Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Lost Innocence!

The deadlines were approaching thick and fast. As usual the workload was piling up. It was snail’s pace versus the Hercules. He was uninterested, if not anything else, to say the least. He took to the report his partner had framed and turned it into shreds. He recalled all his lessons and frightfully they were too many of them. The English lessons, common sense lessons, building lessons et al. After all he was brought up being fed on knowledge bytes. Soon he found himself to be buoyed down by the weight. The weight of pretense, the weight of expectation, the weight of futility! He dragged because his partner thought he could, they thought he would and he thought he should. No other logic could deny this over exaggerated simple lemma.

He bid his time as time bypassed him


More than once, he was tempted to let go of it as he saw the nonchalance of others, but something in him inexplicably wouldn’t let him. Maybe he was so gripped by vexation that he was ready to drop his armor and find his way through, once and for ever. But he knew it would come back like the water under the bridge it would go on.

He was gripped in a bundle of contradictions.

He veered out of his room. His home bound friends were already back- back with talks, back with eatables! He thought he had found respite. Lo and Behold! He really had! In the mess of packets, peeking out was the Raj Comics edition of नागराज and सुपर कमांडो धृव! An initiation of introduction sorts would definitely end up being “हम Cholromint क्यूँ खाते है?” “दोबारा मत पूछना”. Don’t even give it a second thought!

He had new found energy and zeal to conquer his dilly dallies. He strode to the room with new zeal and the pride of a conqueror king with the prized possession in his hands. He scanned, skimmed and dodged through the report. It was a laborious task nonetheless. But he rubbed it aside with zeal and vigor. The ceiling no longer seemed to cast the same dry shade of white, it was different. The world suddenly shrunk. How?

How? How is but the form of following the function of Why.

Why? He wanted to be done away with the present and slip into oblivion- slip into the tangled innocence of comic days. He fathomed all his stupidity to roam in the land of magical belief albeit the worldly presence.

Why? Because there are no certainties there are only opportunities.

He kept staring at the ceiling long after he was done with the reading. He thought to himself that maybe he needed a place where he could strip to his stupidity and play around with his foolishness. His heavy eyelids feared the silent screams of the dreams as they prepared to be weighed down by the ceiling.

16 comments:

Usha Pisharody said...

You know, this is rather frighteningly real.. and well captured: the angst, the anguish, the rather lost feeling!

Your language is very poetic too! Especially the final paragraph! Very evocative!!!

Piper said...

Hmmm good post. Although the could would should thing almost cracked me up.

Nice photograph too.

Piper said...

And one more thing. Armour has a 'u' in it.

Prabhu Dutta Das said...

@Usha:
this indeed is the sorry state of affairs and we cant skip it.

@Piper
You know why the could would should thing came up. The 16th of Nov. would test this!I have decided to stick my the MSWord word help!

rainboy said...

//there are no certainties there are only opportunities.//

nice nice...

i like the way you write man.
hugs
tc

Baishali said...

hmmm reading this the obvious does strike..the lost innocense-- each one of us is entangled in this web ...but personally while i was reading this blog, especially considering the scrap that i had just read and a not so well received chat by someone very close, I was glued to the sentence

" The weight of pretense, the weight of expectation, the weight of futility! He dragged because his partner thought he could, they thought he would and he thought he should."

I dnt knw why I drew an analogy to relationships....

Unknown said...

abhi tu real real sound krne laga he
...ek dum itna transition kesan hua? haaan?

aur han ye wala writeup humne "unko" bi padhaya.nw u knw who it is:p

Random Guy said...

Interesting post.. somehow i find ur new style of writing much better..

@ baishali..

" The weight of pretense, the weight of expectation, the weight of futility! He dragged because his partner thought he could, they thought he would and he thought he should."

same here..

Prabhu Dutta Das said...

@C

I am on a learning spree.. Thanks for the encouragement :) At least you came to read!

PI said...

scary. i see bits of me in this :(
well written though!

Mahita said...

Too real and too true :)...
Why is it that one yearns for things of past as they move past phases in life? And why is it that one goes back to childhood, to find a semblance of sanity amidst the chaos that surrounds us everyday? Is it that the change brought in by the age, has succeeded in stripping our smile?

Running through the life- a race between womb and tomb – expectations – ours and from the people we care about, emotions drive us for the better part of the race. But not knowing why we run the race, well, is sad!  and I am very sure, we all go through that phase, not once, but many times, in our race through to our destiny.

Very well written :).

Roopa said...

Very nicely written Prabhu. You come out as an angry young man :), and I thought that was the '70s theme :D.

A little suggestion - buoy is a floating device, you can never be buoyed down with weight. it can be "burdened down," "bowed down," "bogged down," etc. (That is just the English teacher in me. Hope you don't mind)

Moonstruck Girl said...

I so identify myself with the protagonist.. :) I suppose most of us do as I see from all the comments here.. :) Just to be stupid.. comically so.. :)

Cheers,
Me

Anindita said...

Interesting.. Uncertainties have a way of eating you up.. And you have captured it very well.. :)

Banter has been updated, still functional and running! :P

Sashu... said...

the protagonist here is indeed a part f everyone..could relate to it very well indeed... very well written! i muz say that! the ideas seems powerful n influential too!

n yea, am glad to hv such punishments!! :P

NUTS 'n' ASHES said...

There's nothing more frightening than the prospect of losing your present only to acknowledge moments later that it is now no more than just your past.
Very well written...
And oh yes, I love the photograph thatyou've posted :)
Do keep writing...