The Idea-Person-Thing

“The three grand essentials of happiness are: Something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for.”

— Alexander Chalmers

In my attempt to distill happiness into its purest form, I thrust all three of these pursuits into a single idea-person-thing combination. That idea-person-thing becomes my all. I wake up to it, I breathe it, I eat it, I sleep with it.

It is always with me. It possesses me, and takes over everything else. I cannot give up until I win. And I cannot win unless I keep wrestling. There are a million things that badger me, that try to pry my attention away from this absolute purpose of existence. Even if my eyes leave it for a moment, I must return to it. I have been wired that way. I am obsessive, and I don't give up.

It is difficult to explain the past few months, that have flown by in breathtaking pace. I wake up, think about new ways to realize the idea-person-thing, feel let down by a lot of things that happen, pick myself up because I know I can't win unless I keep wrestling, win small victories that fuel me for weeks, and keep working until I'm too tired to work.

You cannot be unimaginably happy unless you go all in.

Pale Blue Dots

Three Dimensions of Space

I stand opposite Bengali Sweets in South Extension-1, New Delhi. Where are you? I wonder who else is around? Maybe my flatmates, neighbours, the paan-waalah, the lady who irons our clothes… Jawaharlal Nehru perhaps, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi? If this was a forest in those days, did great Mughal emperors hunt upon this earth? Did the Pandavas walk across this land on their way to Dronacharya’s Guru-gram? Millions of humans inhabit my space.

Four Dimensions of Space-Time

Today, I stand opposite Bengali Sweets in South Extension-1. Where are you? I wonder who else is around? Maybe my flatmates, neighbours, the paan-waalah, the lady who irons our clothes… Not too many people. Only seven billion are on the planet today, a fraction of which live in Delhi, a small percentage of who might be in South Extension-1. A few thousand humans inhabit my time and space.

Countless Dimensions of Perceived Universe

After everything I have been subjected to, and as a result of all my thoughts, emotions and memories, I stand opposite Bengali Sweets in South Extension-1 today. Where are you? I wonder who else is around? There’s nobody here. The streets are empty. You and I cannot be in the same place at the same time in the same state of perception. We see different things, hear different things, feel different things.

We inhabit different worlds. We are all alone.

Last Night's Story

Monday happened.

Morning coffee rushed down my throat, my blue BMW X1 rushed me to office. I toyed with the iPhone in the backseat as Dharmender negotiated four-wheeled mindlessness. We passed the vast dusty fields, and massive concrete towers entered my view, for perhaps the thousandth time.

9.32 am: Hundreds of people were entering the many towers of India’s new-found middle-class prosperity. I smoothed my sleeve, and leapt out of the car, into their midst. Sharp-dressed men and beautiful women held my attention as we marched towards the elevators which would take us to our many offices, on some twenty-five different floors.

I stood in the elevator glancing at my watch, with last night’s half-written story still running in my head. We all glanced at our phones, and watches, and iPads, and shook our heads, and clicked our tongues. We were all late. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 14. 15... Once again, the silliness of not having a thirteenth floor registered on my mind, but I no longer found it funny – not after all these years. With a tinge of regret, I realized I could now recognize faces in the elevator, and possibly identify the companies for which they worked.

At each floor, short tempered people – high on caffeine – stumbled out of the elevator in a zombie-like trance, until at last, it was my turn. I took my mind off my protagonist, and focused on the world that surrounded me. I paced towards the swinging glass door and checked-in with my access key card.

“Good morning sir,” said the guard, standing up as I entered. The peons next to him rose from their seats as well.

As I approached my cabin, I was greeted with more smiles, and familiar ‘what’s up’s. I placed my laptop in the docking station, turned on the extended screen, called the cafeteria and drowned myself in coffee and emails. I answered a few calls, and expressed my displeasure at a report’s shoddy presentation.

I then picked up my diary and walked into my manager’s office. “Why are these sales figures dropping?” he asked me, pointing at an info-graphic. He was a heavily built man, whose life revolved around his job. In his worldview, his happiness was directly dependent on how content his manager was. By logical extension, he didn’t expect me to be happy unless he was satisfied. I wondered how the hero of my incomplete story would react in such a scenario.

There were a few more questions about meeting Q3 revenue targets and possible avenues to expand market-share. I had all the numbers at my fingertips, and threw them at him as soon as I knew where he was heading. The Q&A session resulted in nausea: as I exited the room, my head felt empty. I hadn’t felt this way since college, when I would load my brain with answers to questions which I knew would come up in tests, and flush my brain out completely during the exam, leaving nothing behind.

I went back to my cabin and took stock of everything. I thought of my origins and my rise through the ranks; I evaluated the coming years and looked at my seven figure Savings balance on Citi’s Internet Banking site. I then thought about the life which really awaited me. At that moment, last night’s story completed itself.

I needed to quit.

The nagging feeling had finally given itself dangerous form. I couldn't run away any more. This wasn't a random impulse; seven months of thought, debate and unresolved emotions had crystallized into an overpowering decision. There was, now, no turning back.

Opening the drawer, I pulled out the sheet I printed many weeks ago and scribbled my name on the dotted line.

I knocked on my manager's door again. He was just getting off the phone. "I'll call you later, darling," he was saying, as he took the phone off his ear.

"Have a seat," he told me.

"I'm not sure if this will come as a surprise to you," I said, taking a seat, "but I'd like to quit."

"What? Why?" he said, with his old, half-serious grin.

"I'm taking up writing. Much more seriously."

"You've written before, haven't you? Why quit when they can coexist?"

"I'm not doing it justice. What's the point of a spent man trying to pen two pages at ten p.m. every evening, and falling asleep over the keyboard? And spending the next day thinking about what he could've written, only for the same thing to repeat?"

"Think about the life ahead of you, man," he said. "Is the road not clear enough? Do you even understand what you're leaving behind?"

"I know what I'm leaving. But I think it's high time I complete last night's story."

"You are leaving mansions and power, and millions, for a career in penniless art. What's the ending of last night's story?"

"This," I said, and handed him the paper.

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