Reality Check
Dying is a morbid art. Its common yet most people perform below par. There are no bonuses and aborted foeti are just one hit wonders. And i’m already sorry for that one. I’m not saying enough people don’t die, just that they don’t do it as interestingly as they’d aspired to live. You won’t find billionaire philanthropists on the list of people who sacrifice their lives so that others could live. Not in actual reality. Nor would you ever read a headline : Cancer Patient Dies.. Of Cancer. What the idea of death does to us, is it eviscerates the excessively wholesome picture of a happy ending — something i as kid supposed existed forever. It evokes a sense of loss, an empathic scare and that ghastly feeling of incompleteness, of a violent but later relented disbelief, achingly searching for some meaning beyond death. Searching for nothing. It’s inevitability shatters innocence and all that’s left in its wake are memories — mental relics that serve to remind you what could have been.
Death is binding. Death is real.
Everybody dies alright. Old human beings, new human beings, non-human beings (aww) , rich ones — who find it easier to die, poor ones — who find it cheaper. Superstars and pregnant elephants, doctors and sociopaths. Career hopes and unlikely friendships too. Some soldiers from pneumonia and some school kids of bullet-wounds. People eventually, like all good stories, they just stop being.
Yeah but stories can be and are always re-imagined and continued by some reader after they’d ceased to be originally right ? They can be refashioned like an old cloth to fit inside a modern, relatable setting as if your personal imaginary disneyland, twisting away from or towards the original work at a whim. A fictional account by a fan, of sorts. People do that. Don’t tell me you don’t have a near apocalyptic everything-at-stake doomsday fantasy with an ensemble cast ranging from your friends and coworkers to your favourite South Indian Actress with new cutscenes added everyday based on your IRL experiences. No ? Pathetic.
Maybe that’s what separates the two. See unlike a story, epic, run-of-the-mill or otherwise, life has to be real. It has to be endured and passed in all these billion tiny moments of joy, pain, suffering only few of which you’ll even care about. All of its intricacies, ill-defined spontaneous moments can only be felt once uniquely for a reason. That’s what makes it special. And death finalizes the fact.
What’s that ? We still live in memories ?
A. You literally can’t prove it
B. Of someone else’s, yeah sure mr. Immortal. Good luck keeping those unblemished.
Figuratively, you’re a young man in his early 20’s for some and still that kid who pissed his pants in school, didn’ know how to change, and had to be taken home for the rest of the day for others. Figuratively.
Memories are the human equivalent of HD videos, except instead of the precise pixeling what you get is a general mood. That joke you made once and everyone burst out laughing ? Happy/proud. The face of the stray dog you used to pet and never saw again one day ? Sad. Boarding the First class compartment to join friends and the TC showed up ? Big Oof. The last 17 months ? Meh. Mostly. Memories take us back to moments. And human definition of a moment is patchy at best — literally something that doesn’t last. We only keep those that suit our biases. The ones that we keep lead to more biases. But ultimately, do you care ? Do you feel bad whether someones thinks cheap of you because of that one time you stole a novel from a public library ? Or that other time you didn’t get to say goodbye to someone and now they’re gone ? Do you actually, lividly care beyond your own existence ? Would you mind if the world blew up 10 seconds after your inevitable but painless death ?
The write answer is ofcourse you can’t.
Cogito ergo sum. I am because i think i am.
I also think i need to die. Figuratively. Like, i wish i could do a clean wipe of everyone’s memories of me.
Damnatio memoriae.
Sometimes i feel like i’m on a loop that keeps speeding up each time it completes a turn. I have set up all these reveries with distinct but dynamic details. Each time i get bored i dive into one. An escapist arcade of sorts, where the escape is that i actually solve all my problems. Unbogged, unjudged and extremely skilled at parkour, here i am that character from that series who always deserved his spin-off but died as a plot device.
My bounds are as far as the imagination goes; which oddly, is a stone wall of unimaginable height. It just that, no matter the setting, the colourful band of supporting characters, the copied themes, the ironic surrealism or the very obvious lack of originality; It is the absence of a conclusion, an unending barrage of changes sans any substance that reveals the mental labyrinth i’m gradually losing myself in.
How do you get respite from a really long respite ?
It’s like this. I’m witnessing a cricket match. A tense one. Last wicket. Last over. Many runs needed. The field is being changed. There’s no advertisement for some reason.
The batsman on strike is a seasoned all-rounder, the proverbial last hope. The one on the other end is a rookie. No one’s heard of him. The bowler takes his run-up. And bowls. Duh. Short delivery, smacked towards mid-on for a boundary. Everyone outside the field cheers. No one inside lets up. Next delivery pitches good, outside off. Mistimes the hit. But his sheer strength compensates and the ball meets the freaking stands. The crowd’s in a frenzy. Next two deliveries are also boundaries. Four needed off two now. It’s almost over. He’s almost pulled off yet another thriller.
Penultimate delivery. (Probably) intentional fulltoss. On the Off. It scrapes a leading edge and flies up in the air. He calls for a run.
A jolt hits me, i feel momentarily paralysed. Thats when i realise I am the Rookie. I am the one he’s yelling at. My only reflex is to run. We cross somehow. Someone just outside the circle takes catch. The saviour is gone.
I can hear a million hearts beat at that moment. Final delivery. I close my eyes. They’re pretty much useless at this point. I swing the bat and hope it sticks because i don’t know how to bat. I hear a tock sound and the ball is flying.
It’s a six. I hit a six ! Euphoria erupts everywhere. My partner on the other end comes running and hugs me. Followed by the entire team. We made it.
I’m jumping and crying. Then i hit my toe on the table’s foot. Now i’m actually jumping and crying. I look around in pain, the TV’s off. The match got over a while ago. I didn’t care how it ended.
I spend hours a day concieving such What Ifs never really hinging on the actual What part. I pick a template situation and put up familiar elements all over it. Intellectual conflict and mandatory one-liners. I Revel in whatever good the past has left, cheering for a stable future, at the cost of the present. In the end i always win. Because no one’s fighting really. Disregarding time and track of conversations. Can’t recall the last productive thing i did. The whole year’s been a haze really.
I don’t wake up these days, i return. I yawn in defeat and ask for breakfast and empathy or something. Its always the same sunny outside. Its always the same cold inside. (Could be annoyingly wet and muddy outside if i’m late enough) Everyday the cat walks by and lies unders the metal staircase. Everynight i go out for a walk and hear some dog beating his wife in the distance. I fall asleep wondering why i can’t fall asleep.
As time flows circularly, i lie back conforming to this dead sitcom of a lifecycle, marvel at stories i read expecting my life to be one.
Get PRASAD MOKAL’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
It’s Dark. It’s so dark i sometimes question my own existence. I reach for myself, only to find a stoic physical shell. A phantom hung in balance of certainty. My insecurities manifest as yet another nightmare as i ponder one last time what it must be like.
To be trapped inside a box, feeling this irony of being and not being at the same time. I know it’s a box because i can hear my thoughts bouncing off the sides. They’re ridiculous. Far away a clock ticks, disturbing a random variable that decides the path as i am on it. The air.. i’m not even sure i can call it air, is strangely stifling yet agitated. It’s like the inside of a Vaccuum cleaner, as if i’m being pushed from all sides. Lunging for breath and the comfort of standing upright.
Suddenly my eyes open. The unmistakable mixed stench of sweat and factory leather rises and starts to remind me. I squeeze a look around and confirmation is too damning. Office bags and outstretched sweaty hands. Curved ceiling and grilled fans. All the sound i hear is everyday Mumbai chatter drowned out by the familiar, cacophonic dance of wheels above the rails. I’m on a fucking local train.
Home. ish. Weirdly likable. I reach for the air and slide my way out to the door, towards light. I hung outside or whatever the phrase is and
Now here, right this moment, literally holding on to the edge of the aluminium panel, I can’t help but try and find a sense of meaning. A common belief that exists across the chaotic rhythms of Mumbai Locals. Something profound yet so simple that its understood even by the most homeless-looking guy to ever put a foot aboard a local train. A sense of tranquility among stale breaths swept away by beastly winds. I let this moment pass. Let it tell me what it’s trying to. The hectic, urban aesthetic that prunes away any fresh morning vibes is starting to grow on me. Typical peak hour Mumbai.
I never saw it coming. A funny sensation in the back of my neck. A mild poke at first, followed by the pain. Cold, nerve-wrecking pain. My arms recoiled immediately and I was no longer on the train in any context of the phrase.
Then the usual happened. That moment of weightlessness before an extreme force, i mean pressure pressed me as down as it possibly could. That last jerk. And a stinging pang inside the brain.
I fell off the train but didn’t stop falling for some reason. Almost as if i’d been staring at a 2 dimensional spherical screen all my life, vision began to disintegrate in chunks uncovering a perfectly shadeless canvas. And I continued to fall down an unending abyss of bright white light.
Dreams are like clouds hovering above the vast, unforgiving sea of reality. We fail to see the vapour rise and hide for cover when it rains.
There are times when i’m happy for no reason at all. Like, wake up before noon happy. Forget to have an existential crisis in the shower happy. It’s warm-but-not-hot outside happy. Some girl on the bus smiled at me happy. Yeah, they do. I just stop thinking and switch to auto-pilot before i, you know. I’ll be walking outside and break into the perfect Kohli Cover Drive, maybe annoy a few fellow walkers around me. I mean, people still do that right ? Obviously.
Its inherent, natural. Rising randomly from the darkest depths of my mind, it spreads across the bubbling cauldron of low-key pessimism that i normally am. Sweeping through the sadness a steady current of cheesy vibes flows, i can feel my neurons dancing already.
It makes the windows look bigger. It hopes after i fall. Idk it just, makes me want to smile more. Wave a ‘hii’ to the ghost stuck to my ceiling. Jam to 70’s music. Have meaningful conversations with the unemployed uncle next door. He wants to learn guitar.
The last couple of months have been crazy by lockdown life standards. A sparrow couple have nested in the gap between the twin I-beams supporting one of the one-plus houses. My parents celebrated their 25th anniversary. Emphasis on celebrated. They’re not used to that. Yet. Which means i’m nearly 23. Cool. Totally unburdensome. I own a lot of science books now, courtesy an NGO dedicated to teaching children in ghettos. Unrelated. There’s been Cyclones and Yellow evening skies, Heavy rains and landslides, The failure of The Standard Model, Olympic Gold, fucking flying dupattas, Phew. Talk about an invasion of good news bearing metaphors.
Truth is, lockdown epiphanies are boring. They’re near impractical, too fancy and overcompensating in motivation. And deep down i know this is just another phase of self-appraisal and i’ll chug it down the flush as soon as i’m free to devolve into the crowd identity when the lockdown ends. I know i’ll once again dissolve into my old introvert self and listen to others talk offering dead-pan sarcasm at appropriate intervals. I’ll again walk listlessly on a street full of people wondering what true solitude is like. Have i even felt it. And if so, what good ever came of it.
Sometimes in this dusty-corner of a static, plague-infested world, having too many passed down oversized t-shirts and fewer motives to write, Instead of finding reasons to be happy, i find that they’re overrrated.
Still doesn’t feel whole. I’m still lacking the whole part of the truth. I run the simulation again.
Cue clickety-clack sounds at max volume.
Now here, this moment, literally holding on to the edge of the aluminium panel and feeling an odd sense of dejavu, with the wind bashing my face, I finally know something.I have watched this transition in landscape from suburban rooftops to empty railyards bound by treelines to the uncannily sick vibe you get when the train approaches Kurla station a thousand times before. Maybe its the ususal risk and/or the inconvenience of 12 people crammed like unwashed garments on a coat hanger, maybe it’s because this isn’t actually happening and won’t for a long time. But these people are fucking nuts. I’m nuts. I’ve been two sloppy inches away from falling to death for 20 minutes every working day for the last three years. And the only thing that stopped me from realizing this was … was the uppity urge to not miss the morning lecture ?? Fucking nuts i tell you.
Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?
- Emil Cioran
This city has a way of persevering. Against everything. Floods. Terrorism. Pandemic. Floods again. Political emergencies. It can quickly disregard all happening calamity and feign normalcy the next morning. Bare an obituary editorial in some national daily. This idgaf attitude isn’t a result of the burdensome label of The City That Never Sleeps. This lack of empathy for it’s own loss doesn’t stem from the cigarette-smoking corporate makeup heaped imperfectly over it’s working class beauty like a neccessary evil. Rather it’s a derivative of the same eternal purpose all of life and social structure is saddled with — To Exist. It’s beautiful, in the sense that it doesn’t care and continues.
It’s not that we live in a metropolis that’s possibly too big to fail; but that it doesn’t know anything other than to keep getting bigger.
And that i’ve witnessed firsthand every single day during this part of life in relative isolation. Not some dramatic resilience against the virus/lockdown or a sensational story addressing the frontline workers as superheroes, but a subtle middle finger to these troubling times by people simply carrying on with their lives. People going out of their way to get to work. People going out of their way to ask for help. People going out of their way to help. There was death still. Grieving sons and daughters. Sometimes grieving parents too. But here we are, watching out for the next wave, biding our time, hoping for a better.. Fuck it i can’t do this BS.
Partly why ‘The dead remain in memories’ sounds alleviating is because those alive are condemned to wake up and be the best average version of themselves everyday. Taking shit from superiors and coffee by themselves. Pushing through the grind, waiting for the end to come. Using humour to cope with a disaster while simultaneously watching out for the next one has become the leitmotif of today. We think we’ve developed some kind of permanent cynical filter to the eyes while skipping the fact that we always had it. It just didn’t need to be so cynical back then.
For what’s it’s worth, calling it a grind somehow makes it easier.
I guess that is what i have been trying to cope with all along. That’s what this is all about. Not the stupidity that preaches to celebrate life before death snatches it away, but the sense of humour to celebrate stupidity as an unavoidable facet of life. It’s what makes us, ALL of us truly special — the ability to realize that we’re not.
Booker prize winning African-American author Paul Beatty’s definition of a fictional category of black people quietly resonates with me in the background. He defines ‘Unmitigated Blackness’ as : “The realization that as much as fucked up and meaningless it all is; sometimes, it’s the nihilism that makes life worth living.”
The above story was first published on my wordpress blog. You can support me by buying me a coffee here. Thanks for reading!
