Monday, September 19, 2005

a piece of parchment


Wake up in Your room. While the trees outside stretch their branches and stretch You reach for Your glasses. It's eight and you already know how the day will be. You wake. You reach for your glasses. Toothpaste on brush. Scratch. Brush. Life boring as it is, is the only option.

Check the phone for missed calls. Its eleven thirty in the morning. Sitting on an office chair in a dim cubicled office. You don't know what You are doing. You sit and stare at the screen. The forty-fourth forward of the day reaches me. As comforting as television. You return to the spreadsheet before me. As comforting as brain death.

Lunchtime is an illusion. Of social connections. Of society. Talk revolves around life. Someones had a kid. You can't seem to remember their name. Or their face. What is your performance appraisal? When are you going for a deputation? My project sucks. You have learnt new things, all of them useless. Uninteresting too.

Walking back must be one of the few pleasures or privilliges left to man. Though very few seem to exercise it. Colleagues zoom of on bikes and cars. You are in a different time. You like walking back. You walk back. "Sir? Auto?". You shake your head and walk.

The quiet in Your mind is comforting. Sometimes it gets to you, which is when you wish for someway of talking to someone. But the quiet wraps around You. As you search for people to talk to, you call them up.

What do you talk to them about. How do you tell them about the quiet. The desperation to go elsewhere. The weariness or your passion which sustains you. "So tell me?", they say. You hang up the phone. You don't know what to say. Which is why you called up.

Why can't they write letters. The feel of parchment, the ink. It represents an investment. Something more than the casual fling at a keyboard that just allows someone to say anything that they want and then to dissapear. No memories exist. Unless you remember what you seek, what will you find?

How many times have you asked her to write to you. "Would you I rather", she says. So you drop it. You hope your eagerness shows. She gets the clue. She never has. Sometimes the silences are better. So you stay quiet. And watch as the silences grow around you. So you think. Quiet.

Somedays as you come back to your room you ask the guard what he has for you. If he has anything for you. He shakes his head. No one ever has stuff for you. So you watch other packages. Brown enevlope and yellow ones. Written in a variety of hands. Lettered with all kinds of ink. Blue and black. With names written in trembling hands, or steady ones. Some with parts underlined twice emphasising the anxiety of the sender. Some bulky. Would they have books. Some thin, they must contain letters. Who writes to them. Would someone ever write to you. The one with the words "Rakhi" and "Speed Post" dually written in opposite corners on the top margin of the envelope. Hoping that these words incite the human touch in a beauracracy large and uncaring. So you wait. Quiet.

Walking down the corridor to your room is the one thing in your day which you wait for. Walking down you nod to the guard. Ask him. He nods no. Routines are comforting. You walk to your room. Quiet. Out come the ciggarettes. You sit down at the computer. Draw the keyboard towards you. Loose yourself in the cool world of green on black. Quiet.

Walking down the road again. Office it is. As you walk quiet immersed in your own thoughts you walk down the corridor. Ask him. He says Yes. You wait there as he hands over a cream coloured envelope to you. Some changes do comfort. You walk back to the room the cream coloured envelope clutched tightly to your chest. Sometimes even a telephone bill is comforting.

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