My head hurts. I spent 17 hours on a bus for a 7-hour journey. No blanket, no pillow, no food. Thank you, Nature for the stuff. But fuck you for creating humans, who when faced with distress, forget that it affects everyone in the same frame as them, who are innately good but have acquired bullying. They yell “survival of the fittest” and snatch your piece of cake.
People in my bus brawled, hurled abuses, and spilled acid-filled words when one couple, asked for what was rightfully theirs. Is 2 a minority in a mere 36?
I handled my panic moderately well. I have had practice. I have seen bigger fights that have caused Maharashtra-North India cracks to emerge in my bus to Kumbh 2 years ago. Another time I saw (on CNN) two men throwing punches at each other on a flight, 17 hours long.
I, a privileged citizen, closed my curtains and worried about it. I did it academically, like only a person who can tell structural violence from direct. My head continued to hurt, to remind me how words don’t fix anything. But a simple text can strangle me with unfigured feelings that I am unable to deal with. One person scared me, implied abandonment, and I quit on the whole of humanity. I’ve been swatting people away. The ease of which never fails to amuse me. My phone has gone all day without buzzing once.
Think of a crumbling Zenga tower after you pull the wrong block from the bottom somewhere. That’s how life feels right now. It is distressing; the number of tools (analogies, descriptions, examples) it requires to explain a feeling. I wish to define a word for the feeling of being uprooted, the toppling of my being like a Zenga tower, and fixing this problem once and for all. It will be like pointing at the stomach and saying “pain”. I will call it obleg, with a silent g. Obleg is more useful to me than ‘cramps’, ‘hula-hoops’, or ‘spirals’ that humans took the pain to define. I will point at the center of my chest, where my मन is, and say obleg.
It will be your cue, you who I love, to come. You must come and hold me tight. You must prove the eternal-ness of your love. Even when I push you away, say words that sting and when I don’t, you must keep loving. With words. And soft things. You, who I love, please bring grapes on your way home, my head is still in pain.