It was the fear of numbers that drove me to find solace in words. In retrospect, I could say, I shunned one fear to embrace another. Words are no less difficult, no less obscure. They remain stubborn, unyielding despite the many hours I spent writing and rewriting them. My arm is rigid from the pain of having to get them down on paper, but they remain silent and stare at me with a hint of a smile, as if they carried a secret within them. They enjoy my bewilderment, my confusion and my frustration. They keep telling me, that it is I who has to make them yield to me their secret. I drop my pen (sometimes I even use a pencil) from my cramped fingers and I want to give it all up. I want to forget this endeavour as just another playful indulgence and get on to more pressing matters. But I come back and I keep trying, and with each new manoeuvre I hope to overcome the word.
It is evening now. Where I stay, we have a few open green areas (playgrounds) but I cannot see them from where I sit. It would be beautiful to watch the descending dusk over a wide expanse of open land, but it is just a thought. Getting down the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, from my bookshelf, I notice that it has started to rust in places. The man who made it had told me it will not. Forget it. I start to look up a few words I need. I need them to describe a sudden pause in a long conversation or a soft touch on the skin or an unknowing glance or perhaps a fleeting sensation of a sinking heart. Suddenly, I feel the pressure of words on me, surrounding me on all sides and turbulence comes to my mind. It’s not the word I want. Now, everything subsides. It is quiet. The surrounding silence is too polite and it seems to mock me. The words have escaped me. The writing too has stopped.
I no longer keep count of the days when I am afflicted by this madness, but long for it to happen everyday. Everyday will be like a routine. Like breathing in and breathing out. Like life, it will just happen. The daily affliction is the only cure. I gather my sheets of paper and set them aside. I keep them in front of my eyes to remind myself of another failed attempt. I am less critical now and like a young child learning to walk, I am more forgiving. I am full of hope. Tomorrow, again, will be another effort, another similar journey. It might yield nothing other than just affording me another peep into my soul.
