Madness

What to do when you are sad? 

Define sad, she said.

I couldn’t. I knew for sure it was sadness that I was feeling.

Do you feel empty? She asked.

No, not empty, Maa. I feel full. It’s like my thoughts won’t rest even for a minute, they keep coming and coming. My head is filled with all kinds of ideas, wild and tame, with notions, dreams, hopes, and love and heartbreak scenes playing over and over a thousand different times. I’m scared I am going mad, Maa.

But how do you know its madness? She asked.

Because aren’t normal people quiet? Aren’t their minds at peace? My head has an argument with my heart every time it beats. I am not even close to normal. People say I don’t talk much. But that’s only because if I speak my mind out, I’m afraid my words will expose the rattling roar of madness that my mind holds.

I’m not sure where the boundaries of our morals end, where the horizon of our ground meets the sky. I can’t see the walls that limit our lands, the colour of our skins that makes us one different from another; I don’t understand religions and the trouble people go through because of them.  I don’t understand love, let alone war. Am I not mad?

If you were mad, I’d have loved you the same, she said.

But no, she said, no you are not mad. Your mind is a flowing river of thoughts and it’ll be a crime to hold it, to bind it.

Sure you don’t understand religion, you don’t understand war. But it doesn’t mean you’ll have to. We’re all ephemeral; into the dust we will one day mix. The only thing that will matter then is how fiercely you loved and how much more differently you used the same amount of time given to each of us. Because that is the only thing we are given, time. Everything else is temporary; nothing is truly ours but our time. The time we are living now is the greatest thing we could ask for. Maybe that is why it is called the present.

And all things chaotic doesn’t necessarily mean messy. There’s beauty in chaos, a kind of beauty only people with wildfires and obscene boldness inside them would understand. We are all messy, stupid, brave souls holding forest fires, comets and entire galaxies inside of us, but not everybody realises it.

So, if this called madness, then I’d rather that you be it.

YOUNG!

Some evenings are always so cool, so fresh. The earth gives off a damp coolness that just seems to make living worthwhile for me.

I’ve always loved the winds; I’ve always loved the rain. The entire idea of a rainstorm was always so, so beautiful. I remember the days would get hotter until one afternoon the sky would darken up, the winds would blow and there would be a magnificent shower and after that the sky would clear into a bright cheerful blue. The rain would wash the earth clean and there would suddenly be so much more freshness, so much more beauty and that left me wonderstruck as a kid when I was back home.

So anyway, I was going to write something about me being young, etc.

The other day a friend of a friend turned up with his car and we all ended up in Meghalaya with the late February wind in our hairs and not a care in the world. I don’t know why the fuck I even give a damn about the meaning of this life, since most of it passes by while I sit on my ass and day dream. So anyway, the speed-o-meter never read less than a 100, and I couldn’t help but be happy. Yes, we are young. 

We live for the moment.
We float around on adrenaline, we radiate youth. And we don’t give a fuck. I mean, most of the damn time.

There I go, day dreaming on my ass again.

Guwahati was the last place I thought I’d be. But hell, I think I like this place now. Home is where the heart is, they say; or in my case, where the friends are at least.

So! We are young. Yes. Youth flows in our blood.

We can’t help but be reckless, impulsive, intuitive, happy, and free and confused, falling in and out of love. We are all about breaking the stereotypes, of putting the ‘and’ in between what we are- happy ‘and’ reckless, carefree ‘and’ ambitious, polished nails ‘and’ a polished mind, young ‘and’ matured, good-looking ‘and’ intellectual. No ifs and no buts. Only ands.

And we must be this way, because no, youth is not wasted on the young. We feel it in our blood, running through our veins. The urge to live life at a go, to live life in a moment and to let that moment sweep us off our feet. We want to plunge ourselves into the unknown, to jump into a crowd chanting our names out loud, to have people applaud us, to acknowledge us.

But then again I am day dreaming.  

So, this thing with my friend’s friend and his car. He once more turned up with another guy who turned up the bass in the music system of his car to an extent when we thought our hearts would explode; both from the loud stupid music and his excellent driving skills which involved the speed-o-meter reading a 100 and using no safety measures whatsoever. It was like a fucking roller coaster. We were irresponsible, showing a middle finger to all the road safety norms. But hell, it was fun.

Oh, and the guy driving the car was 15.

Told you, this post is all about being young. A writer should take their writings seriously!