BENGALURU: When I first read about Romanticism in literature, the idea baffled me. We had a few Romantic poems in our school syllabus – Wordsworth’s The Solitary Reaper, for example. I personally gravitated towards the action-packed poetry of Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and in later years, the misanthropic ramblings of Charles Bukowski.
I could never connect to the Romantics’ glorification of rural life, and the need to find greatness in the mundane. Lately though, I empathise with the poets. Medicine hadn’t advanced to the levels of today, and wars, plagues, famines and floods were a part of everyday life. I can understand why poets of that era chose to glorify everyday phenomena. In fact, with news of the extended lockdown, I have become something of a Romantic poet myself. When I hear reports that the world is never going to be the same again, my mind travels back to the times when I took the hustle-bustle of everyday life for granted.
I miss strolling about on the roads in my colony, as the pollution challenged my lungs to constantly up their game. I miss the stray dogs in my colony who suffer from multiple personality disorder – friendly and sweet by day, and fierce predators at night. I miss them barking and chasing me, inadvertently giving me a HIIT workout every night.
I miss the temple and mosque blaring out prayers at the highest decibel levels legally possible. I miss using the prayers as alarm clocks, and scheduling my day around them. I miss the mindless IPL games that played on for two months at a stretch. I miss staring at the screen like a zombie, as Delhi played Punjab in Match. No. 54, even though everybody knew that the game would have no impact on the tournament. I miss the commentators excitedly reminding me that this match ‘was going to go down to the wire’, even when the score was 22/3 at the end of four overs.
I miss travelling in buses, jostling for space, and the sigh of relief when I finally got a seat. I miss how my body odour would mingle with everybody else’s, to become a unified ‘Everybody Odour’. I miss riding my bike as cars and superbikes zoomed beside me. I miss feeling like a player in a simulated video game, even though I knew that I’d only have one ‘life’ in this particular game. I miss the surprise of a traffic policeman waving his hand and stopping me, asking me to show him my Driving Licence, Registration Certificate, Pollution Certificate, and 10th standard Board Certificate.
I miss stand-up comedy, and the sadomasochistic thrill of embarrassing myself in front of new strangers every night. I miss watching the news channels, as anchors shouted at everybody who came on their show. I miss the times when I could use this column to write about anything I wanted, and the words ‘virus’ and ‘lockdown’ did not have to feature in every column.
But most of all, I miss taking everything in my world for granted – friends, family, food, and alcohol. And in such times, I empathise with William Wordsworth and his brand of Romantic poetry. We are all Solitary Reapers now, and we shall all reap the fruits of our hygiene habits.