HYDERABAD: “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks,” said author John Muir. That’s how in ‘Mrs Dalloway’ Virginia Woolf, through her protagonist Clarissa, takes the reader to a psychological tour of London. You get inside the author’s mind through the character. Throughout the major part of the text the readers traverse the streets, as Woolf herself loved, through Clarissa’s thoughts that keep on changing through past and present as she takes her steps. This relation with thoughts and walking is proven to be rewarding to the thinking heads especially poets, authors and artists.
The author, in the mental topography, embroiders London landscape through thoughts that gather atop each other in layers and then slowly slip away almost the way waves take away sand from the beaches. This explains what walking can do to thoughts; it can construct, deconstruct ideas, add more layers or remove the surfaces to reveal something that stayed untouched, unearthed for a long time. What then is unearthed is precious, new much like fresh dew the feet touch on grass during an early morning walk. The best part is that it can create every image anew. This is the bonus, walks offer to poets and authors. What happens exactly? Walking speeds up blood circulation, sends more oxygen to brain and freshens up the tired brain tissues that shrink due to stress or depression, a common pattern in many thinking minds.
A research report from Stanford
University done by authors Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz says: “Walking opens up the free flow of ideas, and it is a simple and robust solution to the goal of increasing creativity.” And they can’t be wrong. Many wordsmiths are known to take long walks and come back with fresher ideas. Says Delhi-based renowned poet Keki Daruwalla, “I have always noticed that whenever I go for a walk, fresh ideas come to my mind. Not only this if I was thinking on something earlier, walking gives me an improved version of the same idea.” He usually takes his walks early in the morning. On asking if he remembers one particular poem he found fresh images for, he says, “There have been so many. It’s not just one image that shaped my works, there have been so many.”
In Jeet Thayil’s famous novel ‘Narcopolis’ we witness ‘cobbled alleys lined with cots’ at Shuklaji Street of the infamous red-light area at Kamathipura, Bombay. Through Rashid’s opium den we get to see much of the Maximum City. The perception is dystopic. A sense of dismay. A maze of streets that offer no escape. The disturbing perceptions stay back. That’s why, walks in cluttered urban areas are of not much use; mind gets diverted to a lot of unwanted noise and scenes that don’t contribute much to the free flow of thoughts. Peaceful, green and quiet parks are the best places to take a walk.
Says poet and critic K Satchidanandan, “I like winters more for walking. Brisk walking in parks clears my thought process and I have been able to write better. It’s as if I can see things clearer.” The mind takes imprints of clear skies, grass, trees and birds around and filters thoughts through them. When the poet/author puts the pen to paper, the words offer cursive maps not just of the surroundings but mind also. What emerges keeps refreshing itself with each walk.