FOUR CORNERS

You stand within the four corners, with your head bowed down, naked. And you think. It’s not a new feeling, this nakedness. You squat on the orange tiles, thinking, staring at the empty bucket: wishing, waiting, wanting to be filled, completely. And you wonder why you’re referring to yourself in second person—perhaps because, you’re your story yourself. The tiles turn yellow, to green, to maroon... and you swoon in your own emptiness, in that void of absolute nirvana, where you belong to your own nothingness; you smoke it in, swirl in it and tap your feet against that wet floor overflowing with the water that has filled that once empty bucket. Sufism, of the mind, really. My god? The nothingness I find in blank sheets of paper; on streets lit with lonely street-lights; in moths who find a purpose to their lives in those very lights; in my hands, confused with lines, speaking of nothing but age.

Here. This. This is your world; anything can be your truth. You create your truth, you believe your truth. Question is, do you believe in your own existence?
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I exist in the city of Mumbai, within the boundaries of India, where almost every third girl in my class (as elite an economic bracket my class may belong to) has found her life partner at the age of 21, or has intentions of finding him soon. I, on the other hand, am single, which by Indian standards, is something to be worried about. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter whether my mum is concerned that I find a boy or not, but for the neighbours, the matter is gravely important.

What they don’t know is that I intend on having lustful, dark, secret affairs with Bergman, Kurusawa, Godard and the likes. Even though they won’t probably look at me, or be interested in having conversations over smokes and coffee. I don’t smoke, so coffee maybe. I wonder what they’d think....

Here. This. This is your world; anything can be your truth. You create your truth, you believe your truth. Question is, do you believe in your own existence?