(Note: This short story got me more rejection slips than all my other writing combined. One editor wrote me a personal note that he loved it but couldn’t understand how it could fit into his magazine’s fiction section. It also got me two job offers from national magazines. Years later, it was read by a psychotherapist, who asked me if it was really fiction. He asked permission to use it in a psychotherapy seminar at the University of Chicago.)
Today is my twenty-fifth birthday. Being the silver jubilee of my existence on earth, I guess it ought to be a particularly significant day for me. But I feel that I’ve already lived twenty-five years too long.
I’m having a massive attack of depression, which in itself is not unusual, only this one is the most severe, ever. Have you ever experienced one? If not, you have no idea how fortunate you are. Believe me, it’s terrible. I don’t know about depression in others, but I suppose each one has his or her own experiences. And if they’re anything like the ones I get, you have my deepest sympathy. Felicity of language could never explain adequately, the intense misery.
It’s like you’re going down a narrow mine shaft and that feeling of sinking is worse because you’re descending into total darkness. You are drowning slowly but dare not cry for help because others might hear you and laugh at you in your predicament. You are suffocating but dare not shout out for it will only invite ridicule. Huge hands knead your heart as if it were of Plasticine. Two gigantic plates start to crush your skull but at the last moment ease off the pressure. Starting again and suddenly stopping. Crush, relax, crush, relax. All above you people are rushing past oblivious to the peril you are in. You try to choke a cry, fail and start sobbing uncontrollably. You hate yourself for the show of weakness but are unable to do anything about it. You are creeping towards that line that divides sanity from insanity and are terrifyingly aware of it.
Life can be miserable, and boring too when it’s in a shambles. It’s especially worse when you’re one of those types that is unwilling to fight your way out of the rut because you like wallowing in self-pity. You think sensitivity is a good thing, that it’s essential for creativity. And martyrdom too. And since in this case sensitivity is being kicked in the teeth you allow it to happen again and again. You force yourself to be aware of the feelings of others and not of your own; which is being thin-skinned in a cock-eyed way. And if you are the romantic or emotional type and women play an important role in your life, you get kicked ever so often. This is not to suggest that women are poison but the very nature of man-woman relationships makes the chances of having an ideal partnership as remote as winning the jackpot or writing a bestseller.
Occasionally you do get the chance to kick back but those you kick do not deserve it and those who deserve it, kick you first. I think of the woman who still obsesses me and it hurts to think that she now probably considers me just an episode in her past. That is if she even remembers me. I remember the woman who loves me, ‘a hundred million, billion times and if there’s anything more than that, I love you that too,” and I’m sorry that I cannot reciprocate. It’s really one large, vicious and unhappy circle.
I’ve been kicked a number of times recently; good and proper. Each time I’ve taken a sanctimonious and martyred attitude and come back for more. I got my last dose only yesterday. The emotional hangover I’ve got explains this depression I’m having on this twenty-fifth birthday of mine.
I know how to spite her, how to make her suffer! I’ll commit suicide. When she hears about it she’ll be filled with remorse. So will anybody who has ever done me a wrong turn. But then I realise that I will only be cutting off my nose to spite my face. And when she hears about it her reaction will be typical, “poor sod”, or more likely, “stupid sod.” So I try to take my mind off such morbid thoughts by thinking about something else. Anything else.
I look at the papers and see that the witch hunt is gathering momentum. I hope that Mrs Gandhi gets what she deserves for all the unhealthy precedents she has created. I read about the present leaders, who claim that they have no personal scores to settle, but aren’t doing a good job of masking their thirst for revenge. I read about the antics of some of our ministers and wonder if they constitute a central cabinet or national circus. My mind wanders to their policy of prohibition and think, “What nerve! who are they to impose their whims on others?” I wonder how many paying lip service to this cause, will actually practise it in private. I’m willing to bet that liquor will not be any more difficult to obtain. I think of their desire to impose Hindi throughout the country and I remember my experiences in railway stations in Patna, Varanasi and Allahabad. In those bastions of Hindi, I with my limited knowledge of the language have had to patiently read the timetables to those who spoke the vernacular fluently. There are statistics, fudged I’m sure, that show Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India and I wonder what percentage are literate in it.
I am touring Rajasthan and today I’m in Udaipur. Beautiful Udaipur!
The Rajputs seem to have had a glorious past but I cannot help feeling that a good portion of their history is sheer legend. Public spirit must have something to sustain it, even if only tales of valour.
I notice that there are fewer beggars to be seen in this state than in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
What interests me are the Rajasthani women, with their shapely figures. I feel that if the peasant women were only more feminine, they would have been a very comely lot. Their blouses are so short that they cover only half their breasts and when they carry anything on their heads, which is often, the blouses ride up to their necks. I am amused to note that in spite of this, their faces remain covered all the time.
Thinking of women, my mind comes back to the woman I love who does not love me anymore; to the woman who is the cause of this king-size depression that I’m having on this twenty-fifth birthday of mine. I sit and brood, longing for her. Suddenly I get a brain wave. I know, or at least I think I know, how I can forget her.
And I stuff some money into my pocket as I make my way in search of a brothel.
COMMENTS
Good story ^^but I had to read it twice to understand..
Wow Laos 