The Sad life of the lime green iPod

An aura of sadness surrounds an object which we buy but don’t use. The object becomes dejected and eventually the grief permeates its soul and it assumes the title of just ‘another-thing-in-our-life’.

In the day and age we live in, we have lost the value of things. The world of shopping malls and the internet has made access to ‘objects’ all the more easier. Catchy taglines and smart advertising makes us want things we don’t really need. We have shiny plastic cards which give us the impression that we are not spending real cash. Our cupboards are altars to so many dejected objects that if we look through our stuff, at precisely this moment, we will find at least five things we haven’t used in the past one year. 

Sad, isn’t it?

I, too, am guilty of this. Of buying things which sit in my cupboard, waiting to see the light of day. I’m sure some of them are super dejected and have completely given up on me. 

When was the last time you bought something that gave you immense joy? Which had you grinning widely and you couldn’t wait to head home and open it? We buy so much stuff almost everyday that we have forgotten the excitement that comes wrapped inside our buys. Be it shoes, books, clothes, stationery or an iPod. I still remember my joy when I bought my first mobile phone. It was a tiny Sony Ericsson which I had bought from my very first paycheque. Or my first iPod Nano. It was the very first Apple product I had bought and I was over the moon when I came home with it and opened the box. I still have it and even though it has retired (read: doesn’t work), it is still a happy reminder of all the times it was there for me. 

I think the joy, for me at least, has diminished because of the increase in the frequency of shopping. Where once extensive shopping was only done either before Eid or a wedding, it is now a part of our everyday lifestyle. Almost every single day, we get to hear of how something we don’t really need will make our life better and happier. We know that it is a gimmick to lure us into the quagmire of consumerism yet we willingly walk into it and remain stuck, sometimes for life. 

And there is no better way to pass time when one is stuck then listen to some music on a lime green iPod. 

Down the rabbit hole I went

I was trying to hide from the world and following Alice's example I decided to go down a rabbit hole. But instead of finding Wonderland, I discovered:

1. All holes are full of mud and poop (rabbit or otherwise).

2. There is a Mad Hatter inside each of us.

3. We create Jabberwocky ourselves and feed it with our fear and insecurities. 

[A message I sent to a friend a few weeks back when I was floating about in the land of blues]. 

a post-crash confession

In the middle of the afternoon today, I crashed.

It wasn't a physical crash although eventually I did crash in front of my telly and watched a christmas chick flick which incidentally gave me a great idea for my new lamps which are technically not new lamps but a gift from my aunt who is giving away her stuff but in a way they are new.

Why did I crash? Why does one crash? In my case it's usually a combination of pending things to do and things that I AM supposed to do and things I PLANNED to do. When I'm unable to meet the latter, postponing the planned activity day after day after day, frustration builds up and then at the most unlikely moment (which has NOTHING to do with the planned activity), I snap. 

SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

Emotional snap = morose face and zero response to anything including phone calls from close friends. Also, ignoring hubby.

Mental snap = Self pity, mostly!

Physical snap = Lethargy which usually leads to long periods of time in front of the telly. 

And so I sat for almost three hours, staring at the telly, watching the Top Gear team travel through Rwanda, some bits of the television comedy Web Therapy (which is a great find!) and finally a chick flick. Between the time dinner started and the chick flick ended (roughly ten minutes), I directed all my angst at the remodelling of the lamp shades which I don't want remodelled anymore. And while having dinner I kept thinking I'll probably end up dreaming about the whole fiasco (which, in reality, isn't that big really) and wake up miserable the next day when I heard about the massacre in Nigeria. 

And my snap! moment kind of melted into a little pool of water. The same one in which one is supposed to drown in the Urdu proverb (chullu bhar paani). 

Here I was, twisting my insides over a bloody lamp and there were people in Nigeria, who not many days back, were killed mercilessly and some actually drowned because they were trying to escape being killed by militants? It was like a jolt of electricity. A major wake up call for me. What am I doing? Why am I focusing all my energy on something which is not going to, in any way, change the direction of my life?

So I took a deep breath, smiled at hubby dearest and thanked HIM. Things might not be perfect all the time but they are pretty good and that, I think, will do just fine for now.  

Escaping Reality

It is so easy to lose oneself in a book and forget reality. Especially if reality sucks. 

Since childhood I've found fantasy fiction to be the best hideaway. Maybe this feeling came about after I read Tilsm-e-Hoshruba at age eleven. No matter how crazy everything became around me, here was the answer to all my problems. Not just the story itself but the possibilities the story provided to my imagination. Solitude was no longer scary because I always had imaginary friends, mostly characters from the novel, at my beck and call. I was queen of my realm and my wazir was a deadly cobra who was constantly at my side but invisible to all. 

I found similar abandon in some works of Neil Gaiman. Step into Neverwhere, The Graveyard Book, or Stardust and the world ceases to exist. While reading such books dread starts to settle in as I get closer to the final pages. I was gripped with such great fear of reaching the end of A Mirror of Beauty (Shamsur Rehman Faruqi) that I've yet to finish the book. These days I am lost in the world of the Malazan House of the Fallen - a ten volume fantasy fiction saga by Steven Erikson. I'm just starting book six.  

Maybe this is an ostrich approach towards life. It is easy to hide behind a paperback and let the world dissolve. To become friends with certain characters of the book and channel all the emotions inside one towards them. Doing so makes it easier for me to let go of my emotions for then I am crying with or for the characters, not at myself. I direct my angst towards the twists and turns in the story and thus manage to obliterate the sources of the pain from my environment...

...at least till I turn the last page. 

Queen or not, I could really do with that deadly cobra now.