Sentence In The Mind

Boredom, ennui. Discontent, disconnect, disinterest. Flared up ulcer, back pain, physical unfitness. Existence at the basic biological level. Unfulfilled life. No future for better. It has got to be downhill. Am I a Sysiphus? Can't read or watch. Even conversations are a damp squib. Words don't have the flavor. Saw dust like.

Grey clouds hanging still. Not much of a breeze. Mood is grey. Shut down within like a snail. Flow with the life. To where? Existence’, present is tense, future is tense, why this pretense.’ Life sentence.’ Life is a tease. No ease or peace. Equanimity in pieces. Can’t piece them together.

Lying in comfort. Why should an adult crib? Mind playing games. Speck in the universe. Follow the rhythm. March to a miss beat. To be. Being is now. Not to be not an option.

It is a post siesta what to do kind of syndrome.

There seems no solution. Can a problem exist without any solution?

This is my mind full of torment. No escape. Some one said where ever you go there you are.

So, I am going no where. Staying put. I need to tackle my mind. Control the uncontrollable.

Sometimes I escape into Netflix. The moment I come back there is my mind confronting me.

They say there is a mind body connection. My body wasn’t in good shape. Perhaps too was my mind. I decided to order for some medication. I opened the app which claimed they were the pharmacy for the country. Some mishap happened and had trouble placing the order. I called their call center. There were so many options given and for each one was asked to press a digit. I pressed nine and the customer care person on line. I explained the problem to him and gave my ticket number. He told me a mail was already sent according to the information available to him. I put him on hold and checked my mail and reported back no such mail had been sent. I got annoyed. Here was me, the customer king telling him that I have not received the mail sent by their app and the customer care person was insisting that the mail has been sent. Then the call got cut. Don’t know if it was him or the telecom provider’s fault. I repeated the process and spoke to another customer care executive. He told me to share my mobile number as the ticket no would not help him. Two different things to be told in two different calls. This man assured me to escalate the issue. But before we completed the conversation the call got cut once again. From a night mare I entered the world of tech ’mare.’ I finally went to sleep with some difficulty.

When I finally woke up. It was dawn. It dawned on me when the soft light of the dawn filtered through my eye lids. I heard the cuckoo calling. Was it the same one that I hear mid-morning too? Is there a way to train one’s ears to make the distinction between bird songs? I asked myself what was the POA (plan of action) for the day? What does a retired person plan for? I wallow in nothingness. I push myself to get up. There is some preparation for breakfast to be done. Sabudana kichchadi was what we decided yesterday.

I brushed my teeth and made coffee. Allah came and delivered the milk, curds and newspaper we buy daily. He was one prompt guy. On the last day of the month in the evening he would mention the amount in the WhatsApp and I would pay the amount via Google pay to his account.

I also remembered that I could do submission for an app that may provide some writing assignment if selected. I consider myself a writer. It would be nice if I could make some money on the side with writing. Being one among the 1.4 billion Indians everything involves vying with fellow Indians. I got weighed down for a moment by this thought. Wonder should I be doing this? There are many without any earnings. I set aside that dilemma and went ahead and made the submissions. Some writings based on a prompt for about 500-1000 words both in fiction and non-fiction category. Yesterday, I got a bit of inspiration. I wrote about 4 submissions including one for non-fiction category.

The morning news was full of gloom. WHO’s announced its tally of COVID death and India had under reported substantially. Of course, the government as usual denied and questioned the methodology. Whom to believe? PM just became from his whirlwind Europe tour. Indians living there according to the report were ecstatic. PM told them that India was rising.

Back home there is a different picture. Except for India everything in India was rising: the mercury, communal cauldron, inflation, joblessness, coal shortage leading to power shortage and other things we do not know about. One need to mention that press freedom did decline. India went further down in the rank.

Just the other day I had to pick up my daughter at about 700 pm when she called from the metro station in desperation stating there were no autos or cabs. I had to drive about 10 minutes in a drizzle to pick her up. She informed me when she tried to get a transport, they were overcharging her. The so-called metro shuttles were not to be seen. I wonder what happens to the poor? I was asking my wife if the poor were informally banned from riding metros. We see them laborer's gathered around bus stands in the ring roads.

Commuting is one true test of life. It takes hell of a lot of grit for one to do it daily. I lose patience when I drive on the roads. Invariably I end up swearing at the drivers who cut into my way in their haste for reaching their destination. I wonder which: their home or death?

I write for writing’s sake. Don’t get me wrong. It is about self-expression. It also helps pass time. Some readers do upvote and some offer comments: such as keep writing; wonderful stories and so on. Nothing that would make one a better writer. I get email for so many writing workshops that would teach you how to write better. I find it a money-making business. I hone my skill by writing itself. I write much easily than when I had begun writing. It seems to me that I am making some progress.

And when I write to keep the ennui away but not for long.