The Answer is 42

 

Yet another YouTube video on how to beat procrastination later, the algorithm has probably picked up that I never will. All the more reason for it to continue suggesting more such videos. While the algorithm has not taken any responsibility of fixing me, it can continue to engage me. If I am meant to waste time, why not on its content as opposed to a rival's? Fair enough, I suppose.

Not that the video was a bad one. Deftly produced with the right amount of inset clips, slow zoom outs and relatability embedded in the script, it conveys what every well produced video on the topic should - that productivity can be enhanced and procrastination can be subdued by starting small, battling the amygdala (the primitive brain), System 2 dominance (rational thinking) etc etc. It even acknowledges that watching that very video is part of the easily pursued avoidance loop. Very self aware.

The ways I justify procrastination are many including some mentioned in the video. But in my universe, any delayed major project or lack of progress in the larger mission of life itself is most easily put down to the time not being right. The awareness that this excuse is not a valid one has never hindered me from using it. Decades of delay in the execution of grand plans is pinned on the lack of the necessary vibes. Hastily completed work after inordinate delays is celebrated as achievement and escape.

Even more dangerous is my tendency to retroactively frame delay and inaction as some sort of rebellion against the system. Every fictional and real rebel I have known or read about was completely invested in pushing their cause, however impossible, and sitting on their backsides is simply not in their script or their genes. Laziness cannot pass off as rebellion for very long no matter how many ways I try to spin it.

Through the sheer experience of multiple decades of inertia, I can claim professional acquaintance with 'just do it later'. I seem to be no longer burdened by guilt at my perceived lack of progress but at the same time, I do not revel in the easy releases of the avoidance loop either. There are many things that I wish I had already accomplished in life yet there is a certain peace in looking back at what I managed to do in spite of myself.

A particular insight came to me only last year, like an epiphany, while browsing a bookstore with fellow book lovers from Russia and Tajikistan whilst we were recommending personal favourites to each other. Without revealing the title of the book(s), all I will say is that the key plot climax at the end of a long quest in one of my favourite stories is the message "The answer is 42". 

I was in my 20s when I first read this classic, the randomness and irreverence of this disclosure left everyone including the protagonist and me the reader scratching our heads while quietly giggling at the same time. The conclusion remained true to the spirit of the book which specialized in not taking anything too seriously and did so brilliantly.

A couple of decades later in that bookshop in Dehradun, the number 42 did not seem like such a random choice anymore. As it happens, I was by then already into my 41st year approaching the next, pleased as punch despite a generally ordinary existence. I realized that 42 could have been a secret reference to a certain magic age when regret nestles with realization, at peace with what could have been and what has. I certainly felt so in that moment.

It did help that besides being the author of one of my favourite books, the concerned writer had provided me with one of my favourite quotes of all time too. When in some moment of undeniable genius, he had said "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by", I knew I had to look no further for a guiding light.

[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-answer-is-42.html]

2025

Fauzan Ardhi/Unsplash

It is hard to write anything about a year when you have lost your father. Everything else pales into insignificance. But in keeping with the attitude of that very same father, 2025 was a year where a lot of other thoughts and experiences ought to be recalled.

One such was the parallels between Jim Corbett's village of Choti Haldwani and the Korean tourist destination of Jeju Island. Having visited both within a few weeks of each other, it was soothing to observe rural life continuing as of old only a few hundred feet from tourist frenzy. In the case of Choti Haldwani, there was also the matter of industrial forestry being ordered to a halt almost 200 years ago from today in a realization well before its time.

The series of visits to the Western Ghats in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu were a welcome reminder that the Himalayas are not the only claimants to mountain splendour. Remote, lush and dripping with life, the ancient mountains of the south warrant further attention. The southern part of India as a whole offers a alternative way of looking at India and that alone is reason enough to delve into details.

The multiple groups of foreign trainees and the monumental task of introducing them to India within the space of a few weeks was a task that I took immense joy in. As I told them, I know a lot about India but what I don't know is far far far greater. It was fulfilling to see them slowly grasp the complexities and impossibilities that made our country special and to also learn how our interests - reading, culture and food - often overlapped.

Health deteriorations and demises in the senior generation were difficult to accept but had to be. The sudden departure of a similarly aged colleague was even more so. His enthusiasm for nature and the accidental encounters in our neighbourhood forests were a part of many daily lives, including mine, and the crude cruel stop to his journey made everyone look for reasons and fail.

On a larger front, the casual hate, violence and other forms of stupidity that were provoked with the Pahalgam terror murders and then proceeded to infect society at large with cute neighbourhood uncles calling for 'Gaza'ing Pakistan and the forceful injection of politics into cricket was also a personal inflection point. What we become is largely driven by what we find pleasure in. If violence is our common love, then there might be not too much difference between us and them. In that department, all of us need to do better.

In Plain Sight

13th November 2024, Kolkata

At a busy intersection in Kolkata, shorn of any elements of nature, this billboard lorded over the teeming masses. The green forests, the fresh air and the clean water promised could only be visualized but not experienced. To use such imagery for a product which has established health risks for users and contributes significantly to the dirtiness of our urban surroundings doubled and tripled the irony. All the more reason for busybees of the city to pause and reflect. Who are you trying to please by winning your race and are those egging you on doing so with the right intentions?

Discarded

Mateusz D/Unsplash

Every new social platform that becomes the talk of town automatically sparks a curiosity in me. I do give it a whirl only to find out that it was not my type in the first place. But that does not stop me for trying the next talked about thing. It was on a wave of such hype, that Discord first came to me and so I ventured forth. The dark UI overlaid with friendly looking characters seemed like a fun place but only for people who knew where to go adding to its charm and living up to its name as some sort of underground gathering. Unfortunately for me, I was then and continue to be overwhelmed by the infinite number of side-tabs, competing conversations and a fountain of activities that I find myself incompetent to handle. Usually I am able to invoke the 'sour grapes' mentality and let inaccessible things be but in this one instance, I keep hoping against hope that I'll figure out a hack to experience the place as committed Discord-ers do. Unlike all of the others which I had so far discarded, here was a platform that discarded me. Have been unable to make any gains in this regard for quite some time now but hey, 2026 is a new horizon.

Submerge

Kiril Dobrev/Unsplash

Other artforms engage too but not in so discreet a manner. Drama, dance, music, movies, art and even graphic novels have a physical presence external to you which make them identifiable as such but words that you are currently reading are suitably undercover. The world which they have encased you in is completely invisible to everyone else and the mental universe you are inhabiting is yours alone. In some ways, it is a waterbody below whose surface you are enthusiastically deep diving in but up above, there are no tell-tale signs.

Quirk

Radek Kozák/Unsplash

The laptop charger which will charge only at the perfect amount of connection, not too tight, not too loose. The air cooler that will tumble over at the slightest touch of a stranger but which I have managed to keep stable to keep me company in peak summer. The induction cooking stove that will show an error message if I set the wattage at 1000 W but works perfectly at 800 W or 1200 W. The primary advantage of a machine is said to be that it works without complaints but even factory set-ups have ways of turning out tiny little flaws that are the difference between frustration and completion of desired tasks. Much like people, these machines too needed a gentle hand and patient enquiry to deliver. Like any good manager, I am proud of myself and my team. Hiring and firing is for cop-outs.

Unknot

Pierre Bamin/Unsplash

As I was discussing with a schoolfriend also in his late 30s/early 40s, our bodies were getting to the stage of how our old PCs were in the early 2000s. Back in the day, PCs running Windows would start running slower with age taking increasingly longer to start up as to shut down. There was also a certain wait time before the older machine warmed up to reach peak performance and this tendency was becoming strangely true of our bodies too. In the years before, our muscles and joints were motion ready and able to display peak performance from the get-go on cricket fields and bicycle rides. Now in the course of a long morning walk, it takes a good 2-3 km of progress before with a burp, certain systems of the physical realm indicated that they were use-ready. The high intensity of youth had once required us to set aside time to pro-actively unwind. We had now reached a stage carrying so much legacy data that we were required to give ourselves time just to unknot.