Work in progress
I got back from my bureaucratic visit to Nepal — no more than 90 days continuosly in India allowed — last Thursday. I arrived back in Vizag with such enthusiasm and motivation for everything that I felt like a fire was burning in my chest. I couldn’t wait to get back to my recently established work schedule mimicking my boyfriend’s long working hours. The budding habit of writing daily and putting effort into a few other projects too gave me such confidence and joy in finally being able to materialise all the ideas and thoughts bouncing around in my head and let go of most of the pressure, stress and insecurities I had been battling with all last year. I felt useful. I felt like my own person. I loved being at home and sharing that person with my boyfriend.
But almost as soon as I stepped through the door of our home, threw my backpack on the floor and swiftly peeled off all the smelly clothes I had been wearing for the past seven days — it was freezing in Nepal, so I had to wear everything warm I had packed with me and it was not much — my mind went blank. As if I threw all my ideas away with the clothes and put off the fire when I rushed to take a shower for the first time since embarking on my journey to Lumbini. I felt such a pressure about being able to start getting things done again, as if the pressure cooker was just about to whistle to mark my late lunch dal being cooked. But the pressure cooker is broken and so I felt was my brain with no outlet for the steam before it gets unbearable.
In Lumbini I was so cold all the time that I was barely able to do anything other than keep myself moving and walk all over the sacred zone exploring the sights or curl up under three blankets in my bed. I made a long list of all the ideas and thoughts I wanted to work on once I got back home to the heat and humidity of a South Indian winter, and a steady connection and my laptop. I shot excessive material to share both on Instagram and YouTube to support all the writing I was already doing in my head. Ironically as I got back the sensation in my fingers as I warmed up again in the heat, I got sick. Now there is a cactus in my throat and my head is full of snot, but even so I wouldn’t be able to try to work on the writing as I need to spend half the day in the toilet. I am so tired and exhausted. I stare at my list in the toilet and I have no meaningful words in my head, no original thoughts to share. The sight of the blank, white screen terrifies me. I’m back to my old rut of mundane chores and cooking, the only things I feel I can always do well. Even if I’m dying of a rare tropical disease.
But maybe everything doesn’t always have to be a groundbreaking, enlightening story. Maybe you don’t have to be useful and give the best performance every day of your life. Maybe sometimes you need to just do and forget about getting anything done. Maybe sometimes it’s enough just to pen down an unimportant word and see how suddenly the words just follow themselves and there you have at least something.
And at least there is always matar paneer cooking on the stove too, while my zen state of mind is still a work in progress.
