Craving the pulse.

Craving the pulse.
feeling: bored, restless



The monotony is getting to me, and I fear I may go crazy keeping up with the art of doing nothing at all.

I know that I was waxing lyrical about the simple life just two months back, but that was when normal semester classes were on-going, the campus was filled with students, and our favourite Frenchies were still around.

Having spent the past two weeks since my return from Goa stuck on a campus that is starting to resemble a graveyard, and the fact that this graveyard is right smack in a city where there's nothing remotely interesting to do, I concede defeat. Doing nothing at all is damn hard work!

My timeless days have jelled into a mass of routine activities.

I wake up at 11:30 a.m. and head downstairs to the gym. After my shower at about 1:45 p.m., I flip flop my way over to Erwin's room and off we go to MiCafe (one of the independent stalls on campus, because we can't stand eating the slush they serve in the mess) where lunch is almost always a chicken cheese frankie for him. I'm a little less loyal in my choices, but I've been eating the mushroom cheese sandwich for a few days now.

At 2:30 p.m., we drag our bodies to the CCC lab for class. While it sometimes involves vaguely interesting activities like writing limericks or haikus, more often than not we are slumped in the back row, discretely surfing unrelated websites.

Class usually ends by 6:30p.m. (earlier if we're lucky or if the instructor's lazy), and we'll head to the mess for snacks. Snack-time usually involves butter toast (eaten Singaporean style - sprinkled with sugar) and a cup of milky chai, after which we'll head back to our rooms for more internet surfing/movie watching/reading.

At about 9:45 or 10 p.m., Nuria would tap on my door and we'd head down to dinner. On nights when we're feeling particularly adventurous, we'd head to the mess. Most nights however, we bypass the route to the mess and head straight to MiCafe. Dinner is almost always a bowl of chicken chilli garlic noodles for Erwin. For me, I alternate between the mushroom cheese omelette and vegetarian Manchurian fried rice, or if I am eating meat that day, Erwin's dinner choice. Nuria almost always chooses to torture her tastebuds with the mess food.

Post dinner, we head back to our rooms to resume our post-snack activities. And on nights where the monotony threatens to kill (almost daily), one of us caves in and gathers the others for chai at Chhota (this other independent stall that really doesn't rank high on hygiene, but it's open 24 hours unlike MiCafe, which closes by midnight these days).

The above routine may sound like heaven to stressed-out souls, especially those scrambling to meet deadlines and ace the upcoming exams, but I'm ready to leave this dome and come back to civilization and reality.

I'm 13 days from Mumbai and 19 days from home. I can't wait for Mumbai. All the negative comments about the place the locals have told me about - crawling traffic, bustling streets, crowds of people - sound like the perfect remedy for my case of monotony. Toss me back into the pulsating city life. I need to be around people again, before I morph into a social recluse.