Sunday, January 27, 2008

Hole in my Soul

Something’s not right with the world. I wake up feeling restless, mind struggling to reclaim a junkyard of experiences, heart gasping for breath like some fish out of water, searching….always searching, for something that’s missing.

For what Godammit? Searching for what? I keep asking myself. Why these long melodramatic dialogues to self? Everyone else seems happy enough going through the motions of life. What’s your problem?

My mom calls it ‘pseudo-intellectualism’! “You think too much. I've always told you to stop studying. You should have become an airhostess ” she advices. I look stunned. “You need a baby- It’s your biological clock acting up” someone adds helpfully. “You need to love God- I can’t believe your parents brought you up without any belief” diagnoses my homeopathic doctor. I go back to my musing.

I wiki ‘Meaning of Life’. The first few lines are reassuring. “For thousands of years, men and women of every age, race, and culture have sought to understand the meaning of life”. I see that everyone from Plato to ‘The Offspring’ have had an opinion on the subject. Mmm.. Wiki even gives space to my own personal view on the subject “Life has no meaning, but as humans we try to associate a meaning or purpose so we can justify our existence”. Wiki is helpful.. to the extent that information overload can possibly be. There are no answers. I feel breathless again.

J krishnamurthy… I suddenly remember that my dad used to sport a book on his teachings at one time. Those were the days I was convinced we had nothing in common except some DNA. I Google J Krishnamurthy. He says, “Man cannot come to [truth] through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection”. I read the lines again.

I’m telling you- He is a pseudo-intellectual. He will confuse you even more ” pronounces my mom smugly. “Just like your dad”. Thanks ma.

I wonder if my mom has any answers. She goes for Bhajan once a week, claims she miraculously finds solutions to her problems by opening random pages of religious books and watches Baba Ramdev contort his body parts on Astha channel.

I hear the faint notes of an electric guitar and a muffled voice growling (can’t call it singing) about disfunctionality and despair. It comes from my brother’s room. My mom shakes her head. She looks worried.

I am out of ideas. I am tired. I recall a few lines from an old Aerosmith song. “There's a Hole In My Soul, That's been killing me forever. It's a place where a garden never grows”.