Alaya Vigyan

I don’t quite remember when I read about it or where for that matter but I haven’t ever forgotten this phrase. I believe it is Sanskrit for a house where one goes on throwing into the basement things they want to do but do not. I suppose the trouble with me is that I live in that basement as I ‘pretend’ to exist outside the house.

I suppose one could say that independence and the realisation that one is finally in charge of oneself brings along with it a hard look at the ‘self’ in question. In the past I have gone to great lengths to avoid this very confrontation and it is not something I take lightly. My sanity - hangs as it does by a thread - depends on my believing my illusions absolutely. My optimism, my insistence on pretty alternate realities and my overt idealism rests on consistently resisting the truth that I am actually a cynic. That in truth I believe in nothing and I feel even less. I must pretend for myself more than anyone else, or else all my I’s fall down. I was seven when my first therapist told me that I was ‘very creative’. In therapy that is code for ‘escapist’. I also discovered years later when I read his reports that he perceived me to be extremely manipulative. He noted that I easily preempted his changing tones and the tenure of his every question and told him exactly what he wanted to hear. He said I had astonishing control over my emotions and never let my face betray any sign of weakness. He wrote that I smiled at all the wrong things. He found me endearing because I was altogether too perceptive but in a quiet, inquisitive, blushing sort of way. He also observed that I would collapse under the burden of my mental ministrations and my grandiose emotional cover-ups. He stated that my behaviour, if it continued, would lead to an emotional breakdown. He predicted a collapse of the facade, most likely a suicide attempt. He recommended me for mild shock therapy at eleven. I had the first of my three subsequent ‘collapses’ three years later.

I have never really been able to view any of it as an illness though. I don’t suppose anyone who is depressed ever views it as an illness… it is merely an ‘awareness’. I am one of the select few that realise that perhaps it would simply be more convenient for me if life were to end today because I would not have to go to the bank or feel alone or pick out what to wear. Many people feel that way…not many feel that way all the time. Even fewer people cover it up with rainbows and ice-cream. I am all too aware that I don’t react to things as most people expect me too. I do not get angry…ever or perhaps it is prudent to say I cannot express anger…ever. I find it a terrifying emotion, perhaps because I have witnessed all too clearly how easily anger morphs into violence, madness. I am told now by the two friend-like acquaintances that I have not managed shake off with my attitude that this is why I don’t have relationships or friends or …what they classify as ‘a life’. And here I always thought it was because I was merely terrified of not being liked!

I argue with them vehemently about how my constant ‘calm’ shows how evolved I am, that it has nothing to do with being numb. I struggle in vain to push my puns into profundity but there is a problem. They are not stupid and don’t accept any of my neologisms for life. They can quote back just as much Nietzsche and Rimbaud without needing to live it like I do to ‘feel’ unique or…something. I find myself to be little more than a verbal fidget in their presence, trying in vain to explain that the reason I prefer to stay in my room or read in the park over bar-hopping is because I simply find all company ultimately exhausting. Perhaps I have been educated beyond my intelligence. Reading people rather than talking to people, thinking rather than doing, lying rather than living…perhaps it is all finally beginning to lose its appeal. I can feel my Utopia fray around the edges as everything it was covering up struggles to swallow me all over again.

Perhaps it is because I fell in love with a nihilist and he made me realise that secretly I was one all along. I don’t want to confront this information, let alone acknowledge it so I now avoid stalking him. We had three conversations over the past two months and each one left me shaken to the core. I asked him what degree he was reading for at Oxford and he told me it was a Dphil in Theoretical Physics. He was polite enough to return the favour and I told him that I was doing my Mst in Women’s Studies and that my research focused on the human rights situation with regards to religion, Nizam-e-Adl and all that. He searched my face for something and then asked whether I believed in any of it.

“What?” I asked.

“Human Rights.” He responded.

I didn’t really know what to say so I said “Don’t you?!”

“I don’t believe in anything. It’s a moot point. I am curious why you do.”

“Well I suppose I like to think we all should have some guarantees just because we are human. Personal dignity being one of them,” perhaps I sounded sullen, I don’t know.

“Yes but ‘liking to think’ and ‘should’s’ aren’t the same thing as believing. Actually, I take that back: they are exactly the same thing. That’s why I don’t really believe in anything,” he said calmly.

I was quiet for a moment as I took in his point. “I can agree with that, but…”

“Can you?” he raised his eye brow at me, smirking a little.

“Yes, but I also think that if we didn’t have any standard of what ‘should’ happen, we would never have any motivation to change what does happen,” there that sounded good enough, didn’t it?

“So you believe that motivations and wants can change things?” he countered.

“Well, perhaps not all things but certainly some things,” I realised belatedly that I was way in over my head.

“But we have no control over those ‘some’ things do we?” he said,

“No, but I don’t think that should stop us from trying for…”

“...For?” he echoed.

“Something, anything” I countered stubbornly.

“I do” and then he got up abruptly, leaving me to sulk for the rest of the week as I was hounded by all my own some’s that had nearly driven me mad. I kept telling myself that I had overcome that blackness that I could escape it because I never let it fester. I didn’t believe in self pity. Then I heard his monotone echo in my ear reminding me that just because I didn’t believe in giving in to self pity, didn’t mean that self pity didn’t drive me in other ways.

I took to working on my papers and my research kept me busy and is keeping me busy. I started writing again, fiction this time. Somewhere in the middle of escaping his words over the next few weeks I even managed to get my US visa. I would overcome this odd little bout of cynicism. I had overcome so much worse. I spent my days strolling through Oxford listening to audiobooks on my iPod and sketching random walls and trees. This city is truly magnificent in the summer and I relished it like only I could. It is hard to hold on to cynicism when one is surrounded by colour. Then I ran into him outside the Bodleian Library on a Tuesday afternoon. He was sitting on the grass reading…well, math. I didn’t really have the courage to approach him again so I thought I would just pass right by him and into the library but he noticed me staring at him. He greeted me in his usual monotone and asked me to join him.

“Were you going to pretend you hadn’t seen me?” he smirked. I could tell he was enjoying my obvious discomfort.

“I really didn’t see you,” I stuttered back at him.

“Which is why you stopped and changed directions, of course,” he asked.

For some reason he was oblivious to how impolite it was to slap someone in the face with the knowledge that you were all-too aware of their obsession with you. I don’t really know how badly I was blushing… it was a habit of face.

“You blush quite violently, you know?” he observed calmly, the expression on his face unwavering. So now I knew. I also knew that he was cruel. I chose not to acknowledge either observation as I sat down.

“So, you like me.” he stated in a bored voice, while staring at me intently waiting for a reaction. Seriously what was wrong with him? Was I not allowed to salvage any measure of pride? I could actually feel tears build up and prick the back of my eyes. I had never been this embarrassed and I had never felt this vulnerable. And heaven knows that 'vulnerable' was my default setting. I was also horribly paralyzed, so getting up and running was not an option.

“My mistake, believe me I think I just got over it,” I whispered, it was the only way to keep the tears out of my voice.

“No you didn’t, actually. If you liked me in the first place you already knew that I wouldn’t care either way, so if anything, my being a complete ass right now would only make you like me more.” He wasn’t triumphant, at least he didn’t sound triumphant. He was what he always was: brilliant, incisive, honest and bored.

“Yes I get it, I’m a masochist. I won’t bother you anymore.” I said in a rush, I really needed to get out of here before I broke down.

“You don’t bother me. I am flattered actually. You are a lot more observant than most women I meet and I wouldn’t mind in the least getting to know you better. As long as we were clear on what it all means,” he said calmly.

I have never hated myself more than for asking the next question that followed, “And what does it all mean?”

“Nothing,” he said. “If we were to see each other it would be about sex and that’s all it would ever be. I don’t really ‘believe’ in relationships” he was waiting for me to react now, I could tell. He wanted me to be offended or petulant or perhaps violent so he could safely put me in one of the neat little 'woman' boxes in his mind. I could tell that he had been on the receiving end of all of those reactions before.

So I took a deep breath, “No of course you don’t.”

He raised his eye brows slightly. I don’t know how I managed it but I was perfectly calm now.

“Although I do think you have presumed a bit much. I won’t deny following you or liking you either but the fact that I never tried to do anything about it should clue you in on the fact that I don’t ‘expect’ anything from you. And that’s what really bothers you isn’t it, ‘expectations’? Well trust me on this it bothers me more. I expect nothing, which is why I did not try. So you humiliating me like this doesn’t really serve any purpose. Although I am sure it is extremely entertaining.”

I was done, I was even slightly proud of myself when I noticed that he was surprised by my response. Of course he didn’t betray any overt reaction, just a subtle tensing of his jaw but that ghost of a smirk disappeared. I got up and left.

Then I cried.

It has been several weeks since that particular fiasco and I have been rummaging frantically through the drawers of my old dreams to keep myself occupied. I have been editing old short stories I had written that I never thought worth much; I have been writing poems for poetry competitions; I have been applying for jobs with the BBC, the United Nations and well anywhere that would have me. I have also been listening to Saeen Zahoor and Iqbal Bano, which tells me that I must be more miserable than I thought. I know all too well that I am barely keeping the blackness at bay. The mere fact that I haven’t left my room in six days is due to the fact that I sporadically burst into tears without provocation, rhyme or reason. My research continues as I sift my day through Pakistani news stories for my thesis and I was finally beginning to approach some semblance of a schedule until today.

He wrote me an email. It took me almost twenty minutes to decide not to delete it and then another ten minutes to read it. It was short, two lines and as with all our confrontations it was a challenge.

I realise you will probably decline, you should decline… but I was wondering if we could have lunch tomorrow. I shall be outside the Ashmolean at 1:30 pm.
-N
I know perfectly well that I should decline and I know perfectly well that I won’t decline. He is right, I am a masochist but then again I have been waiting to feel for a long, long, long time now. I shall feel this, whatever this is or will be.

Wish me luck Captain, I haven’t finished anything in forever.