I have this funny weird problem of not remembering things in a normal sense. As like when you are asked to do something, you just remember it to do it or you may write it down somewhere so that you remember it later. However, with me, it never worked like that, because I found it boring. I found this whole process of remembering boring and dead. Therefore, in my childhood what I did was to just make up random stories of everything I see, I heard or when others spoke so that I could remember. So naturally, alphabets were easy to learn. It sounded like poetry to me. I can manipulate the alphabets to words to sentence to paragraph to an essay and eventually to stories. I found this whole process fascinating. It was a different world together; just me and my alphabets. The problem was always with Maths. Till date, I can never understand numbers, why the number 1 is 1, I mean how do I manipulate it. How do I create stories around it? No matter what story I create, it is always being 1 apple or 1 pencil or 1 car. Well, there were geniuses like Pythagoras a revered mathematician and philosopher for who mathematics was music and poetry. Each one has their capacity. And perhaps I chose not be a genius. This may sound arrogant but again the term genius is defined in a small box, too narrow to fit in people like me. Most of the genius work has never been visible, unheard, unknown, unsung, unspoken and in fact never noticed and realized. Something like Sun, I am not getting into the technicality of our huge fireball. But all those never-ending sun-rise and sun-sets which may look like monotonous process, but then it does such miracles from a simple peeking and spreading of its blanket of its rays of aura and fuelling the humanity with silver light of hope. The melting of our emotions at sunset and rising of humane spirit with every sunrise. The solace one could feel while sitting in a park during the cold shivery winter seasons, the sweet innocent nap during the winter noon’s lap. The blooming of flower with such beautiful accents of elegance, heart filled hues of orange, pink, red and blues, draped in the layers of its velvet pleats, the buds blossoming with such pride. Aren’t those simple invocations of emotions a genius’s work? Well, then who really cares about simple sentiments as long as it doesn’t involve complicated technicality.
Anyway, coming back to my beautiful elusive mind, so I used to create stories for remembering things. And that further pushed my imagination for every random thing. Once long time back I remember trying hard to sleep in the night, but the sleep refused to comply. So I wondered if I had to visualize sleep, what sleep would look like. Na, I cannot imagine someone sleeping in her or his bed. But literally, I wanted to visualize ‘sleep’. Is it just about being dark like when we close our eyes? But then we see dream too, we still can see dreams with closed eyes. So how would I visualize Sleep? Perhaps, entering a dark room with this huge torch or a flickering torch? However, here is a twist may be entering the room with this life-size torch and a vulture clutching me in his claws and while I dangle from its claws and may be floating, who knows? Yes, it can be vultures. The only thing we notice is vultures are flesh eater. Well, of course, they do eat flesh, it is their food. Besides that, let us also notice the heart it has which lab dabs like for us. Let us notice the power, strength, the beautiful sharp curve of its beak, a swan-like neck of it and lastly the beautiful round restless eyes of it. So that’s how I imagined sleep then. And I went on making stories out of stories until the sleep caught hold of me.
And about remembering things. Once. my dad when asked me to get some stuff from the market. Knowing me, he specifically gave me a list of things written down on a piece of paper to be bought. But then what is the fun in remembering things that way. So I created a story out of this. The list contained detergent powder, deodorant, shaving kit and a body lotion. So here goes the story of these combinations: Once the detergent and deodorant both went to take a photo as they were the best buddies. They tagged the photo as “Before Wash and After Wash”. When the Shaving kit and body lotion heard about their photos together, they both felt jealous for being the left out ones. When once detergent and deodorant were sleeping, the body lotion squeezed out the bit of its lotion and mixed it with the detergent and so the detergent became unusable. The shaving kit took out a blade from its kit and cut out the knob of the deodorant and thus the deodorant also couldn’t be used again. And so the story served the purpose for remembering what I had to buy- detergent powder, deodorant, shaving kit and a body lotion. The story was fun too.
I already see and hear the weird looks and sounds from you. But then this is how my stories and I are wired. Once my elder sister asked me to buy her a long earring for a function that was coming up in our house. She said, “Strange, you better remember this, buy me a dangling earring and not a small ear stud. The small ear stud makes me look fatter”. Before I get into that, yes my name is Strange, why can’t this be a name. People have been calling me strange since my childhood. I told myself this is such a perfect name, it sounds sharp, crisp and short. So my name at home is Strange. I insisted on changing my name to Strange officially, but then I could only negotiate for calling me Strange only inside the walls of our home. So now back to my sister’s earring. It is beyond my comprehension how an ear stud can make anyone look fatter. Neither I have ever understood why when we grow up getting chubbier become a taboo. I remember when babies or little girls or boys were chubby, people literally drool over their absolute cuteness, but then the very same term becomes obsolete when we grow up. I guess when we grow up we cling to more confirmed and accepted terms of ‘slim, thin, beautiful, sexy, slender, fair’ so on and so forth. Suddenly the term, ‘cute’ confuses us. I have often heard from my sister, now what does cute mean? Is it being chubby or slender, beautiful or just some looks? And I have no answers for it either. And anyway no one ever understood my views as I was the Strange one. So the earring story was; this pair of earring, absolutely adored each other. They loved to be in each other’s company always. It was more as if they were inseparable. They always dangled and sang in a tone of more like squeaking. Once this disturbed a sleeping witch. However, she was a sweet witch. The witch lightly cursed them, “Thou shall be inseparable, ironically the beholder’s beauty would separate thou. Once one is lost, the other one will always be abandoned for eternity”. This curse doomed the entire earrings. Therefore, it lies with the one who is using the earrings, once they lose one of it, the other one can never be used again. Again, I have never understood why the earring cannot be worn only in one ear. These days we see this fashion trend famous among men than women. The earrings too assumed gender roles. Therefore, that’s how I remember getting the danglers for my sister.
So I was gradually growing up (only in terms of number as in age), with such imaginations. And along with these fascinations, I began writing. As I could only talk out my imagination to a piece of paper and now to my Khayal my beautiful red laptop. Khayal is the Urdu word, which means, thoughts and imaginations. She is always ready to cater and feed my imaginations. So I have been writing for living my life. Please note I said Live and not Survive. Again if I visualize to Live and to Survive I ended up writing this poem for a magazine:
What' s the time, I peeked
to return back on the mundane lane.
I wondered how can I sneak
into the Alice in Wonderland?
The rabbits are not like white rabbits,
they don't seem to get late ever.
whether is there any such land,
where one can ponder and wonder?
Will it be splendid to walk miles or
To fall in the rabbit hole or
walk through a wall or door, and
find a world with different paradigm?
Where there is no perception,
no misconception, no beauty, no ugly,
no woman, no man, no night, no day,
no light and no dark.
Coffee with the fairies in the woods,
served honey by the bees, and
brunch with the elephants,
dinner under the wisps of stars
Talking through silence,
if only the bibbity, bobbity, boo,
and abraka dabra, works
if only the clock never strikes 12.
Alas! the clock did strike,
not midnight 12 but 5 in the dawn,
holding the mane, sun in the vain.
Oh, returning back to the mundane lane!
My mundanity never existed, this is what I believed. But then over the next years, I was bitten by this bug called growing up and without me realizing it the monster mundanity like a snake sneaked into my life. When if sometimes I felt overwhelmed with all this grown-up stuff, I find a bizarre sense of serenity while sitting under the tree shade in an utterly sunny day. The sun looked so heartless, literally burning out with full force. Likewise, I would fume too. Today in the morning, I carried my laptop Khayal and my diary, banged the door shut and dashed out of the house. I have this deadline tomorrow to submit a writing piece. I guess I am going through that what people call it as ‘writer’s block’. This creativity breakdown was getting on my nerves; why am I so blocked. The left-brain seems to over-dominate the right brain, it seems to in fact outgrow the right one, saying, “who is the king, baby”.
I lied on the pricking and chilling grass, the trees and its lanky huge branch, lazily dangling leaves, brightly lit flowers seemed bending over me and felt like looking inside my head. The filtering of the sun rays through the gaps of the branches and leaves felt like sugar-coated chili on my skin. The squirrels mindless chasing of each other, the gingerly pecking sound of wood by the woodpecker and the ants gently crawling through the slim branch of tree diverted me for few minutes. One particular ant was carrying this huge leaf for its tiny size, slipping away after every few inches and still, it tenaciously kept dragging the leaves. My mind wondered what the heck is this writer’s block, a blank space or carton or … and with that last thought the long pending nap overtook me.
I happen to wake up in this dark place. Oh, is it already night? Nope it isn’t, it seems to be pitch dark and I don’t feel the grass, rather it is a chilly floor below me. Oh no, have I been kidnapped? Where the hell I am. I tried recollecting and like a flash I remembered about the sun, tree, flowers, leaves, squirrel, the sound of pecking and the ant and yeah I was on writer's block phase. “Damn, woman, open your damn eyes. It is not dark; you are dreaming with your eyes closed”. At that moment, I don’t know why I remembered my childhood imagination of ‘Sleeping’ and ‘Dreaming’.
I jerked out with that voice. Oh, yeah how stupid of me, I rubbed my eyes and now I see the light. “Who the hell is it and where am I?” I screamed out of fear. “Finally, you woke up from your deep slumber. I am your Block, the Writer’s Block, now help me to unblock you”. I squeaked, “what”? I couldn’t believe what I am hearing. “who are you kidding with”. The Writer’s Block had a smirk and said “LOLed”. I asked again “what”? “Well,” it said, “I just laughed out loud, so LOL, this is what you guys call right. Now listen Missy, I don’t have the whole day with you. It was you who asked what the heck is this writer's block, so here I am to show writer's block”. My mind went blank, is Alice in Wonderland happening to me? Did I fell inside a rabbit’s hole? Oh my, I need to write it down later and I heard it “Yeah you can do it later” My heart skipped a beat. I heard it again. I thought my imagination and fascination is on fire today.
I looked around, it was a weird place with unusual lightings and a broad lane with a decent view. The lane was not a smooth, but rickety one. A huge leaf of life-size was falling down; I ran like crazy. The writer’s block looked back and said “do yourself a favor. Stop overthinking, that’s a tiny leaf”. And it was right indeed, the leaf looked tiny. I wondered, is something wrong with my vision?” and damn Writers Block seems to read my mind, it replied, “no, you just over think”. I cleared my throat and asked, “so what do I unblock, as I don’t see any block here?”. It replied, “keep walking”. I rolled my eyes, how bossy of it to talk to me like that. We kept walking for a long time. And sometime later, I see us entering in this huge pipe, I wondered oh it looks like I need to unblock this pipe and then I can start writing. I happily stepped in as I thought we are closer to the end of this weird Alice in Wonderland ordeal. While walking inside this huge drainage sort of pipe, at one point my mouth dropped. Because I was seeing these alphabets and words all leaning lazily against the wall of the pipe, like standing in some sort of queue. I rubbed my eyes again, oh dear these are real alphabets grown with eyes, nose, and mouth. I hear them saying, “shh shhh, oh here she is. Dude listen up can you just write down quickly I am really tired of standing here.” I stepped back and bumped into this weird words, “AAAHHHHH”, I shrieked, I spelled those words F-E-A-R, P-A-N-I-C”. Wow, the word FEAR PANIC we believe is such a distress but when seen alive looks damn funny, it is literally holding itself together very hard so that it doesn’t disintegrate. It was looking so funny that I couldn’t hold my laughter and I was rolling down laughing. In fact, soon I see it vaporizing and vanished into thin air.
It again went dark and I felt something sticking into my nose, pricking my eyes and mouth. I took it in my mouth and it tasted so raw or maybe grass. Is it grass? Why on earth I am chewing grass. I tried looking around for Writers Block which was leading my way and all those alphabets. But again it was all dark, I thought oh wait a minute am I closing my eyes? Indeed, I was. I opened my eyes only to find white and yellowish blanket blinding my eyes. I rubbed my eyes only to realize that was the burning sun. I lied down there for some time chewing a strand of grass in my mouth and reminiscing what I saw whether a dream or my imagination. So that’s what Writers Block looked like. There was literally nothing to unblock. Last I saw two words of F-E-A-R and P-A-N-I-C. I laughed so hard that I scared away a flock of birds sitting on the branches and a dog almost choked on the water he was licking. Well, I don’t know if it choked, but what is the harm in imagining that. And that moment I chose to go back to my roots and write down my musings, imaginations, and thoughts into stories as a process of U-n-d-o Growing Up .
Inspired by the Story The Little Prince
