Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Living a li[f]e

There are so many hammocks to catch you if you fall, so many laws to keep you from experience. All these cities I have been in the last few weeks make me fully understand the cozy, stifling state in which most people pass through life. I don't want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don't want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, "Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case." I will turn and say to them "It is you who are the basket case. For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn't even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!" And maybe, the passers by will drop a coin into my cup.”...... Henry Rollins quotes

I watched a man yesterday, smartly turned out, having coffee at the Chembur Barrista ( on our way out from Mumbai to Pune) talking animatedly and laughing intermittently. He looked happy...seemed to be enjoying the conversation. [I was in my car..waiting for hubby to get his cuppa.]
I assumed this was a dialogue...I turned fully to look at this man...saw nobody talking back to him or listening. I then thought he had one of those silly ear fittings that come with the cellphones that make most sane folks look demented...but he turned around twice...smiling and talking...nothing. He finished his coffee, took out his wallet, settled the bill and left...still talking to himself. He was the kind of guy you look at and think 'smart looking chap'. And this.

What drives people mad, I wonder. How does one remain sane in this crazy world, I wonder. But again, maybe like a very young friend of mine who battles bouts of Schizophrenia says..."everybody is crazy..it is just that some of us know it"

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