The thought of writing....(day 1)

 For so many days, I was thinking of writing. I don’t know why—I was just thinking of writing, and why not? Why don’t I just take the courage and the mood to sit and write?

Well, I feel whenever I think of writing, it means I want to write about something I’m feeling invisibly—something not very practical, maybe. But to get over this weird feeling, this weird void inside my head, I just want to write. I want to understand it and fill the void with words.

But the reason I keep postponing it is that I know until I understand the mental chaos completely, I won’t be able to write a single sentence. And not being able to write while sitting with your pen and a white page, or your keyboard with a blank space, is the worst possible feeling for me. Because every time I feel confused or not well, I give myself a maybe false, but still a hope—that whenever I sit down and write about these things, I will feel better, and all this struggle will feel worth it.

Right now, I’m sitting in a blank room with just my phone in my hand and my laptop with the minimum possible battery, waiting for the light to come back. This chilling winter has made me unable to feel excited, or even energetic. I’m lethargic enough to only use my fingers and write the chaos that comes into my head.

I can hear the constant sound of children playing in front of this building. I can feel their energy through the shouting they make while playing. No, I don’t even feel like I want to be there or that I want to play. Because I have so much work that needs to be done—work that is more important than playing. Yes, this is the most common excuse I give myself. But the truth is, even if I want to play, I just can’t.

Anyway, I am playing—not physically, but mentally. I’m not complaining or saying this in a wrong mood. Yes, I’m playing with my thoughts. Thoughts that bring me into an analysis state. Thoughts that sometimes make me feel miserable and sometimes confident. Thoughts that are sometimes like my mentor and sometimes the reason for my lethargy.

These thoughts sometimes give me the courage to work, and sometimes push me into a lack-of-confidence state. Yes, I feel tired many times. Yes, I feel exhausted while contemplating so many things and then forcing myself back to my books. But this exhaustion feels like the kind you feel after playing all day—where the next day, you forget how immensely tired you were.

Apart from the children’s loud voices, I can also hear the sound of women talking. And I hate this sound. I can’t really tell you why, but I don’t feel okay whenever I hear gossip from anywhere. Maybe the reason is that they talk about things that never solve their problems, and maybe through these talks they try to fool themselves into believing that everything is at least going fine in their lives—while each of them knows it’s a lie.

It’s a little weird and calming at the same time when you find that there’s a lot of sound outside the walls and a lot of sound inside your head, but enough silence inside the room where you’re physically sitting. This kind of place gives you space to understand your body, your thoughts, and most importantly, your emotions.

These walls are very good listeners. If you want to talk, talk loudly and honestly—irrationally, even. They don’t care how good, bad, sensible, or senseless your words are. They don’t judge, they don’t advise, they don’t console. That’s what makes them such good listeners.

You can burst every emotion in front of them. You can cry—loud enough to damage their imaginary ears. You can shout, curse, share your bad stories and sad ones. They have no option other than listening. Whenever I watch a good web show, I make sure I tell them how good or bad it was, how handsome or beautiful the protagonists were, and that I don’t have a crush on any of them.

I’m sure these walls know my favourite characters and my favourite scenes from all the shows I’ve watched. They know me well now—well enough that when I cry in front of them, they don’t even tell me I look ugly.

The only thing these walls fail to do is filter certain sounds. When the man living next door comes home drunk and shouts loudly in front of his gate, my room isn’t far enough for the walls to block it. Nor can they block the sound of a small girl—I don’t know how she looks or how old she is—but I can’t ignore her voice when she screams in her childlike tone, “Papa, aap peeke kyun aate hain?”

Then come the screams and shouts of the woman and the man living there. No, I don’t really hate these voices. Because they show the raw reality we’ve normalized without knowing how or why. I’ve been trained to listen to such sounds since childhood—trained and experienced enough to hate going back to my village, where the walls can’t filter a single such sound. There were thousands of these moments.

These walls have taught me many things. I hope I’ll be able to write them someday. There is so much to talk about, so many stories.

Oh—the light came.

I need to go now. Bye.