Drifting on the Precipice

If I was to die tonight, everything would be just right. But here I am, and all's not fine. Few years back I wouldn't have ever thought of being in a pub at this time. But here I am and all's not fine. The number of students in the lecture hall has been dwindling. Literature, as we know it, is dead. Dying perhaps. The last bastions shall fall soon. The watchmen shall go back to whence they came. To be burned between woods, the woods that could've been books, the books that could've been Hamlet.

I could've been someone rather than this pale reflection of a morose narrator. Could've been burning in the glory of literary fire, but now I sit amongst the smoke, coughing occasionally. No one cares anymore. Where is Italo Calvino? Where is Nabokov? It's 6pm in the pub and why is, bloody hell, anyone here. They don't serve whiskey the way they used to. The beer is all bitter nowadays. It was not so always. This new generation shall never know the difference and all feeble protests shall be gulped down. But I know the difference. I have lived those days. What about me?

A complaining sarcastic old man now, I was once a complaining sarcastic young man. Words desert me now. I have lost my mirth. Lets go somewhere far away into the hinterlands of humanity. Way back when everything was new. Men flying in air was a novelty to be looked upon as man's triumph over nature. Nowadays all everyone does is complain about the price of peanuts served in airplanes. Don't people realize they are flying. They are up in the sky where Gods' reside.I have gotten old. I hate myself sometimes. Sometimes I just sit all day patronizing myself.

Why am I here? What convoluted moment in the long and twisted history of mankind resulted in a bitter me mumbling to self in this dark, wooden pub? It's time I left. This pub,this life. It's time I walked away. The games lost, the pawns and the kings are resting in their box. The player survives the pieces, the player faces the ignominy solitary, of having lost the game, self and everything.

One last drink and then to the abode of the lost tragic hero we walk to.

In the house

I don't remember leaving the window open. The cool night breeze runs its soothing hand on my cheek. Look how high it blows, look where it beckons to. Stop,stop this breeze, this fleeting moment, a second of bliss in this lifetime of sadness. There's a hand on my neck choking me, an emotion in my heart bruising me. A pain I am used to.

Enough. 'tis enough. Shall not have it anymore. I shan't be humiliated by destiny, shan't be thrown around by the greater Will. Rashkolnikov killed her, I shall end my tragedy. I don't want to live. Down with the dictatorship of fortune, to hell with the divine Scribe. Where is the epilogue of every sad tale? Where lies the gun? Ah, the grim metallic reaper. So cold, so cold and yet the blood goes so warm. Why do I cry now that the revolver is held up? Why do these streams flow over the contours, now that there shall be no tomorrow to repent over? This world shall end with me. My world shall end. This sea of troubles, this outrageous fortune. I am sorry, Mom. Dad I wish it could've been better. The guns loaded. The barrel between my eyes. My last vision. This dark cylindrical barrel of the revolver, this endless hole that my life has been.Why? Why? Stop stupid tears. End this farce. Pack up the tragedy. Remember the dreams that you shall dream when you sleep, the sleep of death. What soliloquy was it? Hamlet, wasn't it. Some mortal coil. To die, to sleep. How belittling, now that I die literature deserts me too. What else shall this world take from me now that literature goes away too? Life, but life's just a trifle.No, no more, the last bastion shall not fall. How could I forget this passage? Where lies that book. Ah, let me check.

A thin line of saliva trickles in between those lips. The tears have not yet dried. Sweat, like dew drops on his face exists but merely. His face sideways with Hamlet below it. The revolver still on the table.

To die, to sleep--

To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

Hope Lost.

"Lets go and check out the city" Priyanka said. There was a shine in her eyes."Yeah. Sure I'll ask Mohan out too. After the 5 pm class then." "Uh, okay." Mohan liked her. He never said so but somethings need not be explicitly stated. He had been searching for a chance to meet her for quite sometime now. He's a nice guy. This was the first time I had seen him actually trying for a female. And I have known him since school.

So the clock stuck 5. Earth had made the necessary rotation. But our dear professor lingered. Like an irritating song the lecture on structure's did not seem to end. She's in my class, amongst the frontbenchers too. She's a nice girl, not shallow, neither too incomprehensible either. Like a good book she was interesting and not too deep either. But then she wasn't my type. I had loved and lost quite recently. The song got over, about time too. A silent prayer to the gods was offered by the students. With their chains broken now, the flock of boys dashed towards the door and Mohan went with them. She stayed back, so did I.

Mohan met us outside the department. He was trying to withhold his laughter. Mohan has this strange habit of grinning when faced with a female he liked. "So lets go."

I walked ahead and let the two of them come together. "How are you?" Mohan asked. "Fine and you?" She replied politely.
"Stupid class that,eh?" "Yeah, stupid professor too."
"All of them are strange here dunno what they plan on doing." "Uh hunh." "We have this strange prof who has to throw one student out every class." "Hmmm."
This was going nowhere. "Lets take a pic." I said. "Sure". She handed Mohan the camera and stood next to me smiling. He obliged. "Lets take a pic of you two now." I offered. I and the smile were replaced with Mohan and an indifference that would've ashamed gravity. Photograph taken, walk continued.

She walked next to me with Mohan on the other side of her. "Where are you from?" she asked. She knew the answer, I had answered that many times in the class. I smiled and said "Surat. Mohan's from my school too. We were in the same class. He was the topper." He wasn't. He was my best friend. He grinned. "Where are you from?" he asked. "Kolkata." Land of everything right in Indian literature and everything left in Indian politics. "Dirty and humid isn't it?" "Naah, not much you get used to it. Surat aint too dry either." "But the weather's good at least." "Weathers good in Kolkata too,hunh." And there goes the conversation. Time for photography session two. Session one was repeated with more photographs of me and her than Mohan and I desired.

It isn't as if Mohan can't talk. He talks just fine with us. We have been in debates many a time. He gets along with other boys also pretty well and was in talking terms with other females too. It was time I moved on in life too. Time for the search to begin afresh. Two females had been zeroed on. Future existed whether I wanted it to or not.

The topic of professors had been taken up afresh. With renewed vigor he lectured on his theory about the education system. He also mentioned a teacher who had mocked him in front of the whole class and how that event had scarred him forever. It had taken 3 years of friendship for him to divulge this tale to me over a drink. She never noticed. She looked ahead. She didn't care. I wished she did. I didn't want to interfere lest he take it otherwise. He asked questions, he received monosyllables. He put in some more funny incidents. I smiled, they were funny. She didn't seem to think so. What was she thinking? I know, but if I don't mention it maybe it'll go away. "Why are you boring me? I don't care." Silence reigned. Dusk was upon us. Few stars twinkled, they glistened like tear drops shed by moon. Birds squawked on their way back home, on their way back to their loved ones. I suggested returning to our abodes too. She readily agreed. Mohan followed.

An auto-rickshaw was boarded. She sat between us. As in rickshaw so in life. She was tired, so was I. Mohan had too many emotions mixed up. The steel horse reached her house in no time. Her head had just rested on my shoulder. Awkwardness is not an awkward enough word. Why this, why now? The return began. I looked at him. He was thinking something. I was trying not to.