It is really a mock story. The one based on anything except real feelings and facts. I am just a minor character in it, like many others, playing my part as falsely as I can.
Believe you me, I am still not aware of my significance in the whole story. It baffles me. All the time. However, one thing is sure, I carry a role that has an import over the rest of the story even as I remain a trifling character.
It is a truism that midgets usually act in the background. Sometimes they bump into frontage also. Creating a travesty of truth. I am one such mocker who yells to the hilt, weeps to the core, and moans to the bones.
I make people laugh over me while I tirelessly try to feel them cry. I bleed just to be betrayed. And I often recluse back in the shades of obscurity.
Perhaps the very vagueness of my expression couldn’t get me across. The story script lends just a few words to my role. My history, my scars, my mourning, my memories—it all makes an engaging narrative short of any empathy. My role goes well beyond tragic. I am left only to grumble about everything that every other character does. Their fallacies, faults and foolhardiness: I have to shoulder the brunt and advance the sham storyline.
I see mockeries chanting so loudly. The music comes offstage. Various characters dance to its tunes. Certain mocking birds also chirp in. The whole composition turns so clamorous that my songs fade out in desolation. I stifle every melody of mine and croon the elegies of the time.
I am directed to meander around sprawling graves. And offer compassion to the bereaved. I am the prop—the usual dissenter, the coffin carrier, the flag bearer, the rabble-rouser. I am the minor-league, in every action that defines the story. In every twist that shapes the series. Beyond it, other crafty characters take up the tale.
Every chronicle that slips in partially, I yearn to fill it up with the truth and the trust. But the story howls every moment the shadows in the place grow intense and all characters seem to dwindle in the smog of scepticism. I know worse is possible. I am watching the mock story unfold. Silently.
The heartless story talks of the Orwellian ‘thoughtcrime’ where futures are rendered dystopian and blinded with extreme brutality. And the omnipresent characters of Big Brothers bulldoze the past of the people. Annihilate their aspirations. And unleash the nightmares. I feel myself on hold in the scene, thinking freedom is not always slavery.
My role gets narrower as the story progresses. It moves on with no point of closure in sight. The unfinished account of broken promises and frivolous positions continues.
Fracas of feelings foments. The white shroud drapes the whole stage and suffering reddens the characters with chastisement. I am also fighting my demons. The buried corpses of my ignorance.
I see the blood of connivance soaked on my hands, my whispers turning into whimpers. I feel breathless. Voiceless. Helpless. As ever.
Yet, they say even bad circumstances augur hope. For hope defies all sorts of mockery and manipulation.
That’s why I daringly surrender my reason to desire….the desire to play a lead role in a story that is real and just mine. The story with a turning point, an unexpected twist.
The story that dreams me, sings me, and solely lives me to salvation. Through and through. Actually and ardently. With a caravan of passion. To quote Ali Sardar Jafri—
I am not lonely here
for so many yearnings
are imprisoned with me:
so many youthful faces bred in mountain valleys
so many sons of the green fields
so many mother’s dreams
so many fragrances from kisses
so many storms and gales
so many banners of revolt…..!
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK