Rehman looms up with the accompanying aura of introspection.
It’s drizzling outside. Merces is coyly responding to the rain Gods, the trees shiver by the gentle touch and yearns for more. The vast stretch of fields will be donning a new avatar pretty soon. Nature is attempting to heal, reconcile, revive what is senselessly destroyed by mankind, which includes the self-inflicted wounds, sores that if not attended will turn gangrene. I wonder about the generations to come and whether history will repeat itself. My better half has raised the volume so that I can enjoy Tracy Chapman strumming her guitar and huskily crooning “Sorry, is all that you can’t say. Years gone by and still, words don’t come easily, like sorry, like sorry…” she could have been reading my mind, probably strumming the strings of my heart.
