Footpath

I AM NOT OK!

Mentally, emotionally and as per my latest CT-Angio scan, physically also.

I’m trying my best. Forcing myself into a routine now - writing, exercising, reading and finally writing that book I had been planning for 5 years. As Robert De Niro once said - Inch by inch, play by play.

Fans are waiting for my stand-up videos, my team is anticipating the next stand-up special to take on tour, and all I am hoping for is a sense of normalcy in my life. All I wish for is a week where nothing dramatic happens around me - no one gets sick, no one dies - everyone stays alive!

I want to be left alone. I want peace. I want to spend time with myself. I do not want to hear about your problems. I need to make sense of the last 12 months - the loss of 3 loved ones and discovering the ugly sides of some others.

I want to walk away from everything & everyone. And therein lies the problem - WALKING!

Here’s the thing guys. I’ve seen every writer character in every Hollywood movie go for a leisurely stroll around their neighbourhood, with some soft background music playing! It’s like the basic 101 of being a writer!

I am a writer! I wanted to do the same - walk alone, stop at random shops, observe people, and marvel at the architecture (basically DLF buildings). I imagined on this walk I would think about ideas, creativity, and art, allowing myself to be inspired by the environment around me.

I realised that to achieve all this, at a very basic level, one needs something commonly referred to as a FOOTPATH! Not metaphorically! Like an actual bloody footpath!

When did we, as a civilisation, give up on the idea of a footpath?

I tried that walk today. The coffee shop that I frequent to write is a 10-minute walk from my house.

As I stepped out, I realised that the remnants of ancient Rome that exist in the name of a footpath, are not much help. I ended up jumping from the footpath to the road and back to the footpath again. There were portions where there was neither! So, I ended up walking like they do the desert walk in Dune.

If there was a stretch that was not broken, it was crowded with street hawkers - just taking up space - spilling garbage. Street hawkers should be banned in India! Unless of course when I need to buy flowers. Then one should magically appear within 100 meters of my house.

With Mozart playing on my noise-cancellation headphones (for cinematic effect), I saw cows in the middle of the road, just chilling. Then there were these entitled elite of Gurgaon, who had come to drop their kids to school and had parked in the middle of the road. Adding to the chaos. Cars honking, people shouting, ambulance sirens blaring, loudspeakers playing songs! So much noise that at one point, even Mozart paused his Symphony No. 41 in C Major.

I told myself “Anshu, ignore all this. You don’t need chaos. Put your blinkers on and reach the coffee shop - that is the goal - that’s where you write”

I was determined to find my path to the coffee shop. And when I say ‘find’ I literally mean find!

Then I saw these 2 men - clearly uneducated, definitely unemployed, sitting at a chai stall on the same footpath - looking at this chaos and laughing.

Same footpath. Two different perspectives.

Perhaps there is no such thing as a perfect footpath (now, metaphorically speaking).

Perhaps life, with all its beauty and ugliness, is what we truly need - thriving, bustling, hurting.

Perhaps there will be times when your cinematic aspirations of a perfect life may be shattered. But you cannot escape. You cannot hide; you must thrive amidst the chaos you have been dealt with.

Perhaps all you need to do is, take the headphones off, embrace the chaos, find the funny and laugh.

Here’s to Chaos. Cheers!

Upcoming standup show tickets at https://linktr.ee/anshumor

I write regular Blog posts (Offstage with Mor) at https://anshumor.substack.com/

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