Coming back to life

When the lights go down ... Was the song that I last heard before I slipped into that long sleep...I also remembered Annie was weeping silently , in her small 4x4 room - actually her brothel - located deep inside the Sonagachi, Kolkatta, she was telling me how she had taken this "avatar" to live out the life of a 'tawaif' ... Just to know that side of the story and how she was enduring the severity of experiences inside that cockpit , she was already an alcoholic while at Harvard but now she had acquired other weird addictions - chewing paan, gutka, kheini, smoking hash and snorting powders of all sorts ... - to me despite her apparent decadence from being the most sought after of Contemporary Philosophers of the world to her current underground status as a regular prostitute at one of the worlds most poetic red light district wasn't really a fall from grace , in fact it added so much more to her persona , to her resolve - to Step out and live out - the Characters that captured her imagination , characters who represented some of her deepest philosophical questions about "LIFE" about what it meant to be a woman, a wife of a Masai warrior deep inside the jungles of Africa or to be a ' sought after tawaif ' in Sonagachi, that kind of an ability , to just identify a personality and then dive into that life almost effortlessly - demanded guts and resolve and a kind of rare craziness , making you wonder where did she get all that ability from ? What's it that's driving her ? What does she want ? What's her search or research about ? Ultimately where was it all leading to ?

I had asked her all those questions , she was too blown to answer - or so I thought - becoz she did give me a wicked smile to my questions as she touched my hair and twirled it while acting lost, binging on substance abuse. 

Rossie had met Annie a few years ago at the Jaipur literary festival , it was a warm, balmy evening after one of his lectures, Annie too was a speaker , she had just finished an essay about the life and Philosophy of the African Masai's and her experience as a wife of one of the Chieftains, She had married, she had spoken passionately about her Children , about being a hunter, bread winner and home maker inside the African jungles - she was also asked some incisive questions about her sex life with the Masai's , which would have otherwise embarrassed other normal woman - Annie answered the questions with a cool , calm drawl and occasional humour , her answers seemed almost academic but the honesty behind those answers was simply enrapturing - Rossie was besotted at first sight , he considered himself fortunate that they met - just when he had rolled a joint and had stepped out to enjoy smoking pot in the open - Annie was occupying the neighbouring hut , in the same resort they were being hosted. 

Such is life , when you are free - you really experience it. 

It is only when you are free you come back to life - and Annie is Life. 

17 jun 15