I have always been enthralled while watching the twilight glow change into darkness across the graveyard. As darkness lowers its curtains, a sudden quiet filters into the graveyard.
The stillness of death makes its presence felt evermore.
Time is frozen for a moment, and the darkness has no hues.
Death and darkness meet in a perfect unison.
These are some of the thoughts that are, for me, the most romantic, the most perfect, and the most revealing. With the passing time and cascading memory that I live in day in and day out, tomorrow fascinates me just as graveyards, death, or the realms of the unknown do.
If the dead were to tell their tale, I wonder, as I read the epitaphs inscribed on the tombs that attempt to quench man's greed and desire for posterity, would we have had masterpieces that would make the earth quiver?
The desire to tell the tale of the dead burns in me like the ember that will soon dissolve into quietness, after expression has seen its final culmination.
Yes, today I may have rattled many a fragmented story.
Yes, today I may have walked away from the un-pruned graveyards, only to know that I will journey back to it someday.
The burning desire to narrate the many untold tales is unquenched. The ink is yet to flow unrestrained on clear white paper.
The writer in me still needs to evolve, and that takes a lifetime.Today I am called a writer- a technical writer (as if that should console me!), and I write not about life or death, light or darkness, stillness or chaos, spring or winter, memory or experience, illusion or fantasy, of the then or the now. I realize that as a technical writer, the dualities of life with its many paradoxes have no place.
The paper and the pen have become obsolete to me.
The keyboard has become a sophisticated tool that I use to type and retype words. Ink no more flows on white paper that's patterned with scribbles, which reveals the conflicting state of mind and the effort to chronicle the choosing of the right word to capture the right expression.
I recall the day I was told that typing would be the skill, apart from other things, that I would have to master to become a successful technical writer. Computers would be my world, I was warned, and I would have to grapple with it sooner than later.
I must confess that I did feel threatened with the ever-ruling machine, knowing that I had as much to gain as I had to lose. A transition from innocence to experience was certain and the futility of running away was absurd. I had set out to be a writer- a technical writer, and that was no small matter. Braving challenges was all part of the game and I was ready to play the game in fairness to my many dreams and myself. I told myself that my inherent bond with the paper and pen would not and could not be snatched by a machine.
However, today, the fact that I have typed this piece of personal contemplation is acknowledgment of the indispensable technology. The writer's world has changed for me.
I recall the promises made to my friends that distance would be countered, and defeated with the ancient art of letter writing that would not be sullied by "emails".
However, today I know I lied.
I have been entangled by the email etiquette that is followed religiously by me, for that is the norm- "nothing personal about it". I had always thought that I would never adhere to norms. The emails no longer carry poetic verses of banal realities, but instead now my emails carry sweet nothings, in the most atrocious of slang, distorting the language beyond recognition.
The Orwellian world is relived in an effort to reduce language of all "redundancies" which negate experience, which a technical writer needs to remember as the dictum from the gospel.
The sands of time filter through my fingers, and I am trying in vain to hold back the last grins of sand. As a technical writer the world with its abstractness and symbolism have no relevance to me. I need to write technical stuff that is precise and accurate. The politics of narratology is barred here. A new language needs to be learnt and fast. This language is accurate and precise. It seems to be easy for I do not have to debate over complex philosophical reflections of the many nuances of life. The alluring technology has snatched a lot, taking me into the realms of a cold, calculating, and capitalist world. Hypocrisy stares into the face of reality, satiating the everyday into hollowness.
I do not have a tale to narrate - not yet.
Yes, I would have to journey back to where darkness and the eternal silence meet, to have the apocalyptic vision:
The stillness of death makes its presence felt evermore.
Time is frozen for a moment, and the darkness has no hues.
Death and darkness meet in a perfect unison.
These are some of the thoughts that are, for me, the most romantic, the most perfect, and the most revealing. With the passing time and cascading memory that I live in day in and day out, tomorrow fascinates me just as graveyards, death, or the realms of the unknown do.
If the dead were to tell their tale, I wonder, as I read the epitaphs inscribed on the tombs that attempt to quench man's greed and desire for posterity, would we have had masterpieces that would make the earth quiver?
The desire to tell the tale of the dead burns in me like the ember that will soon dissolve into quietness, after expression has seen its final culmination.
Yes, today I may have rattled many a fragmented story.
Yes, today I may have walked away from the un-pruned graveyards, only to know that I will journey back to it someday.
The burning desire to narrate the many untold tales is unquenched. The ink is yet to flow unrestrained on clear white paper.
The writer in me still needs to evolve, and that takes a lifetime.Today I am called a writer- a technical writer (as if that should console me!), and I write not about life or death, light or darkness, stillness or chaos, spring or winter, memory or experience, illusion or fantasy, of the then or the now. I realize that as a technical writer, the dualities of life with its many paradoxes have no place.
The paper and the pen have become obsolete to me.
The keyboard has become a sophisticated tool that I use to type and retype words. Ink no more flows on white paper that's patterned with scribbles, which reveals the conflicting state of mind and the effort to chronicle the choosing of the right word to capture the right expression.
I recall the day I was told that typing would be the skill, apart from other things, that I would have to master to become a successful technical writer. Computers would be my world, I was warned, and I would have to grapple with it sooner than later.
I must confess that I did feel threatened with the ever-ruling machine, knowing that I had as much to gain as I had to lose. A transition from innocence to experience was certain and the futility of running away was absurd. I had set out to be a writer- a technical writer, and that was no small matter. Braving challenges was all part of the game and I was ready to play the game in fairness to my many dreams and myself. I told myself that my inherent bond with the paper and pen would not and could not be snatched by a machine.
However, today, the fact that I have typed this piece of personal contemplation is acknowledgment of the indispensable technology. The writer's world has changed for me.
I recall the promises made to my friends that distance would be countered, and defeated with the ancient art of letter writing that would not be sullied by "emails".
However, today I know I lied.
I have been entangled by the email etiquette that is followed religiously by me, for that is the norm- "nothing personal about it". I had always thought that I would never adhere to norms. The emails no longer carry poetic verses of banal realities, but instead now my emails carry sweet nothings, in the most atrocious of slang, distorting the language beyond recognition.
The Orwellian world is relived in an effort to reduce language of all "redundancies" which negate experience, which a technical writer needs to remember as the dictum from the gospel.
The sands of time filter through my fingers, and I am trying in vain to hold back the last grins of sand. As a technical writer the world with its abstractness and symbolism have no relevance to me. I need to write technical stuff that is precise and accurate. The politics of narratology is barred here. A new language needs to be learnt and fast. This language is accurate and precise. It seems to be easy for I do not have to debate over complex philosophical reflections of the many nuances of life. The alluring technology has snatched a lot, taking me into the realms of a cold, calculating, and capitalist world. Hypocrisy stares into the face of reality, satiating the everyday into hollowness.
I do not have a tale to narrate - not yet.
Yes, I would have to journey back to where darkness and the eternal silence meet, to have the apocalyptic vision:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour…
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