Something about sitting in a field and doing nothing in particular attracts me. I don’t know where this urge, this want comes from. I belong to a family of people who work hard—I work hard. I want to work hard at things I enjoy, but the field calls. I could not be sure where it is, and how far this call has travelled, only to finally turn into the softest whisper for me. I wonder how many aeons it’s spent floating to land on my deaf ears. I continue with my days of hard work. There is still time; I assure it as if it will listen to me. I continue doing things; the call continues asking me to go. It has been years. We play this game every day.
In these years, we have worked up an arrangement. Like a salesperson who won’t stop coercing me to buy whatever they are selling, the call keeps telling me things that will make me cave. Like a customer who won’t budge, I continue haggling. In the spirit of this dance, I now humour it and cease all activity for short periods. It is the best I can give it, and for a few days, it is silenced. I find time to sit by myself and stare at the nothingness of one solitary leaf on the patio. I look at it and think of nothing in particular, just like the call suggests. I sleep on the grass on my balcony, a poor proxy for the vastness of a field. Still, grass is grass and moments of inactivity are moments of inactivity.
Like a puppy who manages to find a way around all barricades, like a genie who twists the words of those who wish for things, I playfully find little ways to find my balance. There is no need to escape anymore. There is a life I have built; my longing for a field is a part of it. But there are things I have to do, and there are people I have to be around, to lend the occasional hand, help a little wherever I can, and live!
I want to live among the living, amidst the sheer busyness of life. There will be enough time to lie down—the call must understand this much. In paying this understanding forward, I must look at the sky, stop and smell the flowers and laugh now and then. It shall be this way until I run out of time. Most of us end up in a field, one way or another, but to live properly is to live among the living.