uh ho....

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Daring, Surprising, Drying

During one chai session with a fellow writer, i was discussing my problem with my dried up emotional quotient and he suggested if that is the thing closest to me right now, why not write something about it only. Sure, but then visiting the demons of our own mind is not easy.
Not impossible either. So attempting the impossible here.


It's been more than 2 years that i wrote something here and almost another 6 months since i started this blog. Seems like a lifetime ago now. A lot has happened since then. I've graduated (infact post graduated) in two more course and feel bit grown up now that am a part of the shining 'working' class brigade of India, Jai Ho!


I've finally become a writer, well so the world says (refer to my previous blog where i'm contemplating a career in writing). It's fun because am living a dual life. A life where i am the writer and another, where self doubts loom so large and leave such long shadows that sometimes running away is the only viable option left and that again puts me in a vicious vircle that is so hard to break. So you see, this dubious career choice has landed me in some sort of concentric vicious circles, a chakraviyuh of sorts and i feel like the brave but dying Abhimanyu........


Well, not literally so.....


Afterall, this is something i chose consciously though i didn't have an iota of idea of what i was getting into. But FTII happened and changed my life forever. Gloomy and beautiful places do that to us i guess.


It's been 9 months since i graduated from FTII also but the hangover still 'hangs' heavy on my head. Hangover of being so away from the real world that the only reality i know is that of within the safe boundaries of the institute. Thanks but hang on, the hangover!

Has that heavenly place made me really immune to everything around me or is it the ruthless life of Mumbai? I think both.
A beautiful institute where you are left to meander with your thoughts and pen down anything that your mind wants to, clashing with a tough competitive industry and a life away from the safe heavens of a home and good food that the uncertainties begin to play with your sensibilities.


That is the worst part.


I've begun to doubt my sensibilities now.


I miss my sensibilities, my sinstivity and feelings that felt for things that mattered to me. Now, nothing matters except for earning enough to be able to sustain myself. This is not what i was to do. I was to observe, feel and write. None of the three i do now because i've stopped feeling, i've stopped empthasing, i've stopped getting surprised. Unfeelingness coupled with weak observation power leaves the writer in me even more doubtful, even more dubious and superficial than ever.


A crying child, a disbled beggar, a hungry dog. Nothing touches me now. Nothing makes me go weak in my heart and catch my attention and hold it for a while. The sweetest of movies and books bore me mid way. To be able to write any kind of emotion, i have to constantly take refernces from secondary sources of inspiration like movies and books, if at all i can sit through them.

Where are my own feelings?

Where are those bitter-sweet memories one always falls back on while watching something similar in real time?

It's not that i don't socialise, not that i don't read books or watch movies but the problem i think is that all of these activities go into the 'me' part of my mind and not the 'writer' part of it.

Phew! That is tiring and leaves me as dried up and forlorn as ever. No amount of sleeping, watching the sunset, eating panipuris and window shopping helps.

What is 'writing' then?

How does it feel to live an experience and then reproduce it on the paper/computer screen?

I don't know.

I'm waiting, waiting that something will again touch my heart, make me feel that it is important to me, corelate to the the concentric circles of my mind and then, together, the whole of me will say,

i am alive.....

10 Comments:

  • hey!!!
    yeh writer ka EQ kaha gaya....
    its a sin in your profession...

    u need to get into a relationship very soon... and a serious one i guess...
    :)

    disclaimer: the view written above are .........blah blah blah...(u got the point na)

    By Blogger ashu kant, at Friday, May 01, 2009  

  • uh ha.....

    By Blogger arun anand, at Thursday, May 07, 2009  

  • I'm not a writer by any stretch...and i've never been educated in any form of art...so take this for what it's worth...I think you are trying too hard...whenever we introduce money into any equation, the whole dynamic changes. While at your institute, you probably had a healthy, inspiring, creative atmosphere, which stimulated the creative mind to write some good pieces...however, with the often insatiable urge to succeed and earn some big bucks, we try a bit too hard. Now this may help succeed in many professions but may be not in the creative ones.

    I think art is all about the state of your mind...for example, based on their mood, people listen to different genres of music or write different things. So, apart from trying too hard, it's possible that your mind is distracted/not at peace. Since you are trying hard to emotionally connect with a situation, you cannot because you are distracted...so you can't absorb that emotion to eventually translate into a piece of written art.

    May be what Ashu Kant is saying might be the cure. :)

    I was just trying to analyze and might have gotten prescriptive..so pardon me for that...again, just my 2 cents.

    By Blogger Unknown, at Tuesday, June 02, 2009  

  • May be my comment is a bit late; its late than never. Your lucid writing caught my attention. I try to write at times and if you ask about emotions, I'd like to tell that while writing i plunge into the character and the environment. My heart beats faster if the character feels the same at that time, and, at times when I feel not to write, I open the page and stare at it for long hours to create moving pictures around the characters.

    By Blogger Unknown, at Tuesday, January 12, 2010  

  • hmm,can i hav ur number plz ?

    By Blogger ~Seagull~, at Thursday, March 04, 2010  

  • i dont write at all... but kinda felt that u share this feeling with me. Actually i think that most people experience the same loss of sensitivities, thats wht they call growing up i guess. But still i feel the best thing is to find happiness. I was in mumbai last week, on a short vacation and had a good time. and it deepened my belief tht one can be happy even while one is trying to earn to sustain oneself.This belief really works for me, hope it works for you too... try it.
    -Vishal

    By Anonymous Vishal Saha, at Sunday, March 21, 2010  

  • Nice one .... ladki badi ho gayi :)

    By Blogger Unknown, at Thursday, July 08, 2010  

  • lovely.

    so true





    nadi.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Tuesday, July 20, 2010  

  • श्रुति जब मै इंस्टिट्यूट से निकला था तब मै भी इसी तरह की कशमकश में था. लेकिन मुझे पता है की ये धुंध बहुत जल्दी छंट जाएगी और तुम्हे खुला आसमान दिखाई देगा. जहाँ सितारे होंगे और तुम अपना मुकाम चुन सकोगी. अच्छी बात ये है की तुम अपने जज्बातों को समझ रही हो. लेकिन निराश मत होना ऐसे ही लिखती रहो, तुम्हे तुम्हारा रास्ता एक दिन जरूर मिलेगा. रही बात लेखक होने या न होने की उससे कोई फर्क नहीं पड़ता. जो लेखक है वो क्या उखाड़ रहे है...

    By Blogger CHINMAY, at Tuesday, October 12, 2010  

  • This article is old but I am in the same situation now. I always felt a calling for what I was studying.. Everything was so clear in college.. Now I feel lost in real world... Like my existence in only there to execute the mundane cycle of self maintainence and social obligations. How did you get over this feeling? What changed? Or are you still stuck there?

    By Blogger Abhishek Sood, at Monday, December 19, 2011  

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