Excerpt Segundus : Dawn to dusk is a really long time

Cut to the chase. However good a writer you are, and really only the reader can judge that, there are some days on which the words just don’t come. Inspiration is not a bolt of lightning from the Gods. It must be coaxed and seduced before it deigns to hit you. And it metamorphoses into various shapes, ideas without links, stories without climaxes, characters without depth, twists without conclusions, they are all your road buddies. They all frustrate you and mystify you.

So the question is, what do you do on those days when Dame Fortune does not dimple. When the entire day stretches like a dry terrain before you and you have only a single pitcher of Diet Coke. Well, you learn to appreciate the slower things. The occasional blares of traffic, the very slight waving of scanty trees in the breeze, the waves which don’t reach you because of the breakers, the highly polluted and coloured sunset, the occasional gleaming star in an otherwise smoggy sky. Because only films have writers taking off to destinations glamorous to inspire themselves. The truth is that you’re sitting at home with cable television, both companion and curse and using the limited urban landscape to distract yourself.

The other great truth is that most of us today, are products of an urban lifestyle or aspire to be. We would wither without our brands, gadgets, traffic and junk food. We crave these things like glue and we’re all glue sniffers. Show me the guy who would love to take off forever into the small towns or villages and I’ll show you a liar. The problem with the urban livos is that the neighbours don’t care about you. Or maybe that’s just Mumbai. They don’t care what you’re doing as long as you’re not poking your nose in his shit. He’s returning the courtesy, a given in this city. Its really a lot easier to be an aspiring author in a different city from this one, where the contemptuous comments of the neighbours sends righteous indignation flaring into your system, downright daring you to prove yourself. Now that’s what I call inspiration.

That would take away at least a few of the hours.

You sleep more, eat less, spend less because you’re not making any and we should never underestimate the value of retail therapy, its expensive and effective. The guilt from indulging yourself and frantic recalculations of the damage to the bank account and the living budget could eat away a few more hours.

Your real friends call you. This I have discovered in the course of the past twenty days. The ones who care are the ones who remember that you need them. That you need them to make the minute hand move even though they’re frantically busy. The ones who call you themselves because they know you can’t afford to call them. REAL friends. You find out who they are very easily in such periods. They reach out to you because they’re there for you. That’s a huge bonus from this sort of vacation that probably outweighs any credit in your account from your ex-job.

But there’s still time to go, after this too. So you eat, you sleep, you dream and you wait, for the keyboard to move. For the brain to storm and the words to flow.