Dirty Window

I was being driven back home tonight, amidst the dirt, heat, humidity and an array of fast moving lights. I like staring out of windows when I’m in a car. Just staring outside at everything that flashes by and fiddling with any thought that comes from it. I see giant neon signs on office buildings and it makes me think of the government, and my father and the general personality of men who work in administration. A new hair salon! Makes me think of my rural cousins and how to them this city must seem filled with glitz and glamour far beyond their understanding. Perhaps they are less in awe and more reproachful of this lifestyle that we lead. Unnecessarily excessive, lugubrious even; who would pay 250 Rupees for a measly burger, fries and a milkshake when you could have a delicious idli with masala filled chutney and crunchy wadas drowning in sambar. I turn ahead and for a moment am jolted, the driver almost drove over some vague brown thing lingering in the middle of the street. It is dark and the headlights of the car don’t do a good job of lighting up the brown fuzz. Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just a stain on the windshield that I mistook to be something on the outside. This makes me think of the way I see things.

Perhaps, everything we look at is through a dirty window. Each stain and smudge on the pane is something I mistake to exist on the outside of the glass, and it eventually changes the way I see what the outside really is. Each brown spot represents some misunderstanding or profanely absurd assumption I continue to labour under until one day with a jolt I realise that is nothing but a stain and proceed to wipe it out with my thumb. That’s much better, now I can see clearly. It was like when I realised recently that growing up one is accustomed to a certain pattern of relationships and the functioning of those relationships may grow, but essentially remain the same forever. I feel quite disillusioned with the notion of a dramatic moment where I would suddenly break free from these mundane bonds and fly away much like an un-caged bird. Yes, I feel quite content with revelation and quite proud actually, of having solved a minor equation in the math textbook that is life. Now this is funny to me because almost 30 seconds later( because off late with the influx of information and the exposure to inordinate amounts of intoxicants, my brain has been processing things quite inconclusively). My brains decides that is does not make sense. My mind is almost sceptical of anything that comes it way and it puts on its glasses and eyes it head to toe, scrunching up his nose and observing the matter suspiciously before letting it through, but never really trusting this new information completely. So of course, it does a double take and says, but wait, my hands are nearly always dirty. When I wiped off that smidge off the screen, did I perchance leave behind another glossy blur? So once again, the genius begins re-assessing the consistency of this revelation and concludes  that I’m still not really looking clearly at what is outside, but only a slightly less skewed version of the same. This really me annoys me to the point that I almost  abandon this reverie and just continue staring at the pretty lights, the gnawing problem this poses however, does not allow me to. As I think about it, perhaps thinking about it in terms of concrete truths and lies is not the ideal thing to do. The motive is to see clearly, which I believe here would mean to be able to think clearly ergo make decisions without conflict of thought or emotion.  My hands aren’t as dirty as my brain makes them out to be, and I can essentially see the previously blotched out part of the view outside much more lucidly. Isn’t that enough? This settles down the aggravated part of my brain that is more or less ready to sacrifice my sleep for the night to maintain that basically, all conclusions are inconclusive. The question however, remains as to whether this dirty window is really an analogy to an outlook on life, or that I should just pick up a wet rag and clean the bird shit off the windshield.