A Break From Living.

Or rather was it ‘For living’? whatever it was, I find it nice to be here this moment.

So much happened in the last few months. Much of it was not eventful though… just a lot of small things coming into me and spurting out, and the process was incessant and seemingly long.

I liked it, to be busy. Not to have time to think, not to have time to plan but to just react. Not to put a limit to existence and actions by analysis and hypothecation respectively. It was like coming out of yourself and watching you going about things and occasionally saying an ‘Oh’.

But the second time you do something, there is no way how you can do it without thinking about how you did it the first time; and I was reiterating chores like hell. Then, there were other things that sprang up; some related, others entirely new. And I just found myself taking everything processing it, discarding, taking the next that was thrown at me, and so on…

I lost myself; I gave an ‘Oh’ also to the errors I did occasionally, and they began to define me. I felt an obligation to err again, because (I felt) that was honestly what I am. I began losing myself…losing things…then I lost track. Completely indifferent, unaware, and numb to whatever went on. I didn’t know what was what; and I remember questioning myself if I was going mad.

Then I found a stop-gap... a few days with no obligation to work; and to thinking also (its kinda good when you don’t need to think). I had an impulse to read (probably, I wanted to tune myself newly to the feel of a new book before I confront the new job and its people again.) It didn’t materialize. I came home… I thought it would be nice to go home, but am nor sure if that’s why I came home.

This is like a break from living. When you can get into a comatose with your eyes open and a completely stilled brain. Just a meaningless pause before you play again-its nice. And it might also be a break ‘for living’. Cus, in a way, I don’t like that hum of incessant barren activity, and I might as well take a break, re-acknowledge and redefine priorities, come into grips with myself… But I like the first one and think its more true.

A few good things brushed me by…(good as not in the antonym of bad)

I met a grandmother today. My mom is goading me to a lot of places lately. She is not a direct granny anyway, and she was old. ‘Old’ as in really old when you are no longer yourself , and just a something that is ‘still living’. I was frightened of old age as long as I was there. When we first went in, my mom (as always) intruded into the granny’s room and came back telling me that she was peeing in a pan on her bed; she also told me she gave an empty look. We waited and she was brought in a wheelchair. I was never personally close to her, but felt obligation for love out of blood. I tried to express that and say something, but ended up with strange reactions. My mom kept on prodding her to remember me and speak something, but she never spoke a word. All she did was some ‘nods’ and stare at me with big eyes that were incapable of expressing what was being felt. She was kept clean but was very sick-dirty and there was dirt in her nails. I managed to press her wrist while saying a quick ‘Bye mammagaru’… she still stared as I came out.

My mom took me to my direct granny (her mom) yesterday. This is an altogether different story with she being with her son (my uncle), and all the family finicky-ly following their own weird interpretation of the Bible. They cut themselves from the world and rest of the family, and there is a certain sensitivity in the air when relatives get to meet them. This granny had also become very scrawny and old; but she was far too active and still alert. She was hyperactive a few years back, so much that it would get on to my dad’s nerves when she came visiting. She was very happy to see me; I could see that in her eyes and the way she smiled. But she was restrained, and didn’t speak much… I felt as if she really didn’t like being in that house. She gave me biscuits and cake, and came to the gate when we left… I didn’t touch her though.

And just an hour ago, when I went to drop my mom at her work, we came across a certain woman just outside the ‘Creche’ (that’s where my mom works). Her name was ‘puspakka’ a maid at the crèche when I was an infant. Back then, my mom took me to work with her, and pushpakka used to care for me, with all motherly duties as in bathing me, feeding me, washing me when I peed and cradling me to sleep. That went on for quite some years until I went to kindergarten; I anyway only have very faint memories. Pushpakka has retired, went blind, and reportedly been asking my mom after me. My mom made me stop the bike on the middle of the road, called her name, went and fetched her, holding her by the arm. As she came near, I saw that she could see the frame of my body as she stretched out her hands to find my shoulders. When she did, she clung on to me and hugged me real hard. I could not help but put my hand on her back and do something like a press-n-pat. It made me feel good that this woman had real feelings for me in the middle of a busy road. And then she groped away with her company.

Apart from unnecessarily holding an air of Einstein who had just returned after discovering e=mc2, these things gave me a sense of heritage; of being grounded; having a history and being wanted… but only for a second… real or unreal.