Termites: All about Nothing and Meaninglessness
Now I realize that I really forgot the last object in my everyday
life, that I cared. I touched with love, I cared or caressed. There was a time
when I wept when a refill is over. In the process of writing I used to fall in
love with the pen and the refill, and one day it gets over. One day she gave me
a painted piece of stone, I could not figure out what did it mean. But it is
still there at some corner of my unorganized house. I cannot throw it out. But I’m
not keeping it properly also. I used to be very possessive on things. I used to
cry in void if I missed a single sentence. A single piece of paper from my
notebook.
But now when I lost 500 plus 500 data from my two hard discs, that
were containing hundreds of my poems, I felt almost nothing. I felt nothing
when I lost my laptop that contained all my works. I felt absolutely nothing
when I lost her who knew everything of min, literally speaking my top to
bottom. When she scratched out all the pictures and scribbles she herself once
put on my wall, I felt actually nothing. When I could not find my most favorite jacket
that I bought from Nepal this winter, I felt nothing. When she put all her
stuffs, 4/6 feet divan, ac, heater, bookshelf, study-table, coffee maker to my
house and filled my every empty spaces, I felt nothing. And one day when she
sold out or gave away all the things to somebody else I felt nothing.
I don’t know what I am saying and why I am saying. But it is clear
that it is all about nothingness and meaningless. Rather also about
meaninglessness.
I’ve seen how my mother used to make a house, to make the walls. She was
digging the earth 5-7 feet to find the best soil and used to mix cow dung to
it. Then she smeared the composition upon a screen made up of bamboo sticks. I could
feel the textures as I could smell the smell of mud and cow dung. The feeling
of texture on wall taught me my geography. The smell? Now it became unbearably
painful. Till now I cannot stay inside a concrete house when it rains outside. I
just run out to have the smell of the drenched soil.
I used to water the field where my father used to put his seeds. I liked
smelling the watered soil on his farming land. But unfortunately I couldn't learn to put seeds on soil, or taking
care of it across its life span. The problem remained. I cannot nurture a
poetry till its proper growth. I could not nurture any relationship, any
involvement. Sometimes I put a word on your eyelid but forget to water it. Sometimes
I water at some wronged place where no possibility is there for sprouts.
For last two days I’m not opening my balcony. I fear the chilly plant
that Manmeet gave me on the new year eve might be dead by now. But somehow I’m
fine with that. If the plant is dead, a dead plat mean nothing to me.
Unfortunately, when I remember my mother and father, I also remember i
got very least chance to smear the mud. Rather I spent most of my life blue and
black inks. Inks does not smell good. Still I smeared inks across my childhood.
Let the ink smell bad, but the words I form should smell good. I try to form
bodies out of ink. But I know human bodies are made up of mud. I remember some
story where Parvati makes out a figure out of Mud and puts life into it....
I guess I have the disorder called pica, the disease that most
children and old people usually have: the tendency of eating soil...
I loved soil. But soil also mean shit. In love of soil, I produce
shit.
As i wanted to be a body of soil and water, I turned a body of paper
and ink.
There was two Satiyana trees at my backyard jungle. I guessed there
only, a nightingale used to sing the entire night. I used to listen her at my
teenage nights and I was disrupted by the cracking sounds of the mouse and
rats. I was willing to listen to the distant drums, and I was listening to the
rats running over the wooden roof. One day I discovered half my library is
vanished by the mercy of the rats. Some of my precious books, that u collected
stealing from many important public libraries, and I borrowed from people with
a promise of returning soon but never intended to return.
I came to Santiniketan. Again I built up a library around me with
millions of written letters. One morning I had some hallucinations. I woke up. Opened
my eyes. Wanted to take a yawn or a turn around. But could not. I was so weak. I
wanted to lift my left hand, but my left hand became soil. Uie Poke (a creature
that makes everything into soil), also known as Termites or white ants, made my
left hand soil. I wanted to remove the soil with right hand. I could not, since
my right hand also turned to soil. Then I gradually got my conscience that my
legs too became soil. My lower parts became soil. My upper body became soil. The
head remain. Suddenly some Cartesian bump made me realize that I was just
dreaming. But by co-incidence I discovered that, most of my important books and
paintings and other stuffs were actually turned to soil by the mercy of Uie Pok,
termites, white ants. Santiniketan had a damp weather, uie pok/ termite is very familiar
there. And uie pok/ termite/ white ants can destroy anything, just anything, and can turn anything
to soil.
I think that was the day I realized,
how things are disposable...
Now I really do not recall the day I kissed you first. Can remember
the very first sinister evening I touched you under the Shala tree (Shorea robusta). But feel
nothing remembering it. Memories make no sense to me, as no object mean
anything to me. But without memories, I’m also not there. Not there, I’m simply
not there. It’s all the matter of nothing. Please pardon me for nothing.
