Kashmir has been uneventful as ever lately. The summer isn’t going to stay long and before it even began, it rained pretty often for the month of June. Every now and then there are subtle showers that intermingle with the sunlight, their presence concealed as they hit the baking hot surface of concrete, or soil. I never felt the heat where I live, a quiet wind would always appear out of thin air and casually flutter the curtains. But it’s getting here as well, the need to avoid the sun that soaks itself in the skin too much, imitating a burn of flesh like that of oil. I have barely had any contact with it past few days, it may conjure in your mind the image where the curtains are drawn and my face barely visible without light, but I have had things to eat and plenty of sunlight filtering through six windows of my room. My first contact is usually in the morning, when it pours in through the window facing the sunrise, and caresses my feet like the soft warm sensation of bare skin.
However, the calming peace I think one is supposed to feel in the cacophony of bird calls and the soothing sense of greenery, isn’t entirely enough sometimes. I’ve got myself in all kinds of things therefore I barely write anything, but I make notes from time to time. Although I am often late to realize that I never actually write them down. Truthfully, I don’t feel motivated enough and yet I feel the guilt of becoming listless towards writing or books. I have forgotten the angst I used to feel, or the anxiousness of certain things that would otherwise make me want to pour my heart out. It is as if this sensation is fleeing on a cloud. As if in constant motion. It never sets in, it only rains from time to time, almost out of rage.
I brought it up a while ago while Hondo and I left college one afternoon. It was just the two of us. The new bridge built over Jhelum has a small space excluded from this plane of existence, we call it hospice. It’s under the shade of a chinar from the end of Rajbagh, as you ascend the stairs, it hides in the left corner. Below stationed are a bunch of houseboats and Jhelum flows without barriers or such. We Kashmiri’s always talk about Jhelum like a belonging, and my mother says there was a time they would drink from it. There’s no particular reason to it though but I guess it’s always been that way. Meanwhile, the water looks unsightly and the color continues to pass under our eyes as a natural scenery. But to oppose that truth single handedly is a burden I cannot entail. At hospice, you gaze this truth into it’s eye and it glares you back like a faceless demon.
The way I pursued my writing was unnatural I think, I wore myself down by getting envious of people that were better than me. I’d start by gathering more knowledge which naturally meant reading for hours. It is said that imitation is the best form of flattery, however I did not do either. I did not imitate or flatter anyone but myself. I always lead myself by instinct but those around me, set checkpoints or a standard for me to achieve. I wanted to get better.
It doesn’t feel the same way now as it did before, not saying that I arrived at a pinnacle but it feels like the end of it. The change isn’t noticeable, its complacent or hidden I suppose and as long as I don’t witness it myself, I can’t go any further. I can’t bear the feeling of passion that I need to have to write better. I poured it out, bit by bit, and I explained it to Hondo. It felt reassuring what he said. The more I heard it, the more sense it made. It felt like I was finally able to confront it all without anything holding me back. As if it was meant for only me.
Hondo has been working out lately, so the analogy wasn’t a surprise when he began with it. I do not remember enough to quote him but I am certain that I can recapture the essence or the heart of our conversation. It started by talking about growth, when a person starts working out his statistics start to increase every day since he started, the difference is clearly visible and can be felt without doubt. This consciousness of growth takes a mind of its own, until a point of time where it’s rapid growth becomes a slow phenomena. The difference isn’t noticeable or being felt anymore, it feels like a waste of energy to keep going without anything to yield. This is the moment when he introduced a term, not unheard of, but completely befitting the situation. He called it the plateau. He continued that after you hit a plateau— by definition, it is a state of little or no change following a period of progress; that the yield is there, the efforts aren’t going to waste he said and are only hidden to my eyes. That it was like the river Jhelum, moving gradually but unstoppable. That gave me hope, it encouraged me to go on.
Hondo is a sage. Believe me.
As the feelings flowed freely inside me, every part of me wanted to write. I wanted to recreate what I felt and after a long while, I wasn’t powerless. It didn’t concern me what I wrote as long as I wrote something.
This poem will dissolve itself
In your memory, that drowning
Ache of sorrow that lead you here.
Don’t make tiresome promises to me.
Even now, camouflaged from the shade
Of the sun, no binding light pierces our
Thick armor of deeply knit shadows.
Jhelum, quiet as always flows by.
The concrete ghats now sing a requiem
For the tumbling insignificance of wasted waters
The piousness vanished from the crystal past.
A man ferries you across, faceless.
One is devoid of love, the other at
The shrine, longingly covets your face
And your hair flailing is out for lust.
(14/07/2019)