Solitary walks – right before dusk settles in the sky. You’ve told nobody where you’re going and neither did anyone ask you a thing when they saw you leave with your shoes on. Probably going to run some errands or buy groceries, they must have assumed. But no, you were on a mission. And it was to accomplish nothing.
Too many time in a day I catch myself anxious about a future which is nothing but an illusion – a game the mind plays with images floating between dreams and logical projections based upon current realities. Will you have enough money? Will you be able to make enough time for your loved ones while you run behind buses and bosses, alike? Will someone serve you or breakfast or will it forever be coffee-on-the-go? Will you ever have that mounted bookshelf with your collections stacked neatly the way you always dream of it? Will you ever have enough time to appreciate the rain and sing about it on a night that is far from beautiful? Will you have kids you’ll take out for ice-cream on your scooter? Will your partner enjoy the same kind of jazz or will he or she even know the difference? Will you ever feel accomplished or will you accept any sort of regret?
So many questions and one little mind. How is one ever to answer all these queries on one single day. You barely have time to do laundry these days so you cannot worry about ice-creams and kids. Valuable moments are lost while we stitch for the future. But then again you can’t pretend to not care, either. You need some amount of planning – some idea as to what you’ll be doing? Finding a balance is tough but it must be done. And in your way, in your own time. But done,it must be.
But what has to be done now?
Work, yes. You need to till the soil.
But when it gets too monotonous?
Well, that’s when I pitch the wise words of an Architect who we had the good fortune of learning from – Sanjeev Mokashi. He always had words- of wisdom, irony and technique. He had hacks for everything from plotting in AutoCAD to beating procrastination – n infectious disease every student gets affected by at some point or the other. ‘Do design – spend enough time with it – stay immersed. But when you’re bored – take a book and read it or so something that gives you joy. You don’t have to just keep working all the time. But you must remember to get back to it once you’ve been sufficiently entertained’
And that’s what I think I’ll do, too. The coming months have endless hours of work written all over them – with the thesis reaching its completion; reviews being announced; deadlines to apply for internships coming close.
It is so easy for me to get distracted by instagram posts by Dayanita Singh in Champa Gali swaying to Delhi Sultanate’s reggae tunes or by the Delhiwallah ( Mayank Austen Soofi) who walks around capturing moments otherwise missed. Or just going through pictures from the more colorful lives of celebrities and wonder what they do differently to live life this large. Or I’ll be longing to go back to a point in life where I was happier than I am in my current reality – whatever it is.
So I need to commit to my own diligence and treat myself to a few pages of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (or Jeet Thayil and Gabriel Garcia Marquez who are also sharing the space) when I’m tired of the same thing.
We have to find our own ways to get things done because only then will the wheel move forward. Despite my ardent love for doing absolutely nothing and just lying down dreaming – or eating grapes when its too hot for anything else – I need to find a way to channelize my efforts to accomplish tasks.
And when all this is over – I shall roam the streets of my choice, live the life I yearn for and make more memories as I dream of more distant realities. Forevermore.
(The next post is a tribute to Zaha Hadid – the architect who held onto her whims)
{blinks} 