Another day, another empty metro train.
Over the month, I had become more of a zombie than I used to be. I was no stranger to hectic schedules and early mornings, traveling from one end of the city to another in crowded buses, busy roads, and jarring heat. It was all by choice, and so was this. The empty metro train was my devil’s workshop. I can’t do this I can’t do this I can’t do this.
For one year, I worked part-time while studying. 8 AM to 8 PM days, every day. I’d given up my hobbies for work the past year, and I had the opportunity to salvage my craving for dance in college, one last time. I’d participate no matter what, I told myself. Even if it meant not-so-feasible traveling and exertion. The accumulated stress from the past year made the toll of it all come to me much quicker than I expected.
I had chosen to dance. It was my flow, where everything else melted away, as if on command. Wake up at 5 am, get up and go. Dance for 3 hours. Feel raging self-doubt about how bad of a dancer I am, when I always thought otherwise. Drag my aching body back home, eat, change, run back to college, and keep the monster thoughts at bay.
One of these days, despite not being able to read, watch or listen to anything, I half-mindedly picked up a book I’d bought on a whim. The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. Another day, another empty metro train. I opened the book with a big sigh and started reading. A couple of pages in, I was in tears.
I went from being a teenager to a young adult in challenging circumstances, constantly feeling like life wasn’t giving me a break. During the pandemic, I’d sit by the window staring at the same tree every day, thinking the big thoughts. The tree would stand there, changing with the seasons, quiet, unmoving, and omnipresent. The ever-watching fig tree — home to screeching bats, mushy fruits, and a sad girl by her window. Here I was, years later — reading a book about a fig tree narrating the contents of her arborescent mind.
My mind wove a story of destinies and meant-to-bes, as one’s does during hard times. My tree found me!
Like all things, those days came to an end. We won the dance competition (thanks to a fantastic teacher and a hardworking team) I didn’t have the character arc of going from a self-doubting average dancer to a great one like all inspirational stories of hard work do, in fact — I was quite disappointed with my performance. I savoured the book, taking the story to heart, and so my disappointment became only a passing cloud (you should read it to find out why).
In retrospect, it was never about what the ending of the story was — the book had no grand idea or bang-on ending. It was about every page, every sentence, every word.
What is this blog about? It has no meaning if you’re looking for a conclusion. It’s only about the story —a story of a reader that hopes that one day, the dots will connect looking back.
Post Script - Some of my favourites from the book
1. “I wish I could have told him that loneliness is a human invention. Trees are never lonely. Humans think they know with certainty where their being ends and someone else’s starts. With their roots tangled and caught up underground, linked to fungi and bacteria, trees harbour no such illusions. For us, everything is interconnected.”
2. “Because in real life, unlike in history books, stories come to us not in their entirety but in bits and pieces, broken segments and partial echoes, a full sentence here, a fragment there, a clue hidden in between. In life, unlike in books, we have to weave our stories out of threads as fine as the gossamer veins that run through a butterfly’s wings.”
3. “Anyone who expects love to be sensible has perhaps never loved.”
