The Preservation of A Dying Soul

The last few weeks have been a little obnoxious, to say the least. First there was the mother of all exams, the Common Admission Test which has now acquired the shape of a national orgasmotron more than anything else. It went off like it was supposed to, a subtle smack on the posterior for unassuming students like me, and slaps of hand banging bravado among other peer groups going gung-ho on their performances. Applaud, applaud. It's over, so forget it. One week of procrastination and another MBA exam rears its head. Yawn. Hmm.

With these few ordeals over, and few more to go, I sat back in Mysore at the B.O.D headquarters late into the night last Sunday after everybody had given into stupored sleep. And I did what I do best, reflect. 2007 is about to end, and a conniving little year it turned out to be, for me and for a lot of people around me as well. I definitely found a new direction in my endeavors, after having trodden the path of anonymity and recklessness for a good 6 months. This year was heart heartbreakingly tough, humiliatingly embarrassing, testing and liberating. I achieved something of common importance and that helped me win back the esteem and admiration of the people who matter most to me. Other than that, it has been the same ol' year, with the exception of the 2 wonderful and technically brilliant Porcupine Tree albums.

My friend was not so lucky. His tragic spiral staircase was built for him early this year. And the staircase was valved. You could only go down it, no matter what you did. No matter what he did. In many ways, more than one, I see a lot of me in him , and vice versa. He was possessed by an anomaly that had no cure. Parasitic in nature and destructive too. He was between a rock and a hard place, and out of luck. He tried desperately to change the course of his life, to start afresh, to clean up, but things kept stuck, like that thin fiber of chicken that refuses to budge from between your molars no matter what you floss with. You then begin to live with it. He did the same. Just like I did. We never truly faced our alter-egos , we chose to exist peacefully with them. They didn't let us. They got the better of us. We still kept hanging on. We begged to borrow, and borrowed to steal. Lived on expired time and ate stale food to see another day through.

After all the resistance, reason and remorse he portrayed, he was left to fend off his own mettle, thrown off a moving car onto the footpath in the dead of night this Sunday last. He was humiliated, bludgeoned with a stick sharper than most tongues , ridiculed for his actions by comrades he used to call his own till a few months back, called names for being a help to someone. I know the feeling. Been there while in college. Not for the same reasons, but with the same consequences.

I feel happy for him now. He will do well to get out of his rut and find some semblance that would lend a little balance to his skewed life. He will do ok. He had a horrific accident about a month back, and he's come back stronger than anyone who's had 3 orthopedic surgeries on the same day. He's much wiser than he thinks he is.

For a brief idea about how we felt during our own respective periods of spiraling down the mahogany staircase etched with gargoyles, take a look at the graffiti above, and imagine a faint perverse smirk on the face of the policeman. The child is us.

To my friend, brother and ally.