It takes a little blue pill every time, to wake each of us
up. We stay on the other side, happy in our sleep, allowing ourselves to live
our life in the drowsiness of misery. Nothing
in this city surprises me anymore, the dust had long settled in the crevices of
my lungs. No health official with his lousy application and flashy chart of
referral medicines could do anything about it. Sometimes when I am out on
the roads choking carbon colloids and coughing my breath away- I don’t even get
to excuse myself and on those days perhaps the anthem that’s locked inside my
body oozes out through my mouth. The days go by in the arguments of lust-less
opera. The silent opera of one’s mind make funny hideous sounds, and sometimes
you meet people who in their own misery excuse themselves to be angry at the
world- angry at their situation and yet sitting idly like a tall tree without a
shadow to offer. I have often wondered that one day I would turn out like them,
and I have often been scared.
On merry sunlit mornings over thinking leads to depression, and then I would
look for ways to stay away- from people, situations, love and the likewise
disease of the human condition. On one such morning, tired of my condition I looked
for a solution. And this went on for quite some time before looking for a
solution itself started becoming a problem. The gentle thunder storms were all
over the city now, flashing electric signals over our head. On one such day,
when the skies were roaring in connubial laughter; I met him. He was like any
other man on the square, selling lozenges, to earn his daily bread. I felt his
presence like you feel a magnet. It was different- that’s all I can say. As I
approached him he started smiling tilting his head on one side and telling me –
I have got the perfect dose for you mister. 10 buck a piece. I trusted his words,
for I weren’t like those people who were locked in their own misery that they were afraid to check out on the world. I must hate this world a lot too- I must
hate people a lot too, perhaps that’s why I keep on mentioning them time and
over again. I must remain above this, I thought. Those days I didn’t have any
friends and people had an utmost dislike for me because I didn’t fit their
understanding- or perhaps I was too bad. Sometimes the simplest explanation
about ourselves offered us the most solace and yet if someone loved you they
wouldn’t believe that.
I am evil, I must
be evil.
The songs from the morning were locked in my head. Young lovers in tunic
dresses, that’s how the lyrics went on. The man took out ten blue capsules and
put them inside a paper envelope, and said, one for each night for the next ten
days, and you will find happiness. I smiled at him allowing myself to feel humoured
and amused both at the same time. The circumstances under which all of this
happened was rather a turbulent one- my insides were still choked in conflicts
and my outsides expressed that in whopping coughs, an ugly man the Pill Merchant
he called himself gave me ten blue pills, to wake up on the other side of
reality-
was it death?
It takes a little blue pill every time, to wake each of us up. We stay on the
other side, happy in our sleep, allowing ourselves to live our life in the
drowsiness of misery and then one fine day it all makes sense- this silent
suffering and we get better, better than the present and the past. I met a lot of funny people here and our
stories ran parallel, and most of us weren’t what we thought of ourselves- we
weren’t evil, our silent confirmations that we were sensitive and a bit ahead
of our time, was confirmed, that was the beauty of that world. We were safe. I
sometimes wonder if that world is a lie. But holding on conflicting opinions
within you makes you a paradox- it’s better than being a bigot perhaps. The world still doesn't get us at times I feel. I don’t
know what the Pill Merchant would think. He always smiles tilting his head.
The truth is I have been visiting a shrink lately, for all
normal folks it must be a sin I guess, but I am a doer, if I have a problem I
work on it, and when he heard that I write he asked me to write something for him.
I don’t know if he would like this story, not every day you get
to meet a pill
merchant, that too
an ugly one.
