SUMAC

It is another one of those days, when after weeks and months of deliberate disregard towards my creative urge,this bitter-sweet truth resurfaces, reminding me that I create, I want to create, rather no, it is an urgent urge and I think, “I need to create, I must create.” Yet, it is also one of those days when I am reminded that I am not in the possession of any space to create, not just any room of my own but not even any corner. There are a lot of people in my small, middle-class, Pakistani house: a lot of buzz. The moment I try to think of an idea to write,somebody comes, talks, asks, gives, and in the usual hubbub, my premature ideas disappear like cotton-candy in water. So, I wait for the dark, quiet, lonesome night to come, again, like usual. When that comforting friend arrives in the last hours of the day, it finds most asleep except me. I am not sure if it feels happy to meet me so every time, but I most certainly welcome it hole-heartedly, because some of these meetings bless me with that calm and serenity that I am able to cultivate an idea, and transfer it to a piece of paper. It blesses me with one of those moments when I feel most myself and most alive.

During the day I float like a confused cloud, mind strolling in the imaginative realm, eyes staring into nothingness, yet on the inward eye, I am travelling the universes. Maybe my face gives it away. When the inner created universes desire to pour out, but there is just not enough time, or enough space, or enough silence, or enough clarity of mind to enable me to really get hold of a pen and write things down. I am not sure what to call this state: a dilemma? Frustration? Or, simply experiencing mini deaths at the deaths of my mega ideas every time that cartoonish bulb over my head turns on abruptly, and with just as much abruptness loses its shine because I get called for dinner. But this feeling, I think my face really gives it away, when my parents, or grandmother, or aunt, or any sibling asks where I have gotten lost, when they ask what is wrong, they ask if everything is alright, and I am just unable to share this experience with them. How can I make them understand? In this middle-class, Pakistani family, one gets education to get a job, and then survive for the rest of their lives that way. I understand though, hard times make on forget their hobbies; their once found talents they had wanted to excel at. Maybe my parents or grandparents have had them at one point, but the necessity of providing food on the table, for instance, made them brush their sweet dreams under the rug of bitter reality. They may not hold my dreams in the highest value, I understand, therefore. Our experiences are different, wherefore I cannot make them fathom the idea of my mini deaths, so I say, “No, everything is alright” and eat my dinner, quietly, reflecting on the void of incomprehension created by generational gaps.

Hence, it is one of those nights, when I wait for everyone to fall asleep, so I could ease my perturbed mind and provide it an outlet. I sit on the sofa of the small living-room, which is my last recourse at the end of the day. My brother in a very nearby room is still awake, and the sound of television from there makes me lose focus now and again. I block one ear with one of my hands as I begin to write with the other. Summer has not fully ended here yet so it is a bit hot in the living-room. I wish that was the only problem. Summer is not just the season of extreme temperature here, but also the season of insects. A cockroach flies across the living-room out of nowhere. I get scared: decide not to write. However, the urge is too great, even though I have not had a thought all day; I still get a sudden urge to write. After a while, I check the place out, the cockroach is not there anymore. Maybe it hid somewhere; maybe it felt sorry for disturbing the nighttime artistic catharses of a wannabe writer. I assume this silly yet very much needed understanding from the roach and proceed with my work, while putting a finger in my left ear. Today, I have come with a rather empty mind, but soon I decide to write about a fictional story of the struggling routine of an amateur writer.