Crowds and Claustrophobia

To contemplate the “reinvention” of an organism at the half-century mark—an age where the biological chassis is less a sleek vehicle and more a rusted, wheezing palimpsest of historical insults—is to indulge in a particularly cruel brand of metaphysical fiction. I sit here in South Calcutta, my eyes straining against the luminescent glare of the monitor, while inside my cranium, the once-meristematic neurons have undergone a catastrophic atrophy, shriveling like neglected raisins in the sweltering humid basement of my skull. They tell you “life begins at fifty,” but they neglect to mention it begins with a pageant of administrative incontinence and the slow, rhythmic percussion of one’s own mortality.

I find myself in the trough of a bipolar sinusoid, a subterranean depressive funk where the mere act of verticality feels like an affront to the laws of physics. For a few fleeting, hypomanic hours, I might delude myself into thinking I can acquire some new intellectual accouterment—perhaps a fresh programming language or a deeper dive into the kakistocratic rot of our local politics—but then the inevitable crash occurs. I am reduced to a heap of biological refuse, a shivering collection of adipose and regret, descending into a destructive delirium where the clouds aren’t just dark; they are the color of a bruised liver, heavy with the scent of impending rain and societal decay.

I haven’t crossed the threshold of this apartment in what feels like an epoch. The walls are closing in, a domestic sphincter tightening around my very soul. I am gripped by a profound, visceral claustrophobia that has nothing to do with the square footage of my dwelling and everything to do with the surreal solipsist absurdity of my existence. I find myself yearning—not for the romantic nostalgia of a “scenic vista,” a concept as hollow as a Marwari’s promise—but for the simple, grounded reassurance of walking upon the earth, feeling the grit of the planet beneath my feet rather than the synthetic fibers of a dusty carpet.

Yet, the thought of the “outside” is a symposium of catastrophic decision-making. I avoid the Calcutta streets like a literal plague. The sheer density of the local populace—that teeming, hirsute mass of humanity—is a trigger of the most jagged variety. To behold the Indian mob is to witness a pageant of unruly behavior, a potential stampede of narrow-souled civic obstructions always one perceived slight away from a collective, gonadal confidence-fueled explosion. The air out there is a thick, particulate-heavy soup, a liquid protest from the kidneys of the city itself, guaranteed to send my enfeebled, pertussis-scarred lungs into a fit of respiratory dissent.

And then, there are the headaches. These are not mere “pains”; they are migraine-range tectonic shifts, triggered by the Machiavellian mess of my own life and the general decay of the world. It feels as if a tiny, angry god is performing a self-directed neuromuscular consolation against the inside of my temples.

I lie here, a redundant and reduced man, wondering about the state of my internal machinery. If my glandular systems finally decide to go on a permanent strike, what then? In this city of joyless bureaucracies, a medical emergency is merely a ticket to a horrific lottery. To be carted off while unconscious, treated as a mere statistical case point by some overworked intern in a facility that smells of bleach and intestinal surplus, is a fate worse than the original ailment. I would likely expire on a trolley in some corridor, a victim of medical negligence and the systemic, meretricious patina of a healthcare system that is, quite frankly, oriented as if guided by a drunken compass.

I am fifty, my plaintives too many, and the prospect of “becoming” someone else, more improved, feels like an ancestrally disappointing joke. I am merely documenting the biological aftermath of a life lived in the shadows of South Calcutta, waiting for the next sinusoid to carry me—however briefly—above the high-water mark of my own digestive and spiritual refuse.

So, to those of you currently attempting to manifest a “new man” within the rusted, gunk-encrusted carburetor of your mid-life husks, I offer you my most insincere “good morning” cheer—a greeting as hollow as a politician’s eulogy. While you engage in your endocrine-optimistic rituals of self-improvement, I sit here by the window, tracing your progress as you attempt a bit of unsanctioned horizontal diplomacy with fate, jaywalking away from the safe, plodding throng of the local jogging population. I find myself lost in a dark, labyrinthine fantasy involving a drunk, speeding driver—a narrow-souled civic obstruction in a dented Ambassador—whose trajectory might narrowly miss your jogging shorts by a mere hirsute whisker, sending a spray of stagnant gutter-effluent over your expensive sneakers. It is a pageant of catastrophic decision-making that I watch with a certain visceral, bipolar relish, knowing that whether you reach the other side or become a mere biological smear upon the asphalt, the city of Calcutta will continue its slow, rhythmic defecation regardless of your pathetic, renewed vigor.

The “wellness” industry in South Calcutta is less a pursuit of health and more a frantic, class-coded ritual—a meretricious patina applied to the crumbling facade of the bhadralok identity. It is an exercise in the most grotesque sort of socioeconomic hygiene. These joggers, with their moisture-wicking fabrics and high-decibel athletic footwear, are not merely seeking cardiovascular efficiency; they are performing a desperate act of “biological distancing.” By attempting to sweat away the toxins of their sedentary, middle-management lives, they are signaling their membership in a caste that can afford the luxury of “self-care” while the rest of the city is busy navigating the intestinal surplus of actual, grueling labor.

This industrial complex feeds on the insecurity of the “redundant and reduced” man, promising a symposium of metabolic miracles that are, in fact, nothing more than a pageant of administrative incontinence. They sell us “superfoods” and “detoxes”—as if a pouch of imported seeds could somehow counteract the flatulent, sulphurous air or the decades of greasy telebhaja that have turned our livers into a dark, cirrhotic palimpsest of historical insults. It is a form of endocrine optimism that ignores the messy, glandular reality of the human condition; you cannot cleanse a soul that is already marinated in the bitter juices of colonial hangover and bipolar sinusoids.

Moreover, this pursuit of wellness is deeply rooted in an inveterate Bengali classism. The “new man” emerging from his rusted carburetor isn’t meant to be more empathetic or enlightened; he is simply meant to be more aerodynamically efficient for the kakistocratic race to the top. It is a Machiavellian refinement of the torso, where fitness is used as a weapon to assert superiority over the “hirsute, flabby” masses who are too busy surviving to count their steps. They view their own bodies as corporate assets to be optimized, treating their muscular dissent with the same cold, detached cruelty that a landlord shows to a defaulting tenant.

I sit here, my skeletal lightness a testament to the pertussis of my youth, watching these “testicular bravado” displays with a cynical eye. They believe they are escaping the cycle of decay, but they are merely decorating the interior of their own coffins with slightly better muscle tone. The wellness industry is the ultimate gaslighting tool—convincing us that our systemic failures, our crumbling infrastructure, and our collective, pathological anxieties can be cured by a morning jog and a subscription to a “holistic” newsletter. It is a lie, of course; a beautiful, expensive, sweat-soaked lie that ignores the fact that we are all, in the end, just biological refuse waiting for the final, unbidden discharge of the universe, especially since most of them stop for several cups of jaggery sweatened milk tea and an assortment of sugary cookies in the end.