You are in My Mind

"You think Yoda stops teaching, just because his student does not want to hear? Yoda a teacher is. Yoda teaches like drunkards drink. Like killers kill."

Yoda

And I, a writer.

The train station at Udupi, where I departed from.

I consider myself a writer. As for whether I think I'm a good one who makes good sense with good words or a bad one who isn't considerate enough not to inflict myself on to the good peoples of the internet, it is matter of little import. A dog which doesn't know how to bark or wag its tail or lick its own testicles is still a dog. I am a writer, for better or worse.

I confess that I was, in the past few days, on the verge of binning this journal. And the reason? I have begun to consider updating my blog to be a little less like fun, and a little more like duty. In short, it felt more like I have to more than I want to. There exist persons who would do things they don't really feel like doing. I am not one of these persons.

But I am a writer.

I write constantly in my head, especially when I am not talking. Fortunately and unfortunately, my trip up north have provided ample opportunities for me to not talk. Our little backpacker troupe consisted of eleven people, and I have felt that I am the extra one which messed up an even ten. I remember looking at my trip mates when we were waiting at our launching station in Udupi, and thinking with a little start, "I don't even know these people!" That happened somehow, with people quiting the trip and people joining the trip, and more people quiting later who were replaced by new ones.

My very first train and ride, ever.

I was talking about writers and writing, wasn't I? Well, I have not digressed. As I was saying, I write constantly in my head. This very post was written that day at that train station of Udupi, in my head, while I was looking at the strange people I did not know how to talk to who I was going to live with for a month. A fine feat it's going to be, I thought.

I think the reason why I write and spend so much time beating my thoughts and ideas into words is because... well, it's because I want my mind to be heard. I want my mind to be heard and remembered. Spoken words are noises which would linger for a moment in the air before breaking in the wind, but those written down, even if they did not make a sound, would endure. It is a conceit of writers to think that they have thoughts which ought to be heard long after they were conceived, a conceit which I suffer chronically from. I hope I will not recover - I cannot be a writer if I lose that.

The ten people who I own to be my travel companions have not heard my mind. They do not read my journal, and do not think it any great loss (okay, I'll concede that none of you reading this now would think of it as any great loss either). I remember sitting with them, and feeling quite invisible. They know nothing of me. I am a cipher. A name, a face, and not much anything else. I am bland, uninteresting, possibly a little annoying and a little too know-it-all-ish. I felt that some animal died under my feet as I stepped onto that train that day. I think it was my ego.

Anyway, I don't think I have ever bothered to try to find out what's on their minds either.

Fair enough.

Divhya, playing sudoku.

I always wondered how people go about "looking for themselves" by walking out their doors and going to foreign places, or learning yoga. I sometimes thought them a little too melodramatic. I always thought them a little stupid.

That night, lying on my bunk which rumbled in time with the rest of my carriage, on a train journeying under Indian stars and through the nocturnal chill of the Indian West,

I found, to my delight, that I am a little stupid too.



P.S. And the rest of you who often hear my mind, and waited to hear more; Thank You. You guys have been great.



Back on the pen,
k0k s3n w4i