Saturday, November 1, 2008

Can the role ever be different from the person??

The name on the notepad says Kritika Chandrasekar. Just that. That is enough to lay my claim over it. How did the transition happen? From Kritika Chandrasekar
Roll no --
Class --
Subject- --------
to just Kritika Chandrasekar?
When did my name and my signature become so important? I don’t know whether I am ready to be just Kritika Chandrasekar. It is a scary thought if you seriously look at it. All our lives we just go on adding extensions to our names. Roll nos, classes and subjects taken carry you through school and college. Somewhere along this lane and a little further seeing Mr. "So and So", being seen at "So and So" and inculcating a lifestyle that fits with being seen with Mr. "So and So" at "So and So" gets added to your name or rather who you are.
Further ahead it’s still not just, Kritika Chandrasekar. It is K.C- Manager, Financial analyst, Sales executive, management trainee…… the list is exhaustive but my slightly sedated imagination is failing to conjure up the numerous possibilities.
Can the role ever be different from the person? Even in complete vacuum you are still somebody but not sure whether that somebody is you. Can you even be sure of you?? Scary thought, isn’t it? The fact that you yourself don’t know who you are. The fact that you yourself cant read your mind. The fact that your recations, affectations, trials, tribulations, loves, hates, ambitions, passions, desires, wants, needs, hell- every freaking thought in your mind is effected through something or someone. In complete vaccumm what would the desires be, who or what would you be? Stripped of all extensions, roles, a social embargo how will you be with yourself??

The fact that that throughout your life you just acquaint yourself with your roles rather than yourself. The fact that you don’t display mania, the fact that you mock absurdity and abnormality, the millisecond that stops you from hugging abandon and takes you back to modesty…. Is it You thats doing it or the numerous voices inside you…. Of a wife, of a mother, of a daughter, of a friend, of an employee that acquaint you with ridicule and the blasphemous. How will it be to just be Kritika Chandrasekar? Not mother, not daughter, not friend, not wife, not manager, not student, not female…..
Kritika is not really an analyst. Kritika is not really a lunatic. Kritika is not really someone. Well if she is not someone, is she something then? Kritika is body. Kamla is body. Jackie is body. The desk is body. Ergo, Kritika= desk=dog=man=woman.
Isn’t it?
Bah! It isn’t.
Why the name Kritika then. Why not sink in nameless, faceless, identity less into this depthless pit of a gazillion bodies? My name is it the source of ego? Of demarcation and distinction and thereby privilege? Or is it a source of my identity.

3 comments:

Amrutaa said...

the stuff you write really makes me open up my mind...and my dictionary!!....see, thats the thing again with you writers...one isnt sure whether you've actually thought that out yourself and expressed it thus or are you just trying to use big words to confuse us??....if its the former, then brilliant!!...spiritually speaking tho, kritika does =desk=dog=man=woman....but lets not get into that...:S

Kritika said...

really?

GuNs said...

So who is Kamana then? I thought that was your name. Is it rather something like 'Kamaana' instead? You know, Hindi for 'to earn'. [:p] Unfunny, I know. So sue me - I can't do any better while holed up in here in office, you know.

As I said in your other post, try going somewhere alone. When asked who you are, tell them your name is... Salman Khan. Yeah, what the heck. See what goes.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs