I am sitting at the desk at The Newspaper Company as a sort of unused intern. Basking nonetheless in the glory of this entity which has in many ways woven itself into my being since I was a child. It’s The Newspaper Company. Today after much hassle– changing several bus routes and having to walk in muddy puddles– I found myself at the junction at Cubbon park. I like the walk around the block, under the peepal trees. I love Bangalore in the monsoons, the petrichor wafts up to your nose as you walk . The roads are much more stable in this part of the town. There is much less precarity in the environment. A happy, busy, disciplined street I suppose. And the glorious Bangalore weather. It takes me around 7 minutes to make the walk, with my blue knapsack on my back, and an umbrella popping, always ready. I like the street crossings here. Precisely because there are designated zebra crossings. A kind of traffic propriety that does not make a pedestrian want to crawl out of their skin. I am not scared of making such crossings. I feel almost, an integral part of the road here as a foot-soldier. There is a certain dignity afforded to strollers in the area around cubbon park that is absent in the rest of Bangalore. Sidewalks are not as potholed. It is almost as if they want you to walk!
After I came in to the office, I met my boss. He gave me some typing work. It’s an article–a triviality at best–about a BESCOM power shutdown in certain areas. He corrects my errors and I like to see the precision with which his hawk eyes scan the most uninspiring text you will ever read in your life. 66/111 kV. Residency Road. I am stunned at the punctiliousness of mundanity. I am surprised by the thoroughness with which this work has been carried out– day in and out–for almost eternity. My boss must be an ancient relic of this space. But he refuses to gather dust like everything else. There is a beauty in this rebellion. There is a grace in the way that such work is carried out with a tirelessness despite its antediluvian origins.
After typing it out, I am largely free. There is an awkward tension– one of uselessness. One where the both of us are keenly aware of the lack of substance that I bring to the table at the moment. An awkward coffee run in the canteen to pass the time. I find myself exploring the terrace of such a beautiful building. I climb up the stairs and land up on the damp, brown floor of the terrace. I stand under the shade of a sprawling peepal tree. Its branches and boughs bend towards the moist floor with a certain humility. Weighed down by life, but with a grace that is now alluring. Placing my glass of filter coffee on the sill, I open Lahiri’s In Other Words and begin reading. In the book she writes about Emily Dickinson being her muse while writing. Are writers just transferable muses to each other? Channelled through the conduit of words, I find myself at this desk too!
After a sufficient amount of time, my duty beckons me. I know that I will go back to no work. Still, I cannot spend the entirety of my evening on the roof. I come down. I pass through the hall where there wafts a smell of freshly printed newspaper. It transports me back to scholastic days. The scent is like a warm hug to a bibliophile. And somehow in two days alone, with all the limited work, I fall in love with this place. With the warmness of my boss who attempts to teach me kannada. Heliradu odiddira? He asks me, as the city editor tells me to read the newspaper.
I fall in love with the building and the weather and the peepals the office is embowered by. I fall in love with the very project of journalism. Of words. Of typing. Of the seriousness and yet relaxedness of this place. Of the angularity of its wooden carrels. Of the way in which this place is modern and ancient all at once.
And I feel like an antiquarian, snooping, looking around, observing my environment. And partaking in the pleasures of its solitude. In its coffee, and the time it affords me to write this article. With the clacketing of keys in the backdrop. With the black monoliths of words on every screen. With the power of this subtle project. With the tangibility of the paper on which each day’s work finds itself. In many ways this place cannot gather dust. In many ways it is lodged firmly in the present. It must print news everyday. Its work can never be obsolete. The Newspaper Company can never be an anachronism even as it operates with so much of human power. There is a dignity to its labour. Its irreplaceability, its humanity gives me hope. Could these be my people? Could this be my space?
How important is leisure to you in the everyday scheme of things?
Very much, I can't go a day without day dreaming !
mehh it's alright
yuck. what is relaxation even. Capitalistic productivity!
Comments