 stretches of reason. Some of you may argue here, and rightly so, Achilles was more than what humans could breed, the son of a man and a goddess. What promise then, what virtue, and what art can I, a man born of a man and woman claim to have, that is so polished and impeccable that it glistens brighter than the very idea of faultlessness?
I gambolled into this beautiful world full two years late, actually seven hundred fifteen days late if you are of the nitpicking kind, to the immense mortification of my disciplinarian father. It is another matter though that I was put in the rightful date by a deft sleight of hand that only my creator was capable of, but then that is another ballad, often sung in my posts around here, indicating a propensity to self-plagiarism as my detractors would love to confirm.
I arrived at my first ever academic examination full two days late when pupils of a higher race, aka class, were undergoing the trail. Not knowing what to make of the puny visitor the invigilators slapped me with the day’s question paper and the fact that I was none the worse for the experience is an aberration of the laws of Metaphysics and Philosophy, and again not the subject here. The mystery of the extra student unravelled only when the result was pasted on the notice board and the guardians were duly summoned to explain.
I was highly punctual in hitting the playgrounds but usually late for all tournaments of cricket or kind. Indeed, there was the time when I arrived at dusk and having started fielding for the rival team took a spectacular catch off a blazing shot of my own team’s star batsman who was duly shunted off to the pavilion. And the less I speak of the jinx of missing buses, trains and flights the better. Nothing beats the time when I boarded a train one month late and nearly managed to frighten the bonafide passenger off his berth but for the drooling ticket examiner who then slapped me with every fine in the almanacs of Indian Railways.
I hold the honour of crashing out of my Doctoral course at the university, not unlike a skydiver sans a parachute, for refusing to acknowledge any timeline whatsoever. Please do not be shocked if my wife and in laws claim I was late by a day for my marriage –the clock had already struck midnight and the date moved ahead- although less due to my prodigious talents than the overzealous legion of street dancers.
As I muddle past my mid life, orthopaedists caution me not to miss a set of exercises that will keep my brittle back functional. My arteries and veins are turning into a gutter of bad cholesterol and triglycerides, perennially waiting for that promised brisk walk to begin.
More than the lust for your attention, the events I have recounted above are a testament of a trait, culmination of an enterprise of ennui beyond imaginable blemishes. To be sure, I have gleaned harvests of grief time and again on account of the languorous vein, and there is every sign that I will stay unreformed, but they are more a reflection on this world’s morbid obsession with schedules than a commentary on my own incontinence.
It is highly contextual therefore to mention that high fever called NaNoWriMo –National Novel Writing Month- that binds the participants of a nation to a timetable of spinning off a fifty thousand word novel in a month. To a croaking tortoise like me the ambition is akin to a legless dwarf competing in an Olympian 100 meters dash. But I do adore the humanity for the hurly burly it is capable of. In a Utopian world though, normalised for specially gifted slackers like me, National Novel Writing Decade, or better still, National Novel Writing Life would be more like it.
But, alas, life is short, writing is so long!
Muddling past a midlife? I don’t think so US; certainly not in the creative writing stakes.
I don’t know about deadlines. Maybe they work in some cases, & not in others. I don’t think there are any rules…..good writing being good writing & all that.
Ian, I love the rule that says there are no rules! That said, I am turning into a sloth. Thanks for appreciating.
uma, I’ve often boasted no one could match my laziness, but I see I have a worthy competitor-that is, if competition were something persons of our ilk were capable of. Don’t know if you’ve read this week’s aphorism. But you are obviously someone who has always taken the turtle’s advice. An essential precondition, I dare say, for any aspiring novelist.
Marty, you are more like a mentor to me. Turtles’ lives are epics compared to ours that are like short stories. We may only benefit from their experience if only we paid attention!
You’re sort of the “better late than never” posterchild, Uma. Your quandary with meeting deadlines makes perfect sense to me…I have the same problem. I like doing things in my own time.
Kris, the problem with blooming late is that everybody else is ready to fall asleep. Yet, the promise of the mantra of ‘never give up, never let go’, at the heart of a procrastinator’s spark.
Uma, I turn these things to slapstick and you turn these things to literature.
Interesting life. I guess some people live in time – others in eternity.
You have summed up in a dozen words what I have plodded across in 800 or so.
so agree with all these ultra-witty comments here! the post made for a great read!
Am I glad you do!
Yes, the lotus eaters!
Great read US! NaNoWriMo sure seems to tough even for non-slackers..not to speak of my personal reservations on the whole ‘forced’ creativity aspect of such things..
Ash, we are surely on the same page on NaNoWriMo! As for the other race, there is no finishing line. Thanks for the mega booster compliment!
Ah yes the NaNoWriMo. I did think about it this year too, even though there is no historical record that tells us that Shakespeare used to bunk down in November and release a new play every December. In my case by time I started to stir into action it was mid-November, so I will bide my time till next year, or until I find another worthy month. Just thinking about all the work involved makes me feel tired.
Your comment reminds me of my old professor who would go dreamy talking about the Bard and his folios. I wish you the best in your future enterprise, not a cup of mine!
Yep. If it is already past, it’s hardly future!
You make procrastination sound so grand and romantic! Even when you are kicking yourself for your lack of timeliness, you look good doing it.
Thanks for those kind words Brantley; welcome to my still world!
Very very well said indeed – a novel writing life and that too – as it it was enough. Such a great canvas and so much to write on. Yet so little time.
I am happy we see eye to eye, Abhra.
Nanowrimo becomes easier when you start along with the rest, but instead of aiming to finish the story in a month, you finish structuring it and write at your own pace. After all, it matters more to write a good story than to write a story in one month. Nanowrimo is good inspiration for us slackers to move off our read ends.
That is what I also feel, Chaitanya -and it is all so personal still- It may just bring the matchstick to the wood. I am glad for the acknowledgement.
Umashankar, I see your blog is snowing now! Nice effect. I am often terrible about procrastination too, so I can relate. But I must say you have rather made an art of it! 🙂 However, better late than never is still getting the job done! Are you entering the novel writing contest?
I hope this is snow of good omen, Madilyn, and inspire the sulking stags of my muse. And, No, I avoid contests like plague! Thanks for the soothing words.
* bowing in reverence* What a literary fabric you weave around the most mundane motif!
Ilakshee, nothing on this earth is mundane. Thanks for the encouragement.
Procrastination – a word that pretty much sums up my undergrad life thus far. But then again, I think people procrastinate a lot less than they lead others to believe.
I guess most of us are given to procrastination in varying degrees. I have found that the outcome is often unsavoury, it can be fatal too. At the cost of repetition, I am Hamlet in slow motion.
‘Do it tomorrow’ is my mantra, Uma! I always wonder what the rush is.
Uma – your words are always like a poem, a song, a serenade. As for procrastination, I always think of Tagore’s words about stringing and unstringing the instrument while the song remains unsung. You are by no means leaving the song unsung.
Molly, that song does remain unsung. Yet, I’ll be blessed if my notes keep beckoning my readers