On A Room of One's Own
I can imagine my home in the years to come. White stucco walls. A single window, or perhaps if I lucked out and got an end unit, several. A loft apartment would be preferable. Of course, it would look out over the Hudson, towards the home of my adolescence, New Jersey. Pre-war hardwood floors broken by chappas from India.
A cozy corner would be my sleeping area. A raised bed – or perhaps, if I were to spend all my money traveling, a box mattress. Next to that would be a lamp, something special, out of the ordinary. And several racks of books on the wall behind my bed.
The kitchen would be small, organized, and adequate. With plenty of storage space, and clean, unstained Tupperware. We’d eat on bar stools on the counter. Absolutely no clutter on the kitchen surfaces.
The multipurpose sitting area would house a corner for music. Musical instruments and shelves on the wall for CDs would be adjacent to the window with the best view.
No knick knacks.
The seating area would be somehow, surrounded by books.
In the final corner of my loft, which I've somehow imagined to be full of corners, there would be a large work table, just below the best window in the house. Pencils in a drawer and a bookshelf with closed doors and a single desktop computer or laptop with a docking station would comprise my workplace. Of course, I’d need a large white board and calendar adjacent to keep track of things. And perhaps a filing cabinet for bills and other such official papers.
The only decoration I would allow would be framed quotes and arrangements of good photographs. All the art would have to be in the fixtures and the furniture itself. I don’t want other knick knacks.
Now I am tired and sleepy. I shall stop.
On a Movie and a Book that Mattered to Me
From V for Vendetta: “Sometimes all we have left is an inch of our integrity, but within that inch, we are free.”
How I wish that were true! Though it is to a certain extent. No one can change your self-respect or the way you see yourself. But how do you take that integrity that sets you apart from the rest of the world and be a part of the world that surrounds you? Because is integrity essentially a divisive force? To be yourself you cannot be anyone else and if so how do you possibly reach people around you? And why am I after that anyway? I guess for the very reason that Howard Roark remains a fictional character. And is only a hero in a world of fiction. We live in society. Because man is essentially a social animal.
What is scaring me is that a part of me is beginning to understand Dominique Francon. I sometimes feel like her. That if my passion has to bear the insults of a world not worthy of understanding and accepting it readily, then perhaps I should just withdraw. If I can’t be myself I will just be one of them. But a caricature. After all, there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn. So I'd rather be the best of the worst of it all than the best of myself, for fear of what I'd have to endure, and what they'd do to the beauty of my vision.
To be a woman is an experience no one can ever quite comprehend. Its not meant to be understood, just underwent.
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I remember a time when I was surrounded by people for whom talent wasn’t a chance but a necessity. Passion wasn’t a rarity but a requirement. Perhaps it was a regimented approach to things that are essentially beautiful, but I felt good.
Now I look around me and on the surface I see so much dispassion.
But I realize now that what I see are not people who are broken, empty and have nothing to offer, but these are people who are different from me. Their passion lies in things I cannot begin to comprehend. Like family, duty, security.
Who am I to judge if it is making them happy?
I think I’ve lost all pretences of being a Westerner, but I am not quite Indian either.
I am quite purely, myself.
On a Reader who Lost her Way
I’d forgotten what it’s like to be possessed by words. To be entangled in a web of meaning, of depth, of veracity.
I find myself resisting what in the past so easily brought pleasure. All I had to do was fall into the words and everything else ceased to exist. There was no view other than what existed in that moment.
Now I stand back and fight their power. I refuse to be enveloped, to feel anything more than so called ‘reality.’
How did this change happen? When did a thing of beauty and comfort, become an anathema?
I think the greatest betrayal was the dissolution of the only world I trusted to be there at all times. There is no where you can escape, like into a book. To tide over every problem I had ever had.
At some point, I had to wake up. I had to realize that problems weren't meant to be tided over, but to be solved. It became irrefutably evident that there was a world I had ignored and was left out of because all this time, I was busy reading books.
Maybe I blamed the sting of adolescence on the balm of my childhood. The dream world dissolved into a planet I could not comprehend or control.
But really, I need that dream world back. My armor against everyday life. Actually, not armor perhaps, but my balm.
Intern: A Doctor's Initiation by Sandeep Jauhar
