response to: white tiger
balram halwai/ashok sharma,
all around me it seems there are stories of cycles unending, stories of stuckness.
and yours is no exception.
but the common in all these are stories is that they narrate a particular kind of cycling and stickiness- the kind of a stuck with a peephole, the kind of cycle with a narrow but very much existent way out.
what does it take to get out of the coop, as you did (or claim to)?
and say that one possessed that same or similar or vastly different rare confluence of characteristics and conditions, say one did possess all that it takes- how does one even get out?
//
much like you, i imagine, i am surrounded by things. things varying in value- cents and memories- but things, objects, items nonetheless.
i’m not proposing going minimalist, no. but what would it mean, what would it be to pear down, to peel these things out of my life?
is that what it means to get out? to get out of a room of things?
what does it take?
/
and again, like you, i am surrounded by dyed plastic and inked paper. plastic and paper varying in value- pennies and pounds and cedis and rupees- but paper and plastic all the same.
i’m not proposing closing the account, or burning paper already printed, no. but what would it mean, what would it be to extricate it from my life?
what does it take?
/
is that what it means to get out? to lock the door on a room of things? to pick the plastic and paper out of my pocket-lining like lint?
/
maybe yes.
maybe not.
/
maybe, getting out, is actually going further in.
maybe getting out is surrounding yourself with more things, with more paper and plastic- because you know, like a sixth or seventh sense- that this (and yes, all of this) is simply just a running down of the clock. in other words, you know all too well that you are only a stop or two away from where you are going- that final, game over, very last stop.
and even more terrifying, you ride with the knowledge that everyone else is also only a mere stop away from the end of the tracks.
maybe getting out is recognizing that there is no way to actually win the game- but there are infinite ways to lose.
maybe getting out- given the way this labyrinth was designed by us and for us- is not to follow the path, but to climb the hedge. to fuck the rules, and climb up and out.
it seems to me, that this is exactly what you did.
/
and yet even upon being out, even with more freedom, i’m sure that you have come to realize that it is only relative freedom, relative “outness” compared to where and what you were before. i’m certain that you, mr. balram/mr. ashok, still find yourself trapped in a larger maze, a larger cage- still full of people, of bodies; bodies who assume you are still wandering in the maze as they are- unaware.
i imagine that you walk among them, wandering falsely, misleading, smiling, all the while amassing more things and paper and plastic to make the ride to your last stop just a little more enjoyable. you’re pretending to play the game, you’re pretending to follow the rules- but your cards are blank. and yes, it may not be the same game you were playing before (back when you were a driver, still in the darkness, still in the coop); no, this new game has higher stakes and there is more opportunity for fun. But (and it truly does pain me to say this to you) it’s still a game. it’s still competition. it’s still a set of rules.
it’s still a cage.
and remember- all that amassing and getting out that you’ve done (and continue to do) comes at a cost, doesn’t it? not because you wanted to pay the cost- no, of course not. if there was any other way to get out, any way less violent or deceptive, i know you would walk that road. but the system is constructed such- and you are constructed such- that your only way to get out (and to keep getting out) is ultimately to withhold and seize opportunity, to deprive and to indulge, to misconstrue and to believe, to cheat and to break bread, to enable and disable, to discard and disassociate from bodies. and can anyone truly criticize you for these actions? can anyone truly say they would have done differently, chose differently, lived differently with the same set of circumstances you were born into?
/
yet, here is the big secret i have just come to realize (perhaps not so secret to you):
you cannot ever get out. there is no way out, balram. ever.
/
getting out is an illusion, a trick of the eye. there are evermore wandering bodies and labyrinths and levels and cages and coops in this life. to leave one, to free yourself of one is only to expose yourself to the cage that held your previous cage.
maybe, then, knowing that there is no true and permanent escape, you and i can come to accept that the great escape is not an escape of the body, or the mind, or the kind of escape that comes from a shattered bottle of liquor. maybe the escape is not anything one can concretely name or hold.
the escape is a pursuit, balram, it is a fleeting and unstable feeling. a feeling where you truly, profoundly, and wholeheartedly forget that you are encaged- you forget that you were ever encaged to begin with. you forget the uniform, the paan, the paper, the predisposition, the body, the mind, the rules, the coop. and you are left, all nerves and beating heart.
escape is the feeling where you just are.
and maybe that feeling- the red bag, elation, a deep-seated sigh, the last call, electric laughter- is the closest to getting out that you or i can ever hope to feel.
maybe, yes.
maybe not-
///
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