By Priyanka Panwar
There are good days, bad days, and then there are moderate days. What do we do on moderate days? These are days that don’t smell of cakes and candy, days that don’t bask in the glory of boisterous get-togethers, and that don’t have you running around in anxiety. They aren’t spent in hospital corridors and don’t promise hope and certainty.
Life, on most days, is a moderate one—rooted in mundanity and tied to the fabric of monotony. Routine allows us to remain distracted from issues that could consume us, provided we had the luxury of time. A great way to deal with the problems in our lives is to become so immersed in time that, when we finally come up for air, we are more concerned about breathing. Rough phases are accentuated by holidays. Your mind takes charge, playing Sisyphus, rolling up heavy boulders and then doing it all over again. There is no progress, no growth, no work happening, and yet you don’t feel relaxed because your mind is at work all the while—jumping from one thought to another, building bridges between past and future, thinking of what-ifs and what-cans, traversing distances within oneself.
We have been fed narratives on how to stay productive all our lives. Our social media platforms remind us of fancy vacations, celebrity-like dress-ups, mandatory postings on birthdays, festivals and events. So, we know the drill. We know that important days have to be documented, registered, laminated, and polished to make them even bigger. We learn how to hold ourselves together on rough days, and when we fail to do so on our own, we look around for company, securing ourselves in the den of familiarity. But what do we do about moderate days when life seems a humdrum affair, when the daily grind tastes dry and drab, when the clock ticks sound a tad bit slower, making us pine for ‘special days’?
On moderate days, we watch the world go by slowly. We sit with our cups of coffee or tea and let them brew a little longer. We indulge in small talk and greetings, building on past conversations. We catch trains, buses, and cabs as we gradually perfect the art of negotiating between the private and the public worlds. We wear our not-so-favourite clothes, which are dipped in comfort and familiarity, allowing us to blend into the larger crowd with nonchalance. We polish our to-do lists, letting them become maps to guide us in our future. We say our daily prayers and bless or curse people with equanimity. On moderate days, we let the world take us on a ride. On such days, we are mostly content with our lives. We are passive; we do not sit in the driver’s seat. Moderate days are forgettable, yet they are steeped in efforts, commitment, and drive. We do a lot, and yet nothing ‘significant’ happens.
Moderate days are for marinating—letting our lives soak in diverse hues, taking in flavour and texture, while we remain slightly detached from the end product. These are days when one would just sit laidback in chequered pajamas and unkempt hair mindlessly scrolling a social media page or sipping on the homely chai/coffee with some munchies. On days like these, we chat and gossip about anything under the sun and forget the conversations in the next instant. On moderate days, we blend, simmer, and evaporate, leaving behind traces of routine in the form of empty tea cups and several good morning greetings.
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Priyanka Panwar is an Assistant Professor of English at Motilal Nehru College (Evening), Delhi University. When she isn’t reading or teaching, she likes to travel and observe. A movie buff and a voracious reader; on most days she dreams of coffee and mountains.
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