Desire: The Beginning

I wanted to begin again from the very beginning. What was the beginning of all this?

Yes, I remember. I can recount it.

In the beginning, there was a gaze, an undirected gaze that belonged to none and which was led by an irrepressible desire for particularly nothing.

Then there was a Big Gamble that was immediately appropriated by the gaze as a phantasmagoric scene  for the fulfillment of its desire.

As the desire of the gaze finally found an imagery to project itself on, it assumed the position of an other, a viewer, of course a false one!

Then there was a gambler on the scene, a woman in red whose eyes reflected the desire of the gaze.

When she looked for a gamble, there saw a man. A man in black in whom the desire of the gaze epitomized itself.

First, the man defeated the woman. I don't know why it had to be so!

The woman looked at the man, by concealing her desire. But her eyes betrayed her desire for him.

Then the woman defeated the man. It had to be so!

The man looked back, at the woman. He concealed his desire. Yet, his eyes betrayed his desire for her.

They, the man and woman, were unable to express their desires directly, perhaps because the gaze of the false other was always following them.

The man had to go. It was so!

To escape the gaze of the other, yet not to loose his object of desire, he invited her for lunch or dinner or for a cup of coffee or for a movie or something.... I don't know what. She gracefully declined. Oh! no. My mistake. Her decline was an excuse, metonymic, slippery, that could be easily won over. She knew it. He knew it. The false other knew it. He attacked back, gently, without disturbing the false other's gaze, without shaming it, without causing it any dishonour. And she agreed!

The man, manly he is, the epitome of now the male desire, gently walked out, without looking back at her, despite his invincible temptation to do so, but being well aware that her desiring gaze, which he desired, would surely follow him.

The woman, womanly she is, the epitome of now the female desire, followed the departing man, from his behind, with her pointed gaze, so full of desire for him, which desired to be satisfied by the desire  of his for her.

Then there was music that would eventually direct the man to the woman and the woman to the man. But the false other had vanished. It is so! It has to vanish. For the man and the woman were to meet and uncover their irrepressible desire for each other without the necessity for a false other!

Sandeep
Chennai

The Abstract.

Do I appear as a mere emptiness to you?
Let me tell you then:
I am an empty essence;
A pure consciousness.
As I push myself to the limits
Of my possibilities,
The limits appear to move towards the horizons.
My limits and the horizon -- grand illusions!
I don't exist! My consciousness is finite.
While the emptiness is an impossible knowledge!

-Sandeep, Chennai, August 14, 2014.

Related: http://palakkalsandeep.blogspot.in/2014/08/blog-post.html

Life, Mistakes and Surprise

Life's a series of mistakes. One mistake leads to the next, which to the next, to the next and so on....

One can realize ones mistakes only after the have happened. And one can never figure out why a mistake led to the next particularly and why it did not turn out differently.

That very surprise regarding how things turn out, makes life still worth living!

-SP

The Source-Code of My Life

Today, suddenly, without any search for it, quite involuntarily, quite unintentionally, quite inadvertently, I discovered the source-code of my life. I was startled when I found it full of if-else-end segments! Upon a closer look, I realized that none of those if conditions were not truly if conditions. They only maintained a deceiving semblance---there were no conditions being tested by any of the if commands; and after every else, end followed immediately. The space between else and end was empty in every case. The lack of conditions being tested by ifs and the void in place of all alternatives  deeply disturbed and horrified me.

(Based on a sleep disturbing dream.)

--Sandeep, 22/07/2014.

Nocturnal Serenade

In the darkness of this night, a melodious music flowing from faraway lands finds a recess deep in the bottom of my soul; it modulates my melancholy and convinces me of its heavenly origin. My God, why life is so futile yet so beautiful! 

First Thought

My God, why did the night die so young! 

Waves of Disquiet

It seems the only way I can write is in semi-fiction mode. What else will I write but about myself and my life? What is interesting other than that? 

Politics has changed in this country. The election changed everything. People are rejoicing in the huge victory of the leader. Was it their leader? I wonder. How are they able to show such a vigorous support for him? Do they know him so much? How can they put so much of faith in him? I cannot understand. It is the way humans are. The mass resists to be understood.

I can't write about the mass, its choices, its urges and its behaviour. I don't want to know either. Life is led by a vacuum of desires and drives and motivations. When you are engrossed in that vacuum, you don't even know that it is a vacuum. Everything -- shouts, rejoice, hopes, virtues, morality, values, sense of wellness, happiness, joy, ambitions, devotion, dedication, convention, tradition, culture, revolution, genocide, holocaust, hegemony, slavery, debt, wealth, assets, investment, confidence, comfort, anxiety, anger, desperation, fear, animosity, hatred, pride, redemption, struggles, wars, ethnic cleansing, riots, rape, liberty, surveillance, internet, pornography, vendetta, defamation, corruption, sexuality, fellatio, fetishism, pederasty, perversion, hunger, poverty, democracy, monarchy, fanaticism, machismo, emasculation, feminism, writing, poetry, cinema, smile, laughter -- revolves around that vacuum. A vacuum which reveals itself as an absolute presence, a nothingness which appears itself as a fullness, a hole which portrays itself as a gravitational pull. 

I also feel the illusion of that presence, that fullness, that pull, but I also feel its absence, the emptiness, lack of any force and direction. Perhaps, I have some inherent deformities -- maybe blind, maybe insane, maybe something else. But I am away from the madness of a crowd. I hate crowd. I am timid of a crowd. I can't subscribe to the crowd's interests. I am away. I am alone. It is not that I want to be away, alone. It is that I am alone and away, that is why I am alone and away.

I am not living in a desert. Yet, I find myself alone as if in a desert. I find my voice getting crushed in the continuous flow of loud shouts from outside. Those shouts, when deciphered, form a vehement call for a change -- an unacceptable, unwarranted change. They want to create a homogeneous voice -- a loud, monotonic, unending sound. A deafening sound that is external and absurd. That sound will not compromise on its monotonousness, homogeneity, and superiority. It wants to eliminate all the different tones, all the variations. The colour of that sound is a pure, boring white. An insipid white. White that will not tolerate any other shades on the canvas. 

I am a stain in a pure white canvas, a canvas which people mistake for containing a beautiful painting. I am a wrong note, a deviation, in a monotonic music, which people mistakes for a beautiful music. I can't make their painting pristine nor make their music pure. I am here to stay as a stain, a deviation, as I am, eluding even my own understanding of it. The truth is that I am a stain even I can't clean myself. I am a deviation even I can't rectify myself. Perhaps that deviation, the sense of being a stain, defines me. Perhaps I have different sensitivities than the crowd. 

Who knows it right? The more I observe anything, the more it eludes me!

Sandeep

Chennai, May 25, 2014.

Senseless Writing: On Being a Subject, a Cogito! [Unedited]

Breath deeply.... Breath deeply.... Breath is strength.... Breath is life.... Breath helps you to hold on to life. Breath deeply and be alive. Live!

Do not tell me philosophy. Please! And do not tell me metaphysics. 

Do not tell me any superior theory that can define me, understand me, explain me, and thereby limit me and oppress me.

I may not be limitless. I may rather be finite. I may not possess anything that is mine. My desire may not be mine. My dreams may not be mine. Perhaps, theories are just right; perhaps, they are wrong. Perhaps, life exists outside. Perhaps, the outside defines me.

Yet, I experience only me: the me inside me myself. I see only through me. I understand only through me. I experience, define, explain ... only through me. Only through me.

Without the me within myself, the world for me is a void: a huge void that lies outside me. A huge void which seems to be huge because it is so senseless and so meaningless without me. A huge, senseless void. A huge nonsense.

I focus on myself ... my thoughts ... my urges ... the me within me. I focus on my essence, my consciousness, the feel of my feel, the me within me. How will I even tell you about it! I don't know!

My essence, this consciousness: What is it to me? What is my essence, the only thing that I feel belonging to me, to me? I get nowhere. I get to nothing. It is a nothing! Yes, it, my essence, reveals itself to me as a void!

I am an emptiness, so wide and deep, so vast and huge.

I am also an essence, aware of itself. Absurd yet blissful self-awareness! 

I must stop writing. But I can't. If I don't write, I speak to myself. My head fills with my inner voice, which, after a while, becomes merely a noise -- just a humming sound.

Breath deeply. Breath deeply. Breath is my strength. Breath connects me to my body. Breath is a bridge between my consciousness and concreteness.

I am an emptiness. I am also an essence. I am an empty essence, a pure consciousness. 

Lo and behold:

"I am an empty essence, a pure consciousness."

Perhaps, I am a black hole: an isolated, point singularity in the wide, vast, continuous space; yet so deep and dense and huge.

"I am an empty essence, a pure consciousness."

My eyes should be cool, but they are not. They are burning like sun. They are burning like two volcanoes!

"April Goes Away"

"April goes away."
Pain of departure,
Pain of losing,
Deep within my heart.
My heart doesn't let go.
It's like that.
Weak and dreamy,
For it sees only the form,
Not the content.

My head sees the content.
What was the content?
"Nothing," it says.
There was no April to depart!
Therefore, no loss and no pain.
April was a form I created,
A framework, a window
To look at a content
That was not there:
My life in April!

Form conceals the content,
Or non-content.

--sandeep, april 30, 2014, chennai.

Morning Melancholia

Every morning is different. Yet, each one is of a certain type. 

Some are silent, some are noisy. Some are wet and some are dry. Some are hot and some are cold. 

Some remind you your own past: a beautiful day in your past, perhaps. That is nostalgia suddenly aroused within by the morning. I love such mornings. Remembering the past makes me feel that I have been around for such a long long time. 

Some mornings are lazy. You would want to sleep more, only to feel never satisfied! 

Have you ever experienced anything ethereal? That you sense when you lie on the bed, alone, awake, your mind calm and restful, your eyes closed? You can sense the world beyond your eyelids. I cannot express that feeling in words. That is why it is ethereal! Indescribable! How would I love to keep myself in that state forever! 

No, but that is impossible.

Nothing is permanent. To be permanent is against the nature. It is against the universe. The universe is dynamic. The cosmos are dynamic. The nature is dynamic. 

All the happy moments are also like that. I can't keep them with myself. I don't own them. I lose them, always. Perhaps, it is because I lose them that they seem to be worthy. It is only after I lose them that I realise I was happy! 

Am I repeating myself in my writings? Don't I have anything new to say? This may be my paradigm. I may be stuck within me. Do I want to escape? But where to? There's no escape for me from myself. So it seems. There's no exit. So it seems. 

Life is a constant flow. The more you're integrated with the flow, the easier your life will be! You'd be happy, contented! 

Really? 

No, I can't believe so. Because, life is to never feel contented. Life is freedom. Freedom is an eternity of discontent. Contentment and freedom cannot coexist. No, they cannot. Life is a big lake, maybe as big as a sea; maybe a sea itself. You can only integrate yourself with the waves on the surface. Waves that you mistake for a flow! Beneath the surface, invisible to the beholder, chaos are always present in the form of random under-currents. They are your discontent. Deep below there! 

No, I am not repeating myself.... Taat is somtin neu thet I havv juts writtet. I om naut repaatttig miselph. I am creattign mysolg. I kmoww thqt I am nott wrjttjng preoparly; jou mey fynt id difikultt to reod. I finn id difgicalt to wrifte tou. My diffcluty rpresett my diskondett. Thay represett, nott mai lakc of defire to ritte, batt my dasire bieng diffeeted. My defaetaid dzyres: my lfe's untercorrants! 

HIT! 

Loneliness

I am lonely not because some mysterious glass-wall separates me from others. On the contrary, my loneliness is the very invisible glass-wall that separates me from others.

Against All Interpretations [Thanks to Susan Sontag]

Extreme alienation from the surroundings. Ultimate castration from desire itself. Loss of desire. Nothing else to hold on. Horror. Everything around becomes phobic to me. I wonder why I suffer this destiny! Is my life over? Extinction of desire marks the end of life. But I am alive and I don't want to die! Oh my nonexistent God, show me what's out there to hold on to. Show me my way! 

Do you know what is my proof of being alive at the moment? 

Hunger! Uncontrollable desire to eat heavily something delicious and thus to hold on to life and earth and nature. 

The disgusting women living around me wonder if I am impotent, for I am showing no desire for them! Not even my gaze betrays any sign of lust! Strangely enough, the only desire that is thriving inside me is to kill them and eat their flesh. The meat from their curvy calves, fatty thighs, tender hands and bulging abdomens. Would that be delicious? 

Hunger can make a man an animal and an animal a stronger animal. Desire for sex will make an animal weaker if it is a male and stronger if it is a female. Lust makes a woman a dynamite,  but a man an idiot. A very stupid idiot! I am not an idiot. I am an animal, a hungry male animal.

On Writing

To write is to think seriously, to struggle for clarity and depth, to reminisce the past, to dream about the future, to converse with the present or to kill time, that is to live with no purpose. 

Tarkovski: Life, Meaning, and Solitude

I have heard people saying that there are no art cinemas and commercial cinemas. There is only cinema. Obviously, these idiots have not watched Tarkovski. His cinema is purely personal and hence fully artistic. Watching his Zerkalo (The mirror) was a beautiful experience. The way we remembers our past is in a nonlinear and distorted manner. As time goes on, we interpret our own past in different ways. And our memories of our past is only what we own in our life. Once we lose our past, we lose our identity and life itself. At the end of our lives, it is our memories of our past that will convey the ultimate meaning of our lives. In Zerkalo, he really has captured how one remembers his past through dream-like sequences. That makes the movie very beautiful.

I just finished watching Solaris (or, Solyaris) . Without Zizek's Pervert's Guide to Cinema, I would not have understood a bit of it. Thanks to Zizek! Solaris proposes that the meaning of life is ultimately unknowable and one has to be at the end of ones life to understand if his life had any meaning. It is vain to seek the meaning in love and knowledge and so on for they create only fantasies of meaning. When one loves, just love. It is not for seeking the meaning that one loves. But that one loves is the meaning. It is no worth to seek the meaning of human life. But human life is the meaning of life. I know this is not clear. I need to explain it. But let's try another time. For, now I don't know if I have understood it!

The following is an interview by Tarkovski in which he describes his views on life, its meaning, art and solitude. I am touched by his views. How profound they are!!!

Palakkal Saga: Happy New Year

Genre: Fiction, with Label: Palakkal Saga

Palakkal woke up. He had the satisfaction that, being the Happy New Year on that day, he was able to wake up in the morning itself, as the time at that moment was only fifty-nine minutes and a few seconds past eleven. First few minutes he spent analyzing the problem of whether there is a need to take bath that day or not. After considering various factors and doctrines, he concluded that it was not even remotely necessary. Yet, being a virtuous man, he washed the phallus in purified water. It is an imperative that a man washes the phallus after sex even if it was a sacred and legible one. Palakkal is a man of knowledge and scriptures, and followed every dictum adamantly.

       Drinking up the little toddy left in the bottom of the can, he opened a pack, wrapped in banana leaves, kept in the kitchen. It contained the fresh heart of the lion that Palakkal murdered the night before for roaring loudly just when Palakkal was about to come and feel an orgasmic climax. Cleaning the remnants of the blood, again in purified water, Palakkal dressed it in chilly and masala and salt. He fried it deep in one cup of heated cow-ghee, then sat on the floor and started to eat. Exactly at that moment, there was a knock on the door that would open the house towards the paddy field. Palakkal got wildly angry for being disturbed during his lunch.

"Whoever that be, she just knocked the door of the hell," whispered Palakkal to himself as he got up.

Palakkal opened the door and, seeing the guest, became calm at once. It was the Lord from the nearby temple. Unless there is some very serious reason, it does not befit Palakkal to torture the oppressed and downtrodden in the society. He invited the Lord inside and gave him an old wooden chair to sit.

The Lord sat with his trunk straight, erect like a mountain. Divine calmness and serenity played on his face.

"My Lord, what made you get out of your divine abode and come to my stinking home?"

Lord smiled silently. A divine smile. When he smiled, the room filled with a divine light. Palakkal  moved two steps backwards. He knew that even he could be corrupted by the divinity of the Lord. But the Lord himself took no notice of Palakkal's reaction. He said in a Dassettanian voice,

"My son, apologies for bothering you and disturbing your lunch. I came here just to relax and spend some time in the quietness of your home. All the ass holes on the earth have swarmed in my abode since early morning. Being the Happy New Year of the year, they all want to see me and demand their blessings."

Hearing this, Palakkal started laughing like a dinosaur. Lord looked at Palakkal with interest and continued to smile. After Palakkal's laugh came to a halt, the Lord asked him,

"What do you have to offer me to eat?"

"I have a half-eaten deep-fried heart of a lion. It is good and tasty."

"Anything to drink?"

"Just finished the last drop of heavenly liquid before you came."

"OK, never mind."

The Lord wanted to sleep for a while. Palakkal showed him his bed and mattress. While the Lord was sleeping, Palakkal devoured the rest of the lion's heart. Satisfied, he went out with his toddy can. One mile apart, there was a small forest. He went inside and stood before a giant tree. A monkey was sitting silently on the lower branch of the tree, looking down. When it saw Palakkal approaching, the monkey started shivering with fear. Palakkal showed him the can. The monkey came down at once reverently and took the can with it. It climbed a coconut tree nearby and came down after a few minutes. The can was filled with fresh toddy now.

Walking back home, Palakkal thus reflected, "I don't know why that monkey always fears me like an elephant fears an ant! I will never understand some of the mysteries on this earth." As he walked, a giant elephant indeed came opposite to him. Seeing Palakkal, it bowed down deeply and moved away from the road with all humility to make way for Palakkal.

Upon reaching home, Palakkal gave one peg of toddy to the Lord. The Lord was happy and rested. Sipping from the cup, he asked Palakkal,

"So, what are your Happy New Year resolutions, son?"

Palakkal suddenly stood in attention and said in a solemn voice, as if he was reciting something sacred,

"Number one: I will not pay a penny for sex this year. Number two: I will not rape any minors, but only majors. Number three: I will not be cruel to the women I rape by leaving them to live, but kill them kindly at once. Number four: I will not treat any woman as a woman, but behave like a fetish feminist. Number five: I will not kill anyone by holding the feet and hitting the head on the ground; I will use more decent methods. Number six: In case I kill any animal, I will eat at least a portion of it. Number seven: I will not forcefully kick the earth while angry and thus will not cause the earth from moving away from its orbit. Number eight," Palakkal continued with a dubious smile on his lips, "I will not kick any Lord's butt this year."

        The Lord gave Palakkal one gold Ring and said, "Son, accept my gift for having such an extraordinary list of Happy New Year resolutions. And now, allow me to leave for my home."

        "Thank you, my Lord of the Ring," Palakkal said in gratitude while also trying to recollect the previous day's price of the gold.

During the evening walk, Palakkal passed near the temple and saw the endless queue of "ass holes on the earth" who had come to see the Lord. But those who came in cars did not have to stand in the queue. Lord's manifesto written by Lord-only-knows-which-ass-hole permitted them to enter directly. An old lady beggar accosted Palakkal and asked for the alms. He took pity and opened the polythene bag he was carrying. He took a dead black cat from it, chopped of the head with his dagger and gave that to her. The eyes of the dead animal were open and staring at the people around.

"Oh dear old lady! The brain is the best part of a cat. With love from the bottom of my heart, I present the best part of my dinner to you. Please accept my kindness with gratitude."

Horrified, the lady ran away. Dejected, Palakkal put the deformed cat inside his cover and continued his evening stroll.

The End.