writing

Downtime

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Up until my last post, I think I did have hobbies. Now though, they’re just memories on the wall – the ‘wall’ in this case, being a tiny, less frequented corner of the internet. I started off the new year sort of making a resolution. I thought to myself that I was going to make this work. But isn’t that just the thing with most new year resolutions? Most of them are just mumblings that never come to fruition.

The mind sort of knew it wouldn’t happen, but the heart had its fantasies. Fantasies that don’t often play themselves out on their own – unless you do something to change the status quo. I felt I could and would read or write regularly – like every single day. But obviously, the plan bombed. That’s the power of routine. The influence of alarms. The horror of a new homework notification. You go with the flow and think you’re in control for a while – before life switches to ‘autopilot’, often inevitably. I’ve superficially been wanting to do this for very long. And that’s exactly where the problem is – superficiality lacks commitment. And a lack of commitment breeds a lack of action. It took me minimal effort to sit down and simply start typing this without a plan, without the slightest of hints about where I would start, what I would do, what I would draw inspiration from, and how my thoughts would flow.

I already feel better now than I did as I typed ‘wordpress.com’ into that address bar. Surprisingly, getting myself to do this has been a lot of work (more so mentally, than physically). And I only hope I can continue in this wake – every once in a while at least.

Making time for hobbies is no joke as a graduate student. Having only recently started my workout routine all over again, this part of my life too will soon find a spot somewhere, somehow. It has to if I am to maintain my sanity in the long run. It’s been a whirlwind start to the new academic year, and somewhere along the way, I know I might lose myself in the flow all over again.  There’s little else I can do other than steer myself back onto this path as and when I do come back to my senses, as soon as the storm has passed. This has mostly been a platform for me to vent, to say what I liked, whenever I liked, and in whichever way – it always will be. I can’t possibly explain how exhilarating and liberating it was to click on ‘Publish’ for the first time. I truly hope I can find my mojo with this again at some point.

To the distinguished few who follow me here, this is not the end. This blog will live on – and that’s a promise.

War

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He was a man of few words and often of silence – seeking to overcome mountains of doubt.

mountain-climber-silhouette-climbing-mountain

Climbing that mountain was a tedious task, one he saw as too much of an ask.

“I am no trekker”, he thought, imagining himself crumbling with the boulders.

“Besides, I would rather go for something suited to amateurs.”

“Someday, I’ll conquer this too. Someday.. ”, he said glancing at the tallest of them all.

“Until then, a good amount of practice on the smaller ones will help.”

Classifying his doubts as the minors and the majors, he cut out a strategy to bring them down one at a time. The minors looked easy with their innocent profiles – profiles that hid all their defiance. Five battles down the line, he realised that underestimating the minors was a mistake. And with that piece of wisdom, came more doubt. The antagonist’s army gained strength with every battle it won. More territory, more weaponry – the stakes were high.

The man’s weapons weren’t made to last –swords of pretense soon gave way. The shields his ego had so carefully built started to crack. He was fighting a losing battle.

He knew he wouldn’t win the war, so an alternative suggestion was accepted –there would be a treaty. Neither the doubt, nor the man would bother the other. That way, they wouldn’t have an opportunity to clash and there’d be no battle in sight.

The treaty went through and the man lived in peace for an entire month. That was until all the chaos in his mind came back to haunt him. He had been betrayed, the treaty violated. Peace, yet again, was a distant dream.

He consulted his cabinet of wisdom in an attempt to find a permanent solution. The ministers had an array of suggestions, but none appealed to him. The parliament lacked a sense of purpose.

So he picked up a pen and set it to paper, attacking his doubts word by word. Some perished, some stayed and a few others absconded – victory increasingly imminent with every letter he wrote.

And on the spur of the moment, a writer was born – fueled by his obsessions, relentless with a passion. This was victory, or so he thought. Doubt’s days were long gone.

Tired of the conflicts his mind so diligently conjured, he took to writing for it would set him free. Instead, it held him down with an inescapable addiction.

He was now a soul that was willingly imprisoned, yet inexplicably free.

 

 

Hot & Cold

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Life is an experience that brings forth a slew of emotions each day, with each moment. And to me, it has been no different –except for the fact that mine has been filled with more than its fair share of contradictions. More often than not, it has been a case of extremes, and intermediates if any have been few and far between – Either black or white. No reds, blues and greens.

Catching a cold in the hottest of climates is something I have come to master over the years. Also, I don’t really like how the term catch is used figuratively here – As if I made a conscious effort to grab the goddamn virus out of thin air and shove it into my body. Or maybe I did – a few sips cold water here, an ice-cream there.

I remember reading a headline this morning stating that at 38 degrees – yesterday was the hottest October day ever. Bloody hell! Here I was, sweating and sneezing at the same time. And the confusion that followed was the last thing I needed.

To let the fan over my head run faster or not to, to sip on moderately cold water or not to, to do anything at all or not to for I felt far too irritable sometimes – all seemingly trivial concerns yet so significant in the moment.

I have a pair of football studs lying idle in my shoe-rack. I haven’t played footy in years now. I mean, I have in the casual sense, but nothing full on like sprinting after forwards on a real ground. Honestly, I haven’t always been great at it, but as far I can remember, I had fun playing – I miss the running around, being short on breath, making my lungs realise just how much I need them. Sometimes, I wish I could travel back in time and maybe play a game or two again, make stupid mistakes, cost my team a goal and even score once in a blue moon – all of it for the simple reason that I would enjoy myself and get the dose of adrenaline I often crave.From being certain I would every other day when I bought those studs, to barely even coming close to it in years – white to black, hot to cold.

There was a time when I had a bicycle and couldn’t imagine my life without it. I cycled day in and day out and lost an (almost) astronomical amount of weight thanks to it. It was my primary and (often) only form of exercise during my school days. And boy! It was exciting too – Until of course, junior college and science decided to make me fat again. Eventually, unrelenting attacks by the elements covered the bike in a veil of rust and it had to be given away. From cycling day in and day out to not having a bicycle anymore – white to black, hot to cold.

As a kid, I was more of an avid cricket fan than I am now. A bat, a ball, a few square metres and voila! A game of cricket was on. I have broken windows, lost cricket balls when I hit them too hard and knocked batsmen over with some unreal inswingers – all that until a few years ago. From playing bat and ball within the tiniest of spaces at every chance I got, to playing once in four months – white to black, hot to cold.

I acted in plays in school, wore the weirdest costumes, forgot dialogues, improvised and made people laugh – Never had the chance to do the same post school. From learning to embrace an art to never going back to it again – white to black, hot to cold.

On the contrary, I didn’t think writing would be something I looked up to as a real hobby someday, hadn’t read half as many books as I have since, had never sketched cars and had never been on a roller coaster either. All that and more has materialized over the years, and while my life continues to contradict itself from time to time, the differences keep me interested.