Kartikey Sehgal

Let us look at it from the point of view of conscientiousness, of a woman as a decision-maker.

What is soul? You may consider ‘soul=I’, and ascribe to it qualities of honesty, loyalty and trust among others. A common (or at least ‘important’) factor of these qualities  would be the quality of decision-making. Decisions are a window to conscience. They determine honesty and are a pre-requisite to loyalty. Human values, as such, are interlinked (and hence the perennial decision dilemmas we face daily). Do values bring about the downfall of well-meaning individuals, or are they defined by their capacity to not interfere in human creations and, therefore, success?

Such thoughts may lead to concurrent and parallel story-lines. But they are undoubtedly related to the subject-matter at hand. I had earlier penned this line as an alternative one-line introduction

Do women have a soul? If they do, then it must vary in definition from the soul of men.

How can a woman be conscientious if her decisions are not decisions by her? 

Conscientiousness! An overrated quality considering that they like you if they know that you are popular or of good status. All qualities are ascribed to such a person. He doesn’t have to fit the qualities, the qualities fit him, as deemed by the women. A rich man’s passiveness becomes his ‘easy-going’ nature. While the poor person’s easiness is his passivity. Goodness is thus an invention. Should a man, then, worry about being correct or bother about being rich. As a rich person he will get qualities attached to him. As a poor man, he may go unnoticed.

Consequently, societies have invented for women their good and bad.

All answers to life—and I say this with an imaginary glass of wine in hand; and drinking from this glass makes me delirious at life’s truth and amused at human claims of ingenuity…

All answers to life may lead to the act of sex. Everything else is woven around it. Happy is he who knows he is stupid. Hence, Socrates could claim some amount of happiness.

Sex is preceded, in many cases, by sexual selection—which is an industry women run. The value of the male body is not entirely in his muscles and calves, it is in the value that body has for other women. That male body per se is not enough to warm every woman. While they are undoubtedly enamoured by certain male characteristics; good height and a deep voice being among them—the business of selection is often societally determined.

Hang around, actually. Spread the word of your goodness, your talent; do anything to arouse curiosity. Do not claim morality, for that will come automatically, whether good or bad. But curiosity will lead to attention.

And when you are selected, that moment will account for a ‘decision’. A woman’s decision. Based not on lust or demand – according to her – but based on some other value.

Not all women are capable of life-affecting decisions. Women who can get out of the societal moulding—a seemingly gigantic task today!—are worthy. The decisive ability of these women is often backed by the regular presence of a strong father, and a feminine mother; or at least a good one with non-hatred for men as one of her prominent features.

When I am drenched
And the heart feels aloof
Absent to the constant pain

Let me drown, that moment
And not think again
Or doubt
The profundity of my talents

In killing I have taken a decision. Undeterred by humanity. Or the countless million voices that reason with reason. I belong to myself, a complete, I am. In me lies the final pang of life; in me lies the strength to reach out to the shore.

I am the anti-artistic vision that permeates homes and valleys; an antonym to young dreams of valour. But valour is viscous; it rides to impress multitudes. I am, the multitude.

In water I think of green grass, its blades curvaceous, and appalling, to the vanity of a woman. I have made love to grass and joyfully partaken, Her hungry glance. My lover, with its plentiful deaths, and rebirths, is more alluring than the fickle sounds of human love.

Am I, a synopsis of my life, or am I, a harbinger of change? I dipped into my well and drew a map they call art, I was, reminded, of art’s affiliation to the depth of colours, amassed, by mankind. Like my head that dips into water, my colours faded in the archetype of human emotions.

But I am fadeless. I possess, the qualities of my skin; my liver breathes life into me, alone. And the bubbles in water, come from within me. They are, perhaps, my last mercurial creations.

It had thus been decided, to impose upon the human, institutions of fear, of control. And the artist, born to be free, to leap, and choose, the colour of his self, was clad in white and his body, his soul, defined. He leapt within the definition and proclaimed his freedom, his soul, as supreme.

When I am one with water, and I seep into soil, and blossom as flower, I shall reign supreme, over vitrified walls, and yet, not reign, not repeat the invented human folly.

My head hits the water bed and with me ends the philosophy of work, of talent, that is unrivalled in thought and shape. And that bowed to none. I see the last shards of sunlight and onto my skin, a fish nibbles me slowly.