Anarchism

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To the late John Abraham, the only Keralite to be free!

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In my constant walks towards self realization I have met and known people who changed the way I think. John Abraham, a film maker from Kerala, whose works still inspire countless budding film enthusiasts, remains a prolonged idol for me. It is for his anarchism, his passionate yearning to be free that I devote this work, even though I very well know it won't be anything of a tribute to his dynamic life.

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Note : The character in this story is named John, but in no way is this the story of John Abraham.

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John couldn't sleep that night. He woke repeatedly to claim a lonely chair by the window which looked onto the small and medieval path leading towards his home. There was an eager wait, the source of which John could not fathom. He watched the moonlit path, which for generations brought home perfect brides from all over his locality to proliferate his family population and ensure the sustenance of their advanced lineage. The thought was sporadic, he was instantly perturbed by human endeavors and their meaningless rituals. He looked back from the road, the candle which burned on his desk all night became a minute wick and fluid wax; its bright rein would soon give way to darkness. Before it subsided, John looked at his shirt which was at rest on top of a portrait of Jesus. He smiled every time he knew Jesus was enveloped within his stench. He took the shirt and adorned it on top of his nakedness; all his life he used clothes for that sole purpose. The mundu which he used as a blanket carelessly occupied his mat, he took it and wore it with no particular honor and decided to give company to the lonely road he saw some time before. There was a smile on his face, which was deeper than any emotion he portrayed his whole life.

As he stepped into darkness there arose a particular dissent, which created a polarization of thoughts. It was rather a frantic outcry from his opposing personalities to earn primal consideration. It is true that there is always an intrinsic similarity between calmness and profound chaos - both are identical if you look at it from a broader point of view; he appeared in sincere calm even when a serious battle enraged within him!

He accumulated all the events of his life and decided to play it out. In a state of overbearing dubiety, he could understand the chain of events which made him take this walk. It seemed like an erratic protest against a society which constantly fed on his insecurities and aggravated his hostility to such extremities that it reached a point where he could not maintain a relationship without experiencing repugnance. In a city with a vastly reproducing and heavily breeding population he was a natural standout. At an age when a man begins to show his animal instincts and is in search for a potential mate, he immersed himself in a haven of books, dreams and soliloquy. His brain was restless if it was separated from a book, whose unending hunger was quelled once it tasted the intense ideologies of Ernesto Guevara, Bhagat Singh, Subhash Chandra Bose and Mikhail Gorbachev, all with equal vigor and passion.

Even during the days of professional studies, his mind could not leave the inflaming ideals and rest patiently. There was an unruly trait, a misalignment within him, which created a separation from ordinary living. It was what he called, a 'search for identity', which beguiled him with desperation. After obtaining a first class from campus, he never pursued for a job, nor tried to earn a living. His parents rejected his purposeless life and constantly buried him in showers of wrath. It was then that he first moved out, and settled in his hereditary home with his grandmother, who later died due to tuberculosis.

It was a period of constant instabilities. His life was caught amidst suffocating tension and intense hunger which seemed to dissolve all casuistry. He was aware then that the limitation to all advanced human thought was hunger; an endpoint to all human desires! He took up a job in a bank as a clerical officer, unwillingly, and for 2 years tried to adapt to a more human lifestyle. He trimmed his beard, dropped smoking and wore a more professional outlook. The period greeted him with many marriage proposals, all of which was plainly rejected with the words, 'Fuck off!'.

The phase contributed more to his arrogance, and little to routine. He began the habit of jotting his misbehaviors and also an explanation at its deep physical implication. He questioned authorities and transcended a feeling of rebellion. His mind, deeply in-congruent, tried to diverge from all instances of sanity. It reached a pinnacle of sinuous speculation which mocked his existence. He quit the job on the same day that he sat perplexed by the window. He drafted the letter in the form of a poem:

'Human or sheep,
Both familiar
I detest none,
I yearn to be free,
And to live in insanity,
I quit this false costume!'

He laughed at the world. He saw the skies turn faint orange, and thought of a humanity which would wake up, wash their eroding body, eat breakfast, rush to office and work for some imbecilic capitalist for an income which is rationed! The fight within him was ending. He heard the crows of roosters, flowing through ether and into ears of people who exist by habit. There were birds soaring through skies, searching for food that would keep them alive. He wondered why poets, artists and thinkers in world history associate freedom with birds but not thoughts. He watched their flight to the end of the horizon and somehow got an answer. There arose another poem, which he could not find an apt place to pen down. He would now search for a perfect object to announce his poetry, he would ask the world to rebel, he would make them think through his poem, he would call the poem 'Anarchism'!