Living Within

I walked the streets where I was born and grew

And all the streets were new.

Exile, Donald Hall

Dear Saquib,

I wish it is not too late to get in touch with you. I think we still are not individually demented as witnessing an unusually intense era which probably is going to wipe off most of the things that came before it. My life has been redrawn, there’s a massive shift in all the dreams I’ve dreamt so far and the foundations of my interpretations of life – the spoils of a pandemic. These blurred days lost in isolation, this thick air… Hunger strikes, torchlight processions, football matches, adda sessions in road side tea stalls in my city have been snuffed out somewhere or may be nowhere in the planet. As the sun rises I wake up, have my cup of tea sitting by the eastward window of my study, looking at the neighbour’s mango tree. The birds still make their presence felt…uncaged, the early rays still lay on my study desk, the morning radiance still glows like fresh fish scales. The summer has not been quarantined yet. Heck, something that I’ve always heard and smelt for years goes missing. And I blame the virus.

I slouch around my home. It feels like the new definition of universe. Saquib, I cook three meals every day, steamed rice, curries, rotis, fries. I wash my hands like a maniac in between. I obsessively sweep and mop the floor, sanitize the door knobs and the table tops. I’m not sure if it is only to fight the virus or more for getting rid of the stains of crimes that we’ve collectively committed to the elements of the earth which in turn is now on a mission of taming its unruly children. I keep checking the hoarded essentials. I try to confront the drudgery of daily chores with much kindness. But the fear hovers around. And I blame the virus.

The days are long, increasingly challenging with no stanza breaks. I’m in exile Saquib, disconnected, losing certainty in the present. Never before the future seemed so obscure. We are clapping, banging utensils, lighting candles in hope of good riddance. After all you can’t pelt stones to drive away the outbreak. Religion, politics, economy and all the masts projecting the aggressive assertiveness of civilization are yielding every moment to the increasing death count and daily briefings by the Government. The fault lines in family, social structure and above all the absurdity of human beings on earth are becoming effortlessly evident. Indignation mounts up. And I blame the virus.

Picture Courtesy: Google images from theconversation.com

Do you sing these days Saquib or recite Agha Shahid Ali?  In these dark times most of us can seek solace from your Kashmir. Truth be told Saquib, have you ever asked your God to make us live in such crippling blockade which you have been suffering for decades? Haven’t you ever fancied to see the whole world in lock down?  Which is more definitive Saquib, divine forces or scientific discipline? I fear them both.  I’ve become a part of your community, defeated faces wrapped in smoke and we all suffer a common fate trying to fritter away time and horror. And I blame the virus.

Difficult though it is to quantify which can be more damaging to human race state militancy or a single disease prevalent over the whole world, the fact remains that our minds are undone by uncertainty when old harmonies are falling apart under the burden of a seemingly endless turmoil. My city has been turned into a junkyard of half-baked wishes and lives jostling each other to metamorphose it to a burial ground. People are dying like cattle Saquib. And I blame the virus.

Before the sun goes down I sit in my balcony, see the birds flying high…unshackled, I get to smell the sky. I water the plants with my three-year-old son who is vastly unaware of what is going on outside. He is much contended to believe that the earth has fallen tired and needs some time to restore itself. Therefore, both of us are having a long vacation. We sing, we dance, we play, we get to see a moral retreat in each other. The night deepens, my little one coils up in my breasts, I sing a lullaby, he sleeps off. Should I blame the virus?

Our vanity as superior species is crushed forever Saquib. A single whirling disease can annihilate all the shadow lines of class creed or nationality. The slippery guidelines of science and metaphysics seem to be hilariously useless. Someday we’ll all become small personal stories or rather a larger sweep of history. May be we need to deconflict with magnanimity. With bowed head let us accept all our misdeeds and ask for forgiveness to the universal law of sustainability. Let us go deep down, deeper, farther, let us cut and compress, rearrange and rewrite, add and subtract until a door opens with clarity and a light seep out to heal the earth. Let us do not blame the virus.

Meet me in Light, bring me Splendour.

Debasmita.