Tomic Riter

Tag: art

  • Exploring new ventures : Thoughts from a shop backroom

    Been away for a long time. A while ago, I was sitting with this friend of mine in his shop’s backroom. We were talking about how something must be done soon. About what, we couldn’t say. But something must be done. That much is clear. It is as if everything has come to a standstill. It is as if we are alive but we do not feel so. Something, hence, must be done to feel alive.

    But what. Should we start a new business. Should we make a youtube channel like many others. Should we make an instagram travel account. Should we start vlogging. The thing is that it isn’t enough to start something. The question is why start anything at all. What is compelling us to take on something new. Maybe because we are capable of doing far more that what we are currently doing.

    Our conversation was cut short by the arrival of a third man, a nuisance, a menace to the society in general. At that point, we stopped talking. We let the third man talk. He was angry at something. About what, I didn’t wish to know. A million things anger me, but it’s not anyone’s business. Only mine.

    Soon, the third man left. Our conversation couldn’t resume immediately upon his leaving. Something about that space had changed. Maybe our moods changed. Maybe we were too exhausted from the routine that we were unable to talk further.

    Soon, the clock struck 9 o’clock. We got up, walked out of the shop, locked it behind us and we drove back to our homes as quietly as we could.

    – Tomic

  • Waiting for it to end.

    Waiting for it to end.

    The liver seems to be missing. The bladder has doubled in size. The eyes can’t take in too much light. Darkness is my old friend. It really feels strange when I feel my breath. I am alive. Alive! I take a deep breath. I look at you sleeping with a severe headache, your head in my lap. Blues playing in the background. Call me the Breeze. I close my eyes, my palm caressing your forehead. It’s getting harder and harder to focus. I wish to lay down next to you, holding you in my arms, warm. There’s still some time. Night time is the only time I have for myself. What’s wrong with me! Why can’t I have just one dream. I want everything. I accomplish nothing. I’m just a cog turning endlessly in a giant machine. I’m just a slave. Night frees me. Night gives myself back to me. I didn’t realise when the song changed. It happens every time.

    – Tomic. All rights reserved.

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  • Such a place does exist.

    9 in the morning. Now, 12 noon. Took me two hours to write down a sentence. Windy outside. It hardly rains here. It rains for maybe 15 days in a whole year. Yeah, just 15 days of rain. Four years ago, it never user to rain here. Many died due to lack of livelihood or just lack of food or water. But I wasn’t here four years ago. I arrived here two and half years back. Life here is really slow. Nothing much going on. An annual festival used to happen here. Now even that has be scrapped off. In that festival, you could actually see people, so many people, otherwise you would never know so many live here. Strange place. No cinema halls, no great pubs or bars, definitely no nightclubs, no parks or museums or palaces, no libraries, no beaches or oceans or seas, no deserts, no shopping malls, no cafes, no universities. By now, you must be thinking that I am telling lies. You must be thinking, ‘How can such a place exist?’ Such a place does exist and I live in such a place. It’s a dry stretch of land far far away from all the cities and towns. You need some real balls to reach here. Moreover, you need real balls to live here. Many who end up here run away within a few months. It can get really lonely around here. For somebody who isn’t into any kind of art, this place might even drive him/her to suicide.

    You see, art can really save somebody. It has that potential. The possibility of death is always there, but so is the possibility of living. I think art can open the possibility to both. Art can make you so alive, you are ready to die any moment. I think that’s all we are trying to do to ourselves – elevating ourselves to a point where we can feel a sense of total freedom, absolute liveliness. I think wherever that point of total freedom lies, death isn’t far from there. I think death and freedom are intertwined in some way. I think birth is a cage, this body a cage, these eyes, this voice, these ears, dreams, all a cage, and freedom won’t really come from the ways of the mind.

    1 o’ clock noon. Still quite windy outside. Clouds gathering. It might rains again around 4. These days, it rains around 4 everyday. That’s it for now. Have a great time wherever you are.

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  • Vincent Van Gogh, Letters, Coffee.

    Started reading letters of Vincent Van Gogh yesterday. Vincent has always fascinated me. His name is synonymous to madness. Checked several books on him and finally found the edition by Penguin classics. It looked good enough to start and so I started reading. Continuing to read as I write this. Reading his second letter known to man. It’s another feeling to imagine Van Gogh sitting wherever he sat and writing that letter. It makes me think, can I do the same? Can I write a letter? Maybe I can, but really, who will want to read my letters? And moreover, who would I like to send my letters to? Really, who would I want to send my letters too? And really, who would be waiting for my letters to arrive? Maybe some mad dog on some crooked road waiting for his next shot of adrenaline. Maybe such a dog, yeah, and if not him then nobody else would be waiting. Thinking of making another cup of coffee. This night will be spent like that – Van Gogh, coffee, cigarettes, no dinner probably. I need to change the music on my speakers. Changing now.

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