Both my Houses

A plague upon both my houses….
I feel I am truly ill equipped to deal with the loss of innocence and free being that age brings. Or is it simply that I prefer my denial to my revival? I am told repeatedly that ‘growing up’ means acting it, being embellished in some form or the other by a glossy maturity, a thin veil of stance that indicates an intelligence that is complex and not naïve.

I am forever struggling with myself, it seems. On a perennial quest to prove that I am happy, but I usually succeed. So I ask myself, even if my ‘happy’ emerges out of denial, does that make it any less real? If God doesn’t exist, yet I have faith, is that not still a worth wile pursuit for peace? Vile within and smile without?

Somehow my limited experience has brought me to the point where I need to create a touch of magic in everything. Somehow, anyhow…because I am near positive, that if I don’t see it everyday, it will cease to exist, or worse yet I will seize to place faith in it. It is my way or the highway, all by-way’s are blocked. My life is absolutely devoid of absolutes. I forever float in grey skies and swim in mulch seas, yet this is one ‘black’ that I need. My quest for happiness, real or not, must not meander, it must maintain itself.

Perhaps this is why, I devote so much time and energy in acting the fool …to see people laugh, to collect and intricately connect a series of manufactured moments, where I have played the wizard. Moments purely of my making, or so I need to believe. I Read horoscopes, bench personalised CD’s, dance and sing for people, crack inane jokes to yield even weirder responses: be they in the form of laughter, smirks or an extended impediment of eye-rolling. Regardless, they are still a reaction, and that is enough.
I suppose the real glitch of it is, that I am never funny or remotely interesting in person, the more time I spend with myself the farther the magic wanes and the dimmer its glow gets. That is when I lurch myself out of the Self and hurl my body into action; hunt for an ice-cream, watch an old movie, dance to the obtuse tangents in my head. Anything, to shine again, often I fear I haunt myself, far too much, for my own good. Making people laugh, isn’t taxing in the least, it is probably the easiest thing for me to do when it comes to a defense mechanism, and usually the easiest for others to stomach.

Yet I miss the old days.
The old houses.
The old you’s and the old me’s.

I long for the time when bad fashion and horrible taste was a given, when songs like “Hawwa Hawwa” and “Dil dil Pakistan” were anthems and Mitchells Bon Bon’s were staple foods. Times when PTV and NTM made sense, in fact the random themes of run around shows were gospel. I long for televised re-tabulations of An-kahi’s and Tanhayaaan’s, where ‘Kehne mein kya harj he?” and “Kabaacha’s” seemed cool. I long for the same adrenaline rush that only the Loony Toons theme and Thundercats could elicit. The thirst that only coke and country pine could quench. The wonder that could only be experienced when it rained and you were allowed to go out and get completely drenched. I long for ice-cream in its original splendor and simplicity: a Jet Sport ice-lolly and a Yummy’s Choco-bar. I long for the times when even in all their perverse irrationalism jingles for Naz Pan masaala, Dentonic and Diamond Supreme stuck and reverberated in your head for days. I long for times when the entire family had to sleep in the same room, because there was only one AC running. I long for the days when ‘play’ meant Barf Paani, Rang and Tip Top instead of Play ‘station’.

Yet I see myself now, ‘trying’ to stay true to myself. Always a self that meets the standards I have already set for an acceptable I. ‘Act silly Maria, but make it witty and snappish’. ‘Paint Maria, but make it a shape, no more silly rainbows’. ‘Watch movies Maria, but make them movies that have a point’ (luckily 7 year old me usually wins on this one). ‘Listen to music Maria, but save ‘Smooth Criminal’ for your head phones’. ‘Dress up Maria, but make sure you pull off, even your own patented bizarre- bohemian rhapsody’. ‘Eat up Maria, but please spare us with the Mitchell’s butter scotch and the quest for Yummy’s Panda’…

I suppose it is rather hypocritical of me, to long for the past that haunts me, to yearn for the life I hide from. Perhaps I wait for the day, when I will simply sit in my chair with a book and the lights fade lead to a wipe-out screen in a flash of dazzling orange halo’s and a magic marker scrawling…..
“That’s all Folks!”