It's all a giant metaphor ('Non sequiturs')

A mattress of grey cold has settled. The entire world is in limbo. Splotches of wet colour rest sulkily on the sheets of empty rain: a tree here, a fluorescent raincoat there. The freshly laundered morning smells of the earth and old times. I'd drink to accentuate the staid pleasure of the morning—alcohol is like MSG for the brain—but I don't want to partake of the profane this early. And besides, the day is a virgin yet. As I rub the sleep-pollen from my eyes, I see the blown raindrops caress the earth. It's homecoming for them. They lie, exhausted, from whence they came, happy to be home at last. And waves upon waves of their eager comrades fall to their death after them. Monsoons. The very protoplasm of life is in a sombre mood. Everything is quivering with awakening life. Everything is bathed in significance. It all means something. Everything is a metaphor. The trees! Oh the trees. I wish you could hear them. They're talking to me. They're telling me of the years their leafy eyes have seen; they have always felt the first drops of approaching rain. Their resting roots have drawn nourishment from them, and their leaves have washed in delight in the warm showers of a hundred monsoons.

I cannot understand how people can drive on Indian roads and not be dehumanized to the point of misanthropy.

The road is sweaty. Residual water streaks back from the windshield as the car gathers speed; the wind defies gravity. There's a metaphoric lesson there somewhere, but it escapes my notice for the sleep-deprived minute.

We just hit a dog. It appeared out of the bushes and ran in what appeared to be a desperate attempt to get to the other side of the road. There was an unhealthy bump, a startled yelp (as the dog struggled to come to grips with the sudden realization that it had been run over) and the dog spun like a top three times across the road before executing a mid-air pirouette and somehow landing on its feet and scrambling its way to freedom and a place less inhabited by cars. Dad didn't stop. I knew it hadn't been his fault; the dog had clearly just been reading Camus.

The bordering rows of plush foliage, the weeping sea-sky, the occasional Sunny da Dhaba, the occasional thought of you, the lonely bus stands, the maniacal truck drivers, the moist morning walking into the mild mid-day, the weathered signposts flashing by, the Goethe, the indecipherable milestones, the innumerable toll checks, the half-read Murakami, the thickhotsweet chai, the Radiohead, the itchy earphones, the flour-dusty towns, and always, the road, melded into one endless stream of thought-consciousness, almost as if I was experiencing the entire thing as a whole rather than as discrete units.

Travel helps me write. I’ve pondered over this fact, and I think I’ve realized that it’s because of the comfortable sense of motion—I’m going somewhere, I’m doing something, I’m excused from working, I’m Finally Moving. This idea of peregrination has often been the root of a mood which has subsequently borne the flowers (poems) and fruits (prose) of my artistic undertakings (the above sentence makes me sound like a moody writer. I’m really only a moody person [who has given up on academia and trying to earn a living and basically everything that leads to a comfortable, moneyed future. Wait a minute]). Trains in particular are my favoured modes of transportation. There’s something about the rocking motion of the berth that lulls me into a sensitive frame of mind. Plus, I can lie down, and this is wonderful for my comatose tendencies. Trains have neither the spondylitis-inducing crampedness of buses (I’m 6’3”) nor the sterility of air travel. I do have a have a favourite airplane-related ritual though—every time we take off, I listen to ‘Learning to Fly’ by Floyd on my iPod in gross violation of the No-Electronics-During-Takeoff-or-Landing rule; we got a badass in here, indeed. I can’t really talk about cars, because my father (I’m convinced) fancies himself an F1 hopeful; going into cardiac arrest every few minutes isn’t exactly conducive to the production of literature.

The first bead of sweat for the day hangs from the cliff of my eyebrow. The summer, held at bay by the laden clouds for so many hours, is creeping back in again.

Travel was never about the destination—it’s about the travel, and epigrammatic statements.

We shall soon reach Jammu. The light is dulling now. It shall soon be dark.

…

Life is a road. It’s all a giant metaphor.