We shall meet in the place, where there's no darkness.

"Tragedy, he percieved, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when theres was still privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason. His mother's memory tore at his heart because she had died loving him, when he was too young and selfish to love her in return, and because somehow, he did not know how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private and unalterable. 

Such things, he saw, could not happen today. Today there were fear, hatred and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex sorrows."

When I read these lines, I was dumbstruck. Last few weeks were tough for me as I am sure have been for everyone else too. I was going through a writer's block, infact there was a moment I was toying with the idea that either I have gone braindead or turned sick at heart, the only reasons, when a person cannot express himself to others. But going through these lines I realised I am not alone, no one ever is, neither I am mad, just because am alone, as the author puts succinctly "Sanity is not statistics" and who knows the lunatic of today may be a minority of one.

We live in truely dystopian time. We are inheritors of the last moments of civilization on verge of breaking into insanity just because of it's materialistic quest to move ahead no matter what, to diminish other's, to kick the underdog as hard as you can, preferably on the belly, to derive pleasure from the squealing pain. Those who are themselves hurt are hurting others. Mental health has become a mockery, ethics and chivlary a thing of past, love is nothing but momentary burning sensation and private space far from the predator eyes of public, a thing unaffordable.

"There's always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed - no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull."

But is it the end? Is it eternal? 

Sometimes we all feel like a lonely lost ghost uttering a truth to ourselves that nobody would ever hear. We loose faith in entire humanity. The government, the opposition, the intellectuals, the media, the news anchor, the professors, the trusted friend, the neighbour next door, the intimate lover, all seem to have their own vested intrests, that they voiciforeously defend, aggressively advance, some vague idea, ambition, loyalty towards god or men or a code of morality, that stirs them up to live life and even for some to take someone else's life or mock someone else but do they really believe in it? For that reason does anybody who says something in our time, himself belives in it?

"Winston had a curious feeling that this was not a real human being but some kind of dummy. It was not the man's brain that was speaking, it was his larynx. The stuff that was comming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech in the true sense: it was a noice uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck."

Than what's the way out? What do you we actually want? Once again to turn towards our author, "Sometimes we want to understood much more than to be loved" and that's exactly what's amiss in our times. The inability of understanding the existence and parallel desires of another living creature, the inacability of comprehending someone else's wishes and ideas. We live in a world where everyone wants to shout at top of his voice his anxiety but to stuff cotton in eyes and ears while hearing others. He want to be heard but never to hear.

And so from this private insensitivity takes birth the public persecution. The government plays upon our insecurities, the percolation of tension from our personal to professional lives, it divides us into groups and flames up against one another till it no longer matter we are against whom or even why? Afterall it's constant engagement of our nerves that keeps us away from facing the reality - be it the reality of government or of ourselves.

But there still remains a hope. A crippled one albeit but still a hope. Because there's always a possibility that even the most severe intoxication can never be eternal.

"Untill they become conscious they will never rebel, and untill they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."

Is it so difficult to hold each other's hand, and not say anything, but yet convey the feeling of deep solidarity. When words start distorting the meanings rather than conveying them, it's better to resort to affectionate warm silence.

And till we learn not to be hypocrites, preserve immaterial and abstract emotions of past such as love, stand up for rights of other's, not just because it effects us in any tangible way but just because it has to be defended, we can always sneer at each other from the collective grave of human conscience and muse  -

"Under the Spreading chestnut tree

I sold you and you sold me"

- Bhuvan Krishna

  24.03.2021

PS - All these lines and phrases are from "1984 " by George Orwell. I have not attempted to review the book but have compiled some stray ruminations of mine over it in the backdrop of present sadist time. I recommend the book to everyone who wants to confront the worst fears of human mind. The above article is just a tiny speck of a great masterpiece.