i have fought and rebelled
against all in the family and made myself
isolated from their lives and their opinions
no one wants anything to do with me as i am too arrogant to listen to
anyone or take any of their good advicei now
have the freedom to live according to myself…i feel a heavy sense
of responsibility to find some direction…i have no idea what to do
or where to search…i am lost but happy that i am free
i love to sleep the whole day till 12 or 1 pm…wake up
and spend an hour
sipping tea…then just lazing about doing nothing…no work no dream of
doing anything…just pure laziness and totally content this way
a government nursery next to my house is where i spend
all my time
requesting them if i could water their plants for a few hours each day
the gardeners become very friendly with me and are surprised that the
son
of such a famous movie star is with them everyday like a gardener
i love these simple people and enjoy their company
all the money i get i start buying plants from the
nursery
and the gardeners secretly sell them to me at a fraction of their price
sometimes stealing them for me and giving them to me as gifts
my roof top balcony is soon filled with over 200 plants
i love watering and taking care of these plants
they are my new friends and i can understand them and feel one with them
having missed on my education i am inspired to read on
all subjects
to study and learn…to know where i want to go and what to do with my
life
with no direction on what subjects to read
soni aunty secretly allows me to borrow from my uncle
satya pauls books
carefully one at a time from his vast library…he had read extensively
and
could afford a huge library of great masterpieces on all subjects but
mostly
on religions and books like the bhagavad gita and the upanishads lives
of
buddha, krishna, mahavir, gandhi…authors like khalil gibran, tagore
whatever books i find seem boring to me and very predictable
i start searching and begin reading all kinds of
strange books
anything to do with the future, death, life after death, occult,
religions,
especially on tibetans and lamas, the buddhist way of life, to become a
monk
these subjects fascinate me and i am drawn to them like a magnet
so i read every night under the open sky on my roof top with my plants
till 3 or 4 in the morning…my life feels so complete and full
excelling in arts and crafts at school
my other passion for still life drawing and painting returned
perhaps i am to become a painter or an artist drawn to art and creative
work
i soon begin to buy books on the history of art and all the great
masters like
rembrandt, monet, gauguin, van gogh, cezanne, michelangelo, picasso,
dali,
duchamp and spend months reading about their lives and works
i spend nine months just reading and reading endlessly
in the past four months i begin to have dreams of
flying in the sky over
rooftops and wake up suddenly and find my sheets wet with heavy sweating
these dreams become more vivid and i see
a long bearded person looking at me with compelling magnetic eyes
that is all i remember when i wake up sweating
i keep many sheets of drawing paper next to my bed
and begin drawing these eyes and a beard…eyes and a beard
soon my wall is filled with over fifty such sketches all facing me
with these magnetic eyes and a beard
one of the books i was reading was gitanjali by
rabindranath tagore
whom i had idolised while at school…i decide that perhaps i am seeing
his
face as i was always fascinated by his life and works
i have nothing to do and i do not want to work in the
family business
i have read most of the books that i selected from my uncles library and
my aunt is getting angry that i am spending all my pocket money on
plants
and books and not on food…but i continue to buy books on credit and run
up a huge debt with the bookshop nearby…and get into trouble with them
and my aunt finds a way to pay them in monthly instalments
seeing that i am adamant and stubborn that i want to
read and would do
nothing else my aunt suggests that i start reading books from the locked
library beneath the main library and promised to get the keys
the cabinets were locked and it was difficult for her to secretly get
the keys
from my uncle…so she told me i would have to wait a few days and in the
meantime she would send some magazines to satisfy my reading habit
i remember clearly that afternoon when i woke up
my servant arrived by bicycle at around 4 pm from my aunties house
bringing with him my afternoon snack…he made me my jug of tea
and i asked him for the package of magazines my aunt had promised
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