Refuge

The muse has been persistently in my consciousness. Taunting to seek more more more truth. The larger truth. To seek it from the bird eye view. The outer sea consumed by the inner ocean of bitter blues – of melancholic sepia- of distant darkness. What I have been was ready to be a forlorn creature – to contract itself into an old shivering star at the high sky- as if to stare from a timeless past so cold and quaint- to this frame born anew- or at least believe to be so. This year is in confrontation with a blessed brain in readiness to devour more words- books- movies- knowledge- music.  I have become a creature of sharper conscience and ever sharper perceptions. 

All the blemishes of the world have been revealed and yet in the process of revelation. It disappoints and dissipates my search of beauty- love- innocence. Yet there are momentary consolations in the form of an orange sun at the threshold of a droopy twilight. It’s as if all the ugliness of the world is converged and absorbed into this big burning scar- to take along with it all the tears and tragedies for us to slumber peacefully- courageously- guiltlessly. 

As I move from one lonely day to another- eating biscuits and turning pages – hearing Bach and Beethoven and Satie and others- gazing at the visible borders of the horizon and dreaming beyond- many a times I have plunged myself into a fantasy of swimming so artistically in cold blue water with a robust glazing body- cycling on a straight infinite plane with legs free from pedals and wind across my hair…and other numberless reveries feathering my fancies.

I have learned to be more private- to keep myself away from the insanity of the world. To check the narcissism and yield to the calling of authenticity. To be distant and observant. To laugh privately at the witlessness of the fellow beings- to their blind confinements and meaningless adherence to meaningless conventions- to their thoughtlessness- to their shallowness- to their art of living an existence in death.

And their comes the wish to paint- blue paint smeared on the white canvas- shaping slowly into Buddha under the Bodhi Tree – Buddha who sought enlightenment- Buddha who saw the present- the inner light- Buddha in the  very act of living. As I drift between the darker alleys of life and the brighter broad squares with a cooling blissful fountain at its center, the fountain within me freezes as soon as I taste the wide gap. The gulf between me and the impalpable others- failing to touch my soul they bewilder at my unreachability.

I don't know from where to begin the benignity of truly connecting with another being. Is it when others begin to suffer my invisibility when they themselves are tired of their pursuit of surface pleasures? Or is it when I myself am jaded of my seclusion, cloyed by the broodings and threatened by the steely authenticities, bleak truths, and the repeated wounds. One who is after truth will be injured persistently. He will be a seeker at first. Then the recluse. Then the sufferer.       

        

City of Djinns in my hand. The book is not so heavy – ready to be tamed by the constant handling and turning- tolerant to be waiting when I soar in my fancy with images of that city which will tell the stories of its riots and ruins, losses and refugees. I take my refuge in it.