Sweet nothing.

How long is it possible to enjoy doing nothing? Absolutely nothing. A few days? A few hours? A few minutes? In a world so meticulously designed to be constantly doing something, what does doing nothing mean?

When I live life, I try to do things, at all times. Everyone around me is always doing things too. Its a perpetual flux. We must never be idle. It’s a sin. An unforgivable sin.

One can ask — what is it us humans really seek out of this constant cycle of emotion depraved productivity? Some kind of self-realization? Emancipation? Happiness? I want you to know that I am not talking about the desire to become good at something here. What I’m interested in is the hyper-productive culture of attaining a kind of elevated state of mind, to get somewhere in life although most humans will agree happiness is fairly simple to achieve and highly ephemeral.

What about nothingness scares us then?

There seems to be a haunting delusion amongst our species, a giant self-importance, a cunning quality to go against the universe itself, to achieve many goals, to forget everything happiness encapsulates, to deliberately ignore the calm and serene side of life.

I found myself in India last year in October for 22 days. I had nothing to do, no plans, no itineraries, no goals. I was there then with a kind of depraved soul, wanting to experience nothingness, to know what it was like to wake up and do nothing and to be at peace with it. I wanted to pass beyond myself but struggled with it immensely. I was desperate to experience a personal salvation in the crevices of life that was somehow happening to me in the streets of my country. I was craving a void – to forget the past, to experience life with the unknowingness of a desire for the future.

Here’s the thing about wanting nothing — it turns into wanting everything. The universe then puts you in touch with a mystery as deep as sea. The littlest thing becomes the greatest thing. Your desire for nothing turns into the most acute awareness of an unsolvable mystery that life is.

That’s the sweet spot.

The spot where you have no beginnings, no ending, just the mystery of the universe. The destination you have arrived at is now a point of departure for another destination. Nothingness lasts a few seconds. Its not that one can not not do something. But we are neurotic beings constantly fighting our own thoughts, constantly trying to get somewhere.

I did taste the sweet nothing during that trip to India. Nothing had been added to or subtracted from my life. I still stood in the midst of the vast ocean of life. But I did know something after that experience. The best medicine for my soul was to do nothing. Decay, growth, beauty, ugliness, darkness, light, chaos, order, purposefulness, purposelessness, melancholy, joyousness, truth, lies — everything makes up the world. I learnt that most of the accidents are unavoidable and life is a sea of mystery.

I had tasted how sweet the sweet nothing is after all. A bit too sweet perhaps.

The yearning for home, and the lies I tell myself.

I sit by the window and desperately try to be at home,

and to find an ambiguous intersection of two worlds somewhere.

The otherworldly and the smut.

Maybe its in the flight of birds or in the hurry of the pedestrians I see every day -

back and forth, back and forth.

Maybe its in the warm sepia sun that floods my couch,

or maybe in the books that stare at me insolently.

Maybe its in the dust that settles on the window sill -

so stubborn, so slow.

Or in the smoke that hovers above the buildings -

dark sooty swirls.

I am home.

This is it.

There is no homesickness.

There is no yearning.

Some lies are so brutally beautiful, so deeply fragile.

I should be in a toxic relationship with these lies, I tell myself.

I realize I already am.

I love them so much I want them to go away,

as far as possible. That’s it.

Then I can be at home.

——————————

ਮੈਂ ਬਾਰੀ ਕੋਲ ਬੈਠਦਾ ਹਾਂ ਅਤੇ ਘਰ ਪਹੁੰਚਣ ਦੀ ਨਾਕਾਮ ਜਿਹੀ ਕੋਸ਼ਿਸ਼ ਕਰਦਾ ਹਾਂ,

ਅਤੇ ਕਿਤੇ ਦੋ ਸੰਸਾਰਾਂ ਦਾ ਇੱਕ ਧੁੰਦਲਾ ਵਿਚਕਾਰਲਾ ਮੁਜੱਸਮਾ ਲੱਭਣ ਦੀ -

ਸਵਰਗ ਤੇ ਨਰਕ ਦੇ ਵਿਚਲੀ ਕੋਈ ਦੁਨੀਆ,

ਸ਼ਾਇਦ ਇਹ ਪੰਛੀਆਂ ਦੀ ਉਡਾਣ ਵਿੱਚ ਜਾਂ ਪੈਦਲ ਚੱਲਣ ਵਾਲਿਆਂ ਦੀ ਕਾਹਲੀ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੈ, ਜੋ ਮੈਂ ਹਰ ਰੋਜ਼ ਵੇਖਦਾ ਹਾਂ -

ਅੱਗੇ ਅਤੇ ਪਿੱਛੇ, ਅੱਗੇ ਅਤੇ ਪਿੱਛੇ, ਓਹੀ ਰਸਤਾ

ਹੋ ਸਕਦਾ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਇਹ ਨਿੱਘੇ ਸੂਰਜ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੈ ਜੋ ਮੇਰੇ ਸੋਫੇ ਦੇ ਕੱਪੜੇ ਨੂੰ ਸੁਨਹਿਰੀ ਰੰਗ ਦਿੰਦਾ ਹੈ,

ਜਾਂ ਸ਼ਾਇਦ ਉਹਨਾਂ ਕਿਤਾਬਾਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਜੋ ਮੈਨੂੰ ਬੇਪਰਵਾਹੀ ਨਾਲ ਘੂਰਦੀਆਂ ਨੇ।

ਸ਼ਾਇਦ ਇਹ ਧੂੜ ਦੇ ਕਣਾਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੈ ਜੋ ਖਿੜਕੀ ਦੇ ਸੀਲ 'ਤੇ ਟਿਕ ਜਾਂਦੇ ਨੇ -

ਬਹੁਤ ਜ਼ਿੱਦੀ, ਬਹੁਤ ਹੌਲੀ।

ਜਾਂ ਧੂੰਏਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਜੋ ਇਮਾਰਤਾਂ ਦੇ ਉੱਪਰ ਘੁੰਮਦਾ ਹੈ -

ਘੋਰ ਕਾਲੇ ਧੂੰਏਂ ਦੇ ਛੱਲੇ

ਮੈਂ ਘਰ ਹੀ ਹਾਂ।

ਕੋਈ ਯਾਦ ਨਹੀਂ ਹੈ।

ਕੋਈ ਤਾਂਘ ਨਹੀਂ ਹੈ।

ਕੁਝ ਝੂਠ ਬੜੇ ਬੇਰਹਿਮ ਤੇ ਸੋਹਣੇ ਹੁੰਦੇ ਹਨ, ਬੜੇ ਡੂੰਘੇ ਤੇ ਨਾਜ਼ੁਕ ਹੁੰਦੇ ਹਨ।

ਮੈਨੂੰ ਇਹਨਾਂ ਝੂਠਾਂ ਨਾਲ ਇੱਕ ਕੌੜੇ ਰਿਸ਼ਤੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੋਣਾ ਚਾਹੀਦਾ ਹੈ, ਮੈਂ ਆਪਣੇ ਆਪ ਨੂੰ ਕਹਿੰਦਾ ਹਾਂ

ਮੈਨੂੰ ਅਹਿਸਾਸ ਹੋਇਆ ਕਿ ਹਾਲਾਤ ਤਾਂ ਪਹਿਲਾਂ ਹੈ ਅਜਿਹੇ ਨੇ

ਮੈਂ ਇਹਨਾਂ ਝੂਠਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਬਹੁਤ ਪਿਆਰ ਕਰਦਾ ਹਾਂ,

ਮੈਂ ਚਾਹੁੰਦਾ ਹਾਂ ਕਿ ਉਹ ਬਹੁਤ ਦੂਰ ਚਲੇ ਜਾਣ,

ਜਿੰਨਾ ਸੰਭਵ ਹੋ ਸਕੇ।

ਬੱਸ ਇੰਨੀ ਕੁ ਗੱਲ ਹੈ

ਫਿਰ ਮੈਂ ਘਰ ਰਹਿ ਸਕਦਾ ਹਾਂ।

LOVE IS NOT DEAD.

“Love is dead”, he said.

“Love is a disease”, he said.

“Love does nothing for the world!”, he almost shouted.

I remember staring at the sunlight glistening on his dewy cheek while he kept saying all these things and wondering if he was really saying them or if I was imagining it all. I suddenly almost forced myself to think of my childhood, to somehow retrieve the exact feeling of being in my grandmother’s lap on a Sunday afternoon out in the verandah while pigeons surrounded her for a mix of seeds she fed them every day. I try to remember how it felt when her wrinkled wavering hands caressed my face.

I felt like everything I had lost in my entire life since my childhood had washed up in that very spot in front of him. I told myself, maybe if I just wait for a while and look into his eyes long enough; he would realize that love is not dead. He’d tear up, maybe smile. But it was all a fantasy. I had to let it be a fantasy. I never summoned the courage to let it become a reality.

I sit here now, looking into the horizon as the sun sets — and I imagine my grandmother as a tiny blurry figure out in the fields, feeding the pigeons, smiling, singing one of her melancholic poems in a soft shaky voice. And I imagine her looking into my eyes and saying, “Let no one tell you that love is dead. Let no one stop you from being a lover. Promise me you will keep love alive until your last breath. Promise me I will always have a home in your heart.”

And in a flash, I can’t see him anymore. He doesn’t exist.

But love does.