This is an article that I wrote for my university newspaper/newsletter. It started with a random sentence, and become a 700-word-plus article 45 minutes later. I decided to post it here because I thought it would be a tribute of sorts, considering that the 31st of this month is Independence Day, and all that. It also seemed like an article that needed feedback from people, namely my dear readers that visit this blog.

AN IDENTITY CRISIS? REALLY?

by Ganaesh A/L Devaraj

I am not an Indian. A pretty bold statement, don’t you think? Imagine the problems I would face if I ever decided to say it out loud, to a crowd of Indians, no less. Imagine the stigma, the insults. Sometimes, the temptation to just get up on stage and shout it out is so great that I have to silently pinch myself to snap back to reality. I could be branded as someone who thinks he’s too good for his own race. My mother once told me to stop acting like a “black-assed white man”. Rest assured, I’m not here to offend anybody, merely to point out an element which is already prevalent in our society. So, back to the statement. Is it racist? Am I denying my cultural identity by saying such a statement?

When I was growing up, my best friend was a Malay boy. My neighbours were Chinese, and my babysitter was Indian. Her son married a Malay woman. I usually spent my weekends playing at my friend’s house. He was Chinese. I had friends from all walks of life, and from all different races. Back then, it wasn’t really a big deal. Of course, you could put it down as childish ignorance, but let me ask you something. If it wasn’t a big deal then, why is it a matter of life and death now?

Continued here.

I woke up at 6 today.

It was cold, and slightly windy. The fan was not necessary; all I had to do was leave the window slightly open, and the cold wind would slowly come in and wrap the room in its coldness. It’s nice, studying at such an early hour and feeling the cold wind on your skin, and the goosebumps that appear as a result of it. The whole house is quiet except for the soft drone of the computer. I want to go swimming, but I know that such a foolish decision would cause me to have a cold later. No use being an idiot and getting myself sick before my mid-term paper tonight.

It has been crazy so far. Not so much in what I’ve done, but what I’m getting myself involved in. Besides having a hand in trying to keep a dying club from… well, dying, the world of politics has had a chance to enter my seemingly mundane life. It’s a dirty, dirty word. I hate it to the bone. All these years, I’ve tried my best to stay away from it, to back out of this issue whenever I felt that I was getting too deep. Well, I guess that all those years of being in the sidelines will get to you. A cruel form of karma, it seems. Name-calling, bickering, talking behind people’s backs… who knew that a dying club would have so many problems?

Silly me. The club is dying… because of problems!

My writing is worrying me. Or rather, my LACK of writing. I find it so much more harder to write these days. About anything. It’s not that my life nowadays is uneventful; the truth is far from that. But it’s just that… the words aren’t coming out. I comfort myself by saying that it’s writer’s block… but can I just call it writer’s block, and leave it at that? And what exactly is writer’s block? Does it have a definition? Maybe I’m worrying myself for nothing. But visiting Fazri’s blog makes those worries and those fears come back. He seems to make writing effortless, even funny. And me? I’m struggling just to write a 500-word article for the damn campus paper!

I need to start writing again. Even if it’s by force.

And I don’t think I’ll be running out of things to write about anytime soon, the way things are going. I can’t divulge much now, because most of it’s secret. Classified information, even. But I’ll write about it when the time comes. Write and write and write.

At the very least, it’s a way of making me write again.

A new trimester.
A new room.

So why do I still feel like everything’s still the same? Maybe it’s the room itself. It feels incomplete, bare. There are so many things that still need to be done here. The room is naturally dark, because of the position of the room itself: on the shaded part of the condominium block that I’m staying in. No matter how bright it is outside, the room still feels gloomy. But it’s something else as well. Something I can’t quite put my finger on.

Maybe it’s the way I arrange my things. Too normal, too mundane. Clothes strewn everywhere, both clean and dirty ones. An unkempt bed. Messy wiring for my PC that I feebly try to hide with careful positioning of the computer table. The move to the new room is very much incomplete, in more ways than one. Try as I might, it seems that I have a natural inability to make my room a cozy place to be. Maybe a carpet would work. Or maybe one of those lamps that cast a soft, sensual orange glow to the room at night.

But I still feel like I’m nowhere near the crux of the matter. I wonder why. Of course, when the place is finally done, you will be among the first ones to know by the pictures I’ll be putting up. Maybe it’ll take a month or two. It takes a while for me to do these kinds of things, so bear with me.

Stay tuned. 

My father presents a dilemma in my life. To talk with him means to take all my principles and my beliefs and put them in the corner and listen to his explanation about whatever he feels like talking. To say what I feel about something means to incur his wrath. This has been the way I communicate with my father for the past few years, ever since I took the initiative to say what I mean. Obviously, this has not been very beneficial in our relationship. Calls home would be spent mostly talking to my mom, and conversations with my father would revolve around money and studies. This is normal among many families, apparently. 

Continued here.

Well, this is an awkward position I’m in. Staring clueless at the monitor, then the keyboard, then the monitor again, wondering how to start putting together the words that will become the catalyst to the torrent of ideas that’s been buzzing in my head for the past few days. Now that I’ve dug out the old laptop (actually I took it out of my father’s car), and have a room to myself, these ideas will bloom into sentences that will miraculously move my fingers to type those keys that will transfer said sentences to the computer. Now, if only real life was as predictable as fiction.

Continued here.