Being Lead

So I took this quiz the other day on Facebook, a popular social networking site (that I personally prefer to Orkut) and apparently I am like Lead, of the Periodic Table fame.

So how does it feel to be Lead?

Pencils. Scribble, scratch and sharpen. Noughts and crosses. Bubbles to be darkened. Scratching ears. Scratching off last page love songs from the Maths notebooks. 2B or not 2B. 4B. 6B. Shades and shadows. Confident strokes and hesitant outlines. Sketches. Smudges. Ten marks for neatness and words bathed in red in bridal examination sheets. One more world where sharpness brings you accolades. And shavings that look like Hawaiian hula skirts. Steel against wood. A gentle slice for the longest wraparound! The new age Nataraj is still formidable in red and black formal stripes. The eraser at the back is a mellowed down avatar of the Graphite God. For sometimes words need to be taken back. The sharp tip that pierces more than an inflated ego. A new world of tests and tastes. The occasional Staedtler in blue and white. And the Perumal Chetty, in an austere yellow ochre. The plastic pencils are asthmatic in their inability to breathe words fully. The lead in the pencil is an autocracy. It demands. It commands. You can burn the wood but the lead remains, toughened and dark.

And then there is paint. Colours of emotion.

And poison.

Would I mind being lead, though? It creates and it kills. Don’t we all?