to know

आषाढ़ माह के scorching summer days. The folds of the skin are covered in sweat. I’m in the dingy lavatory — minding my own business. I see. On my right side, the upright smoked cigarettes on the edge of the wash basin. A total of eleven — they haven’t been touched for ages. The eleven butts guard the white converging well well. Sitting on the English style toilet, the body suffering from exhaustion wants to sleep. Why don’t you just sleep redhya? The skin and bones droop; eyelids droop. The resting elbows crush the thighs’ skin, and after a point, it’ll hurt more than giving comfort.

I realise — my life is full of chores. With zero motivation, I do few and keep a lot in the sink in the kitchen — like a pile of unwashed steel bowls and plates that are often explored by cockroaches around midnight. These creepy crawling nocturnal things leave crevices to fill their empty stomachs. Solitude makes you notice unnoticeable and sometimes makes you do things you generally don’t do. Of late, why do cockroaches interest me? At 3 am, you find me killing them and saying sorry to their crushed, lifeless exoskeleton. Something’s wrong with me. I have to find a way out of this ugly mess.

Ganja. Yes. Only Ganja can save me now. I ponder.

Reality has too many distractions. I see too much; I enjoy this complex structure too much. Maybe, I want to know too much. “Too much” — these two words can’t be defined.

To know is enough.

Now I feel. To me — too much is a race; too much is reliance; too much is a cage.

A race is a race even if it’s only you and no one else. You, leading. Then you look back to see how far you’ve come. The old ignorant you is panting and barely moving.

What race are you in? Just to know and not too much. The eyelids gather some energy and the eyes gradually open. The mind fights to be conscious to know ब्रह्माण्ड — to know ब्रह्म.

लेकिन कभी-कभी ब्रह्म और भ्रम में ज्यादा अंतर नहीं मालूम पड़ता है।