Prose before hos

I'm wrapping up my 26th year in India today. For the next week and a half- and possibly the last few days as a 26-year-old will be spent in the UK, provided the airport authorities don't tear my passport, I get to be on the right flight before and after the layover and my posterior and I survive 13 hours over multiple time zones.



This was a bad month for writing but I promise, or well intend to work on that promise in the next few days and write about the UK. For the most part, this was supposed to happen when I was turning 21-22 and since then, I gave up the idea of doing anything overseas.

Repeat after me- Thailand is not overseas. Thailand is home.

Onwards anxiety, panic and hopefully many interesting posts. 

I was born to do great things.

I answered my mother in response to her "clean the house tomorrow". Don't get me wrong. Brooming the house is a great thing, as is mopping the floor. The balance you need to strike between dipping the cloth and calculating the amount of water that you ought to drain before you scrub the floor takes talent. More talent than writing an email does. People don't understand this, but writing an email is an alibi that prevents me from brooming and scrubbing the floor. I've been told I'm good at writing emails. Chasing people, even. The last one's a lie. If I could truly chase people, the men who have ghosted me would have never had a chance.

Where was I? Yes, doing great things. The higher purpose of my life, apparently.

I answered this out loud, perhaps for the first time today, in a really long time, I believed in every word I said. Maybe it was the endorphins kicking in; meeting an academic who told me she believed in me. Maybe, it was the first day after a quarter of a week of living with a backache. It could very well be the second cup of Americano, kicking in all the feels that I was living through. Maybe, my gut felt good about touching this spot for once and feeling it all together.

Coffee makes you believe everything is possible. You're great and you're meant to do great things.

Uppers, man. They're life-changing.

I think I came down to the conclusion of sorts today; about being born to serve a greater purpose. You could be doing a Ph.D. without getting dependent on hard drugs. This should be counted as an alibi to stay the fuck away from serving 12 hours of your a day to a place which has no human life dignity to offer. What has become routine now, will seem inviting a year after this. Maybe, I will crave for a desk and authority a lot sooner than a year or maybe, I will lodge bullets in my head by the end of this trip. The fact remains if you have an epiphany that you should be doing greater things, such as a Ph.D., who are you to kill your damn dreams.

A sane individual? Fuck that.

Try two cups of Americano, and kick yourself to do something strange. Believe in yourself, for half an hour. Take the Metro. Believe that you're getting that fellowship, that residency, those scholarships and the three publications you are thinking about writing to. Also believe that you will join kickboxing and start driving a car and basically be all round changed a person, that which you never were during your previous stints in academia.

Come home, procrastinate a little, wait till the coffee settles down (I'm in this phase), slap the keyboard and make some noise.

Repeat after me- I'm meant to do great things. I'm going to do great things. None of them include a mental breakdown.

May your coffee kicks before your reality does.