phasing out

Am I excited? It is a ubiquitous question of late. I don’t know what my answer should be. I know they are expecting me to say YES! of course. But honestly, since the day I decided to accept a definite offer, the day I sealed my fate, so to speak, ‘excitement’ has been farthest from my mind. It is as if the glossy picture that I had been staring at, aiming at all this while has suddenly, as I neared it, shed its patina of gloss and become just another matte print.

There are grand plans to be made, experiments to map out, students to entice, a lab to set up. But all I can think of is which plasmids I should take, how will I ship the fish, will the Customs let my things through, when will my brain ditch me and expose me for the fool that I am.

There is a ‘scientist’ to become, an office to choose, computer and instruments to be ordered. But all I can think of is the admin babus to appease, the director to please, bank and hospital staff to be battled.

There is a new life waiting to begin, new excitements to happen, new bonds to be forged, old ones to be polished up. But all I can think of is how many boxes to ship, how to protect the fragile, what is essential and what not, why is no one buying my furniture.

There is a heavy monsoon-like downpour in Boston today; the purples, yellows and whites of the new spring flowers are bursting forth, water droplets dancing on the puddles of clean water in the potholes. But all I can think of is the muddy slush of monsoons in Delhi, the unmentionable, unknowable solution that flows down the ditches, the drenched skeletal little kids knocking on your car windows…

From my vast experience of life I KNOW that these are phases one goes through. It is my firm belief that to squeeze the most of life, I need to immerse myself in each phase completely, thoroughly. If it is grief, wallow in it. If it is anger boil a bit. If it is weakness, succumb to it. If it is melancholy, submerge in it. It too shall pass. And so this too shall pass. But until then, until that excitement steals back into me, I will just have to deal with the mundane and keep craning my neck to see if there is light at the next bend.