Saturday, April 4, 2015

Tethered

The dreams lead on, like a bunch of helium balloons raring to go. They soar and take my being away, make me a superhero who could fly and save the world. One instant, I am the Batman with the riches of Wayne enterprises at my disposal. The next flash makes me 007 – swift, slick and crafty. I am the Wizard and the Hulk, the Ironman and Thor all blended together and then the next instant I am a fat, middle aged man with receding prospects and tied to the pillars of matrimony and fatherhood. I am the dutiful son, a responsible parent and a providing husband and yet nowhere close to who I once thought I’d be.

In this perennial pursuit of making ends meet and serving the recurrent demands of what one hails as life, I chip and break and crumble one bit at a time. What is amazing is that one doesn’t feel how cruel the indifference can be until someone notices the difference in you and points to the grey in your hair and looks surprised as if you gained all your white hair overnight.

Sadly, there is no break in this cycle. Just an irregular, once in a while pause, where I tend to exhale, take a vacation, catch my breath and then pick up from where I left. This war inside a person’s head never ends. A part of you will always want to break away, cut all ties and just ride to the mountains, never to return. The truth remains, that those who even dare do this once in this lifetime, end up returning sooner than they had planned.

Every morning, your dreams fill you up with a venom called hope which replenishes on its own on a daily basis. This poison slowly paralyses you during the course of the day and eventually makes you die more than once every night. Thankfully, the dreams remain unaffected by the rigors your body takes. In your head, you will always be who you want to be. The alter ego keeps you protected and your secret remains safe, if you keep it confined within the walls of your heart that is.

Maybe one day, when I will be no longer moved by the notion of ‘finding a purpose in life’ and want to be just consumed by the intoxication of life’s mundane, aimless meandering I will probably summon enough courage to step up, abandon all hope and just take bull by the horns and in the process be either lost to the dust or rise up again and claim what is left of me.

Until that happens…I will float on bearing the weight that pulls me down and the fantasies which lead me on. The range of the flight is what the rope permits.


4 comments :

Anonymous said...

On a lighter note get a flexi rope... it might help a little

Himanshu Tandon said...

Dear Anonymous,

If there was a choice on the rope, I am sure everyone would opt for a light cotton thread, something you could snap out of, if you wanted.

:)

How do we know said...

But Hitchie.. u see, this "mundane-ness" is a blessing. This is the stuff that life is made of. These ARE the dreams we wanted. I was not ambitious that way. I just wanted a family to love, and children to bring up, a larder full of food, enough moneys in the bank and a house to live in.

When you see the lives of the rich and the famous, you realise that that life requires you to have an obligation towards strangers, to the point of estranging you from your own life. A public life is its own curse.

For a minute, just think about where you would be without the said parents, children and yes, also matrimony. Its like being Midas.. everything you touch turns to Gold, but we cant eat Gold.

sorry for the loooong comment.

The Cloudcutter said...

"In your head, you will always be who you want to be."

So true! But I can tell you from experience that if you pay enough attention to who you want to be, it can translate into who you end up becoming as well. I know the feeling... of being bogged down by the weight of expectations but often, it's just a battle between the person you think you ought to be and the one you want to be. If you let go, you will see that you were never really tied down at all. You can be around and still be yourself.

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