Fever dreams

“How are you feeling?”

“I feel like I’m ailing.”

“Ailing from what?”

“A fever.”

“Do you have a temperature?”

“No, it’s a fever of the mind.”

That’s how a recent conversation went with a friend recently. There’s no other way to describe it. I got laid off recently, and for the last month I’ve felt a bit like a front-load washing machine.

Suddenly, I don’t have a routine. Suddenly, everything seems uncertain. Suddenly, I have to answer questions, figure things out, and go back to the drawing board. I wasn’t prepared for the battery of tumbly-wumbly emotions that came with it.

I’m learning to be okay with the haze, though. With not knowing, not grasping, not being okay. I’m beyond thankful to the German support system. I get a monthly salary while I look for another job. Seriously? That’s a huge weight off my shoulder. It’s incredible.

Apart from vegetating, looking for jobs and gobbling up TV shows like Ms. Pacman, I’ve been thinking a lot. And when my heart’s in disarray, my mind seeks comfort in old places.

Today I found myself going back to the house I was born in. A simple, charming, red-bricked building with low ceiling fans and a big courtyard. One of my most vivid memories is standing in the middle of it with a big cloth spread out, trying to catch hailstones.

Not very far from the house was a children’s park called ‘Pari Lok’ (translates to ‘Angel World’). There were colourful paintings of animals and children on its walls. Growing up without any real parks, playgrounds, or libraries, that place meant a lot to us, and was enough for our wild imaginations. Even the prospect of running to Pari Lok was an exciting one. And that’s what we did most evenings.

Since it wasn’t a playground and only a bare patch of land with grass on it, we invented our own activities. Sometimes we set up imaginary shops and sold ‘paan’, other times we formed a cuckoo train. My favourite one was when we indulged in something we called ‘Lotpot’. It was when we literally just… rolled around on the grass.

That’s it. We rolled from one end of the park to the other like tumbleweeds. There was no point to it. It was just fun.

It makes me smile thinking about how much we enjoyed that pointless activity. We rolled and rolled, trying not to bump into each other, sometimes colliding on purpose, ending up with head-bumps and giggles.

I don’t remember the last time I did that, and I was filled with the urge to do it. Berlin parks are currently not suitable for Lotpot though. They’re way too snowy and icy at the moment. I need to wait for spring.

But I can definitely try it out when I visit India (which is next week!) I also want to run and sing and jog and dance and just do things that have no purpose at all. Just drag a damn stick through the mud. Build a castle at the beach. Try to do a somersault. Jump on a trampoline. Hang from a branch like a monkey. Make a frikkin greeting card. Stare at a caterpillar.

Just do things for doing them. Not for social media, not to commoditize it, not to gain something from it, not to use it to find employment. But because sometimes the point is to not have a point at all.

For some time, I want to exist without the screaming, gnawing pressure of feeling worthy only when I’m working, earning and “contributing to the economy.” I just want to exist as the person that I am. Not Astha, the skilled, hardworking professional. But Astha, the woman who likes stores with pointless things in it and weird ass poetry and questionably sad stories, and who wants to skate but is scared to start again, and who loves too hard and feels too much.

They say everything is an experience, and no experience ever goes to waste. I’m excited to see what unemployment does to me.

Happy 2026 🙂