Everything Means Nothing To Me: Part-1

I wake up from what feels like a deep slumber, my eyes focusing right up—an unfamiliar ceiling, well, not even a proper one, a curved one. The curved ceiling casually reminds me of the passionate discussion I had in the tilings course, about those beautiful tilings of the hyperbolic plane. And it also reminds me of the discussion on generalising the notion of a surface, and of distances between points in a surface – geodesics. Geodesics. They shape the World, quite literally. We divide and ration the World’s time based on some arbitrary yet significant geodesics of the World – the longitudes. I casually think about Geodesics and Geometry, of distances and tilings of weird surfaces, an emblem characteristic of my maths background. The ceiling looks familiar. I’m in a train, I gather. And then it hits me, I had decided to visit Chennai on a whim. I am aboard the Vande Bharat, and the unnatural sheen of the walls hit my eyes. Something about the walls of Vande Bharat irks me; I can’t commit to getting used to it, just like how it cannot commit between showing a reflection of the blue seats and blurring out the details. I’m uncomfortable, and my neck hurts because of my awful posture. I readjust, and I look at the time. 15 minutes. That’s how long I fell asleep, like I always do. My body doesn’t let me sleep more than 15 minutes in the afternoon, and it’s always such a shock to wake up. I always wake up with my heart racing. I briefly recall listening to someone’s presentation about Arrhythmia. It was so long ago, and I don’t even remember the context anymore. But I remember being intrigued about Sinus Tachycardia. I should’ve noted down the questions that intrigued me somewhere, I know I always do. I always open tabs on my iPad or laptop, fully meaning to resolve some anxiety or curiosity I have, unprompted, and I make great promises to read them someday, but the only problem with self-promises is that you’re your own jury. I stare at the can of White Monster lying on the makeshift desk of the train. This does feel strange. I almost always feel this rush of sleep hit me after a big dose of energy drinks. I recall that one ChubbyEmu video on vitamin deficiencies. Shit. Do I have one? I succumb to a confirmation bias after a quick Google search. B12 deficiency, it is. But who am I kidding, I’m not going to get a blood workup to test this ill-formed hypothesis. I’m scared of the sight of my own blood outside of me; it sends a shiver down my spine, and I feel squeamish, on the verge of passing out. One of my biggest anxieties in life is waking up and not remembering who or what I was before I fell asleep. I hence tend to sleep only when I must. I think I once read a Manga where the protagonist had two personalities, and each one took control after the other one fell asleep. Ever since then, I have been too scared to lose myself, or whatever I currently consider myself to be. I desperately hold on. Hold on to an idea of myself and what I represent. Like a trusty lighthouse, if you may, guiding the ships of experience and memory cruising on the unsure and dreary ocean of uncertainty. Sleep is the Tsunami; it destroys what I’ve built, thought about, and wished for. It makes me forget who I am.

I notice the closed book on the desk – ‘Lolita’. I think what I read, to some extent, influenced my dream. And especially, I think the dream was centred around this theme - unable to say no and unable to conceptualize a no. This realization made me very emotional. I felt hurt. I felt angry. I felt sad. But as I fail to hold onto the tattering threads of my dream, the feelings eventually pass. With nothing else to do, my gaze turns towards the window. There’s still some light outside, so the window acts more like a glass, and less like a mirror. I vaguely stare at the big rocky outgrowths outside. It reminds me of a cancerous tumour. Rather, a cancerous tumour on another cancerous tumour, whatever that means. It’s raining too. The misty haze that rain imparts on the scenery feels heavenly, and suddenly I feel like dancing. Well, since I can’t physically dance inside the train, I make do with some Jazz – Take Five. It always rains when I head back to Chennai. I think about how the human brain can make patterns out of anything. There really isn’t any connection between when I choose to go back and rain, I just get lucky enough. I take a quick picture, wanting to capture the fleeting beauty of my gaze, but I fail to focus on the scenery. The camera focuses on the raindrops on the window instead. I measure the angle of the raindrops with an imaginary vertical, guestimate the speed of the raindrops, and hence, using basic trigonometry, approximate the speed of the train. I check my answer with the speed shown on the display board of the coach. An answer within 5% of error, I think this is good work. Why am I doing all of this? I think it’s rooted in my fundamental wish to avoid thinking about my own plight. But, alas, I am all alone now, and I have to be comfortable talking about myself. This is my story after all.

Clearly, all of this is a sensory overload. I hate waking up in the middle of the day. I realize the subtle vibration in my ear. My Moonchus (the official name is Moondrop Chu II, but Moonchu is cute) have subtly been dislodged from their target parking space, and I hear the rhythmic drumming of the song. I believe that’s how people perceive each other, analogous to what you hear from a naked earbud. You don’t hear much, you don’t make out much, just enough to have an idea of what it ‘probably’ is. (Reminds me of those loud big cars with big subwoofers that somehow control your heartbeat. I hate that feeling, of not having control over my own heart, my own self.) The earbuds, of course, have more to say, but only if you choose to interact with them, decide to tune in. I do. Toe. I recognize the artist from the style, in an instant. That’s something I can do. I don’t think it’s special; it’s simply training my brain to make connections. Toe brings back the warm, dreamy memories of Pondicherry. I love music for its ability to transcend time, space and emotions. The book about my idle plot on vague anxiety – my favourite Toe Album, is on. All I understand is I don’t understand is playing. Apt. It encapsulates exactly what I feel at this moment about my life, myself, and my future.