Aham Brahmasmi

“ Mujhse hi aaj mujhko mila de, dekhoon aadaton mein tu hai ki nahi… Harr saans se poonchh k batah de – inke faaslon mein tu hai ki nahi. ” Are you still there, I ask myself sometimes. In the dark cobwebbed corners of my mind, knee-deep in half-remembered memories, I sometimes ask myself if you’re still there. During dusty auto-rickshaw rides along potholed by-lanes, when a sudden whiff of a flowery perfume takes me years back and I raise my hand to see if a few loose strands of hair are once more softly blowing in my face, I ask myself if you’re still there. Just before taking off the maroon kurta , checking the breast pocket for a pair of minus-powered glasses that were never mine, I ask myself if you’re still there. Beneath snatches of poetry littered across the sky of an ever defiant chimera, at the corner where yesterday’s neverland meets tomorrow’s never-to-be-land, bathed in the dying light on today, perhaps I will always ask myself – tu hai ki nahi .

Loneliness is like a quilt, you know. Sometime or the other, for one reason or another, the world turns cold, and seeking to escape from the frigidity you shelter under the reassuring warmth of the quilt. You tell yourself that this is solitude, not loneliness, and that the most telling difference between the two, indeed the only difference that matters, is that while the former is inarguably self-imposed the latter is decidedly a forced exile. You convince yourself that it is good to spend time with oneself, away from the madding crowd as it were, and that you’ll emerge from this brief interlude a stronger & more accepting person. That’s where you’re mistaken. This soothing benefactor who you think has given you warmth, this solitude is none other than loneliness in disguise, the diabolic wolf sharpening its claws while you marvel at the softness of the merino in its innocuous clothing. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was to convince the world that he didn’t exist. Be...

That , it appears, is the only problem with books. That one innocent little paragraph, so quaintly tucked away in an otherwise ordinary part of a random book. That’s all it takes. And the paragraph takes you away so, so far beyond the scope of the book, so deep into the forgotten recesses of your own heart, that you hardly remember your way back. You begin to wonder how it is that the writer, probably living richly off his/her royalties in a picturesque part of the world, managed to delve so deep into your very soul, managed to knock your breath out with such finesse. Well, music can sometimes be guilty too, in this respect. And this time a book takes me to another of those places. You know, to where someone in the enthralling, gripping text does something that is not only so touchingly selfless, so human in such a forgotten way, but also so similar to what you could’ve done, to what you should have willingly done when a similar event came to pass. And you so want to be like...

“ Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. ” W. B. Yeats What is it that makes them them & makes us us ? 1999. A winter afternoon. A family sitting around the television, anxious, ignoring the fetching expanse of sunlight frolicking on the terrace garden. Among them, an eleven-year-old, huddled in the corner of the sofa, wondering to herself the meaning of a word she hadn’t heard before. Deshdrohi . Prayers were being whispered. A muttered swearword too. The grainy feed of Doordarshan adding to the theatricality of the Hindi commentators as the drama unfolded in spectacular fashion. India were playing Pakistan on a square-turner in Chennai and Tendulkar, the country’s most beloved son, almost crippled by back-spasms, was doing the unthinkable. Shahid Afridi’s whirlwind century the day before had stolen her heart,...

I see darkness. I smell the staleness of it. It indulges my wings, as they slice through it forever and ever. I mock the darkness, pretending to lose myself, tempting the spider’s web, only to emerge unscathed. I live off the darkness. I despise the darkness. I see light. A dancing flame. It bewitches me. I smell the seduction of its smoke. The flame envies my wings, tied as it forever is to the wick. I want to go closer. I must go closer. I swoop by closer, and there – inside the flame – I see myself, more dazzling than ever before. You and I , says the flame, have always been meant to be . I want to go closer. I must go closer. My wings catch fire first. Every nerve screams in agony. I welcome the pain. For a moment, I am the flame. For a moment, the flame reaches beyond the wick. For a moment, eternity is ours. And then… A longing. An annihilation. Darkness. ...

When my time will come, & come it shall, I shall reach out to you, the one person who has come closest to understanding my own deceptive, black-and-white version of reality. With the last droplets of life evaporating under the harsh light-bulb of dissolution, I shall talk to you about everything & about nothing & about all the things between & beyond.  I shall not expect a reply, for your silence will be enough. Your silence will be enough.

Disclaimer : Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack (2002) may have placed Tendulkar behind the great Bradman (as second greatest Test match batsman of all time) & behind the just as great Richards (as the second greatest O.D.I. batsman of all time), but I firmly believe that comparisons across generations and/or eras is, apart from being unfair to all parties involved, an exercise in futility – far too many variables have changed, & will inevitably keep changing, in this great game of ours to provide a level playing field for all of them. (Yes, the pun is intended) There are thus no comparative references to batsmen from other eras in this article. “ And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. ” – Genesis 1:3 And then, indeed, there was light. Coming from the old Videocon TV, my uncle’s most prized possession, that sat grumpily atop the only table in his room. My curiosity piqued by the pale incandescence & excited voices that seemed to be spilling out fro...