A Game with Time

For the past several months since my thesis submission, I’ve made a few attempts to return to this blog. Here’s what those attempts look like. This is not where I am right now, although perhaps I am a little bit or it wouldn’t take so long to finish this piece and get back to these pages. But mainly, I would like this to remain as a record of a mindscape, if that makes sense.

December 2020

So, *deep breath*, I just submitted my doctoral thesis on Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast novels. When I submitted my MPhil thesis (on the politics of secondary fantasy worlds) some seven and a half years ago, the most overwhelming emotion I remember feeling was relief to have finished, seconded only by a strong desire to never, ever read my thesis again– I was that sick of it. I eventually got over that second feeling and over the last few years I have gone and re-read bits and pieces of it, but I don’t think I’ve ever done a full read.

I got into the PhD programme around a year after submitting my MPhil thesis. I had been a UGC-NET JRF at JUDE and I needed to enroll in PhD to be able to keep my fellowship. But I was intimidated by the prospect, and I just couldn’t come up with a research question that was good enough for my supervisor. I thought then that I would feel the same kind of relief when I submitted my PhD thesis as I did when I submitted for my MPhil, that I would feel just happy to be done with this thing. Nobody had told me that I would feel so… adrift. Which brings us here.

I have been trying to work out why I feel so differently about the two submissions. It was not that I didn’t love the subject of my MPhil thesis. I did. I still do.

All of a sudden I don’t seem to have a purpose anymore. The work I do, it’s not mine. The work I want to do, I somehow can’t seem to manage.

All my days and all my nights I find myself longing for that one thing. The thing I can’t name. The thing I‘m not sure is real. May be I’m just a little funny in the head.

January 2021

Well, it has been a while. I began this blog back in December, right after I submitted my thesis. Then I couldn’t write. Then I thought I would take a couple of weeks and then bid the year goodbye. But, I still couldn’t write. Then I was going to come back for the New Year, but I didn’t want to write. And besides, I was too tired.

February 2021

And here we go again.

Days rolling in an endless tumble of same old nothingness. Words I think of in my head that dissipate like morning dreams when I hold my pen, sketchy plans I am afraid to work on- of what, I’m not sure.

I mean, if I fail, I remain where I am, where I already am by doing nothing. But then, as long as I haven’t tried, the possibility remains alive. If I try and fail, it’s gone.

Am I so very wrong for seeking purpose? Everybody lives and dies and everything that’s wrong with the world keeps on happening yet what can I do? Am I so very mad for wanting to be happy?

Looks like February isn’t going to be my writing month either.

But I’ve been lately thinking about who I am. On Twitter in particular, and in life in general. My bio reads- Nerd, Fangirl, Academic.

May 2021

Nerd, fangirl and academic. That’s where I stopped last time. I think it’s cool being a nerd, it gives me a multitude of universes to play with inside my head, and it helps me connect with others with a shared platform. The ones calling for social media platforms limited by borders just don’t get it. I joined Twitter to follow Harry Potter actors, to participate in #FlashFictionFriday, to follow MCU accounts and calls for paper on #AcademicTwitter. My Instagram feed is a mix of Doctor Who, Merlin, Sherlock, Percy Jackson, HP and Marvel memes. Some food and travel, some fashion, because everybody needs a little TLC. What on earth would I do on Koo? Who would I talk to? The other day I panicked and downloaded three years’ worth of Instagram poetry. Which was probably wise to do in retrospect, even if not immediately necessary. I ought to keep back-ups of these things.

June 2021

Yeah, downloaded all my poetry from Instagram. At least, I hope I did. Did I miss something?

And I took more than half a year to gather my thoughts. I wonder why that is. The world has been a mess, of course. People you know falling sick. Then I falling sick myself. But that was only last month.

The thing is, for a long time now, I have sought safety in classrooms- actual physical ones as well as the idea of it as in finishing a course/thesis. I suppose because the classroom offers this comforting sense of being in progress, still learning, still growing, still becoming. Without it, I’m only the societal labels ascribed to me, and I’m suddenly left to find a direction without anyone teaching me.

And the world goes around the mulberry bush and drags you with it.

Do you want to run?

But where to?

No one’s given me a syllabus. Or a deadline. Yet every today that passes on just like yesterday leads me to an ominous tomorrow of nothingness, and I ask myself, what ought I do? What am I doing wrong? What am I not doing? How do I go wherever I want to go? Is there a somewhere to go?