Saturday, November 19, 2022

Thoughts that escape

That's three times this week that I felt mild discomfort. And after a very long time, a story made me think. Like every time, this time too, I was surprised that I am still capable. Are my periods of comfortable numbness increasing? Am I taking longer each time to surface back? I don't really know. And possibly there is no merit in trying to keep track of this statistic.


So about the story, I did not relate at all to the main characters. Or even the side characters. All I know is their core sentiment resonated with mine. Liberation, or freedom - for as long as I know, I have pined for it. Not really knowing what from, or where I wanted to escape to. My very first verse that I ever wrote in life was about a bird flying away. Even as a 3 year old, you can say my strongest emotion was that of setting myself free. And yet little did I know, that any strong emotion or desire is in many ways a chain that keeps you firmly tied down.

In any case, the characters in the story, they question, rebel, fight, cry, let themselves down and occasionally manage to reach a place of compromise or even few seconds of happiness. Life cuts through their story at it's own pace and not once care to balance the good with the bad, or wrong with the right. There is neither reward for being good, nor punishment for the bad. Like a train on it's predetermined track, time moves along, and so does each character while making the best sense that they can of their lives. None of them feel free at the end of story, and yet somehow the author is not hesitant to drop the curtains and leave loose ends for the audience to take back with them to chew on.

It annoyed me, I guess, that the author like me had no answer. Or if they did, they did not want to share. Either ways, it did make me think. And some times even that is a small victory.

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