Comfortable Realities

The Journey

Two wheels, revolving rather fast on a congested road and manoeuvring between any space they can fit in, let me cut through the dead traffic. Vexed beings inside cars around me, moving forward at a snail’s pace and honking sporadically, have an urge to skip the depressing now and enter the hopeful future at once. If the traffic were observed from the top of a precipice, it’d look like an organised bookshelf. Surprisingly the very, unruly crowd have got perfectly arranged, first, hedonic events, second, experiences, and, third, expectations to be at peace and practise confusing self-love in their heads. On the other hand, far from the status quo, I – who is ignorant of his psychopathic tendency – am inanely drawn to chaos. 

To my mind, chaos is an escape from the distressing reality that favours herd mentality. Besides that, it strictly denies the existence of any meaningful realities since chaos is an unpredictable and patternless system wherein absolute non-deterministic reality becomes incomprehensible. To a conscious being, a meaning is nothing but a comfortable reality that balances two extremes on humans’ moral scales such as order and disorder. Somewhere, not so far, chaos is about to spread its legs apart to birth havoc. Nevertheless, it helps me reckon my sanity amidst complex messes. Thus, a mere whiff of it turns me into a rat that is about to nibble a morsel of bread placed inside a trap. The aforesaid animalistic behaviour would be apprehensible if your damn cerebrum were connected only to your pleasure-seeking olfactory bulb.

The rotating wheels lose the traffic behind by a couple of hundred metres. The scooter seat isn’t comfortable at all; my hairy rear and slouched shoulders hurt. But a good thing is that, now, I come across fewer headlights. High-pitched honks and running engine sounds seem to be propagating towards oblivion - Doppler Effect. Decelerating the scooter before a point where the road gets divided into two - a fork in the road - it reminds me of a poem by Robert Frost, I direct two wheels to the road less preferred to. No street lights - but it’s not a hostile place, for “unscathed freedom shan’t scathe” is what the strange road and surroundings ingrain in people’s minds as soon as they enter its aura. Non-existent prejudices and no unsolicited interferences are two great tenets of an accepting, progressive society. Each being, in the neck of the woods, seems to be minding their own business; they know their boundaries, or they just don’t care about anything except their lives. Pondering all that, my perception chained to reality drags me back to the lightless road.

Gelid winds pierce my brown overcoat, as I continue accelerating the scooter along the road that has got countless curves, chasing visible light waves spewed out by the tail light of a car ahead. Some breaths later, the engine driving two wheels is shut off somewhere in a parking lot; the objective to enter chaos has been brought off. 

The Place 

Numerous parked vehicles enshrouding in dust have been waiting for the winter’s mist to envelop them entirely. Some two-wheelers have got really thick rear tyres and premium exhausts. I wonder how much they’ve cost the owners. I then escape the disorderly piece of the earth occupied by still objects having one, two, three, or four wheels.

It’s frigid, and the cold wind almost pinches my nose from the inside - damn, it hurts - my shivering fingers come to rescue the blushed nose. I briskly walk down a paving road to explore, exhaling condensed air intermittently. The dusk is devouring unconscious photons; dying photons collapse just before darkness standing tall. However, with bittersweet nostalgia, I notice that the once-silent dawn, now, has been transformed to night’s blinding lights - my weak eyes hurt. Uninhibited energy packets manifested in the form of homo sapiens around me in a confined space are interfering with one another’s energy waves, and hence a system of patternless reality is formed.

Unpredictable events, I spontaneously want to become part of, are like a syringe filled with morphine. As the plunger is pressed and it reaches 0 ml, the euphoria gradually enters my bloodstream and helps me asphyxiate a thousand traumas.

Pandemonium, a convoluted reality, somehow persuades me to break the chains that are shackled to two heavy, iron balls - past and future. In a chaotic system, cause and effect go haywire, and one has to deal with disorder to hold onto one’s sanity. A glimpse of a person smoking a cigarette outside a moonshine shop in the foggy, winter midnight sweeps away my mountainous anxiety. It's bizarre to see how such a place can exist in the middle of the city. Unsurprisingly, it's a hub of nighthawks. I, oblivious of my existence, walk through the crowd, soaking in the moments of epiphany. Passing by a cheap tattoo shop, I divide a cloud of smoke leaving the small into two estranged persons - father and son. The smell of burning cannabis diffuses in the air - disoriented moths feed on rotting pomegranate seeds and later commit suicide. Inside the shop, the vibrating sound of a tattoo machine and a bulb buzzing without any pauses are two oldies whispering about deep cleavage tops and revealed midriffs.

Vibrations, ah! - they remind me of the universe comprising infinite vibrations that will, one day, certainly be swallowed by black holes. Conscious beings spread over different regions of the infamous night-life place are grooving to pop music and singing along, just letting the musical waves vibrate particles inside their bodies. Witnessing such uncommon events tells me that there’s still so much to experience in life. Bags of energy in the confined system (where the night overdoses on cocaine) gravitate to or repel each other, and hence this place is prone to mistakes. Nevertheless, a mistake in a process is a progress that can further be utilised in refining it.

Some bizarre clothes dangling from horizontal rods outside shops are eating dust, and copied designer clothes shops are occupied by teenagers along with their “soul-mates”. Continuing my tour, I go along a salon; it reeks of bleach and other chemicals. A curious peek through the transparent window takes me inside the salon - I see a paper-thin man cutting a woman’s hair. His nose has definitely been pierced, and he’s wearing skinny leather pants - I dally with the idea of what his father thinks about his appearance - does the hair stylist bring disgrace on his family too? Nooks and crannies are overrun by alcoholics, smokers, and druggies. Small eating stalls sell teas, boiled eggs and whatnot at low prices. So many faces around me put on vivid colours, communicating with strangers and killing time.

The Event

All of a sudden, a pervasive sound of boisterous footsteps overwhelms the juvenile surroundings; conscious beings are screaming their heads off and stampeding away. The hullabaloo evokes several pictures of a dysfunctional family where disruptions are frequent - a pathological father, a docile mother, and their malfunctioning progeny who aren’t aware of their abnormal behaviours, except everyone else in their lives.

The first thought springs to mind - “What the fuck is going on?”

I stay put and wait for the crowd to get dispersed to see the origin that has amplified the chaos. A few breaths later, the crowd (dust) settles down in a circle around a point like spectators in abject awe at the brim of the wall of death. In the centre, two men in their early thirties are engaged in a tussle. One of them, the threatening one, holding a knife, shoves the other one to the ground. Blood rushes to my head as the gravity of the event hits me. “Fuck! It’s scary.” I feel like I should do something. My imagination has already intervened in the collision of two opposing energies so as to save both from falling into oblivion. But in actuality, I can’t move a step, and like a meek goat, I miserably watch the man almost swallowed into the earth by that manhandling. The attacker strides up to him and grabs him by collar. The victim appears to have been stabbed already in the abdomen; his eggshell white shirt is getting redder and redder. Except the top one, the buttons of his shirt are ripped off. The attacker unfastens his belt and ties it around the wounded man’s neck - he strangles the wimpy man and smacks the back of his head. Then, pulling the belt, he drags the injured man and creates a new center. The victim struggles in order not to be asphyxiated; he panting in shock tries to regain his senses but receives heavy punches that further leads him to a state of disorientation. Thereafter, the shiny knife in the attacker’s hand punctures the almost unconscious man repeatedly.

“No!” Stricken with sudden fear and helplessness, my deceptive perception slows down now (time). The sufferer feebly attempting to push the assaulter away receives some more brutal blows to his head; his body gets numb. Some people out of sympathy come forward to stop the gruesome crime, but the assaulter scares them off with his bloody knife. 

I conjecture how the assaulter might’ve planned this grotesque encounter in his head infinite times. What has got into his mind - nihilism? He, without any hesitation, penetrates the lungs, stomach, heart, liver of the breathing person. He looks frightening not because he’s angry but because he’s terribly calm whilst killing that man. Although the punctured man, whom I presume to be dead by now, isn’t moving, the assaulter still keeps on stabbing him endlessly. Twenty-three new holes (along with the nine gates in a human body) have been made in his body. Thick, red blood leaking from the holes stains the pristine earth. When satisfied, the murderer releases the punctured man from his grip. Rising, he unclenches the knife that later takes a resting position beside the man - the dead man. The assaulter, now a murderer, nonchalantly sweeps his finger over his forehead to collect sweat and rub it against his pants.

Chaos shocks me to the core – one unpredictable wave disturbs other stable, smooth waves. The ripple effect, because of the dependency of waves upon one another, further disturbs the event that created the first wave thereby increasing the complexity of the original event. A few minutes ago, eyes were free of prejudices; now, racing hearts are filled with fear and anger.

Creation of a Wave

A few days prior to the recently-happened cold-blooded murder in the place, where unscathed freedom shan’t scathe, something horrific happened - creation of a wave.

At a decent-looking home, a 31 year old junkie was forcing his father to give him some money to repair his motorcycle. It was broken down due to poor maintenance and sheer negligence; the junkie had spent the money to maintain it on getting high.

“I don’t have money. Go on foot!” says the father who was fed up to the back teeth with everyday’s drama of his only son. If the father had given him any money, the son would’ve wasted it on getting intoxicated. At that moment, the old man had an urge to slap his son but he wasn’t prepared for the mess it’d create. The old man’s eyes were glued back to the column in a newspaper he’d been reading earlier. He wished his son had been dead.

“Don’t you want me to get a job? I have an interview today, and I have to have my resume printed. Tell me how I will get there, huh?”

The father knew that his son was a pathological liar. The old man in an irking tone of voice responds, “Go by bus.” 

“All right! Give me bus fare then.”

The father extended a 50 rupee note to his son and continued reading the newspaper. Gnashing his teeth, the junkie stared at his old, rigid father; the rage was building up inside him. Once his anger met saturation, the mad son ripped the note right away and snatched the newspaper just to crumple it into a ball. The father remained seated and picked the cup of tea kept on a table for some time now. The son had already lost it; he gave a dead stare to his father and punched him on the face. The old man got giddy for a few seconds. His lower lip got a cut that bled a little.

The son with indifference walked away; his childish mindset wanted to hurt them for hurting him by ruining his routine of getting high. Whilst leaving home, he cursed his father and broke some flower pots. The mother watched her son’s actions through a net door; she was extremely scared and had an intuition that something bad would happen to her son. Whereas, the father was familiar with his child’s behaviour; he cursed his wife for giving birth to an animal in order to express his vexation - pass down a fit of anger.

The son, now, somewhere, inside a building under construction, smoking beedi, called some of his junkie friends to get some smack, but none responded positively. His body was aching for a whiff of the potent drug. He went outside the building and saw a lady trudging on a pavement. The woman looked helpless; he contemplated snatching a purse as she was an easy prey. He looked around and got closer to her. He snatched the purse vigorously; it jostled the woman, but she didn’t let go of her purse. The son kicked on her stomach; the poor lady released her purse and screamed in pain. The son holding his award ran away as fast as he could. Soon, a commotion (dust) settled in a circle around the event like an audience around a girl balancing herself on a thin rope.

“Please save my baby!” These were her words before she got unconscious.

Whilst stealing the purse to get some money to buy a low-quality smack sold in the promised land where unscathed freedom shan’t scathe, the son had hurt the pregnant wife of a man who would risk it all to take revenge as both the unborn baby and the mother had been dead right away in that incident due to excessive bleeding.

The Ramification 

In the wee hours of the morning, a newspaper hawker pedals his Atlas Goldline bicycle with all his might. The uncomfortable bicycle seat squeaks as the shrunken buttocks exert pressure on it - the otherwise agitated dogs seem to be unaffected by the piercing sound breaking the silence about 5 am. The struggle to move two thin tires in the cold weather makes him squeal; his knees and shoulders aren’t as strong as they used to be. His body is deteriorating at a rate like never before, but the chronic pain doesn’t dissuade him from exploiting his frail muscles like an overly-used sugarcane-juice machine incessantly running without lubricants. Finally, he reaches the destination.

About 50 people, everyday, gather here to collect newspapers in order to earn some extra money besides their arduous jobs. Standing amongst expressionless faces, the old man lights a beedi stick and waits for his turn. The bulging eyes have seen everything in life - the pain of losing close ones and the madness of living without a meaning. No motivation to continue his life after an extremely long session of imbibing moonshine persuades him to overdose on alcohol and submerge in inexistence, but he chooses to go on since he’s restrained by the curse of life. He has to pay back money that he borrowed to do the last rituals of his son who’s died recently.

An unconcerned young man counts newspapers; the old man has asked to give him 200 newspapers. He with no regard throws a bundle at the feet of the old man. He picks the heavy bundle and coughs some sputum over the pile of  newspapers. The germs are later wiped off by his magical gamcha. With some assistance, he keeps the pile of newspapers on the bicycle’s carrier and gets ready to target newspapers at houses.

“Thud!”

“What’s that?”

“Newspaper, Ma!”

A young UPSC aspirant grabs a newspaper; mist has filled in extremely tiny holes in the newspaper thereby making it wet – that aspirant should learn something from that mist.

He comes across a column which says – City’s Paradise for Addicts Gets Painted with Blood. The report further elaborates:

The nights aren’t safe for people living in Binok. In the middle of the city, around nine at night, the place known for its nightlife witnesses a cold-blooded murder. According to the city police, a young man, named Akash Gupta, working at a tech firm, ruthlessly kills a man. The man is stabbed about 25 times with a knife. Akash claims that the man whom he murdered has killed his wife who was 7 months pregnant. On the other hand, the investigation report confirms the dead man, whose name is asked not to disclose, is innocent and the city police are in a search for the unknown man who killed the pregnant woman in broad daylight. 

The killer, who is unaware of killing a woman and her unborn baby, is probably strolling on the very road that ingrains “unscathed freedom shan’t scathe” in the minds of people who tread it. Whereas, the husband is now behind bars, not knowing the truth that he took the life of an innocent person.

***

The Philosophy

You feel satisfied when you find out that the person has taken revenge on his family’s killer, for you need human justifications but most importantly you feel comfortable in your comfortable realities. Inside a human brain, no such judge as conscience is; no human judges anything inside their cerebrums. Events linked with feelings are stored inside your brain in some complex neuronal branches. You are a brain filled with imagination, feelings, and events. Morality, good or bad, no, you are just wired to comfortable realities that don’t make you anxious.

Your emotions and you are two damn fools talking about left and right turns on ONE FUCKING SINGLE STRAIGHT ROAD. How words play with your mind - just like your parents, partners, friends, and surroundings - they manipulate you, don’t they? Things that aren’t you, manipulate you, so that things aren’t you can be manipulated – the universe wanted to experience itself, that’s why it created you. But the ability to experience puts a sugar cube on your tongue. It’s there when required and when not required, and hence it all turns into a painful experience some time afterwards. Thus, life becomes a chronic disease, and misery is its first symptom. 

For instance, the generational trauma is passed on from a narcissistic father to an under confident child who later in his life hides behind a rigid wall of ego, which he finds in fragile externalism, and hence continues the cycle. If the man who has taken revenge on his wife and unborn child had soaked in the moment, the disaster would’ve been mitigated. Therefore, people around us who soak in events without responding are black holes. Be grateful to those people who don’t propagate chaos further. Unaffected by energy and matter for insanely long, they become origins in chaos. 

Chaos with no free will and no black holes is an unending disaster; and this disaster ends only when a massive black hole, i.e., outside chaos, eats it.

***

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