SOLE CHEMISTRY I

When the natural order of things goes against your senses, it is work. We, human minds will always covet the forbidden. And so, we created this whole dichotomy of work and leisure. Sometimes you wish life was a double-barrel gun where we work so as to gain leisure and we squander our time so that we can finally give in to things against our will. Instead, our lives turn out to be the relentless pursuit of leisure at different places and positions.

There hangs a rope at the entrance of the Irani cafe I am writing this from. They say it is present for the elderly to help them ascend the Portuguese stairs. Irrespective of our age, each one of us needs such an arrangement; if only to ascend the staircase of time. My spine-equipped sister Sherlie needs one to give her solace from the most extreme of fears. As she moves up from the monotony of a blue-pleated, knee-covering skirt to the randomness of attire in an Indian college, she holds on to the rope of faith.

Her brother thought he could narcotize the mesh of jute to while away the years of existence. Every month a new drug; every evening a more lethal cocktail. It is only in those feeble moments of clarity of thought that stops coming naturally once your hormones are active, that you realize the folly. The symbolic rope of life’s rocky ascent is more a glimmer of its phonetic cousin – hope. We are all aesthetes, and so we hope. But does the indulgence of senses really help? Even the most wasted of hedonists have their moments of envying monks. And then, leisure becomes work.

Perhaps homo sapiens are better off morphing into vegetating macro-amoebas. Or maybe, they ought to evolve into hyper-aware bodies that constantly pump red fluids. Until recently, I thought hyper-awareness is something only marijuana could provide. That was before I stumbled upon Somerset Maugham.

Fatalists argue that if all human reactions are innately biochemical, there should be a rigid tipping point. A glut of either work or leisure could be the answer. All that intrigues me now is the nature of the reaction that happens every moment in a day’s work. Is it oxidation, or does it relentlessly suck away the fading O₂ of hope?

Meanwhile, I end up leaning on the rope as I descend the stairs.