Ashok G.V.

I will admit, today was not the finest day. I had an utterly pointless debate with an old friend of mine until 5 in the morning. I later went to office feeling totally drained out due to the lack of sleep and the icing on the cake was the visit to the Dentist in the evening. In summary, my teeth are in pathetic condition and just the cleaning bit involved a lot of bleeding due to my gums having swollen from tartar. I go back Saturday for the finishing touches, after which I have to visit the torture chamber an additional time for further treatment. How I dread the prospect, more so than the time when my krav maga instructor asked me to wear my guard and take 40 kicks in the groin.

I indulged in a fair amount of music today. I revisited songs from my favourite artists including linkin park, Chris Cornell and Poets of the Fall. As I spent a careful amount of time and effort to experience the lyrics in the songs, I realized yet again the power of words and communication. Lines such as “wounds so deep, they never show, they never go away” from linkin park or “without your love my life ain’t nothing but this carnival of rust” or “the coldest blood runs through my veins” from Chris Cornell convey so much that I felt motivated to write. Yet here I am, incapacitated by the poverty of topics. The more I pushed myself to write, the more the flow of ideas regressed.

This battle with myself reminded me of a lesson I learnt when I wrote my first meaningful article. My ease with the pen is not a talent. It is a gift, a precious trait someone or something felt I was worthy to be given. Often when I write something, I step back and take a look only to realize the perfect sequencing of words is too good to have come from me. No, something bigger than me is behind that and I am just lucky to be chosen as the medium for it to come out and meet the world. Writing; ah, how I wish I could explain just how grateful I am to it. The sheer knowledge of an ability to pen thoughts is a source of comfort within itself. Writing has given me wisdom, strength and a way to vent out emotions and ideas instead of letting them consume me or go to waste. I can neither own this part of me nor can I dictate terms to it. My mind and the fingers with which I type are merely the mediums for these thoughts and ideas to flow. Any effort to coerce them out in the open, perhaps disrespects the very notion of a gift provided for my comfort. I think I have learnt my lesson and that is to take a step back and refrain from abusing my gift to write. I am merely the medium, not the source. The source is something or someone above me and above all of us. What I write is merely a tribute or a service I do to the source, nothing less; nothing more. Writing owns me and not the other way around and for once; it feels good to surrender

“You lift my spirits high…”-Poets of the fall