“The Guide says there is an art to flying,”
said Ford, “or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself
at the ground and miss"
- Douglas Adams, ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’
I’ve
never really considered my life in the context of time and space before. For
the most part, I tend to view existence as a series of consequences and my
reactions to them. These days, however, I find myself seriously contemplating
the subtle dynamics of the time-space continuum…not so much in commonly
contrived trekkie terminology involving
cylindrical beams of light, rather as my own personal bubble of actions, reactions
and timing. If I think about it hard enough, I can easily divide the past ten
years of my life into alterative spikes and pitfalls on a sonogram. I’ve peaked
in some years and plummeted in others.
I
wouldn’t exactly call it a balance but it helps keep perspective. I am presently
enjoying the idea of a personal reboot. Every time I find myself facing a large
group of people sitting and listening to me speak (and not falling asleep), it
is a colossal validation of …something I can’t quite capture anywhere else in
my life. It feels rather powerful and I suppose that is somewhat perverse. I
never really saw myself as a teacher before, mostly because I haven’t really
considered anything I know worth teaching. Still, it is proving to be an odd form
of release …almost as if one is able to forgo personal ambition without
experiencing guilt. There is a colossal sense of relief in this, given that I
was never much good at self-actualization.
Teaching offers up the chance to feel ambition on behalf of other
people, wanting, even craving their success without having to worry too much
about ones’ own anymore.
It is
the least selfish I have ever felt.
It
is also the most free I have ever felt.
I
find myself suddenly absolved of the weight of ‘perfection in possibility’
leaving behind simply…possibility. I am finally contemplating writing my novel
and just writing in general because I am no longer terrified of not being good
enough to meet my own standards. I am finally willing to let others judge me
and I am able to not collapse under their criticism. I suppose that is the
greatest lesson I could have learned in the last year and it seems to finally
be sinking in somewhat.
More
recently I find myself contemplating sacred spaces. Crusty crevices marked in
my day that I cannot quite capture but that might prove golden if only I could
hold on to them long enough to let them be born. As it is, they are mere
figments, conceived and aborted during my breakfast coffee or as I return to my
office from class. I find all my good ideas, gentle hopes, idle quests melt away
into one giant sieve of ‘wanting’. I’m not quite sure what it is I want anymore
but I do feel that I am finally in that particular personal time-space
continuum that relishes moving forward. I suppose it was a long time coming. Do
you have that? That sweeping knowledge that you managed to think at least a
dozen epic thoughts before lunch but that they’ve all dissolved by dinner? In
Sanskrit they call it Bhrantapratavakavakya, the room into which we go on
putting our hopes and dreams and desires. I can’t help thinking that at some
point, it is beyond time we started looking for a key to the door, rather than
an extended lease that allows us to add on more space to its piling
proportions. Perhaps carpe diem is the order of the day
…or
at least this day.
I
have discovered that my car is a sacred space: all the in-between mandatory
conversations I need to have with myself cloaked in the midst of music, traffic
and idle stalkers on the road. I’ve always loved driving. The hellish traffic
of Lahore; the
familiar streets and the perfunctory juice waala’s at chowks are a constant
source of pithy inspiration, idly composed tweets and wry smiles. Driving
allows me sanctimonious security shrouded in the illusion of momentum. Even if
I’m only moving forward in a circle that always leads back to the same place. I
find that I do some of my best thinking while dodging motorcyclists and navigating traffic, listening to Rafi and
stopping for nimboo-naaryal at Hussain Chowk. It is why I love this city - when
the weather is right; the traffic optimally erratic and the playlist
particularly profound, one is able to tap into a personal frequency that is
never accessible amid the complacency of home. Of to-do lists, to-go places,
to-meet people and to-eat foods. It’s a composite of colour and alive-ness that
cannot really be captured in words properly, so I will stop trying. But it is
there. And it is sacred.
Another
sacred space, I am discovering, is the toilet seat. Funny how little credit we
give our personal thrones as if it is somehow improper to acknowledge that our
brains tend to function and philosophize at their best when our bowels are
moving in the opposite direction. My own bathroom is its own odd little oasis.
The rickety exhaust fan window opens sounds to a completely different world.
From the servant quarters of my neighbours’ house below I can often hear the
voice of Isa Khelvi and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan wafting through. Other times I
can hear the tail ends of Bollywood film one-liners, the old ones, mixed in
with snippets of crowded conversation that tells of a too large family crammed
into a too small room. So far I’ve archived one-liners from Bobby, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, Chandni and on several occasions Namakhalal and Sholay. Sometimes I can smell parathas and other times I can hear
potent Punjabi swearing. I know, for example, that ‘chote saab’ is a ‘chootya’
and ‘Shauki’ (one of the children) is a climber, given the number of times his
mother says ‘Abe Haram Deya, fer taun
deevar tappan laga e. Khasma noo Khaa, Shauki, thalle aa’. The intensity of
developing mystery that is my neighbours’ household staff waxes and wanes
depending on how boring my bathroom book is.
A
new space I am discovering is the class room. I find myself trying to empathize
and emphasize with and for my students in equal measure. To make them have fun
but not too much fun. To make them ask questions but not too many questions. To
teach them what I feel they ought to know and to resist teaching them what ‘I
know’ instead. It’s self deprecation meets self actualization. But I know I am
enjoying it more than I ever enjoyed anything else. I crave the adrenaline of
entering a room full of people every day and not knowing for a split-second
before I open the door if my voice will fail me. I love the sheer star burst of
relief and ideas that follows when it doesn’t. There is a word in Japanese, Ikigai, that the people of the island Okinawa derived to mean ‘a reason to get up in the
morning’. I understand it a little now. This is not to say that I feel
‘teaching’ is my calling or something. I’m so far, not sure I am any good at it
and a part of me will always seek a self soaked in words. But it is, so far, my
best use of words.
Perhaps
I am one of those cobblers that the French call bricoleur du dimanche, an ingénue with an undiscovered calling who
starts building always without clear
plans, always adding bits on the fly.
A
flight risk, with a purpose that can only be sustained when there is a pitfall
in sight.
A
glitch with a chip on her shoulder but a smile on her face.
A
cobbler, whittling together the prefect pair of shoes, improvising madly each
time the heel collapses and she finds herself stumble.
