I took up the pen. I wanted to write something on this lank white sheet. No questions, no answers, and no topics to chain me. Just free thought and pure imagination, no reason, just illusion, no falsifying materialism.
I searched my thoughts to find an instance but all I could find were vicious circles.
I rummaged through my emotions; I could only find chaos and disorder.
I asked my words to grant me speech but even they seemed mute.
I questioned the leaves outside my window, glistening with the radiance of the summer sun. They could tell me but eluded.
I asked my eyes to give me a story. In reply they wept a tear in my cheek, a tear of fading colors.
I asked the ink, but it was too dark,
I asked the air, but it was too fast.
I asked water to give me thirst,
But it had to satisfy a desert first.
So I went to the woods to get myself a break,
Ashes were all that I could take.
I hunted for the earth to dig up something new,
But in it lay at rest some beloved one I knew.
I asked the thorns to give me some pain,
I asked light to show me a lane.
I sought for fire for me to myself burn,
I spoke to the road in search of an elusive turn.
I went to God to ask for a line,
He refused, He said that he has no time.
Here I stood, that was me, without word, without utterance, with no address, no enunciation and no expression.
But hark! Who is this looking at me? “Leave me alone”, I said. He was not listening. How stubborn! I changed my view. But he did not move. He wanted to say something. I moved near, deep into his dry eyes. I saw fables floating around in vast darkness. I am telling you the truth as I saw it. Perhaps a spell was cast on me. As if I was a visitor to some cosmic dance. And moments, still moments floated around me. It was ephemeral, yet never-ending. I was standing at the vertex of space and there were pulses of time moving all around me. I outstretched my finger to catch one, that intangible form. I received a shock and a flash blinded my eyes.
I began to witness life as if being played out on a sheet of clear water with nothing beyond it – abstract, imperceptible, incorporeal yet scintillating!
At first I saw a girl, big eyes, not more than 8 years old. She was returning from school. She saw an ice-cream vendor and her friends relishing a candy. She looked at the ice-cream and kept looking. She had no money to ask for one. All that she could do was to savour it from a distance. She kept on looking while life passed around her.
I drifted to another moment….
I saw a body covered with a white cloth and lifeless air blowing over it. I saw a woman sitting next to him with tears in her eyes….still as a stone, with lifeless breath…but no words.
I could not understand what was going on. The sequel continued as I grazed for another feeling.
I saw a deserted platform with nobody around except a few workers. A train comes, waits and whistles. But just then I saw an old man sitting on a bench. I could read the wait in his eyes. H e has spent years on the same platform, on the same bench, day after day, at the same time waiting for his son who has not returned from the war. The train whistles again, moves, and departs filling his eyes with the smoke of stillness. He kept on sitting there with no emotions, no words, no soul.
It continued….
I was in a hospital. I could see some tension, people buzzing all around. I saw a man with folded hands in want of something. But just then I saw a nurse accosting him with something wrapped in white cloth. He was a father now! I saw the cheer in his eyes, the spirit of rapture dancing on his lips which were again silent.
Another drama followed.
This was a scene of war. There was smoke all around, roaring guns subduing the sounds of cries. A soldier was entering the enemy camp secretly. He was brave and it was his first war. He crept in slowly, as carefully as possible. But just then he heard a tap, a rustle of leaves. He turned around, only to find his forehead at gunpoint. Death was standing in front of him, sharp and dumb.
The play proceeded into a dry field with a farmer looking at the burning sky with barren eyes, with dread crops, with no strength to articulate a prayer.
Many more cyclones followed through my frail body…moments that were captured in a glass-pane. I saw them…that was all that I could do.
That emptiness resumed form and I found myself in that same stretch of life and death. There was one last window that appeared, more brilliant than the others. That was the last one I had to touch in that vast span of still time. I could see light waiting eagerly to touch me. Everything paused….the whole universe, time, space an all else….still.
The next moment I found myself on my chair strangely looking towards my blank paper. I felt as if it was laughing at me. I knew it now. This was my present. I recalled everything, that expanse of emptiness and form, that cosmic dance, that eternal swirl, that moment of indulgence, that ephemeral time, those stories and that stillness.
There was one thing common to all these stories that reflected equally in all those magical fables, in all those odysseys.
It was the silence of a moment, the fulfillment of emptiness, the completeness of voids, the speech of mutes, the sound of silence.
None of them spoke for a moment – the girl, the woman, the old man, the father, the soldier, the farmer…none uttered a word. Deprived of words, unknown to speech. Everything was still.
And I, a silly writer kept asking for words from everything? How foolish of me! That blank sheet told me all. What emptiness is. What is it to say nothing. The paper told me the essence of being silent, of being white, not spotted, of being unmarked, of being nothing.
I now realize how vital it is to write nothing, just leaving things blank. Bare, empty, unsaid, unadorned, inscrutable, emotionless, impassive, unresponsive, vacuous and lifeless.
So today you are reading something derived from pure silence, dead. Something which has nothing, yet everything.
It is in emptiness that the world takes form, its stillness all over and in God’s voice, you can hear His silence. Try to be empty someday. And you will enjoy the joy, the ecstasy, the mirth, and the fulfillment.
Did you ever sit alone on the sea shore? You could always hear it shout, you could hear waves breaking on its vast body. But did you ever hear the silence beneath?
Did you see the silence of a bird taking flight?
Did you see the butterfly flitting from flower to flower?
Did you hear the silence of mountains?
Did you hear the silence of a forest dimly lit with glowworms?
Did you hear a glass before it breaks?
Did you hear the notes when the night sets in and the morning wakes?
Did you hear the sigh when the raindrop breaks?
Or when you drop sand from your fist?
Did you hear the silence when you look into the wet eyes of your mother who just scolded you?
Or the waiting lips, when your beloved just proposed to you?
Did you hear the silence of the last breath?
Did you ever hear them?
Did you?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
72 comments :
Excellent Post :)
and all I can give you is again a *Silent Smile* ...
Masterpiece of your blog :)
This post reminds me of an oxymoron "Deafening Silence" :)
My god isha!!! Tht was so vivid... I could see d images u created in my mind, as if I was the one in them...
Only someone as talented as you could speak of something like emptiness.. the null and the void, with such vivid words.
Awesome!!
Luv,
Annie.
@ Sowmi - And what more could I ask for? :)
That was what I had in my mind for the title initially!!
Ah! Thank you!! :)
Cheers
@ Annie - You could??? Yayieeee!!! :)
Awwww....that's like the bestest thing to say!! :) :)
Thank you sooo much. :)
Mwahh
you asked air, water, fire and what not ? you made a mistake, u didn't asked me :P
Anyways, you coming back to blogging (though i don't know how u write with a pen on the white blogger board :D), it was a refreshing change to read this!
I am sure i have not read such kind of vivid description about emptiness in life somewhere else (may be at wildflower's blog :P)!
You should write more, would love to read you more!
Love,
Amit
PS: I can hear you if you so desperately wanted anyone to hear u :D
Cheers!
HR
Superb..is der nything beyod it...i hvno words ..ur imagination is something different...its like....gawd u r awesome
gr8 ...keep it up
long tym wher wer u???
you come late and it tortures but you so reward us all :D
my God i could see everything and yes i did i did!
and because of that and that brilliant offer you left on my 13 ..... you deserve a smmmmmmmmmoooooooooochieeeeeeeee :D
At times, it does happen, that we have a plethora of emotions in us...but we don't want to put it out, we just want to remain blank! IT does happen!
Beautiful and vivid description of war, ice-candy, a new-born child...things so varied, and yet put in a subtle way!
So much unlike your other posts...where u deal with lighter side of life....yet, this looks equally strong!
And yeah...I have been waiting for ur fresh post for long...
thanx
@ HRA - Matey, it was intentional. :P
Expand the horizons of your imagination doophus. :P :D
Awww....thenkew!! :)
And, I don't want anyone to hear me, I'd rather have you listen to the silence around you. And with ME around, silence is sure to be a long way off. :D
Cheers
P.S. When I speak, people don't hear, they listen.
@ The Geekie - Danke!!!
I know! I know I am!! :) Lol
I was here only, you didn't notice. :P
Cheers
i felt the emotions of the poem...
i felt it is somethng which i wana say sometime, not all..but offcourse ..somethng..
Isha i wud like to tell u.. i always look up to u for the wonderful post...
n u always prove me right...
it really touched me.. n gvn me a smile...
keep writing ...
tk cr..
Pallav
one good read...
absolutely chaotic .. but still in a weird way makes sense....
cheers.
@ Seher - Awwwww......I love our mutual admiration society. He he :)
Mwahh
@ Rajeev - Thank God!! There are others who feel the same way!! :)
Thenkew!! :)
Oh yo!! Variety thy name is Isha. :D
Awwww...that's the sweetest thing to say. I'm all smiles now. :)
Cheers
@ Pallav - Heyy!! Thanks a tonne Pallav. And do I even need to tell you that your comments always have me smiling? :)
Take care.
P.S. Good to see your pic. :P :)
@ Muthu - Hai na!! That was the state of my mind when I wrote it!! ;)
Thanks :)
I don't know what to say. Really. this is undoubtedly a Master piece. Truly exceptional. Words make way for the feelings behind.
Great one there!
chaotic silences...
lovely. vivid. thought provoking.
excellent job isha!:)
BRILLIANT ..much more than a super-comeback:)
I don't know why, but I liked this one the most :
Did you hear a glass before it breaks
@ Netika - Thanks a tonne for that mood-lifting comment. :)
Cheers
@ Divsi - Thank you so much Divsi.
Cheers
@ Brown Phantom - Heyy!! Coming from someone as talented as you, it means a lot. :)
Cheers
You know I could actually feel that post. It was just incredible.
I like this. It made me stop and think :)
baap re isha..
i m taken aback..
gr8 use of words..
u are an awesome writer
I do respond to comments....by dropping on blogs of commentors and commenting on their ramblings
Well that was very enigmatic and spelled a lot of fears, nightmares and dreams too...
I am speechless and consider this as one of the finest writing i came across recently.
@ AJai - I'm glad that you could. :)
Thank you so much. :)
Welcome to C'est La Vie. Hoping to see you around.
Cheers
@ Ki - Thanks girl!! :)
Cheers
@ Amrita - Awwwww!!! You're such a sweetheart!!
Thenkewww!! :)
Cheers
@ Pesto Sauce - That's not "replying"; that's making new comments. ;) :P
@ Numerunity - With that comment, you just made my day. :)
I'm honoured. Really.
Cheers
Ok, I've read ur comments on many of my most favorite blogs for a long time now, and it was so nice to read some of ur posts today. I specially found this post and the previous one brilliant.
Hope to read more from u ;)
@ Saurabh - Oh!! You have good taste then. ;) lol
Thank you so much!! And welcome to C'est La Vie. :)
And count on me to haunt your blog soon. :P
Cheers
Aise post tum bahut kam likhti ho aur shayad isiliye main aashcharya chakit ho gaya hoon ( Rajeev R's Tone :P)
It happens with me too.
i take the pen and wish to write something. I feel i have lot of things that i want to take out to pen it down but right then i feel short of words or say i fail to express them in words.
I think it happens with most of them.Isn't?
I simply loved the post Isha Ji :)
The girl, The woman, The old man, The father, The soldier, The farmer…and their silence.. Was there something else left..? No! i dont think so.
More than you post what i liked most about this post is the way you have put whole life and its funda in a not so big post as in parts ( as i do :P)
Last time, when i read it. i left it after reading the first paragraph cuz i knew that to read something like this i needed peace of mind with me. Just reading was not i wanted to do. Today i grabbed the oppurtunity to read it completely( i think i did it twice to get the reality digested well in my mind) and commenting right away.
Sometimes people stay silent, without uttering a word to me, without complaning to me, without showing concerns to me, there i feel like i am killed without words just becuase of their silence.
i know it hurts and they know it very well that its the best way to keep things better that way.
Thats why people just stay silent, keeping thier feelings unsaid to enjoy it or say to feel it completely.
One of the master pieces in your blog it is..
Keep writing :)
Cheers
Mahesh
Hey..that was a little long , but nevertheless nicely written!
sometimes i hear silence.. i could hear this one from you
the only post in a day to which I can hold on and read again and again.It would have been really un fair if I had just proceeded further and not write what exactly i felt for the post.it has got some wonderful meanings.it talks about ur imagination,girl!
awesome piece and a nice blog :)
@ Gymnast - Thanks!! It's always a pleasure to read your comments. :)
Cheers
@ Chriz - I'm not sure what to say!!
@ Tasneem - Comments such as yours really make a person WANT to write. For the pur joy of making someone else know and understand what you mean to convey.
Thanks. I appreciate the time taken out by you to comment.
Hope to see more of you here. :)
Cheers
In a strange way, your uncanny sense of description and detailing reminds me of one of my favourite authors- Marquez. I can't think of greater praise for this post, believe me.
What talent!!
hugs
p.s. it is also strange that one of my recent posts resembles the latter half of yours so much.. not the ideation bit of course but the execution.
great work, undoubtedly!!
oye...mere comment ke liye koi reply nahi.? zaldi reply karo...
and yeah..as the list of comments go one increaing, the left part of the comment goes vanishing..if u notice, one cannot see the commentors name...
iska kuch karo..
cheers
wow..i dont think nethin i say can do justice to the masterpiece i have just read..just too good!
when u r not sure what to say, it means it is time for a new post
@ Mahesh - Hawwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!! I ahve no clue as to how I missed replying on your super awesome (not to mention super long;)) comment!! Apologies!!
I know. I generally try to avoid making my blog an extension of my current mood. But then there are somethings you just gotta do.
This post is definitely one of the closest to my heart. I think there is an old man, a girl, a woman, a soldier, a farmer in each one of us.
Yes, you are right. In a way, this post does combine a vast majority of things I've always wanted to write about but never had the courage to do so.
Sometimes, silence does say it all. And coming from me, it almost sounds ludicurous, but still. ;)
Thank you for taking time out especially to read this one. And sorry once again!!
Cheers
@ Mahesh - Really??? I don't see any such thing happening!! AND I have no clue what to do about it!!
And hey, I remember you once said that the template takes a lot of time to load. Is it still so?
Lemme know. :)
Cheers
@ Mystish - WHOAAAAA!!!! I mean really - WHOAAAA!!!! That's what I call a compliment. Lol.
Will soon be at your place to check it out.
Welcome to C'est La Vie. Stick around. :)
Cheers
@ Shanu - Thanks sweets. :)
Cheers
@ Arshiya - Thank you so much. :)
Cheers
@ Chriz - Hmmm. Great point. Let me just get over with these darn exams. Have two of 'em tomorrow. :(
Yeah....to see the comments clearly, i click on comment section.. only then i see them clearly.
Please check with someone else also... donno may be its bcuz of IE which i use..
I dont see that problem of late loading any more :) so chill :)
Cheers
Hi Il liked your blog
kisses
mari - Brazil
@ Mari - Thanks!!
such a loooong post and i read each and every word eagerly!! awesome post swts. *respects* uve grown into a serious writer!! cud visualize a documentary in it. beautiful and sensible. take a copyright for it!
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Isha
Happy birthday to you
:)
oye! kahan ho?
brilliantly brilliantly done gurl..
kudos to the way u express everything..
truly a masterpiece.
Good day!!
I just realized that though I had read this a long while back, I was too speechless at the time to leave a comment.
I still can't find the right words to express how creative and beautiful this is.
Do a favor for your fans. Write more. :)
u write such long posts..
but wen i read they dont seem so long.
this one was too gud.
hey i went thru ur first 32 posts..they are lengthy but wen u start reading its different.its engrossing.
there are things u read and u like them more wen u connect to them. I am happy i cud.
i will continue to read more which belong to 2007 and 2008. I m not much into commenting on blogs.
Thanx to Chinmayee and u know why!
@ Sawan - Yeah, brevity is definitely not my forte. And awwwww....thank you sho much for the respect. ;)
You thought it made sense?? YAY!! :)
Cheers
@ Shanu - Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!
THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH !!!!!!
:) :) :) :)
@ Seher - Mujhe laga main aapke dil mein hoon....par....koi nahi...ye sitam bhi jhel lenge hum...
okay okay, sorry for that. :D Just too uninspired to write anything. :(
Pray that I get the love of living back. :)
@ Swati - Thankyou so much. :)
Welcome to C'est La Vie. Hope to see you around.
Cheers
@ Arslan - Posts without the comments of those who read them are never complete. So you do me a favour and keep commenting. :P
And thank you for the beautiful compliment. :)
Cheers
@ Vikas - What??? You read 32 posts??? Gosh!! Thank you ??? :D
Yeah yeah as mentioned earlier, brevity and I just don't seem to get along very well. ;)
It's alright if you don't comment on every post but do keep leaving your footprints at times. :)
I do? ;) he he
Welcome to C'est La Vie. Hoping to see you around.
Cheers
no words to explain but all i did after reading this post was that i went and started following your blog. Best read so far today!!
@ Sonali - Is post ka naam logon ne zyada seriously le lia hai. Almost everyone has no words for it. ;)
Thanks for the follow. :)
Cheers
Sound of silence... that's the expression on my face... with a glow...
@ NJ - And I'm delighted to know that. Thanks!!
Thanks for the visit!
Cheers
Post a Comment
Bolo bolo....jee khol ke bolo :D