Cracks in the Dam

I stare at the blank pages. There is so much on my mind, yet it is so difficult to put them in black and white. My heart trapped inside my feelings… my head, rationalizing, in a vain effort to drive those bitter, scary thoughts away… conflicted, confused and yet, with all outward appearances of sanity and cheer… as if life has dealt me nothing but the best hand!

My pining increases exponentially for the things I most certainly will never be able to have… a family, someone to call my own, unconditional love and acceptance. And yet, I push away every opportunity of getting something even close to that. I am jealous of even the most unfortunate of people around me… because they have something that I can never, ever have. I realize that some people care for me and want to fill the void, but I am scared to let them. Sooner or later, I tell myself, they will drift away, and the void will rush forth to consume me once again… isn’t it better to just get used to it and mourn, than to forget it for a while and then remember it all over again?

I remind myself of a dam sometimes… when the rains are bountiful, they open the gates. Or else, the force of the walled up water will cause cracks in the walls, and soon the entire dam will come crashing down in a flood. I feel my defenses around my dammed emotions starting to crack. But I am afraid of opening the gates… will I ever be able to dam up again?

Appearances have to be maintained. The show must go on. And so I tell myself, emotions and feelings have no place here… Dam them up, and keep up the show. But then I hear whispers. Whispers that I have the best of everything. Whispers that nothing could beat owning a million. Whispers that it makes no difference that I have none to share it with. How I long to tell them that just doubles the pain. How I long to tell them that I would give all of my millions to just have someone to call my own, someone to come home to every day…

But what’s the point. Who will understand my pain anyway? Empty words, and heartfelt pity – that’s all that I will get… not enough, not nearly enough to cure my writhing heart. And so, I write. I don’t know why. Perhaps in the vain hope that someone, someday, will understand the pain hidden beneath these words… or maybe, just to open the gates and let the tears flow.

Writing About My Writer's Block

All right. I have officially developed “writer’s block”…

I have been working on this “come back” piece for ages now… thank god for e-age, or else several trees would have found themselves axed, martyred to the cause of completion of this epic piece!

Well, I have nothing to write about. No genius plots come to my mind these days, and rhyme and/or reason seem lost. I have even run out of steam with my ramblings! And yet, tonight I am determined – I will churn out something!

So here I am, writing about not being able to write any more… eggs and brickbats notwithstanding.

They say, (and I am not very sure who “they” are) pain is a writer’s elixir. Creativity is born out of pain. Of that, I have had a considerable amount in the last few months. I expected my pen to start over flowing, but nothing happened. I found myself even more clammed up than usual. A shrink would have a million explanations for that, I guess. I don’t want to face reality. I don’t want to acknowledge my losses. I am scared of the intensity of my emotions. Maybe. I really do not know whether any of that is correct. Or incorrect, for that matter. These days, I am not certain of anything.

Many well wishers have been advising me to get married. I am scared. And if they had been in my shoes, they would be scared too. If you cut your finger on a broken mirror once, you tend to handle all mirrors with more caution than usual, because you don’t want to cut yourself again. The same goes for your heart, doesn’t it? Nothing in my life works out the way I want it to. Who’s to say marriage will?

Of late, I am aware of a growing affection towards a person. And I am afraid of it. I do not know whether he feels the same way. I do not even know whether I want him to feel the same way. Neither do I know whether I want it to stop or go away. I am scared and confused. Not to mention emotionally drained and battered.

So much uncertainty and pain. In my life, my mind, my thoughts… the pain has reached an extent where it is now an integral part of me. A way of existence. I do not feel anything separately. In a way, I am numb. Perhaps that is why I cannot write. For creativity to be born out of your pain, you need to feel the pain. But I don’t. I can’t, anymore. I am numb.

There… now you know the reason for my writer’s block!

So now, maybe, we should concentrate on how to get over it. And here comes the funniest part. Pretty much wasted and jobless, I was typing out random senseless queries in the Google search engine, and “how to get over writer’s block” threw up “about 8,880,000 results” in only “0.17 seconds”! Wow!!! And I thought, well, I have the writer’s block, and if so many people around the world have written about writer’s block, why not add my name to the list?! So, what follows below are some of the funniest things I read among the 8 million results thrown up by Google… of course, I did not go through the 8 million results – more like 80, but there were more than enough funny ones among them to get me through this article!

Funniest, perhaps, is the fact that there exists a website that “unconditionally guarantees” to break your writer’s block forever, if you buy the package offered on the site! One afternoon of your life is all that the owner asks for, in addition to a considerable sum of money, to give you some extremely well-guarded secrets that will ensure that you “never fall victim” to writer’s block again in your life! Wow! What confidence!!! Beyond that, I reserve my comments…

On the Yahoo! Answers page, someone has asked about how to get over writer’s block on a particular story, and another user has replied, “Read, write”… Yes, that’s it. Verbatim. Just that. I was stunned by this excellent piece of advice!

There was another response on a similar query on Yahoo! Answers, and I wanted to kill this user for writing, “Turn the block into a sculpture because writers block is an illusion.”… GRRRRRR…

On yet another website, the author recommended gathering topics / plots from Twitter – “find out what people are talking about” and then write about it!! Oh goodness, what a divine cure for writer’s block!

One person recommended downloading OmmWriter – supposedly, my sickly blue background of MS Word is aggravating my case of writer’s block!

One person actually suggested writing about writer’s block to get over it!!! He also suggested having a peppermint candy… strangely enough! He reckons it stimulates the brain cells… of course, he didn’t quote his source for that information!!!

Well, the effect of these articles was quite good on my writer’s block. It must be evident to you too, because I did manage to churn this out, didn’t I?! Voila!!! Bye bye, writer’s block! It seems, in my case, outrage and sarcasm work better than mind-numbing pain to get those creative juices flowing!

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering, yes, of course I found some good articles too on battling writer’s block. But taking a leaf out of them, I will write another article on them, so as to officially put my writer’s block behind me!

So long then, fellas…

Omelets Crêpe (serves one)

After a long time, I made something new - i.e., made it up myself. I was pretty happy with the result, so here goes! Happy cooking!

Ingredients:

1. Butter (preferably unsalted) – 3 spoons
2. Mushrooms – 2 medium sized buttons, thinly sliced
3. Onions – ½ medium sized, finely chopped
4. Capsicum – ¼ large size, chopped
5. Cheese Spread – two spoons. Slices / Cubes can be used too.
6. Mayonnaise – two spoons
7. Chicken / Lamb Salami – 2 slices
8. Eggs – 2
9. Milk – 2 spoons
10. Salt, Ground Pepper and Oregano (ground / flakes) – to taste

Method:

1. Place a non-stick frying pan on a medium flame, and add ¼ spoon of butter into it.
2. When the butter heats up, place the salami slices on the pan and fry for one minute. Then flip the slices over and fry for another minute.
3. Remove the salami slices from heat, chop them up and keep the frying pan aside.
4. Now place a cooking pan on a medium flame, add two spoons of butter and heat.
5. When the butter heats up and begins to foam, add chopped mushrooms, onions & capsicum, in that order, and sauté till cooked. Take care to maintain at least a minute’s gap between adding the three ingredients.
6. Add the cheese, mayonnaise & chopped salami slices, sprinkle some ground pepper and oregano and mix well.
7. Remove the mixture from heat and keep aside.
8. Now add the eggs, milk, salt and ground pepper in a bowl, and whisk them together.
9. Place the non-stick frying pan again on a medium flame, and add ¾ spoon of butter into it.
10. Once the butter heats up and foams, add the egg mixture to the pan, and lower the flame. Make sure the egg mixture spreads evenly over the surface of the pan. You can either use a flat ladle to do that, or if you are experienced enough, simply tilt the frying pan so that the whole surface is covered.
11. When the mixture settles down, and the moistness of the top surface evaporates, add the pre-cooked filling in the middle of the omelette. If the cheese has hardened by now, heat the mixture in an oven for a short while before adding it, so that the cheese has a thick consistency.
12. Carefully fold the four sides of the omelette inwards, so as to cover the filling completely within the folds.
13. Remove the omelette from the frying pan, taking care not to break it.
14. Serve immediately, with tomato sauce if you like, else the cheese will harden.

The Devil’s Snare

Tuesday, 24th Jan. ’07

I have done it! I have finally broken the ice with Manish – just some inconsequential small talk, albeit with some flirtatious hints thrown in, but yes, we have started talking!!! Or rather, I have started talking to him.

I should perhaps fill in the details about the past few days before ploughing on with the day’s events. So, here goes.

Ever since I resolved to ensnare Manish, I have been returning his flirtatious signals with signals of my own – a gaze with a naughty stare, a slight smirk with a barely concealed femme fatale shy grin! But all of these, like him, well concealed from the public eye! Quite naturally, his shocked reactions to these are not quite concealed – and people are noticing! People other than my gal pals, I mean…

But it was only actions and no talk… and without smooth talking, how could I ever get closer?! So I stayed on the lookout, meaning to break the ice with a cool, witty conversation. But my over enthusiastic colleagues got… well, over enthusiastic. They staged quite a disaster for me the other day, trying to get the two of us talking. Some weird thing about him wanting chocolates and me coincidentally having some – honest to God, it was actually that lame. Thank goodness he was equally abashed and realized that both of us had been tricked, else it would’ve been really difficult to get my footing back as the deceptive flirt!

So, I stayed put on the lookout, and finally got the chance to have our little chit chat today. He was wearing a moss green polo neck sweater, and I noticed it. And the first time we crossed each other in the lobby, I asked him with a naughty smile, “Is it that cold in Kolkata?!”

I am sure he caught on to the double meaning of my words, and blushed – but he had no ready reply for me. That disappointed me a bit. I somehow thought he’d be a smooth talker, but well… unlucky me! Or may be my attack was unexpected. Either ways, we’ll have to wait and watch!

Things have started to look up anyway… at least the phase of “ensnaring” has begun.

I have another bright idea though – it’ll do me a world of good if I get to know more about the guy. And what better way to do that than to befriend some of his department people? I will have to be on a lookout for that too – may be I will get lucky and get to charm some other eligible bachelors as well!!!

Well, well, well… the Devil is indeed at work! Wish me luck with the Devil’s Snare!

Is This Love? Is This Life?

The ranting mood has returned. The bottled words and mottled feelings make their way onto the paper – to be heard and felt… not to be dismissed.

There is so much to talk about. There is so much to be resolved. But the words don’t come… somehow, the two worlds separate, and the language of one is unintelligible to the other.

Moods contrast… feelings clash…

There is so much anger… but when sleep steals over the anger-distorted features, somehow they become baby-like. And the baby craves to be held close… when the hug is withdrawn, the baby makes those teensy restless moves and coos, as if begging for the hug to come back… and it does, and the baby sleeps peacefully again. And then suddenly, the anger-monster wakes him up, and he is no longer a baby, and no longer wants to be held. Caresses enrage him, empathy disgusts him…

I get angry… I get upset… I get sad… I get despondent…

But then I remember the baby’s teensy restless moves, and the barely audible cooing that begged to be hugged… and a sudden ache fills my heart…

Such is love.

I remember the way strong hands hold me when I shiver and tremble, the way a cocoon shields me from the harsh sunrays and the cold monsoon sprays and the ashen winters… and I know what compassion is like…

A hope flares, filling me with a bright rainbow. The language of the two worlds is not different after all – it is but the same… the language of love… the paths of the two worlds have separated, but they will wind their way through until they criss-cross to meet once again…

Such is life.