Life Was So much Simpler Without An Editor

Your columnist, dear reader, has been at it for over four months now. Writing these weekly dispatches that you wait with bated breath for, I mean to say – I’ve managed to send in one of these, every half fortnight, for a little over four months.

And that means, I’m sorry to say, I’ve become worse at two of my greatest talents: a lack of perseverance, and an even bigger lack of punctuality. To say that I cannot manage to stick to something for very long would be a monumental understatement. I’m far more comfortable with the butterfly mode of learning: I flit hither to thither, now on one project, and then on another task. I treat, in other words, tasks and projects the way teenagers treat relationships. Two weeks is way more than long enough.

And even as a citizen of a nation in which punctuality is a foreign word that means “hahaha”, I am at a whole other level. I schedule my calendar in India time and appear for meetings by South Africa time. A delay of an hour would, in Kulkarni land, mean that I landed up half an hour early.

But, as I was saying, it’s been over four months, and yet, here we are. Every week, without fail, I dispense my pearls of wisdom, and you, dear reader, eat them right up. And let the record state for now and forever that you have the undersigned’s undying gratitude.

But into each life, some rain must fall, and in each column, there must enter a note of the bittersweet variety. And in today’s dispatches, that note is the person who is caught betwixt my writing and your reading of these words: the editor.

The reason I’ve become worse at the two talents that I possessed until yesterday in such abundance isn’t because I’ve turned over a new leaf; it’s because my editor has been at it with unceasing vim and vigour. And being “at it”, in his case, means sending me multiple reminders about when my column is due.

It is, allow me to assure you, a thankless job. For one, as multiple members of my family and friend circle will attest, I’m not the quickest to respond to calls, messages and emails. I tend to view them as things that are optional in terms of issuing a response. Why this should be so is a question that would tax our brightest minds for lengthy periods of time, so let’s not go there now.

Now, combine my reluctance to communicate, asynchronously or otherwise, with my ability to prevaricate and my ability to not focus for extended periods of time, and you have a guy society would rather not interact with. Which, I frankly admit, is just how I’d want it. Except for my near and dear ones, who do it out of love…

… and my editor, who does it for reasons that he himself must be struggling with. All of which is a rather roundabout way of saying thanks, I suppose. For I’m worse at two things I was really good at, but I must admit, I’m rather the better of it.

Editor’s Note:   Amen.

Ashish Kulkarni