Chalte Firte Pret Ke Liye

If there is one advice I can give you, I'll just say that simplify your life. Know the people who are worth sacrificing for, they will be less but know them. When I was in college I wanted to be a physician-writer. Chekhov was an idol for a long time. With time I realised the futility of writing in a country like India, but I decided to write nevertheless deciding to never publish commercially and only on my blogs for the people who would need my writing. Being a physician-writer also meant, for me, writing for comic books, I have wanted to write comic books ever since I became an adult but it's not a viable career option in India for majority, also indigenous comic books have been obliterated from the scene. Most comic book writers in this country are now doing BJP vs Congress on Facebook and on podcasts, and some of them have went on to write for Marvel and DC, but that's not exactly indigenous creativity. The stifling of creativity and expression is not overt but insidious. I persist though. Stories matter, and even though I don't like listening and telling them so much, I do absolutely love reading and writing them. I have grown up on stories and even though they are redundant now, they will always matter to me. The best part about the life I am living at present is that I know the source and reason for the terrible suffering that I have went through in my life. Of course it is political in nature, and absolutely unprovoked, but then that's how it is for the majority of people in this country and it feels good to be in majority. I have a bunch of novels that I want to write, just as personal projects and not commercially though I lack the cognitive and mental resources at present, I know that I'm prepared for it. It is to be noted that no book can change the world, it can only provide people the strength to suffer with dignity, if you consider a world with people with dignified suffering a changed world, well then it is a changed world. I like the people I like, and if something about comic book writers such as Frank Miller and Alan Moore feels right to me, I decide to trust my instincts. I have lived the 90s and back then in this country, good people used to write comics and stories for children. Absolute gem of human beings who wanted kids to grow up into good and moral citizens. Kids don't need to read good books and comics to grow up into good human beings anymore, in fact they don't need to even be good humans anymore. Their fates are already decided based on the whims of those who oversee people in the modern times. When people are just eugenic experimentations who can be breeded into top or bottom of the social hierarchies and food chains, what difference do the morals in the books and comic books would make. Escaping into world of stories is a privilege now, you can do it only if you are allowed to do so. I liked to live in my own world of stories, but then I was forced to confront my own reality, which was totally needless as I lived with my reality, but unfortunately in this country your reality is what a bunch of incompetent, depraved and entitled assholes think it to be. I'll keep writing though, because it works as a snapshot of the times we live in, and while people may think I'm delusional I have made sure that when the time for them to confront the reality comes, what I write acts as a lifeboat for them. Existence for me has reduced to just a few basic questions, and this is what I meant when I said about simplifying life. These questions may or may not be answered, but it doesn't matter because I know enough to not need these basic questions answered.