The Grownup Child

I haven't written in a while. Its been so long since I felt something so strongly that made words just gush out of me, just as they do whenever I write.

No, I don't give myself any credit for my writing. I have never been able to write just for the sake of writing. It has never been a conscious decision or a well thought-out strategy. Every word that has sprung to life in my poems or stories has originated somewhere deep down and resonated through the layers of my being before being put down and structured as a verse or a paragraph. If it did not happen like this, I have not been able to write at all!

Past few days have been manic. It is as if this body and mind was taken over by another Arundhati - an overly ambitions professional who is constantly on the tenterhooks of the desire for achieving something, longing to cry out in triumph, yearning to prove herself to someone. That Arundhati has been busy devising strategies and calculating her next moves. She has been weighing her future and visiting and revisiting her paycheck. She has been busy convincing, impersonating, demanding what she thought she deserved. Yes she won. She got what she wanted. She proved she was smart and she basked in the glory of jealousy and admiration from those around her.

However, even during these moments of triumph, I was there, unaffected, watching myself detachedly. This part of me - the quintessential witness - knew that desire begets happiness for a moment, but a yearning forever. There is no end to wants, no leash on expectations.

Its been so long I have been trying to live two lives - one for the world, one for myself. Many a times, these two parts of me have stood against each other. But so far, the world has won. The triumph of that other part lies in the fact that it has not given up. It still continues to exist within me in all its splendor and all its innocence.

Someday I hope to reconcile myself. I wonder how I will look. Ugly or beautiful? Stupid or soulful? Does the idea of a grownup child appeal to you? :-)