The Before

Whenever the world goes through a crisis, the first song everyone starts to sing is how the world has changed forever now, and how the world may never be the same again. That’s idle talk! That’s the expertise of humanity: shifting the blame and acting like victims. It’s us who has to change.

The world is much bigger than us. It’s so much more than just one species of thinking apes. It has always been so much more. Any crisis for humanity is but a smidge of turbulence for the planet humans so quickly claimed as their own. It has existed before us, and it will endure after us, and we have but this little time here.

I have always looked at any event, large or small, to be a better version of who I was before it. That was the only thing that made sense. A different circumstance, a new challenge required a different, a new side of myself. Any crisis, inner or external, is a call to action to go back to the notebook and to begin anew.

But for people, it is people doing what they do best: turning the narrative when they say, “the world will never be the same again” because now, they don’t need to be better; now, they just need to cope with this all too terrible world that has changed for, as per their narrative, the worse.

Inactive fools! The onus is on us; the onus was always on us. The world doesn’t give a shit about you or how you think it changed. Stop removing the responsibility, I say. I’ll rally it from my window instead of throwing a clap of applause every Sunday if need be. “Think more, think deeper!” I shall scream from the balcony. “Read more, read what you don’t agree with, and read it quietly!” I shall cry. “Get a reusable cup. Be kind. Help others. Let people off the leash, sometimes!” I shall yell. “Stop bickering and squabbling about undeserving Gods, alive or otherwise!” I shall riot.

The world doesn’t owe you shit, it never did; but you, you owe it everything; you always have. Be better, you fools, try and be better!”

I don’t want to be bitter anymore. Honest, yes. I’ll be honest, every now and then, yes, I’ll do that. It may send a shiver down your spine or make you just think for a wee second but I’ll not be bitter. I am happy. It’s a life I’ve worked hard to build. I’ve taken my time to step off the rollercoaster I was unknowingly on for years, and I’m alright now. I don’t want to be bitter anymore. I want to talk about the human experience. I want these words to be timeless; to not be barred by some agenda or class or issue in the world. The world has always had them, and the world will always have them. The human experience — the sadness, the pain, the laughter, the fight, the anger, the camaraderie, the every day — will remain forever. That’s what I want to talk about. I want to make you smile and I want to make you think and I want to do it forever. That’s what I’ll leave behind if nothing else. I’m a man out of time and place and that’s how I want to be read forever. That is if anyone ever finds these words hidden in the most obscure corner of the world. I’m happy. It’s a beautiful life, and I’m finally happy. The world is for the taking now, and I’m ready for it again. It’s been years but here I am, and now, I don’t want to be bitter anymore. Honest, yes, but not bitter. That’s the word I want to write starting today: honest, sometimes happy, but not bitter.

The one thing I’ve learnt in the short time I’ve spent on this planet is that life would always change. It is not in the nature of life to stay put. Time would pass, and what once seemed like an immovable part of the scenery would become nothing but a prop for the next—temporary and unnecessary. Life would always change, and one could hope it changed to their liking and preference. Yes, one could hope. That is all one could do: hope for what never came to pass.

In the end, at least the beginning of the end, I figured the only thing to do was not care at all, to have a collosal underappreciation for everything that was not beautiful or didn’t bring me joy, to dance through the city lights and listen to my music and pass everyone by, in synch with the natural rhythm of my life or to stay at home, lying on the couch, sipping coffee in blissful comfort. The ugly words could stand on their own, by themselves. The criticism could wait in the corner or on the stage, and I wouldn’t bat an eye or buy a ticket. Life was too short to worry about something as insignificant as trivial people. It had been in my experience that there was only one responsibility on us—ourselves—and it had been my learning that if we managed to do that right, everything else soon followed.

“In the end, everything was a metaphor,” I’d tell everyone else, “that is what I love about life.” One could take anything, anything at all, and pick it up, and talk about life. It had this very meta nature which was absolutely beautiful. An old, torn, busted shoe which still manages to hold on? There’s a lesson in there somewhere. A bird sitting at the window sill, chirping? That’s something life is trying to tell you. Overhear a conversation two strangers seem to be having at the table behind you? You’re bound to hear something that sticks with you forever. A favourite mug, terribly cracked, and yet not broken, sticking, and holding on for over a year just because you happened to bring it up as a metaphor when you first mentioned it? It was all there. “Why won’t you see it?” I’d argue. It’s all about how far you’re willing to see, and how far you’re willing to go. Life was always telling you something. It’s all in the damned, in the unexpected, in the persistence of it all. That’s where it all was, demanding for us to look at it, and we were particularly blessed to see it. Everything was a metaphor. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I remember starting out as someone who really wanted to bring about this… change. I wanted to save the world. I did not know what change or what saving the world meant to me or to anyone else. It didn’t take me long to face the world. When I faced the world though, it made me look inwards, and I saw the truth. It was all grandiose idealism. It was far too complex, the world, and I reckoned that the one way anyone could save it was if one chose to focus on the good, and so I did.

I took my time but I learned my ropes. It was then that I understood that I was no leader. I had never been one. I was far more suited to a different role. I wasn’t valiant and surely not brave, but I was patient. So, I took the role of the pillar, the support, the perspective. I looked to save those around me instead: people I could see, people I had met, people I had once known.

I would sit and converse with people, hear them out, and sometimes hope to point out their fallacies only to help them get closer to the truth, whatever it was for them. Often, it fuelled them further but I understood. They’d still reveal their exploits to me, and I’d listen, patiently.

I knew them well enough, and I knew they would go fight their wars regardless of what I or anyone else had to say. So, I’d let them go. As I’d see them off, before they rode into the horizon, I’d hand them a letter, and I’d ask them to open it when they’re well on their way.

I’d write,

When you’re done with your wars, I hope you win, and even if you lose, come home. Don’t you worry, you can count on me. I’ll tend to your wounds and offer you a pint. I’ll listen to you talk about your victories and your scars, and the sun will still shine the next day. As long as there was someone to listen, the sun always managed to shine, and the world was saved a smidge. So, when you’re done with your battles, come home, wounded and frail, and I’ll be there like I never left. You have my word.

I was cooking today when a fly buzzed around unexpectedly. The possibility of a fly entering the apartment wasn’t much since I hadn’t opened a single door or window in three days. Yet, there it was, buzzing around. I started trying to chase it out. I followed it to the hall when I paused, and there I was, standing in my shorts, a spatula in one hand and a flip-flop in another, chasing a fly out, and looking absolutely ridiculous.

In what seemed like an out of body experience amidst the absolutely mundane, it hit me. It hit me that while I stood there, someone just might be making a decision which affects me, and I could never know it. It could be anyone, and maybe I knew them, and maybe I didn’t, and yet, all I had in that moment was immense hope. It was this hope that this life was changing forever, and I couldn’t see it but I felt it.

Us human beings, we don’t have much to go on but hope. We are a particularly hopeful species. We tend to look on the bright side more often than we don’t. Things have been bleak currently, and yes, it seems like the end of the world, and yes, there will be repercussions, but we will get through, and it’s important to hope for it.

We don’t hope because it is the right thing to do or because we read it in a book or saw it in a movie, we hope because we’ve evolved that way. We hope because it is quite frankly, our best shot. We keep doing what we do, and we keep hoping, and often, chasing a fly becomes a story of a lifetime. Maybe not mine, no, but that’s not how hope works.

You see, hope travels with the randomness, with all the decisions each one of us makes, stacking on top of one another into an epic collision course until it all aligns for one person on a random day. We push hope around, ever so slightly, hoping it hits us right back, eventually.

Hope hits us when we least expect it. It hits us when we’re not looking for it. Hope is sneaky that way, it comes in from behind, and engulfs us completely. Hope is sly. It comes when we’re standing with a spatula in one hand and a flip-flop in another. It comes in as a fly that somehow sneaked into the apartment whose doors were closed for days.

I don’t write for glory, money, or to make a change in my immediate society. Of course, I throw out a piece on how to do things every now and then, but most of my writing is because I like how words appear on a page, or a screen, straight out of my head. It’s magical to me; almost unbelievable. It baffles me each time how all those random swirls of thoughts and agony going around in circles take the form of shapes and characters and words and lines. So, I spill my innermost workings just to see, to experience the magic again and again. I do it not for anyone else but myself, and myself alone. To a lot of people, this process is but a means to an end – they use this to do something, to change something, to affect something. To me, it is the beginning and the end. It starts at the first word and ends with the last line. I don’t see my words affecting anything large or small because I truly believe people are always going to do what they are going to do. We are all subject to our whims and fantasies and heartaches – you have yours, I have mine. There’s nothing my words, or anyone else’s for that matter, can do about anything. People only feel what they already feel. Any form of art just makes it more apparent to them. I’m only in it for the act and how it makes me feel, selfishly so. Anything you take from it is yours and yours alone.

People often ask me how is it that I can manage to stay by myself without going insane, and today, I feel I can divulge that secret. The truth is you must be absolutely goofy with yourself, and your relationship with the self must have a sort of third-person friendliness. At least, that’s how I manage it.

It wasn’t like this earlier. As much as my disposition to stay alone existed, I felt terrible about it. It hurt me to be alone and so I made it a point to do things. I thought the productivity and keeping myself busy would take the emptiness away. That too, hurt in the long run.

It wasn’t until I met someone who taught me, not by saying it, but only by how they lived, to have a certain leeway with oneself, to be funny and crack the most terrible jokes with oneself, to be able to laugh out loud without anyone to laugh with, to be completely nutty, and to like it, to the point that it starts to trickle down to the times when you’re not alone.

It comes as a surprise to people when they meet me or spend time with me, the fact that I am rather stupid, as serious as my words make me sound. It was but one person who changed the entire course of how I lived by myself.

They are not in my life anymore–people who affect our lives significantly seldom stay–but when I’m alone in my apartment, reading, talking to myself, dancing, stubbing my toe and then bursting out into laughter, looking out my window, sipping coffee, clumsily spilling coffee and then shouting at myself for spilling coffee, I think about how if not for them, I would’ve pulled my hair out, if not worse, by now.

It was always in my disposition to stay by myself–that’s how I had always been–but they made it easier for all the days to come, and that in turn, made it easy for me to be with others. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think of them every other day–no, not out of the feeling of loss or pain, not anymore.

I guess everyone fulfills the idea of forever differently.

I wanted to make a quick grocery run. It had been a week since they asked us to lock everything down and four full days of staying inside my apartment. On my walk, I passed a familiar café, but there was no echo today, no laughter, and no music. The roads were eerily empty. I walked further down.

Restaurants closed. Cafés empty. Doors bolted. I stopped by one of my favorite ones. “Come inside and have a warm cup of coffee,” the little sign on the gate read. The chairs stood on the tables, upside down, where just four days ago, people sat and laughed and made jokes about the new disease.

No one on the roads. At least, not around me.

At one point, a stranger and I walked toward each other on the empty road and almost instantly started to walk in opposite directions, until we were on too different ends of the sidewalk. She gave me a smile which said, “I’m sorry if I was rude, I can’t walk too close,” and I smiled back with mine. “Don’t worry about it, I understand.” We walked away.

This was a noisy neighborhood, you know? I reached the main road. A police car patrolled up and down, announcing for people to stay away as much as possible and not come out, if at all possible. They stopped me and asked me where I was going. I told them it was a grocery run. They advised me to get it done quickly and go home as soon as I could.

I reached the grocery store. It seemed to have been raided. I could get a loaf of bread from there, and some juice but not the one I liked; we were beyond petty preferences. The helper at the store told me the loaf of bread had my name on it, and that someone had kept it in a different corner and he had just then put it in the right place. I headed back home.

I’m sure it won’t stay this way but, it seems, for the first time, I felt alone not because of some inherent issue within but because there was no one around, literally.

As I reached my place, a familiar dog’s ears perked. He looked at me, puzzled. He turned his head in confusion. He walked towards me and then, jumped. He was excited. I rubbed his head and petted him thoroughly. I have a feeling that he, missed me, missed people.

I realised I, too, missed him, missed people.

You don’t see it coming—the feeling. It won’t visit you for days, for weeks. Sometimes, it wouldn’t visit you for months. You can’t see it. It comes right after you get back home or disconnect the phone or in the middle of the night. It comes on its own.

It starts from a thought, but now you know, so you put the water to boil with as much as a hint of its arrival. The kettle starts gurgling and bubbling, and as you hear the steam rise from it, you also feel the feeling growing inside you. It’s coming, and you know it too well now. So, you walk in your dark apartment with only a dim lamp from your bedroom lighting your path. You walk the same way as you think—in circles—until it arrives.

Then, you sit on the floor, pressing your back against the wall, breathing as deeply as possible. A hot minute later, the kettle clicks; the water has reached its boiling point. You breathe; deep but weak breaths. Nothing makes sense, and gravity feels ever so powerful, and so you find yourself sinking. Before you know it, you pour yourself on the cold floor as some tears pour out of your eyes. You wonder where they came from. “”But I’ve been so happy lately””, you tell yourself. You lie there.

Minutes pass, then you start to take the control back, slowly. You open your eyes, and it leaves right as it had come—on its own. You get up; the gravity doesn’t entirely pull you down anymore. You walk to the kitchen counter and pick the kettle up. The water has reached the perfect temperature, so you pour it on a teabag in a mug.

You take the tea and walk back to your couch. You sit on it and turn some music on. It mumbles in the background as you sip away. You know it too well now. It came, and it passed. It’s all over—the tea, the day, the song, the feeling. You know this all too well. You’ve done this a hundred times now. You pass out on the couch, exhausted.

Let me tell you something about the city where nothing ever happens—not a lot may happen there, but there is an absolute uniqueness to how the rain arrives. You see, in most towns and cities, you can almost always figure out whether it’s going to rain or not, but that’s not a given for our little city in question. You may check your reports, you may look at the sky, and you may hang the dolls, but it rains when it has to rain. The sun might be shining for a week without so much as a whisk of a cloud in sight, but then the rain would come, and no one can rein it in once it begins; it comes and leaves on its own.

Now that you know how it rains in the city where nothing ever happens, let me tell you what happened a week ago. You see, I was walking down a familiar alley, and there wasn’t much to think about. So, I continued walking and not thinking about anything. It began slowly, you see, a few drops at first, and then some, and then within a second, I found myself drenched, covered with the hood of my jacket out of instinct.

You see, I have a reputation for hating the rains, and more often than not, we tend to take what they say about us to heart, but that evening as the drops landed in unison, something changed. Under the hood, all I could see was the drops hitting the road with a splat, and somehow, I loved it. So, I ran; I ran out of excitement, not fear.

I started running as if I was back to being eleven, and I ran without a care in the world, and all I could see were the drops. I wanted to stop to take a picture, but I was free, and I asked myself, “Who should I record this for?” And when I couldn’t answer the question, I continued running. Now, I shall forever remember drops the size of pebbles landing near my sneakers as I ran through the evening lights of the traffic like an eleven-year-old. It’s for my eyes only.

You see, that’s how it all plays out, more often than not, in the city where nothing ever happens. It has this absolute uniqueness to how it makes you feel. It could make you hate it, and yet, rein you back in with a simple, unexpected shower, bitter cold and yet so warm, almost like a hug—ten years too late, but arriving nonetheless.

I couldn’t say for sure if it were a good thing or a bad thing, but I was a profoundly boring person. Boring, not because there wasn’t anything interesting about me, rather in the way I did anything. I had an immense capacity to do things in the same manner. I’d wear the same clothes, eat the same food, have the same disposition, enjoy the same things, and repeat it all in the same order of steps as I’d do every day. It was an odd freedom.

People would often ask me questions like, “Don’t you get tired of the same breakfast every day?” and I’d just say, “No, I don’t”. It was this system that dictated everything from the colour of the shirt I’d wear — I didn’t have any patterned ones — to setting up the coasters on my table in the same motion every time I used them to making sure everything was kept in the same place.

There were changes, of course, but it was more or less the same. I enjoyed it. I could never understand why others couldn’t, and so I kept thinking about it all the time. I’m still not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I guess it doesn’t matter. I enjoyed it because it made things easier. It was the consistency that brought me back to the center; it brought me back home.

No matter what would happen, I could come back to my system. It wasn’t the only way to fix things, but it was the one I preferred. It made sense, somehow, and helped me make sense of things. In the end, I guess, we all have our own tiny insanities.

Sometimes, I forced myself to sit down and paint. It wasn’t something I was particularly good at but it offered something I had always been wistful about. It offered a chance to start afresh. I liked reminding myself of that every now and then; it was important.

For instance, today I sat to paint with a purpose. I had an idea of painting my bruised feet in the water, and this weird metaphor to summarise how the last year was for me. This was stuck in my head for long enough for it to become an actual task. It wasn’t particularly good but it was what I had wanted it to be, but when I was done, I don’t know what happened but I immediately painted over it and kept going until I reached this odd place which resembled the sun setting but you can’t make out if it’s the sea or the mountains, and I realised that’s the fun part.

It’s like life, you know? When we just sit down to paint, even if with a purpose, we keep getting these ‘let’s do this”” or “”I’ll do that”” or “”let’s pick that one””, and we don’t stop to think once. We pick yellow over blue sometimes, and we make these decisions in the flow, and if the urge requires, we paint over it all to start afresh.

We don’t know where we’re reaching or if it even makes any sense, and often, in the end, we don’t even reach even the semblance of a masterpiece, but somehow, that choice, that starting afresh, we know it all and go through it all again, like a montage playing in our head, as soon as we look at the end result. We know how we got here, and that is oddly satisfying.

It was exactly like life, painting without a purpose, and even if you started out with a purpose, there were bound to be places where you would have to improvise. You never knew where you’d end up, but you could still manage to smile whenever you looked at what you have now, and if you couldn’t, and given you had enough left in you, you could always paint over the page. Couldn’t you?

In life, you don’t need a lot. You need just one person to take a chance on you; one person, that’s all it takes. It could be a lover, a friend, a manager, a stranger, but whoever it is, has put on your shoulders an enormous debt. If you find someone like that, make sure you pay it back. At some point, when you come across someone who requires a teeny bit more effort, a chance, you better take it. They don’t need a lot. They need you, at that moment, taking a chance on them. It’s a cycle. It’s how it all goes, and how it all has gone, and how it will always go. It’s always been just strangers taking a chance on other strangers. It’s the name of the game. We don’t need a lot. We need strangers to trust others, and we need the others to pay that debt back. That’s how generations are made; just a bunch of people taking countless leaps of faith every day; just a bunch of people going all in without looking at the cards. That’s all we need, really. It’s everything we’ve ever needed — strangers trusting strangers.

I was with a friend today, and we were talking about life, in general. We always talked about life over coffee. Then, we had an epiphany, of sorts. We take things too seriously. That’s when we spontaneously made a pact not to take anything seriously this year. “Fuck it,” we said in unison, “let’s not think this year; let’s not think at all.” As we drove back home, the evening had ended, and the year had begun.

Sometimes, I’d sit, unable to move my body or even my hands. I swear, I couldn’t move an inch even if I wanted to, not that I wanted to. I’d sit, staring blindly into the abyss trying to grasp how infinitely large everything was, and how small I was, by comparison. It wasn’t that I didn’t matter for I knew did; at least, to myself. I’d lose all sense of reality at the thought of it all, though. I’d look at the infinity and the expanse of it all from a distance. I’d sit there thinking, at first. Then, the thoughts would cease, or maybe my noticing and taking them too seriously would stop. I’d sit there, looking at the sky.

I would think of wishing the clouds away or changing the colour of the sky to purple or even orange, and sometimes, it happened. Still, I could never know if it was my wishing of it that did that or if it was the whims and fancies of the universe. If I couldn’t say for sure, then why bother, I’d think to myself. The best I could do was snap out of it, and move a muscle. It always came down to moving a muscle at the end of the day. That was the only thing that mattered. That was the only thing I could control; myself.

To tell you the truth, I didn’t really like myself. I loved myself; I hope you don’t misunderstand me there, but I really didn’t like myself. All my life, people kept asking me to learn to love myself, and so I did. I learned to love every little thing. It came slowly but I learned to love the days, the life, the people, and yet, I didn’t really like myself.

There was a slight difference; there is a nuance of sorts. It was like my relationship with the rain. I loved it. I could watch it from the inside as the drops slapped against the glass, and fell down clinging to it. I’d enjoy my cup of coffee as the frost settled on the window. I’d play some chill pop instrumental and walk about barefoot on the cold tiles of my dimly lit apartment. I loved doing all of that as the rain poured down.

If you asked me to go out in the rain, however, I’d immediately call you names, and call the rain names, and just act like a colossal pain in the ass, and throw a giant tantrum. You see, I liked how the rain looked but I didn’t like how it felt.

So, when I’d wake up in the morning every day, I’d look at myself in the mirror, and I’d see what others see in me, and I’d love it. I’d think about my life, the days, and the people, and I’d smile. I loved myself. I had learned to do that all my life. I loved what I saw in my reflection.

However, it was all from the safe distance between the glass and me, like it was with the rain. When I’d take a closer look, and look through myself, and through the days, the life, I’d realise I’d never learned to like myself. I guess I loved who I saw, but I didn’t like what I felt, at least not on most days; on most days, it was exactly how it was with the rain.

Over the years, my relationship with writing has changed. It’s become somewhat of a condition. I cannot help but feel sick if I cannot dump things out on a sheet of paper or a blank screen every now and then. This decade has given me a lot in everything, but that’s not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the things it took away from my writing.

When the last decade began, I had just started to string words together. It was my best attempt at lousy poetry. I don’t know where or how that started, but I vaguely remember a broken, adolescent heart was involved. Yet, there has been a search to find my voice; to seek what I want to talk about, and string words about, and go on and on about. I think I have managed to find an inkling, a first step to what writing is for me.

After much thought, I’ve realised that I cannot write about things I don’t experience myself, irrespective of how noble the cause, how worthy the conquest; if I wasn’t there, the words feel dishonest. After much learning, I’ve realised that I cannot write about different ways to help people; the best I can do is share what I do, to the best of my ability, and hope that someone finds some knowledge in it. After much time, I’ve realised that the only person I can write for is myself; that I don’t owe a single word that forces itself upon my hands to anyone else.

This decade slowly stripped my writing away for everything unnecessary. It took the innocence out when the heartfelt poems started feeling ugly to me. It took the audacity out when the articles started feeling ridiculous. Finally, it took the naivety out when I found myself unable to grasp at the nuances of the world.

In the end, nothing much was left but the honest word which belonged only to me: the word I didn’t write to please or help or inform or change; the word whose rightness or wrongness didn’t bother me; the word that may or may not go unnoticed. I realised that was the word I wanted to write.

I realised I’ve written words for almost ten years now, but it was this year that I had finally begun writing. That’s the thought I’ll end this year on, I guess. It’s not the only one, but it is an important one.

You were twenty-something last year, running about in another city. It’s already December now, and December is about to end. You exit another building as a soothing electronic track plays in your earphones. You take a few steps down and look at the time. It’s late. You’re always too late, but you tend to make it still. You always make it.

You find yourself running on the sidewalk; cars, traffic, blaring horns muffled by the music in your ears surround you as you raise your hand for the taxi to stop. As you walk towards it, you feel yourself immersed at this moment, your earphones swinging slightly, your grown-up self, a montage of how you got here from that other city from that other December, and how this was all so alive.

Everything was alive, even the smallest pebble on the road was part of this elaborate scene being shot by someone. You don’t know who, but you feel someone’s watching. The music starts to pick up, as does your heartbeat, and a soundtrack begins to form around. You ask: How is everything so much in synch?

This is when it hits you: the scenes, the movies, the books, they weren’t art. Life was art. Your life was art. You didn’t have to live it like that movie, that scene, that book, that chapter. It was this, all of it happening so cinematically, you could be sure someone’s watching.

As you get into the cab, you look all around. You look at people going about their business. You give it one hard look. You take that in, and you make sure you remember. You make sure you remember it all down to the smallest detail for one day, you will steal from this masterpiece to create an imitation of it, and they’ll call it art, but you’ll know the truth.

You figured it out. It was the other way round. It had always been the other way round.