I am starting to enjoy this. The trees are growing, my writing is reaching more people and more youngsters from the village are tagging along on this ride to live a slow-life alongside me. But what’s more important is, I am not really craving for any of this anymore. I am letting things take its natural course. I am letting the currents guide me.
Was I always like this? Maybe not, but the young guy sitting in a cozy British house on St. Paul Street South, looking out of the window, questioning life, worried about taking this leap of faith, would never believe me if I were to tell him that it was like walking on an invisible bridge of faith. Jesus walked on water! He really did walk on that invisible bridge of faith.
I still remember it vividly. The day was Saturday, I was on my fourth cup of coffee. Drinking from a a mug which I still have btw. The sun was playing with the British clouds, as always. A Welsh flag was covering up half the beige wall. The Nationalist pride of my roommate was a bit too evident. Like always he was sitting in his room, which smelt like beer and decay. He was watching the Welsh nation play rugby against New Zealand, screaming out of his lungs, “Owww Fuck. Not again!”
The sun was shining in on the dining table. I had brought some flowers from my neighbour, John. No. I am not making his name up. It was actually John. One of the hundreds of John that I met that year. Someone must have passed a sermon in the year 1995. I hardly found the Millenials or Gen Z flaunting that uncommon name.
The window facing the St. Paul Street was always closed. One day I had opened the window to get some fresh air, only to wake up to the wrath of my roommates. “Fuck were you thinking, Ash.” Well, what if I say that I always keep my windows and doors open these days. I grew up in a place which didn’t really have the concept of confined/enclosed private spaces. We were always accessible to everyone. It was hard to explain. I preferred being a nice roommate than explaining all this. But, something was off - that was for sure. I grew up in a totally different environment in India and I knew that I was missing some elements of it.
I opened the glass window that overlooked the back garden and went ahead to sit on the grass. I had turned 75 year old John into a friend by now. One day he saw me picking up grass. I was trying to cut the lawn with a pair of scissors. (No one should try it btw) He offered help. The very next minute John had brought his lawn mower to turn the garden into a habitable space. The fee was a cup of chai, which he had loved.
It was noon by now. The fall season had withered most of the trees, turning them naked. I must be reading something which I can hardly remember. Those days I was either reading Sartre or Camus. Sleeping on the dry grass, I was looking up at the sky. Private flights were whizzing in the air. There was something off. It felt like I was just trying too hard to adjust. I used to work in Bristol those days. A renowned photographer who worked alongside me had told me something that I was trying to wrap my head around.
One day we were sitting in the gallery reception when I had asked him this question, “How do you really sustain? It’s tough to get by as an artist as it is.”
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He was working as a deliveroo driver, sending food to and for on his bike. This revelation had shattered my dreams. How was I, who had no resources to live life comfortably in England, was to get by. The native Britishers were finding it tough as it is to survive, and here I was, an outsider coming to study the only thing that middle class kids from India don’t go to study abroad - Arts.
I very well knew in that moment, the reason why everyone preferred Engineering or Medicine over Arts. It pays you peanuts. Having a questioning nature is another downside. It doesn’t matter that you are in a country that you a temporary resident of, if you see injustice, you speak against it and I surely did that. Hell, I even joined every protest that I could. Strangely enough, I remember myself as the only chocolate flake that was swimming in a pool of vanilla ice cream.
It was the same time when I had turned friends with a careers counsellor. We bonded in the most odd manner that anyone could think of. It was covid season. We had a meeting arranged on Teams. The entire class was asked to come up with an elevator pitch - something that I hate till date - I feel blessed that I chose a life far far away from the awkwardness of elevators.
When I studied in the Arts college in Pune, I had shown a sleeping guy with the laptop open as a way to portray myself. I was that lazy and that honest. None of my peers had liked it but strangely enough my Professor, who was coming back from the USA after getting his Masters in Fine Arts, was heavily impressed. I had a similar approach to the elevator pitch. I cracked jokes and tried to be myself. Ofcourse, my peers were laughing at me. “Oh Ash. Trying to get the Oriental points.” I wasn’t though. I was simply trying to be as authentic as possible, which I later figured was one of the reasons why I didn't adjust in the urban societies. Most people were putting up an act and I was expected to do the same. Peggy, who had grown up in Greece, knew this pretty well.
What is it about human behaviour?
I have been asking this question to myself quite a lot lately. Do we really like people who put up an act on screen? Or is it human nature to be carried towards someone who is simply human. Ofcourse, some might question me, “Ash, why are there so many celebrities then?” Maybe they have been caught up in their own imagery, who knows. I prefer someone like Keanu Reeves - someone who is honest about life and knows pretty well that all this is a game. There are no winners or losers. Or maybe he just took the Matrix movies a bit too seriously, but I feel he knows deep down that the way the world is set up, it is set with one single goal - to turn humans into machines. You go to school which teaches you to go ahead and get degrees. You get a degree which can only work if you apply for a job. A job, which can only work if you plan out your loan structure for a new apartment or a car. And before you realise, you are 60 trying to figure out how did I fucking spend all these years? I only have some more left. And wait, I was always told that I was a working class, never supposed to push myself out of this structure. Maybe we all need to be a bit more in control of our mind. Choose a pill.
Peggy sent me an email while we were on the call. “Let’s speak,” it read. And that was a start for a friendship which crossed age gaps and Peggy, her husband and her kids became my mini family in Gloucester.
That day while sleeping on that dry grass, soaking in the sun, I decided to call Peggy.
“Peggy, I am not sure what this is. Am I just dreaming something or is it something deeper - like a calling, a feeling that I cannot get rid of. I am dreaming of India. I try meditating and I know I am not supposed to think, I should rather watch my thought, but all those thoughts are pointing me to India. None of it says that you can be in Berlin or NewYork. I never really fantasised about these places anyway. I know you believe in me and I am sure that I can find something out here that will sustain me enough to let me stay here for longer and get that citizenship like the rest, but I don’t know if I want that. Honestly, I just want to be away from this act. The whole LinkedIn CV’s, hundreds of cold emails, pale interviews where no one is allowed to speak even one thing that makes both the interviewer and the interviewee human. I could have been a monk but I am not even made out for that. I have had my taste of it while backpacking. It won’t work out for me.” I was confused. The students around me were in a different world altogether. This world was made up of internet. Their life revolved around TikTok and Snapchat and although there was nothing wrong with using it - it had most definitely killed real humane acts. As if everyone had to act.”
Peggy listened patiently on the other end of the line. There was a long pause after I finished, and I could hear the faint sound of her kettle whistling in the background. Finally, she spoke in her calm, Greek-accented English.
“Ash,” she said, “some people are trees. They need to be planted in their own soil to truly grow. Others are birds; they can make a nest anywhere. It sounds to me like you know which one you are. Why are you fighting it?”
A tree? Me? The thought was so simple. My Aaji (grandmother) used to say something similar, that a native plant flourishes best in its native soil. And here was a Greek woman, thousands of miles away, reflecting that same universal truth back at me.
Her words were a mirror. That day, lying on that foreign grass, under that British sun, I finally gave myself permission. Permission to stop trying to be a bird when I was so clearly a tree. I chose my pill. Not red or blue, but an earthy brown one. The one that tasted of home.
The leap of faith I was so worried about? That invisible bridge? Peggy’s words laid the first plank. The rest of it, I built with every cold email I deleted, every soulless job application I ignored, and finally, with the one-way ticket I booked. I think I walked on the memory of the monsoon rains back home. That was my bridge of faith.
And now, I sit here. The windows and doors are wide open. The only smell is of the wet earth after a brief shower. Instead of the screams from a rugby match, I hear the laughter of village kids trying to climb the very trees I’ve planted. That young guy on St. Paul Street, staring out of that closed window, would never have believed this. He was looking for a pre-built bridge, a path already laid out for him. He didn’t realize that sometimes, you just have to take the first step, and the bridge appears under your feet as you walk. Anyone can do this. Anyone can be a tree in their own backyard.
The currents he was so afraid of? Turns out, they were trying to guide him home all along. He just needed to stop swimming against them.
Hi, how have you been? Thanks for joining The Book of Ptah. Many new people have joined this page and you would be so confused with what you are reading. I know that things are unorganised and I speak on varied topics, but hey, that’s how our mind is complex. I am trying to organise it. It’s taking time. I am also working on many different tasks as I try to live in my life in a tiny village on the West Coast of India.
If you feel like you want to support my writing, then please do. That gives me the financial security to continue doing what I do. Moreover Substack doesn’t allow me to encash money through paid subscriptions because I live in India. (Perks of living in a third-world country)
So, here’s my PayPal - https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/ashutoshjoshistudio
Have a nice day.
Ash
“a native plant flourishes best in its native soil.” Props to aaji 👏