Actual Trivial Thoughts from a day in my life
Hope you survive this
Someone asked me, 'What goes on in your head?'
Here’s what goes on in my head:
Today began with me waking up at 6:20 in the morning, because I had an 830 lecture and because the last 2 months of my yeah blah blah, I woke up begrudgingly. 'At least the lectures were nice'- was my morning motivation, mind you, my motto is not to wake up before 10. Once I was up and ready, I realised I was early, so I sat on my bed and stared at my phone. It was too early for that too. So I just got up, took money for the day and left. When I got out, I realised how tranquil yet beautiful everything was, like something out of a small-budget indie TV show shot in Mahabaleshwar (if you get what I see). It was so relaxing and mystifying yet, beautiful. I don’t know which other words to use to describe it except these. I believe that sometimes the simplest of words convey emotion better than anything out of Shashi Tharoor’s extensive vocabulary (although he’s so funny and smart).
Anyway, back to the story, it was so nice that the laziest creature on earth (me) wanted to walk and walk and walk. Of course, I woke up early so I wouldn’t be late for the lecture only so I could be late because I wanted to walk 25 minutes to the station in therapeutic weather. No, today my brain won over my heart (it happens so rarely I forget it existed within the skull) and I sat in an auto only to have the wind ferociously lapping on my face as I hugged my hoodie closer. I should have walked, I kept thinking, so what if I get late, this Kho Gaye Hum Kaha-like mental satisfaction rarely comes by. Thus began my Imran aka Farhan Akhtar in ZNMD introspection of 2023. The year everyone posted on the recaps, creating a reel out of a template; when I asked, no one said it was a year they wanted to live again. Then why post about it? For other’s validation? Hell, I have done the same thing, who am I to judge? Seeking approval to be psychologically happy is what drives us as humans.
One of my new year goals is to stop caring what other people think. While it’s easier said than done, how do I do that when everything from college grades, and friends to boyfriends to work all seek approval from someone else? If teachers don’t like my answer, I get low marks, if my friends don’t like me, they stop being friends if my boyfriend doesn’t love me anymore, we don’t date and if my work colleagues don’t like my work, I don’t have a job. So it’s all you need other’s validation but you have to pretend not to care while you do? What bullshit!
When I was small, my sister asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and when I said writer she asked what do you want to write and I replied write for myself. Now that I’ve grown up I realise that the blog and my unpublished poetry are the only way I can truly write for myself; even if that depends on whether people like my blog or my poems. After all, whenever my friends say that they like my writing or the way I express myself in my blog, I blush and smile because no matter how much I deny it, I love it when people compliment my work. When can I get out of this cycle? Now people get recognition even posthumously, so this shit doesn’t even end after I die.
Amid this introspection, I got out of the auto, walked Mount Everest like Ram Mandir steps and got a random train because I didn’t need an empty Goregaon train at 7 in the morning that would mean I would have even more reflective thoughts like an Imitiaz Ali feature; feelings I don’t need feel. The Borivali train might I add, was still cluttered with sleepy passengers like me who might have given themselves the false motivation of waking up at this ungodly hour and getting themselves a seat on this train. The train stopped somewhere and moved slowly yet pretty fast. I don’t know, I was busy writing this to really ‘feel’ the world. Stations drowned before me; before I knew it, Dadar arrived, and I changed my seating position to accommodate a new body ache. This post is anyway so long, that I haven’t even truly begun my day, it’s just 7:47 I think I have to make 2 of these (Oh the horrors of copy-pasting). Never mind, this is all it’s gonna be.
Now I realise that watching reels all through train travel and talking with friends removes all these super reflective thoughts that will one day end me like every famous artist. The soft Bollywood on shuffle changed to Main Aai Hoon UP Bihar Lootne, and now the derogatory and concerning lyrics are hurting my brain.
Anyway, I have come to a point where I can feel that the commute is never-ending, and I am contemplating shifting to watching aesthetic reels I can never make. You know what no, I’m going to learn how to make aesthetic reels, I don’t know how or when, but I will. I have the tool- an iPhone. Oh god, it’s too cold! I’m too sleepy and Vishal Mishra’s lyrics in Jaane De are hitting too hard at 7:58 in the morning. I think watching Atif Aslam live can only cure me now.
Churchgate station arrived thus ending my existential thoughts. I think I spent all my brain cells of this year on this post. Let’s see how much I procrastinate to put this up.
Update- It's been a week. I will stop procrastinating, I swear.