From The Polymath

The first instance of a thought sticks to your shoe like a piece of gum someone threw on the road. You don’t realise it’s there until you feel something pull you back while walking. The pull isn’t a strong one; it’s barely a nudge, but you feel it. Slowly, however, given that you continue to walk, all your mind starts to incline towards an investigation of your foot. Until, you cannot take it anymore, and you stop walking to check what’s underneath. That’s how the last couple of months have been with a train of thought for me.

Have you ever seen the donkey and the carrot? It’s an age-old idea. Keep showing the donkey a dangling carrot, and he keeps moving. That’s what we do to ourselves when we keep mythologising our lives. Our imaginary identities, the ones after we complete the illusory quest, is the carrot. We are the donkeys. No one knows who’s sitting on us. Perhaps, those who came before us. Maybe, those around us. Maybe us, ourselves. It doesn’t matter because the donkey is tired. The donkey wants to rest. There’s so much weight on him, and yet, the carrot. Oh, the carrot. The donkey keeps moving.

I’ve been staring at the screen for a while now. It’s been weeks, I think. It’s been enough for my coffee to get cold, and for the cold coffee cup to become empty. When I was tired of staring, I put my hands on the keyboard because what the hell, I figured, I know there’s something there. So, I put my finger on the I key of the keyboard, and then I softly tapped it about six times, syncing my tap with the blinking cursor on the blank screen, until a sentence came out.

When I moved to Pune some six months ago, I found myself walking along a path for too long only to realise that it didn’t lead me wherever I was going. I was still getting used to the whole area. It was unfamiliar, and therefore, sometimes, I had to retrace my steps back to a juncture before I could move in what seemed to be the right direction.

I’ve been busy, to say the least. Numbers surround me for most of the day. I have tonnes of chores and reminders going on in the background. I wake up earlier than I would like usually, and when I do find a moment to sit down and reflect on things, the only reflection that manages to enter my headspace is that I’m tired and that I should get some rest.

Lately, I’ve found myself saying fewer and fewer words, and apparently, writing even fewer. It’s not for the lack of thoughts for there are many, always. I don’t feel like putting them out in sounds, paper or the screen.

It is the evening of yet another Sunday, and it is now that I finally sat down and took a breath. The errands are done — not all of them, just the urgent ones. The courses are done — not all of them, just the urgent ones. You get the idea.

There’s a train track roughly a kilometre from my new place. It’s close enough for it to be downright annoying. It was exactly that when I first got here. That was roughly three weeks ago. It has come to my realisation that the train doesn’t bother me anymore. I mean, it does get me riled up every time I hear that honking and rattling approaching from far away but when compared to how it was when I first got here, I think, I’ve stopped noticing the train approaching.

It was the 31st of December. I was in a bar. My friends sat all around me on what was a table overflowing with pints of beer. It was a good evening, and I was a little tense because of something at the bank. I had just received the Indian Blogger Award though so life wasn’t as bad. It was a classic case of general experience, and the new year was right around the corner. This was last year.

Winter has settled in, and it is getting harder to get out of the bed in the morning. I guess that could explain why the morning workouts are marked “done” at ten in the morning instead of eight lately. I think it is fine as long as it’s getting done.

I’ve been on the road for roughly four weeks now, and I’ve learned just one little thing. Travelling, especially solo, is like playing a role-playing game. You have a backpack with limited space, an initial inventory of items, a couple of quests, and so on.

When I packed my bag for Bangalore almost two weeks ago, I put a T-shirt too many in it. There are reasons I didn’t want to be in my hometown. At that moment, the reasons felt overwhelming. So, I put my entire solid-tee-ensemble in my slightly smaller backpack.

We’re all stories. We’re all the things we tell others. But, we’re also the things we leave out. I’ve learned that recently. I feel that is the problem when you think and believe people are the stories they tell.

I have a confession to make. I disappeared for four days last month. I’d wanted to do that for a while, and so, I did it. I finally up and left, turned all internet access off, made myself unreachable, and escaped into the hills.

I guess I am too young to say that life is overwhelming, but I’ll say it anyway. I, also accept that I am too privileged to say the same. It is arrogant on my part to claim I know what I’m doing when I write phoney posts on self-discipline or when I give disguised tutorials on how to live life.