The Fourth Seat

Coffee at Dawn - Patnem, Goa '22 Mornings ought to be silent. The day needs to start slow. The tempo needs to pick up, slowly, eventually. Just not right then. The crescendo of the day can come later, I don't care. But not in the mornings. Nature moves unhurriedly in the mornings, then why don't we?  Have you observed how dawn breaks? The darkness fades, slowly as a grey breaks into the sky. More light. A streak of sunlight. Brightness. Birds chirp, dew vanishes, the day begins.  Mornings are for contemplation, for reflection, for the quiet moments of silence punctuated only by bird song and sea waves. There is no need for music at that hour. Not even jazz. Only the sounds of nature waking up and embracing the day are welcome. No voices. No chatter. No discussions. No arguments. No sweet nothings. No honking. No TV. Nothing.  Though one knows that Silence is not always welcome. Other times you need to hear the humming, the chatter, the retorts, the clanking of the vessels...

There are certain mornings when you don’t need to actively reflect upon anything. All you need is a cue, a trigger, a nudge, a few couplets of Urdu poetry to launch into a tirade against oneself. And to step down from one plane of consciousness and into the rabbit hole of nostalgia. A wild montage of images, sounds and smells takes over your mind as you lie perfectly still on the bed that you slept in the night before. Your body remains still but your mind is shuddering, pulsating, rocking to the sounds and beats of the times flown by. What happened to the dreams which you dreamt about during your wakeful hours. To those things which you wanted over everything else. For whom you left everything and everyone by the wayside. How did you land up here where you didn’t intend to? Is this all a chance or some misdirected motivation towards the comforts you secretly crave but openly despise? What is the idea of work? Is it what is done for purpose and passion or a mundane activity undertaken ...

                              It was a Sunday morning. Like most Sunday mornings I was expecting dread with breakfast. I suspect many others who took the train with me to business districts every day were also expecting it and experiencing it as well.                 All of us in identical shades of blue shirts, mimicking our mood - bought online, carrying our tiffins with a bulky laptop to boot, switching between Huberman and Latest Bollywood hits on Spotify - all of us on a singular mission of increasing shareholder value, while wondering if we would get a seat on the train that would always be running late on Monday mornings. What was unknown to me on that morning, however, was that the dread was not about the upcoming week. I had been numbed into believing that working diligently was the purpose and mission of my life, among other things. ...