Thoughts were easy to come. Words - even they were not a big deal. It was the sentences that would simply not take their desired shapes.
It was 2 a.m. when Santosh woke me up. He was drunk. Both the booze that we had purchased in the evening and the Arsenal-Manchester United match that he was seeing had finished. He needed some more booze for the night. And for that, he needed some cash. And so he woke me up. So, in the pretty late hours of the night, we went to the Citibank ATM at the Tunga restaurant near Udyog Sarathi.
On our return with the needed stock, I went to bed. I really needed to get myself some sleep. I had not slept the whole Friday night due to the pain and the whole day of Saturday had been spent in the hospital. Worse, tomorrow was Monday and I had to go to that hell which corporate morons so euphemistically call office.
But sleep was not going to oblige. So, after struggling in bed for around an hour or so, I gave up. I woke-up and decided to write something for my blog. There have been quite a number of thoughts in my head lately that I must pen down, unless I am comfortable risking their complete loss.
Now, the problem at Santosh’s place is that these guys don’t have a proper laptop. Santosh had one. But he had to submit it back to his office. Remember? He has resigned and is enjoying his days of complete freedom these days. Manoj’s laptop, I discovered, has most of its keys dysfunctional and hence the best use that it can be put to is watching movies and other craps that you might be interested in. As for Sibin, this bhai sahab has gone to Cochin and as it appears his laptop has gone with him as well.
So, at last I decided to jot down my thoughts on a sheet of paper with one of the pens that I could find lying around.
It was here that the problem manifested itself. The sentences would simply not come out. The pen, it seemed would simply not run on the paper in any meaningful manner whatsoever. It seemed I had lost my rhythm with the pen.
It must have been at least two years since I last created something innovative and beautiful with my pen. Last two years, I have been completely out of touch with that beautifully simple, age-old writing equipment. True, I have been using one of those in the office all through these days. But such use has been restricted to jotting down some small illogical pseudo-legal notes or other equally illogical numerical figures. Nothing more, nothing less.
So, in the middle of the night, here I was, discovering that I have completely lost my beautiful rhythm with my pen. And with it, I felt as if I had lost my simplicity. And innocence.
Why did this happen is a question that must be answered.
Is this the result of being surrounded too much by the modern day technological gadgets? Or is it the lack of open spaces, great expanses of sky overhead and green trees all around in a city as over congested as Mumbai? Or is it that I have been consumed completely by the illogical, money making rat-race of the corporate world (which has taken me closer to Lakshmi, but at the same time has vastly increased my distance from Saraswati)? Or is it simply the fact that I have lost the art of writing beautiful, sensible paragraphs?
It was 2 a.m. when Santosh woke me up. He was drunk. Both the booze that we had purchased in the evening and the Arsenal-Manchester United match that he was seeing had finished. He needed some more booze for the night. And for that, he needed some cash. And so he woke me up. So, in the pretty late hours of the night, we went to the Citibank ATM at the Tunga restaurant near Udyog Sarathi.
On our return with the needed stock, I went to bed. I really needed to get myself some sleep. I had not slept the whole Friday night due to the pain and the whole day of Saturday had been spent in the hospital. Worse, tomorrow was Monday and I had to go to that hell which corporate morons so euphemistically call office.
But sleep was not going to oblige. So, after struggling in bed for around an hour or so, I gave up. I woke-up and decided to write something for my blog. There have been quite a number of thoughts in my head lately that I must pen down, unless I am comfortable risking their complete loss.
Now, the problem at Santosh’s place is that these guys don’t have a proper laptop. Santosh had one. But he had to submit it back to his office. Remember? He has resigned and is enjoying his days of complete freedom these days. Manoj’s laptop, I discovered, has most of its keys dysfunctional and hence the best use that it can be put to is watching movies and other craps that you might be interested in. As for Sibin, this bhai sahab has gone to Cochin and as it appears his laptop has gone with him as well.
So, at last I decided to jot down my thoughts on a sheet of paper with one of the pens that I could find lying around.
It was here that the problem manifested itself. The sentences would simply not come out. The pen, it seemed would simply not run on the paper in any meaningful manner whatsoever. It seemed I had lost my rhythm with the pen.
It must have been at least two years since I last created something innovative and beautiful with my pen. Last two years, I have been completely out of touch with that beautifully simple, age-old writing equipment. True, I have been using one of those in the office all through these days. But such use has been restricted to jotting down some small illogical pseudo-legal notes or other equally illogical numerical figures. Nothing more, nothing less.
So, in the middle of the night, here I was, discovering that I have completely lost my beautiful rhythm with my pen. And with it, I felt as if I had lost my simplicity. And innocence.
Why did this happen is a question that must be answered.
Is this the result of being surrounded too much by the modern day technological gadgets? Or is it the lack of open spaces, great expanses of sky overhead and green trees all around in a city as over congested as Mumbai? Or is it that I have been consumed completely by the illogical, money making rat-race of the corporate world (which has taken me closer to Lakshmi, but at the same time has vastly increased my distance from Saraswati)? Or is it simply the fact that I have lost the art of writing beautiful, sensible paragraphs?
P.S. - The incidents described in the post occured on the night of 31st January, 2010. Ultimately, I was not able to write down anything at all. At 4:30 a.m., I and Santosh decided that it was a nice morning to go to Colaba on a bike. And so, by 4:50, we were well on our way to South Mumbai. That deserves a separate post all together, which I will post in near future.
2 comments:
Nice post Neel. Your ideas have come out very neatly. I know office jobs can be seriously frustrating.
Thanks Neelabh .. I am trying to pick up the habit of writing blogs regularly .. This is probably the most innovative thing that I could do in an otherwise mundane day to day office life ..
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