Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath and I

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath, and I

“Suicide does not kill people, depression does.”

The world appears free. People move with their daily chores. Someone is laughing in a street corner, someone else is chatting with a girl nearby. A couple is seated at the table, enjoying drinks, and talking about something; the girl laughs, and by the look of it one can imagine he just said something funny to her. Some people just whiz by on their bicycles, chatting. And a couple passes, hand in hand, talking to each other in low voices that is just not audible.

The lawn changes, transformed by the blades of grass that shine with the sun and swing with the wind. The leaves of the trees change colour as the seasons pass by. People change the expression written on their faces with the emotions that beat within their hearts. There is love, there is hatred, there is understanding and there is ego; there is hope and there is care, there is also dream and there is frustration. There is bitterness but there is also the satisfaction of victory.  But, but…

Bitterness is not a medicine, loneliness is not a cure of internal suffering. A good company is neither replaceable nor can be found with searching: it needs to happen. The hands of time and the rhythm of the ticking must match in harmony for the correct alignment to take place. And when that does not happen one loses the right path, one loses hope, one loses the purpose of life.

I am caged within the confines of space-time, and my wanting or not wanting, wishing or not wishing, trying and struggling produce no meaningful meaning. Emptiness remains emptiness, bitterness remains bitterness, and loneliness behaves adamant. 

But what appears on the surface and what feels within are two completely different things. The inside and the outside seem to merge together as if in a continuum whereas the invisible wall that separates the two is always present there, as an invisible barrier for the continuum to continue both within and without. And that is the bell jar.

And while Sylvia Plath confessed that she attempted suicide more than once, more than even two or three or four or five times, I have tasted  that desperation only twice. And if I choose to pick up a third time, it will be over, I know for sure.

It is just an easy comparison: a fly trapped inside an inverted glass perhaps might feel the same way as a human trapped within the confines of circumstances beyond recognition, beyond comprehension, and beyond the power of one’s influence. Despite the unending struggles one has made, and one is still making, many things remain that simply do not change: some wounds never heal, some broken pieces can never be glued back together. And while Plath imagined her life confined within the transparent walls of a bell jar, I find mine as fluid and dynamic as the fish in fast running water. She could not escape out into freedom, I am finding it impossible to swim against the currents of bitterness. That is perhaps humanity in-between us that makes us the same: similar experiences shared across the stretch of space and time within the influence of similar circumstances. And just like a caged bird, I want to be free just as Sylvia Plath wanted to be, just as water always wants to be… and then escape. It does not matter where, but what counts is if…

[The image of the first edition of "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath has been taken from wikipedia, is fair use under United States copyright laws...  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Jar and the direct link is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Belljarfirstedition.jpg .]

Desperation

...
'S*** you, man!' he expressed his feelings.
'No need to,' I told him, 'I already have been.'
'F***!' he swore.
 ...

A long time ago, a boy stood on a chair, looped his vest on to the bamboo rafter of the ceiling in his room, and tied it around his neck. Then he kicked the chair and hung there for a brief second. The sweat-eaten cotton of his vest gave way and he fell hard on the floor below, narrowly escaping the edges of the fallen wooden chair.

But he got a rather painful bum that made him weep without opening his mouth. When he got through it after a while, he cursed rather bitterly. There was no rope he could use.

The pain lasted the following couple of days.

Then a day came when he drank out of a toilet cistern. 'Shit!' he cursed after letting his stomach cool down a bit. He had no money to buy water in the concrete jungle, and there was no friend.

The next day, he had no money to pay for the books even though the exams were just around the corner. He could not prepare himself to have them taken. He said quit. Then he cursed again.

Then the next day, he went to mix concrete with a shovel. The landlord made him dig a big seven feet deep hole in the ground after the work hours were already over. No extra payments. He got drenched in the end, and when he got out of the hell-hole his legs felt shaky, and his back ached. He cursed himself this time, and did not say a word.

After that, he got a series of electric shocks so much so that he now could sense it in his fingers even though it was not there. He got thrown from a standing drum while chipping the walls and fitting wires, catching one of his fingers between the metal rim and his own weight. The finger went numb that evening. Then it swelled like a sausage. The hand felt like fire the next morning. Then he got a fever that evening, and needed to swallow the bitter-tasting paracetamol tablets.

It did not stop!

The nail turned blue, still feeling like a red hot ember and then after about three days the pain subsided a little. Then the nail went dead.

'Damn! He cursed just the same.

The nail took three months to fall off like a dead leaf in winter.

Then the devil came; once, twice, many times over. And there was no money to buy the medicine that could have lead it to another path. He nearly went mad.

It was just about the time when one of his friends committed suicide, hanging by a shoe-lace from a window railing.

'F***!' He cursed that evening.

But it stopped by itself, appearing only once or twice a year; but when it came it came with blood all the same. Bright red streaks that hurt, and the sight of it frightened him a lot.

Then one day, it felt like it was too much. He had read a book before, but this time it meant for real. He swallowed ten tablets with water, there being no money to buy a drink that would have made it easier.

That evening his head started to buzz like a hive of bees. His ears went crazy like hell, buzzing things all the time into his head.

Night buzzed, and the sleep buzzed. Morning buzzed, afternoon buzzed, and the evening buzzed, too. His heart pounded and slowed a little, but did not stop. 'Shit!' He cursed from time to time, in his hazy sleeps as well as his foggy mornings and afternoons.

The buzzing took away hunger and he did not feel like eating a thing. It continued for more than a week. And then it left only a horrible experience behind.

 'Shit! Shit!' He continued cursing.

The buzzing would just as appear and disappear from time to time over the rest of his life. And he would keep cursing.

...

'I don't believe you,' he said.

'You don't need to,' I told him. 'What happened, just happened.'

'Damn!' he retorted his disbelief again in the end.

 

Midnight's Allegory

[This blog-post is completely personal and has been taken from my own experience. It does not in any way indicate to any relationship with any person, living or dead, except that it is completely an allegory used to express my own personal experiences. Friends from my ever-growing circle have also appreciated my poetic compositions rather sincerely and I have been unable to refrain from giving them a taste from a completely different corner of my heart. Part of an on-going work of poetic expressions/compositions, I hope I shall be able to bring this piece together with others out in a book-like format, probably on amazon/kindle as it is my only platform/option of choice. Yes, heartache has been a rather genuine and wonderful fertilizer for creative outlets in my life's experience. My support for all of you stands in that wild river of bitterness you have experienced. See, whether mine is in confluence...]

***   ***   ***

Talk about bliss, a burden you have always felt like.

O wild weed, of life, what pleasure are you?

Thrice I had hung on the edge; thrice you shied away.

O friend among friends, what measure are you?

A Guest of Love, you can’t be shunned away; you can’t be sold!

O dark net of miracles, what treasure are you?

Felt like fire from hell, you have, felt like a poisoned arrow.

Far, far deep you have cut; what razor are you?

Of joy you haven’t carved a line: so blank a book, what eraser are you?

The meadow that might have been isn’t any green today; what grazer are you?

No turning back, no running away! What game of chance, what wager are you?

*** *** ***

You can read another allegory, of beauty and of love this time, at
http://fallencorner.blogspot.com/2013/07/dandelion-my-first-book.html

 ***   ***   ***

[This composition was actually done during the midnight hours of the 9th of October, 2013. I could not sleep that night. There was a visit from the Devil for the second time in the last 3 months, and I just remained tossing and turning in my bed. It was too much to bear. I sketched these lines and the morning I got out of bed, I was drenched in sweat as if I had taken a shower! It really felt painful, and horrible... As this is a part of my life's experiences, the work is copyright protected. Midnight's Allegory is actually a series of on-going compositions by the author. © 2013, Subarna Prasad Acharya. Reviews need to be accompanied by references to the author.]

My Story

My Story as a Writer


Three of my major works are now available from and distributed by Amazon.

1. Out of Kathmandu

2. Ripheart Mountains

3. Daughter of a Watermill

For all of my books available from Amazon, please follow this link here.


I have devoted years to create these works, travelled far-flung corners, experienced the extremes, and delved into the lives of countless people. It was never easy. I generally do not write about eroticism, if you look for that in a story, and I try to be as honest as I can to my characters. I cannot say more about these books here in this post as they have their own posts now.

Currently, I am working on two more books although I have more than that in line. Out of these current two, the first one is a novel and the second one is a non-fiction.

I cannot answer about these unfinished works at present as I am going through rather difficult times. It also depends on how my works get received.

What is my personal story then? Strangely, it all fits in the ghazal by Lata Mangeshkar .

"Dhuwa banake fiza mein uda diya mujhko
Me jal raha tha kisi ne bujha diya mujhko ....."

Here is my translation of the initial lines (please note that this translation is unofficial):


"Turned into smoke I was blown to the air; the moods of the sky:
I was aflame; someone put me out (and made me die)..."


This short translation is part of my novel Ripheart Mountains. The novel is a fiction but it is based on real stories of real people.

And then, as she sings, one question makes me tormented. "If I am still standing today for loaves of bread, the question is: what have books given me?"

I cannot find an answer to that question, probably because whenever I listen to her sing I feel she is singing my personal story. And thinking about smoke, I remember I had composed a poetic piece titled "Bitterness" years ago.


And BITTERNESS is all that is there in one of my blogs titled "The Bitterness Pill". You can add more in the comments if you feel like adding anything that I have missed out. All of it came out in a blog after a short conversation shared with cups of tea with a friend of mine and it became a concept for a book project. Yes, I have some of the chapters already finished but there is still more than 60% of the work remaining to be done before it gets finalised as a book.  

Even today, as I write and edit and re-write these lines, I find no change in my story to speak of. It has remained, as always, just like my profile picture that is at least 6 years younger than I am now. I don't have a new one, and I cannot change the old.

My personal story has remained stagnant. And yet it is as fresh as the water of a lake amidst the remote mountains of the Himalayas.

My personal journey has not been a sweet one, and the bitterness still lingers. My path has been that of a lost wanderer. There is beauty, and yet it is painfully bitter.