A lot has happened yesterday and is still happening as this day is taking shape. The darkness will disappear and there'll be sunrise again. How normally we have seen it happening over time, a recurring phenomenon?
I think I'm talking about my birthday, 9th March. I cried on my previous birthday as well. It's consecutively two years that I'm grossly unhappy on my birthday. I was unhappy in 2016 because my college was going to end and that I was about to enter the professional, specifically engineering, world. And in 2017, I do not know why but I didn't quite like that year. I still don't. I had hoped that 2018 would do good to me, in all areas of life, but I think, by now, it's not a good thought to give it even a thought about thinking this year. I don't know if I should describe myself as sane and sorted, I'm terrible alone, no friends, my bi-partner, I think we were, left me. And I'm disturbed. These days, I'm avoiding any and every contact but I'm making a point that I work on my writing and read as much as I can. And uncannily, I guess this introduction written on March, 17 holds true, the recurring phenomenon of being terribly emotionally and mentally broken on my birthday shall continue.
It's like the same when, a day before yesterday, I with my friends, was having a discussion on things which I want to do, a fear which makes me uneasy in my very bones that I'll die without achieving anything substantial. Followed by, how we can turn our highly philosophical discussions on life, books, movies and sex into a short video and we thought to leave with the final thoughts, as always, 'let's just see how it turns out to be', which never seems to happen.
There are a lot of things which are happening and I seem to lose control over it though I've a fair amount of romanticised attitude of not actually controlling it at the same time.
A day before yesterday, I left home for my first meeting of Broke Bibliophiles-Delhi Chapter. I cannot describe my feelings and even if I try to collect some words and try to arrange them as meaningfully I can, I cannot say anything more than saying that, "I belonged there and it was just the kind of conversations I'd love to have".
As I re-work on this draft from 12th March 2017, on 25th February 2018, I can say that what I wanted did happen when I created an FB group, Books and Stuffs, which has successfully had four meetings. But owing to my terrible mental health, which I'm working on myself, and other preoccupations, I am unable to rekindle.
That's it, nothing more or less seems to bother me except that I've neither read a single book of 'Harry Potter' nor seen the movie. That I've extremely or let's say no idea of DC & Marvel comics characters. It's surprising but it's the truth. Apart from this, I was able to absorb every idea discussed at the meet.
For five long hours, we pondered over books, Indian authors, movies, Manto, short-stories, the current writers, a recital of a piece of one of the member-author in the group, Abhinav Goel and all this happened over coffee. Bliss. Maybe it's the first time that I enjoyed it, or maybe I'll enjoy this every time. I did. But the idea always has an orgasmic effect: Books, Coffee and conversations!
After leaving that place, I called up my juniors to CP. They joined in at about 6:15 PM and we're just strolling in and out of the inner and outer circles to find a place to sit and just talk over tea or coffee. And we're crossing Exit Gate No. 5 when our eyes were hooked to this tree which was visited by many pigeons, crows and also an eagle attended the fray. Clove was hitting and we're high on nature.
And that moment seized us, to put it more dramatically & aptly.
We went to a store where they're selling stones, metallic rings and silver rings. All kind of jewellery, hand-made bags, notebooks and stuff. Me and one of my friends were really intrigued and decided to check it out. All our excitement was extinguished by the shopkeeper who was not keen to show us the items graciously and said that they're about to close. I did fucking liked one ring, was sure to buy, but the exasperating attitude pissed me off and we decided to leave.
The weather was good and I was telling my friends that we'll only sit at a place, where there's an open cafe' or we'll have tea at Pracheen Mandir out in the open. They agreed. Meanwhile, we're taking rounds of CP, I told them about the Indian Coffee House and I love the open setting. Which is no longer there, after closing down of roof-top cafes in CP. And here, we're near Khadi India, and just 200 meters, or even less, away from ICH. We thought to go there, we called one more moron who was to join. While I was climbing stairs, these two friends of mine were saying to each other, 'you haven't been here', 'Oh! it's surprising, I suppose I told you that we'll visit someday. And here we're at ICH.'
It's no pilgrimage, ICH, it used to be one when people who happened to be great Urdu poets, English lecturers and stalwarts of Hindi literature used to assemble there. Sometimes, organised events and protests of dissent.
I like ICH because of many reasons. I love the old school setting, I had an official meeting here once and I loved the environment, I had my kind of the first date here, and the food, its cheap.
We ordered regular stuff and began discussing same things which I talked about in the beginning.
The Strange setting was that just behind us were a group of old hags, those fellows were discussing 'Sahitya' in the most uncivilised and un-Sahitya-ik way. But listening to them was fun. They would recite one or two couplets of Urdu Shayari, would try to outspeak one another. It's cute how one was trying to prove he has met more shayars and had tea with them than any of the group members. I never do that but I literally turned and had my ears tuned to their conversation and I wanted to know everything in detail what they're discussing. After a point of time, they started talking louder, maybe they realised that they had an audience now. Ha Ha Ha. It was fun.
Now, I don't know what happened afterwards. My ineffective memory has failed to rekindle that scene after this point. I don't know if I went home or stayed over at their place. I guess I did and I've one photograph of mine, smoking up by the book, Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times and Legend of James Dean by Paul Alexander. I guess, I stayed over, I think I'm right. The next day wasn't quite happening but that all I remember after a year.
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