Later that night

It is 11 p.m. now. I still have questions. Rather, I think the trouble is that I don’t have questions. I have a gnawing feeling that something’s off. My head feels like this drawer that’s stuffed with a million things. At first, I couldn’t get it open, and now that I have it open, I can’t close it. Now, all this stuff is just spilling out. But there’s so much mess that I don’t know where to begin. I mean, at this point in time, I’m feeling so confused that I don’t even have a question.

Just a couple of hours ago, I made a promise that I’ll find my answers in two weeks. Now I realize that I don’t even have a question to ask myself in that time. Talk about landing at the airport without a ticket. Or rather, landing at the station with a plane ticket. Or landing at the bus stop with a train ticket. These analogies don’t even make sense. But for five seconds now, they amused me.

Maybe I don’t need a question. I’ll still arrive at the answer, and then I wouldn’t know what to do with it. It’s like this bit in the series of ‘Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy’. These guys figure out that the answer is 49. But they don’t know what the question is. That’s an awesome series, by the way.

For the longest time, I’ve abhorred people making snap judgments about me. I have disliked people scrutinizing me, decoding me, and then giving a lengthy discourse about what I’m about. I have hated that. But today, as of this moment, I want to be studied and understood. Not “Oh, I love you, so I understand you.” Or “I accept you the way you are.” None of that. I want someone to just, clinically, objectively, methodically, systematically figure me out.

I usually find myself so fascinating (and who wouldn’t, he he), I’d like to do the job myself. But now I don’t have the time or the inclination.

There’s a bit in the movie, “Orphan”, that clicked with me. Esther (the eerie orphan) has been adopted by a family that has two other kids – a ten year old boy, and a younger girl who is deaf. One day, Esther is playing the piano. She, in fact, is superbly playing Tchaikovsky. Her mother walks into the room and is surprised. Earlier, Esther pretended that she doesn’t know how to play the piano and she’d love it if the mother taught her. The mother asks Esther why she lied. Esther replies that she thought the mom would like it. With a studied calm, she explains that it must be very painful for an accomplished pianist like her – to have a son who isn’t interested in music and a daughter who’s deaf.

This movie has several thrills and chills…but this scene made me gasp. This is true fear – to go about your life in a seeming ordinary fashion, and then someone just unravels you like this. So completely, and coldly.

I’d like to gasp this way. I want to understand why am I like this. I want to understand what am I like. Maybe I need someone like Esther sleeping next to me, studying me inside out whilst listening to my breath.

On second thoughts, being confused isn’t half bad. Keeps the mystique alive.

Comments

Unknown said…
It's 42
Mukta Raut said…
really? i always figured it was an odd number. oh well, 42 it is then.