#Scurf156: In between places
Ways of describing one's (meta)physical presence
In transit. Always in transit.
Inside the puddle of crumbs left after a dragging day job.
Next to a pool of self-pity, and a lamenting night time lamp.
In the sweet spot of oblivion of all forms of life that existed before this time came in.
At the gates of life and time from where the mood can shift to anywhere but I so badly want the needle to veer in that one particular direction.
Amidst cocktails of loving and being and living. Learning with them.
In your arms, always surrounded by your books, your reading, your life.
Basking in the scent of your being. Smelling of you. Moving in your house in your absence wearing your large slippers that slip so casually off my size 4.5 feet.
Oscillating between a ravenous desire to go back to all that’s known, familiar, however treacherous, and a need to be with you however many miles I’d have to travel to do that again.
In a known familiarity which will soon be ripped away.
A shelter from all else of living, breathing, being.
A pause, a comma, a permanence — can this be us forever?
Thinking of our first house together, a similarly scattered way of living where we’d only ever spend 7-8 hours together.
The distance welding itself into my being. The packing so mountainous, heaving upon me like a mournful little tear that sits at the end of the eye always threatening to drop out but never actually slips away.
Me living with all the writing I didn’t do, all the thinking I did, all the porosity I hamesha lagatar struggle with.
Where are we, anyway? Why this way?
Some thingamajigs I’ve submitted myself to these days:
Sid Sriram’s had me obsessing over his voice for ages now and his latest Dear Sahana is such a pure, melancholic yet playful track, I turn to it each time I feel a tinge of dejection and joy.
Couples arguing, fighting, crying, making out, being physically frisky (just not romancing) in public places is my pet peeve to watch in person and also on TV. Mudhal Nee Mudivum Nee with Sid’s powerfully gorgeous and moving singing always draws me in for that reason and for all its vast spectrum of romantic emotions.
Blur’s Sing had me teary eyed more than a couple of times over this weekend.
Posh and Beck’s story is one of the saddest. Even though the Beckham docu-series is titled after the player himself, the series is more of a deep dive into their love, their story and how it all collapsed so expensively and gorgeously in the face of his otherwise above-average football career.
I saw a new city last week. A place and culture I had only ever seen and heard of in books, novels and songs. A place that was the least ravaged after the world war and yet it wears its sorrows so gorgeously. I am a notoriously bad and moody photo-maker and also off Instagram (maybe for good, who knows?!) so this is possibly the only place I’ll share some snatches from the city (for the time being at least). This time I opted for my iPhone 7 over the latest Canon and iPhone — both of which were a tad too garish, too metallic, too unearthly, too polished. A melancholic city, so powerful, so dignified in its stature even after all these years, I nearly fell asleep on its roadsides on my first night out in its lap. I did discover some gems, wedged and hidden away from plain sight, while the majority of things I went to and did were as mainstream as they can get. Close to midnight, I remember chilling by the riverside and talking with seemingly asleep swans. The metaphysics of this city, its psychic typography, its generous cadences — I wish to write some more on it. Some of you might by these photos come to know which place this is, while others could dream of a place you think it resembles and maybe call it by that name (or not). I have never cried so much with wonder as a tourist. Maybe in London, doing all those culture and Sherlock and Benedict fan things back then I’d have gleefully wept some tears of joy cooped up at the Barbican’s theatre, but this time it was an overpowering sense of attachment. How can catching the first sight of a city, seeing its architecture, mere buildings, trams, cobblestoned streets, its river, its bridges, insanely old, vintage cars ripping through, draw out wells of tears in an otherwise nihilist buffoon like me! I sifted through pictures to find answers to these questions, while making my peace with some more tears…
