Blog of a blog

I had written a blog when I decided only a countdown will help me finish my book. And then, later, I wrote a blog on how it ended. I failed to write everyday, given the chaos that ruled my life in the middle. So, here are both the blogs

107


107 days to go! That's the target for finishing the book. Taken on this challenge, as nothing else has worked. Missed deadlines, unfinished targets, name it... and I have done it all. So, decided to try and write down what I have done everyday, hoping that it will help me, for whom writing is the most boring task in the world after the long bout of creativity. So, starting today, you will hear all the nonsense that goes in writing a book, dear blog. And hoping that when the count turns 0, I will not have a page more to write. And I will be free like a stork, to go back home after the long migration. To build a nest. To start life again, armed with the experience of the new territory visited and explored.

So, here I go !


How the countdown ended

Well, I did start a countdown - to finish writing a book by May 31st and I forgot to write about it. I finished the book by August 15th. The going on I couldn't relate as I was just too engrossed or pure irritated dependent on the time and day. It was hectic, writing, writing, writing. Sometimes, it felt like it would never end. Sometimes, it was smooth sailing. Sometimes, it felt like smooth sailing but landed me in troubled waters.... Truthfully said, I did do some writing everyday, some days more, some days less, some days nothing at all. Finally, it ended. However, when it ended, I was left empty. I didn't know what to do with the time. I felt like I had lived in a different world and had been transported suddenly to a different one. Felt like in a vacuum after all that stress and strain which took a toll on my health and my normalcy. I used to rage, cry and laugh, more than normal, sometimes inexplicably. Anger was on the tip of my nose all the time, waiting to explode, into flames, to burn anything in its path to ashes, fine as there can ever be. Finally, I did put a full stop and submitted the same. And then there was the void to handle. After raging and ranting, there came a sudden peace that I couldn't take. I felt like I was not working, lazy, felt like I had so much time when I had previously had much.

Took some time to figure out the new way of life. New timings, new routines. Night became day, and day became night. Instead of waking up at 8:30, I had to overnight shift timings to 6:00 in the morning; hit the bed at 11:00 instead of the 1:00 a.m. at night; in the process my body rebelled, protested, tried to shut down. I used to feel sleepy through the day and wide awak when the clock struck 10:00 p.m. Then there was the new routine and regimen to adapt to. Remembering timetables, calculating internals, valuing answer scripts, evaluating assignments. Instead of a few people with whom I interacted, now it is a herd. I have to address a large gathering everyday, and most of the time, my brain is racing, trying hard to think ahead of talking, instead of the slow and steady momentum it had got used to. At the end of the session, I feel nice. However, I didn't feel the high, the kick I got doing research, when I had read a paper and found something interesting, or had come up with something new. I felt sad and was left wondering 'from heaven whereto"....

After four months, my brain still rebels, refuses to follow the regimen. It asks for the old place, the old environment, asks for a walk through the forest, breathing in the smells of the wild flowers. It wishes the quiet and the calm offered by a forest, the music called research, rather than the tumult of the concrete roads with traffic racing to fill every inch of tar.

I need to figure out how these two worlds can co-exist. How best I can adapt ... that is the work now.

Tales told by Mystics - Manoj Das

Prof. Hrushikesha Mohanty, my research supervisor, presented a book to Arun as a momento for a talk he gave. The book turned out much more precious than the talk itself. For me that is, as I knew what Arun was talking about, given that my research area was connected and I had the chance to go through the slides before and ask questions, too.

The book is a collection of stories, fables told by mystics. A lot of stories are ones heard before. However, when read again, they give new insight. Besides, there is timing for everything. And time teaches you a lot of things. It gives answers to questions you asked and never found an answer for. In my case, some answers came through the book. Questions about life, balance between good and wrong, about happiness. Important questions, silly questions, all my questions, that I always wondered about.

The book should be something that is advised in schools as a must read for children and owned by libraries in schools and colleges, I think. For it is easy to read, and at the same time enlightening as such stories always are. The book does have a few typo mistakes and can do with a little editing.