A Writer's Journey from Cubicle to Liberation

 

In a corner of the bustling city, surrounded by the relentless rhythm of urban life, stood a building as nondescript as the gray skies above. Inside, the relentless ticking of the office clock was a metronome to the dwindling spirits and aspirations of those it oversaw.

She, with a mind once brimming with stories and metaphors, now found her thoughts often lost in the monotonous tick-tock, each sound a reminder of her eroding creativity. The office was a landscape of cubicles, where silence reigned, heavier and more oppressive than the loudest of discords. Laughter and lightness, once common, had become relics of the past, replaced by hushed voices and anxious glances.

Team meetings were not of ideas, but of egos. Her initial enthusiasm, armed with creativity and the desire to contribute, had quickly withered. They  silenced her voice and had begun to dim the spark that once fueled her writing.

Lunch hours were solitary retreats. The break room, under the harsh buzz of fluorescent lights, hosted quiet, lonely meals. Conversations, on the rare occasions they occurred, were navigated with caution, as if each word was a step on thin ice, dangerously close to breaking the fragile surface of forced professionalism.

Her cubicle, a small enclosure in a sea of indifference, became her sanctuary. The little post it notes, scribbled with ideas and quotes, were her silent companions. Yet even they seemed to lose their vibrancy in the stale air of the office.

One evening, as the clock's hands united at the hour of departure, she stayed behind. Alone, she sat in the car, gazing out at the city transitioning from day to night, lights flickering to life like distant beacons.

In that moment of solitude, she realized the extent to which the toxicity, manipulations, lies and betrayals of the workplace had seeped into her soul, stifling her passion for words and storytelling.  But sitting there, a resolve began to form within her.

The following day, the office clock resumed its relentless rhythm, but her heart marched to a different beat. Her letter of resignation, carefully penned and imbued with a sense of newfound freedom, lay on her manager's desk. Clutching her notebook, a treasury of her unbridled thoughts and stories, she stepped out of the building.

As the echo of the clock faded into the background, her steps took on a new lightness, her heart a flutter of excitement. The city, once an overwhelming canvas, now beckoned her with endless possibilities and stories waiting to be written.

Whirling Soul

I am lost. Well, at least my memory is. So I'm told by those who claim to know me. "It's temporary amnesia, it will pass. Don't worry." No, I'm not worrying. Looking at the night sky, the twinkling stars make me wonder what I am. In the mirror a stranger stares back at me. A thousand questions storm the heart, boggle the mind, whirl in my head. Chagrined, I abandon all questions. In doing so I abandon myself, for what am I if not a question unto myself. From others the answers are only too forthcoming. Someone hands me my bio-data, while another strives to introduce me to myself, recounting my life story. I listen with detached concern, like a child listening to a fairy tale. I begin to make an acquaintance to myself. I search for myself in the rows and rows of books that line my room. I sail with Kahlil Gibran, sing with Tagore, fly with Faiz. Strange feelings stir within. Something touches my soul. So, they are not strangers after all. Expressions and experiences such as theirs are not altogether lost, even when stored in the bottomless pit of my mind. Finally, I let go and take refuge in the familiar lap of sleep.

Dawn breaks, days pass, but nothing awakens in me. Perhaps providence has given me the rare privilege of experiencing dwij—the second birth, the true birth in the same lifetime. Why bother to remember the past, or even the present? I am content to forget even this. But people throw anxious questions like: "Have you remembered yourself?" Have I, I wonder? Then I fall upon a self-scripture—my diary. In those pages is frozen the motion picture of my life—the days gone by and forgotten, the laughter, the sobs, the silence. Here lived hopes and dreams, some realized, others wilted or crushed. A 16-yr-old's trembling thoughts of love, and deeper musings on life as she matured into a woman, the magical secrets—it grips me. I find it strange that these pages should know every desire, every thought of mine while others were refused entry into this phenomenological world. In secluded moments I re-live what I must live through at some forgotten stage of life. I become a scholar researching into and reconstructing a faded life. Bit by bit, inch by inch I begin to know myself, or then again, do I?

What if some mental tidal wave came gushing to wash away this scene from memory's beach and brought back my forgotten self? Do I dare to pen down what the waves of life gurgle in my ear, here and now? Is the present 'me' the same as the past 'me'? These long strolls in mental mazes take me only from one blind end to another and sighs slip through ellipses to dissolve in the air. Will answers drop like gentle rain from heaven upon the parched desert of my mind? People tell me who I am, not what I am. As if I'm only bio-data, or all that is contained in the looking glass. Scrawled untidily in a dog-eared corner of the diary that is supposed to be mine are two piercing words of a master: "Know thyself." I'm trying, Socrates, I'm trying

Seed.... Leaf.... Life....

A leaf will always makes me surprised during every summer. A single torn leaf. I saw it first time when i was laying down on the courtyard of my house. I was trying to discipline my broken thoughts to the normality. Then it hit me. it continued every day. If I was out home one day it will wait for me there. A pretty yellow leaf. I started thinking of our birth, our existence. there must be a seed in every one.   the seeds of divinity that are often spoken of by men and women who have perceived a different reality? Of madness? Of terror? What seeds lies in us, unknown to us? Are there wings in us making us wish of the sky? If there is a thirst, there must be water somewhere...
I don't understand, then why we cant find the water? What is the unworthy fact that stop us from growing? love never can stop one growing.
I walk on, more conscious of possibilities around us... engulfed by a deep reverence and awe when I consider of what could be there in the air and in ourselves. there are surprises around us...

WHY Should I?

The mind seeks pleasure, not reality or Truth. Early morning, on the precarious edge of waking and sleeping, I’m lost to a lovely dream. The mind conjures in the realm of imagination sweet scenes that may never concretize into reality, a grand sense intoxicating feast of tastes and smells, a walk along the beach with wind wooing like a lover, an embrace – all made of dream stuff…whither reality?
My eyes open wistfully to the morning light through the window, morning sounds, sounds children getting ready for school at a distance, neighbour’s music, mist… the bare chill of reality.

I close my eyes again to lose myself in the enticing castle of my fecund imagination. It’s not there – even as I imagine, I know it. But the pull of such sweet falsehood is strong.
I open my eyes – reality, bare and uninviting; eyes closed – unreality intoxicating, beckoning; open, close; bare, sweet; reality, unreality; What should I choose? Should I wrench my heart away from a sweet dream and slap a toothbrush into my mouth to taste the tangy reality?

ഉറങ്ങിയാൽ മതി...ജന്മങ്ങളില്‍ നിന്ന് ജന്മങ്ങളിലേക്കു തല ചായ്ക്കുക
 കാടായി, നിഴലായി, ആകാശമായി വിശ്രമം കൊള്ളുക...