Or anyother kind.
I have been up all night, mainly thinking, partly working mostly dreaming. In the morning I decide that it is a worthy goal to instead go and get some breakfast and shuteye in that order. So, lost in thoughts I stumble through the corridors until I reach the goddamn mess. Damn, I hate the food. I look at the food while waiting in the line and whatever color was left on my face quickly drained away. I weigh my options, drink water and go to sleep. That reminds me of the story that my friend once told me. Apparently while he was doing his BTech, his neighbors, Bihari imports in Banglore, some sort of daily wage laborers, who didn’t apparently earn much, or wanted to save money. Their solution was to drink a bottle of water before going to bed and place a wet towel on their stomachs. It is easy to see the logic behind their action. The fire of hunger. Water quenches fire. Ergo water quenches hunger. But can we appreciate it? All we can do is chuckle. When have we had the occassion to go a day without food? When was the last time I was hungry? Ergo in fear of being hungry we keep eating. We eat when we talk, when we think, when we work, we snack, we munch, we grab a quick bite, we supper, we brunch, we have courses, we have appetizers, we have chefs, cooks, gourmets, and mexican food, we have peppers and turmeric, pepperoni and salad, we have all but we still hunger. Yet we fear hunger and we consume, until we are practically animals, and not just animals, swine. Animal Farm is not about Pigs becoming humans. It is about humans who became pigs.
I think of pigs and look around myself. The lines between fact and fiction have blurred, as they rightly should and from now on I cannot guarantee if I am indeed telling the truth or the lie. All I can ever claim is that I am saying something. With no guarantees that you can hear.
Talking about pigs. I see them all around me. Infact one is standing right next to me. I look with screaming disgust as he keeps on piling that awful food in his plate. He just seems to keep going on. Can’t he hear my consciousness screaming?
Eventually he stops piling food and I breathe a sigh of relief. I take some coffee, because, I believe for some reason that coffee is the perfect cure of an otherwise incurable insomnia. So I decide on a place to sit and park myself there. Eventually me eyes begin to scan the crowd all around me for signs of familiarity. I spot one guy and breathe a sigh of relief as he is seated with his family. It is a valid assumption, because these days no one seems to be willing to spend time with someone elses’ family. I am assured that I won’t have to be introduced. And also that I can think unhindered by conversations.
Lost in thoughts of a similar texture, I find myself staring at the very same pig that I had spotted not too long. His friend, I imagine, comes puts his plate in front of the pig and goes to get something else, milk I imagine. The pig’s face lights up with a mischevious smile. Is the beasts hunger not yet satiated? I wonder. Can I have any more disgust for this creature? Eventually I trace the path of his eyes onto the plate of the recently departed friend. And I understand his grin. He is apparently not merry, because he might get to eat some of his friends food. He is mirthful because his friend has filled his plate with buns. Like a repulsive tower nauseatingly stenched, the carcass of half roasted buns rises upwards from his plate. It is enough to feed whole planets. Indeed, all humans could be fed some of that bread and be satiated. Yet this man’s hunger knows no boundaries. And the pig, he is fucking laughing because his friend has too many buns on his plate. How dare he. The lowliest of swine.
In the end I always end up cutting my stories short, I can keep going at it for hours, but whats the point when it would be unread?
Anyways, I had barely started to eat, when I hear an echo of my name. I did not utter it. How did it come to being? Turns out the one guy I was trying to ignore, has managed to spot me. I am the greatest of all failures. I think. Nothing good can follow. I am sure. Quite sure.
So degree complete? He asks me. Here goes, I breathe deeply. Can’t you derive whatever pleasure you were wanting to derive and leave me alone in my deprivation? But I can’t even have that can I? Thus converse we must. I look at his parents looking at me attentively, proud of their child completing what they imagine is a major milestone, a huge success, a fucking nobel, no less. Am I a recipent of this bastard honor too? For I must sully the things I can’t have. Because if I desire them and can’t have them. Then I am worse than an animal. For an animal can only desire what it can have. And have only what it can desire. I am the lowliest of all.
No, I tell him. My thesis is stuck. It will probably go on till end summer. It is as much a lie as it is a truth. For I have not answered his question at all, but allowed him to pick a solution that he would pick, based on assumptions that he would draw. For eventually a fact is only as much as is asked no more no less. If my thesis is stuck then it might take longer, and I would be a liar. If it took lesser time, I would finish it quicker and I would still be a liar. In no case have I answered his question. In no circumstance will I answer his questions.
He now asks, are there more people with degrees stuck? I am enraged. I want to pick up the chair the fucker is seated on and bash his brains in. I don’t actually do it. Why, because I am afraid of the needle or the fucking rope? No fuck no. I don’t because I don’t care enough. If I ignore him, it is like he doesn’t exist. And that is worse than death for him. And my favourite shirt doesn’t get soiled with blood. So I tell him, lots of people are. Gaussian wise, I am at the norm. I am not especially deranged mentally. Just normally mad. Inanely insane, so to speak.
Anyways I am sure he can fall any further, I mean there is one thing being an idiot. I usually am. But in front of your fucking parents act like you have grown the fuck up. Obviously such complexities are beyond an ape’s grasp. He perhaps has some brain cells left, though I am not very optimistic on how long thos infamished little imps would survive. He opens his mouth and words come out. Of consolation nonetheless. I am powerless. My whole being is seething with anger. What can I say to make him realise how fucking meaningless he and his words are. He could be an Olympian God, he could be a fucking Titan and he couldn’t be a sadder fuck. Consoles me with it would be great to get laptops when they rain come next convocation. When have I been angrier? So I smile and jest. I throw in a couple of random joke. He never feels how awkward the converstaion was.
Eventually, he is a fitter solution than I am. Natural selection would tend to select him over me. I am unfit in that sense of the word. He has got his degree and that means a lot of things. He can get a job now. He can afford a wife. A socially acceptable prostitute for him to lord over. To continue his genes. To carry on his progeny. As he eventually would manage. While I am unfit. While he has already forgotten the conversation. I nurse my impotence and pour it out in these pages.
