Daily Times

I’ve been told that I have always managed to ensnare myself through the intuitive flow of my writing style; through the seamless progression of uncensored thoughts distilled evocatively (and without much care for angered, ruffled-up exigencies) onto paper.

But my recent bouts of engagement with all manner of digital marketing-ended readability theorems (a legacy of freelance business content writing — how else am I going to afford these relaxants and antidepressants?) from the heady confines of my ward room have left me reeling with a worrying sense of trepidation. With a dizzying feeling of no longer being good enough, or indeed worthy enough, to uncaringly extol my particular brand of textual madness?-?in an attempt to rake in more unknowing converts; as I was once wont to do. Manto started me on this, and I have not been well since I read Toba Tek Singh. Here was a visionary who truly understood what living on the fringe of Punjabi society was like! This psychological eventuality, I would assume, always does come to pass when one is cornered into making amends with fools (as is the case in most of our desi social spaces these days). But I don’t loathe my identity or background in any way.

A few years before by interment, I went to Dubai with my uncle. I can tell you that some of the folks I met from other cultures were even stupider! Others, however, served as an inspiration, and with all things considered, were even further down this path than I am today. Now onto the people I hate (and not only on account of everyday annoyances) I hate people who are always placed (either by their egotistical selves, or by the miscreants in charge of their affairs?-?all the way up to the sherwani-donning Machiavelli of the age) in a belligerent position to ‘get’ you — and who discourage your advance by tactfully ‘bursting your bubble’ whenever the seemingly innocent opportunity should come knocking their way. These wily tacticians, nowadays, have an entire analytical framework in place for collectively ‘dumbing down’ their otherwise intelligent subordinates — and poking holes through all instances of original expression (the inflexion points where our society, excruciatingly, gets it wrong the most).

There is hubris afoot, so be wary. Tell me – how long does it take your judgement to tarry? Before it makes bold to assign a label – and another comforting fixation for the unwitting, enable?

To thrive (if not survive) in such a cruel, heartless, and monetarily determined worldview, one is ultimately forced into caving in — in paying suicidal fealty to an unworthy (to hell with political expediency!) who is both attracted and repulsed by your creative instigations. A ‘little’ who is forever afraid of seeing your essential form blaze too bright for comfort – and who would like more than anything to see you succumb to the void which he (or she?-?yes, I’ve come across my fair share of them, too), invariably, is already at the bottom of. Cruel. Brutal. Mesmerising. Truth.

It doesn’t get any better than this (or worse?-?depending on your orientation to things). Such, for the most part (though to be fair, some of the best people also lurk about silently among the hoard), is the ‘mainstream’ lot that one is forced to fare alongside within this otherwise rightfully ennobled ‘Land of the Pure’. And then by extension, in much of the modern world, really. One should give credit where it is due. But then you get used to functioning in the crowd (‘along the current’; instead of always painfully against it) — eventually.

Eventually.

That is the optimistic keyword here. Many more of them also lie veiled, if you’re willing to grapple harder with these words. Necessity is a harsh taskmaster, and an even more bewitching mistress — once she deems you to be a worthy recipient of her sensory endowments (of which material is but one form). What better way to reverse a carefully cultivated psychosis, than to stifle it with incentive — and in the process, achieve a complete exorcism? The surest path towards conformity that creeps in subtly!

An affectation of age, perhaps?

Little by little, and by becoming conditioned to the numbing influence of constancy (a Saturnian influence, my astrologically inclined warden says), the flame grows dimmer. The spark, as it were, starts to lose its lustre, and you (the forlorn traveller) are well on your way along the ‘yellow brick road’ towards a widely mythologised normalcy — the currency of proper living. Of easy acceptability.

Bah!

Death, then, and an end to all painstaking exertion?-?which arises from within or without? The line is always blurred, eluding distinction. Is this what doctor sahab calls ‘rock bottom’? The world, and life (its steely, demolishing accomplice), will always have its way. Its shackles?-?geared towards forcing acceptance, towards making you yield to its design?-?are too much to resist. There is a semantic-pragmatic (dog whistle to all the critical theory fiends out there; yes, the animal has been chosen consciously for this epitaph. And yes, I do still have access to my college books — I told you I always wanted to become a published writer) nexus at play here — the kind which seeks to reinvent the communicative terrain with a focus essentially skewed towards the reader.

Who cares anymore about the author, anymore? It’s the reader, nowadays, who holds sway. [Notice the apprehension when I say this? I wouldn’t want you to scroll away too soon, and forsake this opportunity to befuddle further.]

The reader.

The populist ‘type’ of individual who, while also being the antagonist of my constant nerve-wrecking inner dialogue (yes – the narrator within is never one, though not double either; more of a dualism entwined in a single agency), relishes every opportunity for deconstructing concepts (or so the process may unwittingly seem to him) wrapped in intellectual – academic grade – jargon.

The recipient who only ever seems to respond, again instinctively, out of a pure brand of skillfully ingrained emotionalism configured by the discourse of the status-quo. By the mechanics of socioeconomics and its spiteful twin: spite-ful. The philistine (again, to deuce with political correctness!) who will refuse any call towards a higher mode of thinking – and destabilizing. Because the existing construct is too cosy. Who will resist the real calling of the intellect: a mind reaching heights (or lows?-?again, you decide) that are both atemporal and spatially detached. That often seek to break meaning.

Because doing so, a ‘no brainer’ (and most certainly not a pun), ushers in a momentary sense of vindictive pride in him. The ‘sour grapes’ syndrome at its finest – only now added to with a fleeting degree of fulfilment. Of bitter aftertaste at having attained so easy and unsophisticated a triumph?-?if it can be even called that!

Living up to expectations, to the standards set from an ever-cherished state of professional infancy within one’s youth, always proves to be a tall order. It is exhausting, but necessary?-?the precondition for the ultimate satisfaction: becoming one with the flame. The fire of success. But these existential summonings (or so they seem) become even more pronounced in the case of neurotic individuals; people cursed (or blessed?) with a beguiling tendency towards perfectionism in whatever venture they should put their stake in. Half-heartedness is never on the table for my kind: simply not an option for the vulnerably naked.

An exhausting endeavour, to state the least — and one which always keeps the agent (the ‘self-ego’) battling feverishly on the inside. The heart locked in a constant state of agitation with the mind – with emotions, further, inevitably conditioned by a mechanized world to admit defeat. Even at the cost of an essential humanity bristling angrily to burst through, and self-immolate in a spectacular exhibition of external acclaim. And derision.

This is narcissism, plain and simple. But then is it (isn’t it – there is urgency here) also human? My quest for an instantaneous remedy, a panacea to this soul-gutting, egotistical dilemma has led me to wander down many avenues beckoning with the promise of a fabled ‘cure’. But these are all, without exception, only doorways left ajar by a misguided thespian of the same order. A snake oil salesperson further down the hole of a futile predicament (as it were); incapable of ever offering the help sought.

A pretender – like most of the body, mind and faith healers you see on TV. Life, in all its beautifully revolting vibrancy, is the answer – even if its breastfed cure is absolution: merciful nothingness. The prize which is not to be had?-?and still had. The paradox at the root of all things, where truth unravels into something more profound – unearthing the sheer absurdity of it all.

And so ends my penned reverie for the time being; my appetite satiated for the insignificant tug-of-war of daily living (in my case, my wrestle with an enforced, medicated sleep) now starting to peer in my direction. The fight that I will have to lay down my arms for, as always. Either that, or the gruff handling of the male nurse on duty – a potohari with no patience for art, literature, or ideas-discussion. (Can you insert an emoticon of disdain here, interviewer sahb? Like you do in your mobile messages?) Impotence is a lived creed that only the brave few ever admit.

It is the only real course of action in the cosmology laid out before us – in full view of those who choose not to shy away from it. Yes God is real – only a seriously trapped mental indigent would deny. You can never truly escape from the pull of deeniyat. Not what the maulvis preach; but of the kind you find perched within.

And reality, as they say, always wins. I would say, thankfully so?-?lest we succumb to the toils of our baser natures. The demons crawling from the inside out; always seeking to drag us down into sensual bondage.

One day everyone will understand this, and normalcy will have been cremated. Extinction is where relief is — don’t you understand?

The writer is a blogger, poet, culture critic and non-conformist