They call me a loner. A person who should be abandoned or ostracised. They say loneliness is a feeling. I say it is a fact that gives rise to a feeling.
I get looked up and down by people who think I don’t socialise. They ridicule me when they see me get sick. Yes, I do feel sick while eating when I see a poor beggar on the roads glancing at me and my food. They say it is disrespectful, and at such moments I am supposed to put away whatever I am eating, so that a black cloud doesn’t pass above me. These so-called dogmatic doctrinaires don’t understand, or care to understand, what is actually hovering in my mind. I don’t get sick with the stares of a beggar. I get sick at such situations for I am veritably sick of feeling pity towards others. ‘Why do I get and they don’t? Is this world we live in so unfair that it can’t provide its people the basic amenities of life?
This feeling of pity arouses another set of degrees of emotion called guilt. Considering, that I cannot give these people what they want. And this heavy sense of painful guilt has the strength and capability to hunch my shoulders and break my spine with its heavy load of sorrowful thoughts. So what do I do? I can easily blame it on fate, but I am not like the others; like the so-called dogmatic doctrinaires probably drinking green tea in their mellow homes and reading newspapers, unaffected and oblivious to what actually lies beneath the ink of the verbose words describing the local curfew that happened yesterday. Once again, the question haunts me.
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I can say ‘I don’t care’ and then within the whiff of wind I could walk away and probably gossip about celebrities with my friends. It is not as if I have many friends. To be truthful, I have not even one. But you see, the point is, my mind is eager to do that. But my stubborn feet refuse to move an inch.
And so like this, my grey matter is busy analysing and my feet automatically move on their own and lead me to the attic. I sit down on a dusty cardboard box with a mug of coffee in my hand. I prefer dark rooms to the blazing sunlight outside. A dark room is the best place to scribble and highlight your thoughts, in the blackness of your surroundings rather than being distracted by pretty butterflies outside.
I slowly close my eyes, ready to jump into my world. Yes, you read it right. ‘My world’. As I expected, everything slowly hovers into place. I can see the intangible growth of meaningless red threads sewn together. A conglomeration of distinguished threads. Loneliness is essential in one’s life. It gives you space and time. Space to think, imagine, learn, discover, invent and love. You finally discover who you are.
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Suddenly you seep into your soul and discover the age-old sparks of fire you had ignited in it with stones of sincerity, when you always thought it as a concrete surface you cannot fathom. This experience has left you spellbound. You unconsciously develop a deeper attachment till the roots with god; with an omnipresent, unknown, who shows you the path with a soft glow. You ultimately start perceiving flashes of euphoric happiness welling inside you that they call nirvana. A hazy image floats in front of your eyes. The spring blossoming around you elates your heart. It’s unbelievable. It’s magical, and at the same time the world you have always dreamt of. The buzzing of bees is all bells. The tinkling of the waterfall, the warmth of the sun, the light around you that makes you feel safe and secure, the shine of the buttercups and the softness of the fresh green grass makes your toes curl. You know this is ultimate bliss.
Soon when you gain consciousness, your eyes strain to open. You get up, every cell in your body is tired. The dilapidated surroundings you observe are frightening. Everything is pure black, all looks like an endless void. Your pretty peaceful heaven is obliterated and fragmented. All at once, you start melting like wax, and discover the mortifying truths of life. You want to get up, but you are chained. You silently cry and lone tears escape you eyes before clawing at your skin. You realise you are useless. Your heart clenches and buries itself deep into your stomach. A lump forms in your throat. The loud chthonic screams numb your body and deaf your ears. As your vision turns hazy, you see a blur image of someone else chained beside you. Or rather, something else. A common green plant is chained in shackles.
This very second, someone somewhere is being bullied, discriminated, ragged, raped. And someone is being hugged, kissed, loved, accepted and cared. The manacles that have bruised your wrists, release you from their tight grip and you feel weightless, the heavy burden easily lifted off your shoulders. This is the spitting image of the world. Never wait, but run fast. Faster that The Flash, and feel your feet abandon the earth as you soar like an eagle. As delayed flights never make a difference.
They say loneliness is a feeling. I say it’s a fact that leads to the birth of a crazy emotion called change.
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