I’m glad there’s no crown prince I have to bow to at the risk of being whipped on the street. I’m glad there’s no autocrat on the loose injecting his dissidents with nerve agents. I’m glad that a vial of insulin in India doesn’t cost a kidney. I’m glad its founders called it a secular, democratic republic and not a Hindu republic.

But that’s all I am - moderately glad. That by some coincidence I was born here. I take no pride in it. I take no more pride in my countrymen than I do in those of our neighboring states. I take no pride in its hills, oceans, or butterflies. They are not mine to take pride in.

But I want to stay glad. So I will fight to keep its hills standing, the butterflies flying, and the oceans from getting any warmer. I’d like a free press, a just judiciary, a bureaucracy terrified of the people, and the freedom to bash my prime minister on social media. A nation is only as well off as its most oppressed. So what needs to be done to fight the oppressors will be done. Fuck the caste system, and so I’ll do what I can to fuck the caste system.

I’ll do what I can and nothing more, and I will be proud of myself for it. And I will be proud of you if you partake in this endeavor. But I will not be proud of being an Indian.

I would like to end this rant by quoting Carl Sagan.

National boundaries are not evidenced when we view the earth from space. Fanatic ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile, blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.

We have heard the rationales offered by the superpowers. We know who speaks for the nations; but who speaks for the human species? Who speaks for earth?

Shooting on film has been the most magical experience I have had in ages. So I am going to keep the storytelling to a minimum and let the photos speak for themselves.

P.S : All the photos are in landscape. So if you have a laptop or a tablet, please continue reading in that for max appreciation.

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All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

— J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Riddle of Strider”,
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

I am not a feet person. There is evidence, anecdotal, scientific and sexual that can attest to this. I find no novelty in podiatry or cobblery. My toe nails are overgrown and I do not care for your overgrown toe nails. My footwear is not fashionable, merely functional, and I do not care for your footwear. And yet, on the 15th of July 2021, I voluntarily touched a considerable number of (less than 40, more than 30) feet. Not individual ones. Pairs. To know how I came in such close proximity to so many feet, you need to first understand who I am.

I am a rebel. Not the kind you’d expect to see in rebellions. Rebellions require stepping out of the house. And being under the hot sun. And clothes being soiled. And stinking. And the police arresting you while you are in stinky clothes. Rebellion requires many days of washing clothes by hand and not meeting your 130 gram protein requirement. I have neither the will nor the heart for all that.

My rebellions are more performative. More declarative. More useless. They’re very much like my writing. Short, loud. No nuance. It started with a brave announcement that I no longer believed the universe was controlled by a God and followed by a refusal to step into temples. I was 19 at the time. I hated temples anyway. I hated having to take off my shirt and rubbing my shirtless body against other shirtless, sweaty men. I hated the queues. I hated the announcements. More than anything, I hated the guts of the Brahmins who claimed they had direct access to the Supreme. I knew they were lying. They knew they were lying. I saw no reason to continue engaging in the deception.

Very soon my rebellions grew more daring. I blew out lamps, instead of dipping the wick back into the oil, violating clear, repeated warnings. I stepped into pooja rooms without showering. I went out of my way to step on books, papers and currency notes and refused to apologize to them. I went to the family astrologer with a fake name to test his fortune telling prowess (and he failed miserably)

But my greatest act of defiance came every Vishu. There is a custom in our family where you have to touch the feet of your elders as they present you with your ‘Kaineettam’. It never felt right. Why should I, a free human being, touch the feet of another free human being?

But the human being at the other end of the feet is someone you love and respect deeply. A direct refusal to touch their feet would not only be sacrilegious but outright rude. I told myself many excuses including that it is a small price to pay for taking their hard earned money. And that if I participate in the ritual of getting the Kaineettam, I have to participate in the ritual of feet touching. I cannot pick and choose here. Yet every time I knelt down to touch someone’s feet, something inside me cried, withered and died. And everything outside of me laughed at me. I had to make a choice.

And on one Vishu morning, when I was young enough to offend people and not old enough to fret about its consequences, my head bowed, my shoulder drooped but my knee refused to bend. I took the money I was offered. I smiled (not with my teeth showing because back then my broken tooth (which has since broken again) had not been fixed yet and I was always conscious of it) and stepped back. A collective gasp. People who woke up with infinite hope for the new year, mangoes, flowers and the blue skinned God, had their festive mood whacked out of their heads by a rebellious boy and his theatrics of defiance. I can only imagine the disrespect the person opposite me felt. But this was not personal. It was principle. And principles beat persons every single time.

In the next ten years, there were hundreds of pairs of feet I refused to touch and dozens of family gatherings, festivities and religious ceremonies I ruined. I assumed it would get easier to say no over time but it never got easy.

**********************

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The 15th of July 2021 was unlike any other day of my life. There was a dress code, people were going to gather and I was to be married to my fiancé. It was a COVID-restricted ceremony of just 50 invited guests. There were many rebellions fought on the days preceding this day. Gods, astrologers, traditions, customs, values and sentimental family members had teamed up on one side. Some battles I gave up, some I lost, and some they won - all stories for another day.

It was inevitable. The Indian wedding is the melting pot of every stupidity we have accumulated since the beginning of civilization. I knew there’d be feet outstretched with blessings ready to mete out and wisdom ready to pass on. But what I was not prepared for was the cascade of events that would lead me to fall at the feet of every single person who was older than me present in the wedding hall.

It started with my parents, my wife’s parents and our grandparents. Exceptions were made for them on this special occasion. I could still go to bed that day, knowing I did not betray principles for persons. But there was one older gentleman who was too old to walk up to the stage. We had to go down to the audience to touch his feet. I am rebellious but not that rebellious. We met him in the audience. He stood up, we knelt down. It should have stopped there but it didn’t. The person sitting next to him stood up, ready to pour out his blessings in return for some foot action. He had stood up and people were watching. I was being videotaped. I could not, not. So I did.

Probably assuming that this is how atheist weddings went, the next person stood up. And then the next. And then it went on. All the progress I made for the progressive young people of my country, through sheer insubordination and daring non-compliance over the last decade came undone in twenty minutes of feet grabbing madness. By feet 10, I had come too far to back down. I had to finish what I started. And I did. Big feet, small feet, ugly feet, smelly feet, callus infested black feet, nail growing inwards feet, hairy feet, arched feet and flat feet - I grabbed them all.

To this day, I look back at my wedding and I see, not the face of my beautiful wife, or the future that lay ahead of us. Just feet. Feet after feet.

*******************

So children of Substack, the next time an adult expects you to touch their feet, here are three things you can do instead.

• Touch their thumb: From an evolutionary standpoint, the thumb is a far more significant organ than the toe and it would make a lot more symbolic sense to pass on wisdom through the thumb.

• Touch their feet but with your feet instead, because ഞാനും ചാണകം, നിങ്ങളും ചാണകം (We are all made of star stuff)

• Don’t touch anywhere. It’s okay. You can live with a less wisdom.

Remember: always question authority, stand up no matter who is on the other side and know that most people, especially as they grow older, become fucking idiots.

There are no blessings to give out. Wisdom is passed on through words. And love is not found in one’s toes.

Say no to feet play.

I did not have to try harder than most of you, I admit. But you have to understand that with a brain like mine, getting through a day of life without dying - even in the calming, soothing, world-peace-solving presence of my wife is a miracle. Add to that, the ‘Early Unfavourable Classic Hodgkin Lymphoma’.

But I managed to not die. I managed to stop my heart from exploding, even after it once hit 192 bpm, my liver from turning green and then blue and then black as soot, from my kidneys from shrinking to the size of kidney beans and accidentally passing them in my urine and my intestines from twisting into a knot.

I held on to my nails even as they turned black and ugly. I kept all the vomit in, especially of the foods that I hated because I would hate having them go through my mouth again, in either direction. Even as the hair on my head fell off, the ones on my eyebrows held on. My mind wilted, my spirit withered, but I managed not to die.

I got through 4 cycles of ABVD, a chemo regimen comprising of the heart-toxic Adriamycin, the lung-toxic Bleomycin, the nerve-toxic vinblastine and the definitely-toxic-but-I’m-not-sure-for-what-exactly Dacarbazine. I then debated with myself if I should take another 2 cycles of chemo and risk relapse.

There is always a risk of relapse, with tumours as big as mine, without radiation to consolidate it. But radiation itself brings with it a risk of secondary cancers way into the future. I chose (my doctors chose) radiation. I told myself that in 20 years Artificial Intelligence would either come up with a pill to cure cancer or blow the world up into bits. I took 15 fractions of radiation to my chest. A hairless patch on my chest is a small price to pay for 2 cycles of chemotherapy avoided.

Now that I am not dead, I have to live. Like everyone else. Ugh.

I suddenly find myself in a city that was once mine but not anymore. The city makes me feel small and irrelevant but I have to find a corner to sleep in. Learn its wildly swaying rhythm and erect counterweights to stay up straight. Learn to bend with the wind so I don’t snap.

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There is a part of me that believes that the diagnosis was nature’s warning to me - to live my life to my fullest potential or face the consequences. My brain yells at me every second, that if I fail to do that again, nature will give me a sterner warning. A second, more serious warning. A more expensive warning.

So I plan to restart my reintegration into normal life. Starting with a tattoo.

Here are my options:

• A darwin’s tree of life that goes up my neck, proclaiming my undying commitment to science.

• A roaring declaration of my worth through the line ‘You bow to no one’ (from The Lord of the Rings but taken out of context)

• A roaring declaration of my courage through the line ‘Fear is the mind killer’ (from Dune but taken out of context)

• A roaring declaration of my gratitude to medical science through ‘ABVD’, the chemo regimen.

• A roaring declaration of the inevitability of death through the line ‘Memento Mori’

• A couple tattoo that roaringly declares my love for my wife, which I doubt she’d agree to.

Then there is the matter of the pangs in my chest. I will need to figure out if they are the physical manifestation of sorrow, the psychic manifestation of anxiety or the physiological manifestation of chemo induced heart toxicity. The next step is to find out how much alcohol is too much alcohol and how much is definitely not enough alcohol. New bars have been set.

There is a Google docs titled ‘The Core Principles of My Life’ that outlines the core principles of my new life. The first core principle begins with ‘I will value myself for who I am and not where I am.’ There are 6 more of such absurdly vague, ridiculously moralistic guidelines that I have written for myself. I need to finish the doc and start living by it.

But step one would be to convince Mother Nature that just because you WANT ME TO live up to my full potential doesn’t mean I HAVE TO. Let that be drilled into your stupid head (and subsequently mine) -that I DON’T HAVE TO. I don’t have to do ANYTHING. Except live. None of your warnings change that. I will value myself for who I am and not where I am.

Mr Suresh thought it would be funny to leave a few comments on Malavika’s photos. He thought it would be one of the millions of vile, sexist, harassing comments men leave on women's photos with no consequences. He thought the anonymity of his fake account would protect him. He thought it was okay to be an asshole.

But it is not okay to be an asshole.

Unfortunately for Mr Suresh, he underestimated how much time my wife and I have on our hands. And the lengths we’d go to make sure he knows it is not okay to be an asshole. We filed a complaint with the local police station and followed it up with a complaint with the cybercell.

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Through some Sherlock-level detective work, we found out where the account is based (Bahrain) and three possible suspects. We went through hundreds of comments posted by all 3, made a document out of all of them and cross referenced the language, typing style etc (you’re an idiot for messing up your vowels). Once we narrowed it down to one person, we looked at all the comments he made on Instagram (Yep, search engines index all your comments-even if it is a private profile). He had left vile comments on the profiles of dozens of women and sometimes left them from both his fake and his real profiles.

Now I have a 20-page PDF of all his comment history, including those from his real account, details about where he works (HR is going to love you) and pretty much everything I need to know. He got wind of my complaint and has now deleted all his comments. But that’s okay. I’ve meticulously recorded everything.

I hope you’re reading this, my friend. Always remember that the dildo of consequences rarely arrives lubed.

N.B : I hoped to fill my Substack with philosophy and poetry and existential nonsense but here you are, Suresh, sitting on Plato’s chair.

*Kerala Police has been super helpful through this ordeal.

Coaches tend to get overly excited by new joinees, and this one had sneaked into the medical college cricket academy while I was away for my exams. Who was I? I was the boy who wanted nothing more than to be a child prodigy. It was not enough to play for India. It was important to play it very young – as young as when Tendulkar did. I was already 13, and anyone who had seen me bat, anyone with a tinge of honesty in their hearts, would have (should have) told me to put my bat down and focus on my education. But nobody did, and I prepared myself for all the fame that was going to come my way.

I had seen him bat before most of you had even heard of him, and the moment I first saw him bat, I knew – like everybody who saw him bat – that he was special. Men twice as old as him were made to bowl to him on wet matting wickets, with hard synthetic balls, at 16 yards because 22 was just too easy for him, and they were afraid – not for his safety – but for their own. He had time. So much time. There was a feature in the local newspaper with a photo of him playing a sweep shot in a state under-13 match. I saved the newspaper out of jealousy. How dare he take what is mine.

At 18 he was signed by KKR. At 19 he made his debut for RR. He was going to be the child prodigy playing for India. He had everything I wanted. Sunil Gavaskar knew his name. Ian Bishop was talking about him. Sachin Tendulkar shook his hand. He was earmarked for a long, prosperous career. But it took Sanju Samson another four thousand five hundred and fifty-one days to cement his place in the Indian cricket team. Four thousand five hundred and fifty-one days.

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A sportsperson has a very short window to apply their craft. As thirties approach, eyesight starts to fade, the brain takes an extra millisecond to decide, the feet don’t quite move the same. If you miss your window, you basically have nothing. You’ve wasted your life. And for Sanju, his 30s came and he was always that one elusive step away from being a permanent fixture in the national team. This is not to say that Sanju wasted the last 12 years. He is an IPL superstar. He is one of the most recognizable faces in the country and Kerala’s most beloved. And he is rich. (And I am not.) But he knew and we knew none of that would come close to what he achieved yesterday.

I’m sure people would have told him that what is meant for him would eventually come to him. Those people have not met the S. Badrinaths and the Ambati Rayudus of the cricket world. They would have told him to wait, just a little longer. They were probably paid to say that by Jithesh Sharma. They would have asked him to look at the brighter side. I don’t think there is one when all you can see from the dugout is the back of Gautam Gambhir’s head.

Thankfully life knocked sense into me and I stopped playing cricket before it was too late. It was, however, too late to become a child prodigy in anything, and so I decided to become a young adult prodigy in filmmaking (young adulthood extends until 35 now – new rules, look it up). That was eleven years ago.

Every day I wake up in the morning with a ticking clock over my head. It comes with me to the shower, to the living room and then to work. I share a relationship so intimate with it that my wife is often jealous. She wishes she was the ticking clock that reminds me about the day gone by. Another day I was unsuccessful. A day wasted. A day that did not matter. I curse the queue I am in and everyone who got to skip it.

After hundreds of dreaded mornings, this morning I woke up, looked up for a brief moment, and I could not find the clock. The clock will be back, I’m sure. And it will tick into my ear again. But for a moment it was silenced. And for a moment, there was hope.

A few days later I wrote an article for The Hindu announcing my diagnosis and all I could think of were all the ways cancer is going to transform my life. It had already brought in a whirlwind of changes — my wife and I had packed up whatever was left of our 5-year-old Kochi life and moved back to Trivandrum to live with my parents, I had said no to a few hopeful projects lined up for myself and I had started browsing for hats on Amazon for when I‘d inevitably lose all my hair. But more importantly, I knew cancer would revolutionise the way I think about my life. It was the wake up call that was due.

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Today we are going to look at all the predictions I made about how I believed my life would change and how those have panned out. While I agree that two months is an incredibly short amount of time for any meaningful change to happen, I should have at least laid some groundwork by now. Come with me as I dissect my life, line by line.

Note: The italicised lines are from the original article and what’s below is my analysis of it.

And now, everything needs to change.

Note 2: While I tried to remain as honest as possible when I wrote my original article, I probably did try to sound more dramatic than I actually am. Forgive me if I have overstated my grief.

I should probably care a little less about microplastics in the ocean.

I still care about microplastics. I thought about it today when I saw the protagonist in the movie Train Dreams take a dip in a river. I thought of all the rivers I would never be able to take a dip in because rich men have dumped toxic waste in it. I hope I never stop caring about microplastics. How do we know it’s the microplastics that gave me this cancer? Fuck the rich men. Fuck the fish who eat the small fish who eat the microplastics and make it to the food system to eventually end up in my body.

Score: 0/1

I should stop worrying about Taiwan Semiconductors on a daily basis.

I haven’t thought of Taiwan Semiconductors in the last two months to be honest. Why haven’t I? Oh. There is a bigger war in the Middle East, that’s why. But I guess I could count this as a win. As long as I am not buying a new graphics card, Taiwan Semiconductors are a thing of my past.

Score: 1/2

I should stop worrying about AI taking over my job and maybe start hoping it takes over biotech and comes up with a vaccine for cancer.

There are two parts to this. The first I have completely given up hope on. AI will take over my job. There is no doubt. And streaming platforms will hire 21-year-olds to prompt out movies. And studio executives will sit next to them and make tiny tweaks as their tiny brains see fit. But that is okay. I have made alternate plans. Malu and I plan to set up a small grocery store in a quiet village where shopkeepers pull down their shutters halfway, and go home for lunch and an afternoon nap everyday. A shop where no customer may ever walk in - for there won’t be space. The customer can tell me what they want and I will fetch it for him — at my own pace, with a smile on my face — or a frown, for I will live my life on my own terms. So I am not worried about AI taking over my job. I will count this as another win.

Score: 2/3

The second: To be honest, I have not actively hoped biotech will come up with a cancer cure but I guess it wouldn’t be too bad if it did. If we’re all gonna lose our jobs and sit at home with our universal basic incomes, we might as well be rid of cancer. I can get on that boat. Go, AI. Another win for me.

Score: 3/4

I’ve been told my inherent rage isn’t good for my cells— apparently it causes cytokine storms that slow down healing. I need to reign in my anger. Or find a creative outlet.

Do I blame myself for wishing death upon a helmetless freak on his loud bike who raced down a residential lane where old women came out for their evening strolls? Is it rage or moral outrage to have one’s blood boil at the thought of slimy astrologers — fucking charlatans preying on believers? Is it wrong to pick fights with misogynists in the comment sections of Instagram’s dark underbelly? I need to reign in my anger. Fuck.

Score: 3/5

I should stop scrolling on my phone. I should stop counting likes on social media.

I am one man against thousands of behavioural experts, neuroscientists, the world’s best computer programmers and hundreds of millions of dollars of research on how to keep me on my phone. I lost. I am not ashamed of it. I lost but not before fighting. I have brought down my average screen time from 8 hours a day down to less than 6. I have had good days and bad days. Mostly bad. But I have cancer. I can do as I please.

Score: 3/6

It doesn’t matter how much or how many people like me. Or should I ride this sympathy wave?

There is no sympathy wave. People will take one look at your bald head, where once rich, luscious hair stood, and they will smile at you, sad that this happened to you, but glad that it is not them, and look away. They have their own lives to live. I will not get a free pass. And I do not need one. I still do care about how much people like me. And how many. That is an issue for another day. For a therapist who is paid to listen to me whine about all the people who have wronged me - all of whom will regret it. I will count this as a point.

Score: 4/7

I should read a lot more.

I have read a total of 400 pages of three different books combined in the last two months, which is 300 more than I had read the entirety of last year. I finished a novel (Nalukettu by MT Vasudevan Nair) after a couple of years of trying to finish a novel. I am 100 pages through in Arundhati Roy’s Ministry of Utmost Happiness and Richard Dawkins’ Outgrowing God. I will not hesitate to admit that I am proud of myself.

Score: 5/8

I should get out of my analysis paralysis and pick a movie to watch. Any movie. Even a bad one. I should stop watching bad movies to feel better about myself.

Here is where I have failed miserably. I watched a total of four movies and three of them I went in knowing they were bad movies. Did I feel better about myself? Yes. But only briefly. But pretty soon it turned into repulsion. Then into frustration. I can do better.

Score: 5/9

To balance things out, I take out the negative visualization exercise out of my stoic repertoire and imagine the cancer returning, more severe. I should learn to be grateful.

I still do this and at this point I don’t know if it is stoic practice or some sort of mental derangement — something else I will address in therapy and spare you. But I am reminded of my fortunes every Wednesday when I turn up at the oncology department. I am one of the lucky ones

Score: 5.5/10.

Now, I need to reorient my life. I need to reclassify my friends and reassess my goals.

I don’t think this happens overnight. It’s a process and while I admit I have not consciously sat down to reorient my life — is that even possible — I have made some inroads. I have at various points decided to be a social media influencer, a travel vlogger, a pornstar, a soft porn star and a cricket coach. I have also considered moving to Denmark (fuck you, Trump. Greenland is ours), Norway and Iceland. And Sweden. As for friends, some check on you, some don’t. One would be surprised to see who falls where. But I hold no grudges. You move on with your life. You live your happy life. I hold no grudges.

Score: 6.5/11

I need to figure out how far I can dream and where I should draw the line. We don’t want to be too ambitious and tempt the gods. We don’t want to be too cautious and miss out on this unique opportunity to rethink and restart life.

No matter how tired you are on the 3rd day of chemo, no matter how nauseated you feel when you see food, you will always forget that you are going through a life changing experience. You will inevitably slip into your old habits. And that is okay. How exhausting would it be if all you thought of were ways to “rethink and restart life”. How nauseatingly narcissistic. You will rethink and restart life (you as in me. I am talking to myself). A tiny reminder, maybe once in two days, will do. You do not need to fixate on it. You do not need to make it the centre of your existence. Just exist. That will do.

Score: 7.5/12

I need to teach myself it’s okay to take a nap. Time is limited, but not that limited.

My Fitbit says that I took naps on 42 percent of days last month. I still don’t think it’s okay to take a nap but my body now makes choices for me and my mind has no say on things.

Score: 7.5/13

I need to show vulnerability without turning this into a sob story. I need to fix my psychotic need to fix everyone’s problems. I need to fix myself first.

I spent two thousand five hundred rupees booking my first therapy session. (Actually my third first therapy session. I started twice and never got past the first session on both occasions). How dare you question my commitment to fixing myself! Two thousand five hundred. It better be worth it.

I need to rewrite this article. I want to write this over and over again until I perfect it.

Wait, is that what I am doing right now? Is it better than the first one?

I should live a perfect life.

I’m trying.

Or not.

Okay, I won’t.

I could just write many perfect lives.

There is nothing else I’d rather do.

Final Score : I wrote myself into a better mood and so I have decided to be kinder to myself (cannot believe I used that phrase) and skip the score. You take your time (both you and I). You can change or stay the same.

They are going to see things. Fantastic things. Unbelievable things. A baby being snatched by a flying monkey. A levitating monk. A banana that shows signs of consciousness. Their favorite actor who is suddenly younger. A 19-year old, totally real looking girl, who’s showing interest in them. A war on the border. A violent immigrant crowd in the national capital. A man wielding a gun outside the school. Smoke from the local dargah shaped like the Hindu symbol of peace. A prime minister calling for an ethnic cleansing.

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But they can’t not believe them. Imagine not believing one’s own eyes. Those eyes saw them through five decades of chaos. Through political turmoil. And men on the moon. And a chief minister calling for ethnic cleansing. They have seen it all. Nothing is unbelievable.

There must be a new surgery to reverse ageing.

Levitation is an ancient yogic art form.

There must have stood a temple where the mosque sits.

Under the right lighting, I still got the looks.

The right banana, born to the right plant…who’s to stop it from having an existential thought.

It must be real. It’s all real. Until they realise none of it was.

It was not even a real banana. The banana was made of code. By boiling a few barrels of water. By PatGTP. Or GatPTC. You show them how. It’s that easy.

To be fooled is no new thing for them. But to be fooled by bananas, that will hurt. Soon our parents will stop trusting fruits. All fruits. And flowers. There is no more magic in the world through their bifocals. All flowers and the bees on them are generated by boiling ones and zeros.

The industrialist is clearing forests — CatPGT.

The world is run by pedophile billionaires — well, duh, TatPPP.

The actor is running over the homeless in his BMW — AI.

A thousand dead baby seals washed up on an empty beach — good for the fishes.

There is proof that the election is rigged — shut the fuck up.

There were two kinds of conmen coming after our parents in the last decade — those motivated by financial gain (the cyber scammers, the virtual police, the Nigerian princes and the occasional tech help) and those motivated by manipulation (the political polarizers, and the fake news lobby). In the days to come, we’re going to witness a unique class of scammers — those with nothing to gain and nothing to lose, except the pure joy of fiddling with someone’s sense of reality.

The moment our parents realise how easily their reality can be faked and their brains can be duped, they will stop believing in things. They are going to shut down and go back into their homes. There will be no catastrophe, no human disaster big enough to bring them back to the real world. If you thought that a generation of parents who fall prey to misinformation was bad, wait till you meet the generation who refuse to believe anything their eyes can see, their ears can hear, their hearts can feel. An epistemological collapse of epic scale.

Tech companies will not protect your parents. Every parent duped is one data point for their all-consuming monster — a lesson learnt for their prodigious, fast-learning, job-stealing, creation. A father doom-scrolling through thirst traps is a monetizable asset. A mother duped by a gold-plated flower, sharing it to all her friends, is a high impression generator.

The world is shifting beneath our feet. Everything’s going to change and a lot of us are going to lose our jobs, and that’s okay. We still have time to fix things. But our parents are the last thing standing in the way of a world run entirely on the internet.

They are the grass beneath our feet. They are the last living organisms connecting us to mud. It is our job to protect them from JatPPT and those who lurk behind it.

Note : I spellchecked this article using ChatGPT and it urged me multiple times to rethink the accusations hurled at ChatGPT.

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You brush your teeth and the small blob of toothpaste you squeezed on with all your strength fell into the sink before you had a chance to stick it onto your teeth. You sigh in distress but this is going to be the shot that lights up the trailer package of the day that is today - the day when nothing happens. Little did you know that the Salmonella that should have been in your water had taken off for a vacation with its family. Your drainage could have clogged, the water heater could have exploded on your face, you could have slipped, fell, crashed your head so hard you went into a coma and spent the rest of your life eating through a tube in your nose but you won’t. You walked out of the washroom with water dripping off your beard, and a patch of soap you missed. That’s okay. A patch of soap won’t kill you.

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You put on your worst pair of boxers. It is hole-y. But that’s okay. You won’t be hit by a car and taken to a hospital, where they’ll ask you to take off your pants for an ultrasound and the prettiest nurse in the world won’t see what she’s not meant to see. Not today. Nothing happens today.

You had your breakfast and it didn’t suck. The tea was left boiling for a second too long and the tannins have leached. It is bitter but not as bitter as your wife would be if you point it out. You should make your own tea, she would say and she’s right. There will be no snarky remark today, no escalation, no words you didn’t mean, no meltdown, no anxiety attack. You simply gulped it down, like you always should. Or make your own tea.

Your mother called. Her sister is being mean to her again. She won’t hang up. She’s coughing. But don’t worry. It’s not throat cancer. It’s only a rowdy band of bacteria. Nothing an antibiotic can’t fix.

Your supervisor wants to see you in his office. He’s unhappy with the latest proposal you drafted. You’re told to look for another job if this is all you’re capable of. This is all you’re capable of but you know he’s not going to fire you today. You can’t get fired on this ordinary day.

There’s a war brewing in Europe. The president of the USA is losing his mind again. Thousands of people will die, millions more due to hunger. But his immigrant wife woke him up with a handjob. Now he’s hungry. And a little tired. There will be no wars today.

Tectonic plates are shifting, molten lava is bubbling away inside dormant volcanoes, a monkey is eating virus-laden bat feces, rust is chipping away at the beam that holds up a 100-storey skyscraper, asteroids are hurling towards you but forces of nature will take it easy today. It’s not their day.

A jihadi wants to hijack a plane, techbros want to unleash their AI models and set up autocracies, cyber scammers want to drain your father’s life savings, the government wants to read your email. Maybe tomorrow.

You live like a medieval king. Running water, wind on cue, warm clothes, fruit from distant lands. There is no better time to be born.

There will be days when you wake up and realize that there is one less person in the world to love you. Or with excruciating tooth pain. Or hungry because the global food distribution networks were disrupted. Or scared because you heard your wife’s phone go off all night while you pretended to sleep. But not today.

You read a bit, watch one-tenth of a movie and go to bed. How was your day, your wife asks. Like any other. Nothing happened, you reply. She fell asleep first. Her warm hand on your chest. The fan is still not the right speed.

Today was one of those days. Nobody died. Nobody cried. Today was the everyday boring. How beautiful is the everyday boring.

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Inspired by a dinner conversation with my father where he said “ഒന്നും സംഭവിക്കാതെ കടന്നു പോകുന്ന ഒരു ദിവസം എത്ര മനോഹരമാണ്” which roughly translates to “how beautiful is a day where nothing happens”.

Sadness isn’t grief. It isn’t dissatisfaction. It isn’t hopelessness or disappointment. Sadness isn’t happiness, obviously. Although it could be. Sadness isn’t loss. Sadness isn’t a concern with the unfairness of the world.

Sadness is how you feel when you see the first grey strand in your father’s hair. It is the laboured breath of your dog who is now too sick to stand on his own. It is the withering of your favorite plant because your friend, who did not listen to your instructions, poured too much (and not too little - when in doubt, always go too little) water on it while you were away. It is the knowledge that your grandmother will one day be joining your grandfather in the place where they go when the earth is too much, and you realise you forgot to ask her the recipe of her everyday fish fry. It is knowing that your lover will love you more than you can ever love them, not because you lack love in your heart but they were simply born with too much to give and too little space to receive. It is the pile of books you know you will never finish because there’s simply too much to do. It is the realization that staying alive takes up so much time that you can’t possibly find time to think about the meaning of being alive. Sadness is looking at that photo framed on your mother’s bedside table, in which you were two, and you were mother’s only. And a little bit your father’s. But now you are everybody’s. It is all the lives you did not get to live and chose not to live. All the lovers you took and did not grow old with.

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It’s uncontrollable. Not by mere walking, talking people anyway. There is literature about men atop mountains who study sadness. And then seek to control it through acceptance. Even they cannot stop its dreaded onslaught. We can only aim to be like them. Apparently there are randomized controlled studies about their efficacy. I cannot vouch for them for I have not found mountains high enough nor the will to climb. For me it’s been wave after wave. All my life. You can see it in the earliest pictures of me - caught right after or right before a wave hit. What a sad little child, the photographer must have thought. For a long time I thought it was me who was the crying child with a single teardrop flowing down his face in the photos that decorated auto rickshaws. Why was there a demand for sad child models? Why didn’t my parents sign me up?

Waves start small and grow tall as they near you. They engulf you - which is the closest a human being can feel to being swallowed alive - no offense to people who’ve been swallowed whole by pythons or large fishes. All emotions come in waves, but none more than sadness. Joy sometimes comes in wavelets (like ripples). The first sip of cold beer, the little glimpse of that sunset through the concrete prison that your apartment complex is, the feel of the cricket ball smack bang in the middle of your bat. Anger comes mostly in spurts - a kick to the head, a bite that takes your enemy’s finger off, an expletive that questions their very existence. Love flows like water out of a tap that has achieved steady laminar flow - almost invisible to the human eye. But sadness comes exclusively in waves. You can’t see it coming but you know it will most certainly come your way. It follows a rhythm and never misses a beat. Some might be small and some might be mighty but they always come. No amount of preparation prepares you for the eventuality of this wave. Like any ocean waves it first recedes, leaving you in a vacuum. You’re empty. Ready to receive. Then it hits. Climbing up your chest, drowning your neck, your mouth, your nose, all the way to the tip of your longest hair. You become one with sadness. Glu glu glu.

You can’t feel your legs. You’re floating.

You can’t breathe. Nothing to grab on.

No way to know how long this will last.

But you know this will pass. It always does.

Until the next wave, we breathe.

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I wrote about people who were scared to die, people who wanted to die, people who wanted to never die, and all of whom were eventually going to die; but some, sooner than others. Two stories had people with cancer —one survives, and one dies. Probably because it takes an awfully long time to kill people in 120-page screenplays — and to convince a crew of 100 people that someone deserves to die, and that they might even be happier if they were dead — I started writing two-paragraph stories on Instagram. Out of the 39 stories I wrote, seven had people dying of chronic illnesses.

On December 15, I received an e-mail from the histopathology lab at KIMS Hospital Trivandrum, which said that I have Classic Hodgkin Lymphoma — neatly rounding off my stories to 40, and sick people to eight.

Of all the things I could have chosen to do with my life, I chose one that would let me live many lives— I chose to be a screenwriter.

I wrote about people who were scared to die, people who wanted to die, people who wanted to never die, and all of whom were eventually going to die; but some, sooner than others. Two stories had people with cancer —one survives, and one dies. Probably because it takes an awfully long time to kill people in 120-page screenplays — and to convince a crew of 100 people that someone deserves to die, and that they might even be happier if they were dead — I started writing two-paragraph stories on Instagram. Out of the 39 stories I wrote, seven had people dying of chronic illnesses.

On December 15, I received an e-mail from the histopathology lab at KIMS Hospital Trivandrum, which said that I have Classic Hodgkin Lymphoma — neatly rounding off my stories to 40, and sick people to eight.

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I had been living a healthy life — almost to the point of being a hypochondriac. I hit the gym for 150 days in the last ten months. I hit my protein goals of 2.1g per kilogram bodyweight religiously, and at one point, deconstructed a shawarma from my favorite outlet to understand exactly how much chicken I’m getting from it.

I had no symptoms of cancer and the diagnosis came out of nowhere.

It was a freak accident involving either one mosquito or two, and my doctor grandmother — with whom I now share my oncologist. There was very little time to get used to it. But maybe, that was a good thing. A shock was exactly what I needed.

I looked at my wife — 29 is far too young to be widowed. I told her she should remarry if the time comes.

And now, everything needs to change.

I should probably care a little less about microplastics in the ocean. I should stop worrying about Taiwan Semiconductors on a daily basis. I should stop worrying about AI taking over my job and maybe start hoping it takes over biotech and comes up with a vaccine for cancer.

I’ve been told my inherent rage isn’t good for my cells— apparently it causes cytokine storms that slow down healing. I need to reign in my anger. Or find a creative outlet.

I should stop scrolling on my phone. I should stop counting likes on social media. It doesn’t matter how much or how many people like me. Or should I ride this sympathy wave? I should read a lot more. I should get out of my analysis paralysis and pick a movie to watch. Any movie. Even a bad one. I should stop watching bad movies to feel better about myself.

Hodgkin Lymphoma has a great prognosis with 90 percent cure rate, and fortunately mine was caught early. Fate, it seems, has been kinder to me than I was to the characters I created. Sometimes, I walk into the chemo ward and I’m hit with a sense of deep imposter syndrome. I look around and my co-patients are either 6-year-olds running around without a clue about what’s happening, or 70-year olds who can’t take a step forward without exhausting themselves.

And here I am — a 32-year-old with a fairly well-preserved body that can tolerate the toxins. Only two doses in, hair still intact, diagnosed with what is, statistically speaking, the easiest cancer one could get.

Who am I to hijack their grief?

To balance things out, I take out the negative visualization exercise out of my stoic repertoire and imagine the cancer returning, more severe. I should learn to be grateful.

Now, I need to reorient my life. I need to reclassify my friends and reassess my goals. I need to figure out how far I can dream and where I should draw the line. We don’t want to be too ambitious and tempt the gods. We don’t want to be too cautious and miss out on this unique opportunity to rethink and restart life.

I need to teach myself it’s okay to take a nap. Time is limited, but not that limited. I need to show vulnerability without turning this into a sob story. I need to fix my psychotic need to fix everyone’s problems. I need to fix myself first.

I need to rewrite this article. I want to write this over and over again until I perfect it.

I should live a perfect life.

Or not.

I could just write many perfect lives.

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This article was written for the Hindu Newspaper with the title A screenwriter’s cancer diagnosis: Goutham Soorya on an unscheduled interruption and published first on January 12, 2026.

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