Bedside View

I’m down with fever and my brain’s playing tricks already. This is a funny place. Fever induced by a sore throat and cold is the craziest variety. I, for one, have no idea of what medication to indulge in and funnily when I do make it to the physician, he/ she comes up with the name of the exact same medication that were filling the blanks of my mind.

It is at this time that my brain and heart often collide and all the things that I did come back and question my decision taking capacity. Worse still the things I didn’t do decide to join forces with the opposition and I know it- the next few days are going to be tough. By the second or the third day, falling ill is a welcome relief for me. I realize there is so much that I can do when the brakes are applied as suddenly as it usually happens in my case. But the only thing that troubles me is the fact that why is my brain acting as if were attacked by some unknown virus and making life hell for me when my immunity is at its lowest?

These are funny times people. And strangely I often end up seeing the humor in it. I tried filling up my day by catching up one some reading. Three magazine and some thirty-three pages into the book I’m devouring at present, I realized that perhaps I’m better off looking at some blank wall. But as soon as the blank wall came up I realized that the blankness represents my conscious mind. No good. I did in fact, spend some time staring at it for perhaps it might just throw some light on my plight. Didn’t work. Usually our best-laid plans work against us. So I decided to watch some TV- wrong idea. Satellite television has assured that future generations would not possess half the brains that our parents started off with.

I moved on to a film; DVD of Anurag Kashyap’s No Smoking. For someone who quit (on his own will) almost 17 months ago, I thought maybe this would be a good pastime. Wrong again. I left the film 5 minutes before it reached it's promised climax. If one followed what Mr. Kashyap wrote on his blog during the making of the film you'd be forced to believe that he was making something on the lines of Lawrence of Arabia or Passage to India! I have realized that Mr. Kashyap, one of the brightest stars behind the camera when it comes to Hindi films, wanted to tell us NOT to smoke whatever he was indulging in while executing this film.

I look at the books I picked up in the last few months and realized that I’m not reading enough. I’m a man of words and that’s not good for me. I looked at the folder labeled ‘Writing’ on my laptop and saw many, many files that feature the word ‘concept’ in some capacity or other. They needed attention from me and are still crying out loud. Maybe my illness is a way of catching up on things. Maybe all the things, books, DVD’s and ideas that I have collected need to be dealt with and dealt with now! EB White in The Trumpet of the Swan summed it all up. He was of the opinion that animals and birds are lucky. They don’t keep acquiring things, the way we do. He was so right, I mean you can teach a monkey to drive a motorcycle but I don’t think a monkey would ever go out and buy a motorcycle!

Image Courtesy: www.uh.edu