same shit

She sits up and decides to write. a post is long overdue and she wants to type.

She decides not to worry about how her writing is always personal and the protagonist always a ‘she’. But she promises herself that she shall not make it overt and complicated. it has to be simplistic, and hopefully lucid. Her lack of technique and inability to beautify words will not make her write a ‘seemingly’ complicated, grammatically flawed sentence. (Although she could rebuff this as a purist’s accusation right away, she decides now is not the time)

She decides that even though she spells out the most clichéd thoughts and repeat words, it would not stop her from writing. For that matter, even the lack of plot will not make her budge.

If need be, she will write about how her parents are sitting in the other room, and talking about seemingly unimportant things, ranging from the grocery-walah’s banter to papa’s office anecdotes. How their routine life, despite its undercurrents and patriarchal–conservative family narrative, resonates with familial joys and innocent laughter as they take a dig at each other’s relatives.

She will write about how Regina Spektor is singing in the background. As she types she tries to hum along but a note falls and she stops. She cannot sing and being alone in the room does not make her less conscious of the fact. It will also, quite predictably, make her more aware of her lack of talents and unclear (glum?) future.

She is not happy. Not happy with what she is writing and the general there-is-nothing-to-write state. But she will not use the backspace key.

And even as she types all this, she decides that she will not write about her, for she is not real. (Or perhaps, she doesn’t want her to be real.) She cannot be real because she stands out even when things are not about her and fades everyone else into the background even if she merely walks by. And she doesn’t understand this. She most certainly doesn’t.

She wishes this was all a movie. (She partly believes it to be so.)

She sighs, and types some more.

To Blogs

It takes others’ writing, simple blogs and such, to jerk me out of my attempt to over-(complicate/simplify) things. Failure to notice or reflect and complaints about monotony. Pale conversations and brain in a jar. the jar amongst other such tagged glasses. Gooey lumps in different shades of red.
Circa, commas, Chicago Manual of Style and even a banal boss cannot take away from me what momentarily grazed through my mind. And I bounce back with these small excited spurts of being an ‘I’. This ‘I’ lacks courage. Energy breathes in magic-realist memory.

Hence, as I go through the recently updated posts and romance a (writer’s) block, I thank (your) creativity, experiences and words.

Purple

She swished the door open and entered, impertinently, placing her beautiful butt on bed the with laundered muave sheets. There was a slight depression on the mattress as she settled in her place. Her face, pink, either because of joy or a lot of exercise. Erm. I tried not looking at her and started shuffling my papers. I wouldn't be the one to give in now. I knew what she had been upto. She must have completed one of those beautiful paintings she was working on simultaneously. I have always wondered how she manages to delve into different realms at the same time. One second she is layering the sea waves, green, blue and gray and the next she paints her sky flaming red and you are convinced it is possible. She creates the earth. It all comes out of the stroke of her brush. This one time, she told me she wants to add puple to the mountains. I laughed. She didn't say a word and I continued working on my story. The characters were charting their own destiny. I couldn' t have left them for an implausible, unrealistic colour combination. Sheila was yearning for a child and Dhruv wanted to walk out of the marriage unsure of, perhaps, everything. As I brooded over the sheer incomprehensible subjectivity of my characters, I heard her shriek. I rushed out of the room. To comfort her out of her fear. I found her, standing in front of the canvas. She turned, looked into my eyes and smiled. She came close to me. Her pink, plush lips pouted to caress my cheek and as she moved away I noticed the purple, green and brown together, majestically on the mountains. The sunlight angled in a way that an absence of purple would have made the vision incomplete. I had stood there noticing the playfulness as she curled her hair around her finger. Today, she had been complaining about her aching belly since morning. I tried to make her lie down a bit but as she put it, she was bursting with an idea. If she didn't put it on canvas, it will haunt her and make her restless. Why does she need me in her life anyway? I give a part of her to each of my characters. And her paintings are nothing about me. She lives through them. Perhaps she thinks I have encaged her and thus she has to paint to reach out and envision the world outside. Fine. She can walk out on me anytime. I would pretend as if I don't care. As she moves towards my table I am sure she will tell me how she cannot take presence in her life anymore. How suffocated she feels. How she could be a lot more, without me to hold her back. She smiles. Her eyes light up, quite literally. I have never seen anyone's eyes shine in real life. Sheila has inherited her eyes. She bends down and tells me that she feels better now. Finally she has taken a crap.

...

I'd like to write
But my passions are not yet strong enough
Maybe I'm afraid
Scared that you'd be gone
Even before we began
I am happy here
I am away from all that
I am where I wanted to be
Excitement colours my way
To sleep at night is just too lame
When the cool wind blows your hair about
And dogs snuggle up close
When you chat away the hours with a new found friend
Everything is new
Everyday is a morning
A joy to wake up to...

I am scared