Fall of Adam et. al.

Adam and Eve Driven out of Eden, wood engraving by Gustave Doré, 1866.

It was just another Wednesday evening for Suleiman at his office. The routine of working in a job did provide him some financial stability. The 5-day work-week made Wednesday the most difficult day to get past because it was neither here nor there. This Wednesday was not just another Wednesday. For a change he did manage to wrap up his work and leave early from office at 7:30 PM. It was a cold rainy evening, a weather that he was looking forward to since the start of autumn. When Suleiman reached home, he felt something strange. It was not usual for him to reach his home this early. Loneliness struck him, as if physically forcing him to take a seat. The shoes and socks bore heavy on his feet. His gait had been different all day. He could take a sigh of relief, albeit bogged down with a strange loneliness.

He regretted reaching home early and thought to himself that it might have just been better to kill some more time in the office. He lit up his candle, played Paris Blues by The Doors , the last song released by them. He wanted to feel like Houellebecq, the ugly French writer exiled away from Paris. There was just something rogue about him. His writings contained a veneer of fearlessness. Hence, he lit a cigarette. The idea of smoking in office was so alien to him. The smoking had to be accompanied by a song and a coffee. Speaking to other people while smoking did not appeal him. 

Sometimes you have to let go, just to know where to start

This cigarette routine was therapeutic for Suleiman. At the same time, being a mindful guy, he also cared a lot about his fitness. He regularly went to the gym, and by that virtue, he ensured that this “therapeutic” routine was kept in strict check. A balancing act. He learnt a thing or two from his grandfather – Raheem, a civil servant and a chain smoker himself. Suleiman was deeply inspired by his grandfather. He learnt from him the skills of being articulate and understood the value of the eloquence of expressing his thoughts through writing. The difference in the time-period of his grandfather and the time-period that he lived in was the reason for the stark difference in their styles of writing – his being cynical as opposed to Raheem’s idealistic. “To be really respected at that time, one’s darkness had to be rich and cloying, not thin.” (Mishima, Yukio)

He felt that obtaining happiness was a constant endeavour for everyone. Writing did make him happy. It was also considered as a healthy, and admirable hobby in the modern society, the very society which made it difficult for people to pursue their hobbies and stick with them in the long run. The realities of life made him very aware that the current capitalist structure of the society laid the entire emphasis on earning money; to the extreme extent that the “pursuit of happiness” was directly co-related to it, leaving him with lesser time and motivation with each passing day to continue pursuing something tasteful. He felt that Nietzsche was spot on when he said that “Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar”. Not being a free man bothered him. But he had bills to pay.

While he was writing he was consumed by the thoughts of meeting his friends on the weekend. All it took for the happiness to be selectively released was a few hours of “remember when” conversations with his friends. He was aware of the urban realities that all of his friends have their own schedules and commitments. With these thoughts, he understood that sometimes you have to let go of your feelings, just to know where to start. So, he started writing – it was 12:30 by now, his resolution of sleeping early and getting a healthy 8 hours of sleep was in jeopardy again.  Nevertheless he carried forward. 

 Fall of Adam

His nerves bothered him. They failed him when it happened to be an important meeting. They failed him when he tried approaching what looked like the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. At other times he could feel the blood in his nerves in its minutest detail. He was alive and blood ran in his nerves as it ran for his ancestors. He was in the metro and the sudden rush in his nerves jolted him. He felt strong and tall. His shoulders laid back and his head remained high. At that point he could witness any atrocity and it wouldn’t have bothered him. He murmured “I am the child of darkness, the all consuming darkness. The light couldn’t contain me. My legs are light on the ground. The air contains fumes and it’s familiar. I stare at the abyss and now it stares back at me.” 

As he stepped out of the metro station concluding another day of office. The “regularness of life” as Christopher Montisanti would put it, felt heavy on him. He felt that this life is full of eternal toil. The toil is perpetual. The toil doesn’t only represent the soul-sucking at the office. The toil would follow even when he was trying to have a good time. The idea of wasting time would chip away at him. In other words, bliss was lost. Perhaps this is what the fall of Adam represents. The primordial archetype revealed itself. “Ignorance is bliss,” commented Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but in the modern world, Suleiman thought that you can only be ignorant of reality – a dark one, at your own peril, and the opportunity cost of obtaining bliss through ignorance was quite high. Bliss was lost, either way. 

Live to fight another day

It was Friday. People cracked the regular jokes, had coffee and cigarettes at the same spots in the office. Getting sloshed over the weekend was a topic of conversation again. “Does it really provide happiness?” – He fathomed in his thoughts. “Maybe it really does”. But such is the temporary and unhealthy nature of these activities that it reeked of futility. After much slogging and meetings with clients, a thought came to his mind, “what’s the alternative?” He couldn’t help but recall an incident from a month ago where Suleiman and his college friends played cricket on a turf, with a brand new cherry. He was thinking that “I would give up anything to feel that happy and alive again.” Unfortunately, he knew that the answer to his own question was in the very fact that “हम लोग ज़िंदगी में मशरूफ़ रह कर ख़ुद से हैं बेख़बर”.

His boss was making plans for drinks. “Do join us for drinks, Sulieman!”, as if it was an order and not a request. He did not really have any vigour to have drinks on Friday. The hangover would ruin his Saturday. Suleiman immediately responded to Zardan and his colleagues, that it would be difficult for him to join them for drinks this time. “Bhai, what would you do alone at home, it is so sad and depressing,” he heard. While not completely denying this fact, Suleiman felt that staying alone at home was the lesser of two evils. The irony lied in the fact that the very people that were responsible for him losing his way were now rebuking him for not having fun in life. What fun, anyway? Suleiman couldn’t care less. While going back home in the metro, Spotify’s algorithm worked like a charm, and it had thrown in a rogue song recommendation – Stevie by Kasabian. A line from the song completely struck him by surprise, and made him realise that in this modern world, for pursuing happiness, you are helpless, but you still “live to fight another day.”   

by Talin Bhardwaj and Faiz Uddin Ahmad