BENGALURU: As someone who has to write articles and perform jokes regularly, my work depends on ‘getting ideas’. After a point, one feels like an exploitative Amrish Puri – exaggerating or lamabsting this beautiful, whimsical world for a few copper coins. Actually, even the above line is an exaggeration. We are drunken pollen bees, or idiosyncratic worker ants, picking up titbits and bringing them back to our hives. But where do ideas come from?
I always envied creative people who did multiple things – Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais, and Vishal Bharadwaj. I attributed their creativity to an enriched life. They fought wars, loved deeply and felt strongly. A heady cocktail of experience, exposure, and emotions. I imagined they frolicked about in a garden and caught colourful butterfly-like ideas in their imaginary nets. I have tried many things to get ideas.
I tried going to cafes, but I’m constantly worried about the bill. I grew up in the era of Cafe Coffee Day, where for 90 rupees you could get a cappuccino and walk out with a life-partner. Cafes also make me ultra-sensitive to sounds and music – like an angel on amphetamine. So I plug in my earphones, and get lost in YouTube videos or reels. I must have spent thousands of rupees in cafes, and got a total of 37 minutes of work done in my life! I read that working out calms you down.
But gyms were always noisy, anxiety-inducing places – especially with the pictures of bodybuilders who looked like giant cone ice creams with four scoops laden on top. And then for a brief period of a few months, gyms became fun. The posters were replaced, and noise-cancellation earphones entered the market. But then, came the ‘fit-fluencers’ – those documentors of progress, the Chitraguptas of aesthetics. My gym is surrounded by mirrors, and I must end up in at least 10 reels as a side actor everyday!
I have tried taking walks, going for runs, and swimming. I tried meditation – to hack Gautam Buddha’s technique and become Gautam Adani. I figured when I’m forced not to think, the colourful butterflies fly out in rebellion. I tried journaling, but my ideas vanished like temperamental ghosts when I took their attendance in my journal. I hoped dreams and my subconscious mind would give me ideas. But my dreams lately have been lacking in both quality and quantity. After nearly two years as a humorist, I found the solution close to home – in my washroom.
It’s not like I walk into a magical portal and am swamped by colourful idea-mosquitoes. It happens only when the shower is running at that exact temperature. When I’m busy in the mundane practice of soaping, scrubbing, and washing those exact body parts in that exact same order with exactly the same shower gel – the magic happens! Sometimes as an idea, or a solution, or a response. I find myself running out of the shower like a gym-going Archimedes who just discovered a truth.
Perhaps it is because showers are where we are completely stripped of any appearances or performances. Perhaps it’s the seemingly senseless, repetitive nature of the task. Hemingway stared at cats, Dickens counted lamps on his night walks, and JK Rowling named all the plants in her garden. Me? I take a humble shower. It works for me but is more an act of service for the people I surround myself daily with.
(PS: The idea for this column also came from a shower. Kindly insert a philosophical point about great ideas coming from mundane tasks here. Thank you!)
(The writer’s views are personal)