Self centred autobiographical accounts that I seem to so unabashedly indulge in, are more so literary selfies sans the proverbial pout. It’s painting a self portrait with words, say around six hundred words to be precise. And though words come rushing, hungrily demanding their space, I have to filter them to ensure they will faithfully project me or better still my literary selfie in the right spirit. And just as an artist painstakingly picks up the right hues to give the right touches, so does a writer play with words. It’s a compulsive attempt to capture the moment in mind, which is very much abstract and translate it into something more concrete by giving it a physical form by phrasing suitable sentences to bring to life the varied moments frozen in time. The true thawing happens as you visit your own personal history and testify. And though one may be tempted to edit either the content or the context, or both, trust me truth can best be relished in its pristine bare avatar.
Literary selfies are more of literary post mortem of moments or experiences. Moments naturally evoke certain sentiments. At times the sentiments are still strong and raw as if the event had occurred in the recent past, when in actuality it may not be the case. At other times, the event appears far and faded, like a whisper that once promised to reveal a secret. And yet there are other moments like some forbidden dark chambers never to be opened not even when one is dead and gone.
Recounting an event at times makes one feel like a scavenger or rather like a fugitive trapped in one’s own mind, occasionally permitting one to peep in the many windows that open and shut like the Bioscope, offering glimpses of the past, glimpses of a personal history that have stories to tell, stories to document, at times stories with absurdities, nonetheless stories prompting you to meticulously pen the details so as to give it a new lease of life.
And so offering slices of one’s life, can at times be indeed challenging. Picking up an event by travelling back in time and re living it, experiencing it all over again, may after all not be a wise decision, yet it can certainly in a way prove to be liberating. It can also be a reason that subconsciously triggers a smile and permits it to linger a second longer, like the whisp of wind playing softly with your tresses, relaxing your whole being.
Thus, the need to disclose and expose a personal occurrence depends purely on one’s wish to construct or deconstruct the moment with its complex rational, irrational and emotional conflict. At the end of the day, each moment is a struggle in distancing the intimacy with the events involved in one’s life to possibly sever all ties, so as to march ahead effectively. Yet, the past beckons, entices and entraps one to pay a clandestine visit, soliciting an illicit relation which has no future.
As Joel Osteen, puts it “See, when you drive home today, you’ve got a big windshield on the front of your car. And you’ve got a little bitty rearview mirror. And the reason the windshield is so large and the rearview mirror is so small is because what’s happened in your past is not near as important as what’s in your future.”
