I'm gripped with a strange fear every time I sit down to start writing, which is why I keep postponing it. Writing on my blog is not essentially about delivering a job which has a deadline to it. Which is why after having started my blog, I was so erratic and disinterested, that I would update it seldom, until I came to the conclusion and got convinced by Dale about the fact that writing is a decipline.
Whether it is a job to deliver in time, or not, there has to be a certain regularity with it, or else it doesn't make sense. Yet after having updated my blog for four consequetive days, I have ended up skipping two.
Well, the fear I'm ivariably gripped with when I sit to write is the state of BLANK that engulfs me when I do. Suddenly all thoughts vanish, and I grope for my first word. Then I can't help but start writing with a short discussion on the condition, as I slowly slip into the play of words which begin to flow.
Today has been a weird day.
I've woken up feeling a sense of despair. I've started this morning with a cup of tea and a hopeless feeling, that there is nothing for me to do for the rest of the day.
I have a DVD waiting to be watched for the last two days, and although its a film I have been waiting to watch for months, I don't feel like seeing it.
My lawyer is expecting me to make rough drafts of two letters which need to be submitted to the court this week, for his approval and corrections, and I know it is not a task I will be able to accomplish easily once Monday morning comes, but I can't get myself to do it.
I am writing a script for Goldie, the story of which is half way through, and although the rest of it is spilling out of my head ever since he helped me crack a block last week, I can't enable myself to take it on.
I am helping Shiv write his first independent film script for which he works with me every afternoon, and when he called me to tell me that he wanted to skip the session today because he wanted to go to the movies with a friend, I was overjoyed. (The only one state of happiness I've felt today).
Finally Salim, who was sick of my inertia and listnessness every time he called me since the morning, told me he was going to Khandala for some work and wanted to whisk me away and take me with him, and even to him, someone whom I can never say no to, I said that it is better for him to leave me alone.
When Ritchelle returned home after an evening walk with her friends, I kept my back turned to her as she told me that she had had a great time and went on to tell me about all the things she did. I just didn't want her to see my face and guess that there was trouble in my head. She is perceptive, and I couldn't bear her asking me what the matter was, because I have no answer to give her.
Besides all these things, there are all those friends who called me last week, waiting for me to call them back as I had told them I would, or those whose calls I had not answered and texted back saying I would call them back. There is family to be met, and there are chores which have languished with lack of my attention for weeks.
And here I ship myself from my bedroom to my living room every half hour as I get bored sitting in one or the other space. I pick the papers and push them away. I turn on the TV and turn it off. I walk up to the refridgerator and get myself a glass of water, or a bite to eat, which I also realize an hour or so later, is just lying next to where I was sitting last, as it it, untouched.
Charlie moves with me, wherever I go and every now and then nuzzles up to be petted and hugged. He is the only creature I can bear with and can't do without. I let him lie around next to me, oftentimes looking at him for a long time when I find him staring at me with his deep eyes. As soon as I look at him, he stretches and softly walks past me, rubbing himself against me with his tail wagging slowly.
Salim calls me again and again to ask me if I've changed my mind and finally drives off towards his destination with Ranjit. He's having a rough time too, and can do only so much to make me happy, but if I can't respond, he has to give up.
No, this is not depression. This is about me being so consumed with a particular project that I'm working on which is coming close to actually taking off that I am quaking with the fear of it not happening. All the power in the world of positive thinking cannot bring me out of this paralytic condition even when I repeatedly tell myself to think about how it will be when it happens, because I just cannot stop thinking about how it will be if it doesn't happen.
I have been thinking of what it will be like when it happens ever since I started working on it, a few months ago, and revelled in those thoughts for hours and hours at end. But as it comes closer to it actually happening, I'm frozen in this state of anxiety and stress and worry about what will happen to me if it doesn't.
This has happenned to me a million times before. Yet I'm like this again. I've gone through these stabs of terror in my stomach a zillion times before and wished I could consume poison and die now, rather than to live through its failure and die anyway, but yet something stops me from doing that and makes me laugh at myself.
And that something is HOPE.
In all the darkness of hopelessness, pain, anxiety, worry, stress, terror, torture, inertia and listnessness, one little ray of of hope refuses to stop peeping in through a pin hole and it keeps me going.
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