Two Decades on the Treadmill of Life
My name is Manoj K.
For a long time, I was a person who did worldly things—working, earning, spending. In those two very long decades, I did many things, I made money, I lost money, I built businesses, and then squandered it all away.
Over those two very long decades, I worked as a waiter, a chef, a marketer, a co-founder, a farmer, a teacher, a mentor, and a director.
Over those two very long decades, I lived and worked across India, France, China, Dubai, and Singapore. I teared up when I read Chinese characters for the first time. I whooped with joy when I spoke good French for the first time.
Over those two very long decades, I experienced hunger, loneliness, rejection, and failure. Over those two very long decades, I also experienced prosperity, success, and acceptance.
Over those two very long decades, where so many people saw me as a human, an ordinary person, so many also discriminated against me for my skin color, my ethnicity, and my origin.
My life is nothing but a palimpsest of experiences and emotions.
The Luxury of Time
And then about two years ago, when everything was going well, when everything was stable and worry-free, I did something that I had only dreamt of doing all my life—I quit everything and left the big city. I left the world of Monday meetings and targets and entered a world where time slowed down, where a second was a second, a minute was a minute, and a day was a day. I gifted myself the rarest, most exclusive thing any person can have: The Luxury of Time. Such is the nature of this luxury that even billionaires cannot afford it.
The first few months away from the city were tough. I went through withdrawal symptoms just as a drug addict would. There were times when I thought I would’ve packed my bags and left, but gradually, the silence pervaded me, cleansing me, reinvigorating my soul. And as the last fragments of my old self finally incinerated away, a new me emerged. I reincarnated at forty-two; I was reborn. When I opened my eyes, I found myself in a picturesque corner of Goa, where I was exploring the purest form of expression and creativity.
I had metamorphosed into a full-time writer, nothing more, nothing less.
Rebirth in Goa
Unaffected by the machinations of the world, freed of lofty goals, ambitions, and desires, unmoved by considerations for commerce, fortune, and fame, I had finally found the time to do what I loved to do the most, Live and Experience Living, and, of course, Write.
Now, I watch the clouds sail across the sky, the moon emerge as a thin silver wire, grow to an effulgent disc, and then wither away and die, only to repeat its life in the sky all over again the next month. The seasons roll in. Summer’s mad sun blazes and burns the world, and when you can’t take the heat anymore, monsoon clouds blow in haughtily. When monsoon’s clouds have all but emptied themselves, winter saunters in giving the world misty mornings and chilly evenings.
As the days go by, I hear the dogs bark in the streets below, cows chew their cud in peace, trees blossom and bear fruit, birds build their nests and raise their young, squirrels scamper and jump across balconies, terraces, and trees. The world of man is different. Men and women dash about, always hustling, constantly jostling; their children jump onto school buses, learning how to become like their hurrying parents when they grow up. In cafes and restaurants, young boys and girls stare into each other’s eyes and complain about the world, while outside on the roads, old men and women go for morning walks.
Me? I observe. I am the silent observer who watches it all.
And when I am not observing the world outside, I observe the endless worlds that reside within me. From alien suns to distant worlds, from advanced civilizations to barbaric tribes, from half-hearted protagonists to confused antagonists, I observe with great joy the universe within me. I suppose the Vedantins were right; the whole universe is within us—all of it is Maya.
And when I’m not doing any of that, you’ll likely find me hiking, reading, or writing.
The First True Sentence
Writing, though, has been with me since childhood. When I was a young man, at parties and social gatherings, when someone asked me what I did for a living, I often lied and told them I was a writer. Why? Because I hated what I really did, and the lying gave me the joy of being someone who I couldn’t be—a writer, at least for a few hours. Of course, hours later, when I got back home, I was no longer a writer, and the melancholy returned.
Today, I am a writer! Only this time, those words are the truth. My first novel is now available on Amazon. Let me tell you a little about it.
My first novel, Zero Dimensional Space, is a hard sci-fi story that dares to imagine a new, plausible method of faster-than-light travel—one that hijacks the natural expansion of the universe itself. But really, it’s about ambition, consciousness, eco-terrorism, and the frailty of being human in a world teetering between collapse and breakthrough.
Years ago, while quietly plotting my escape from the hamster-wheel dungeons, I knew I’d eventually write—but I had no formal training in literature. So I enrolled in a BA Honours English Lit program. Not for the exams, not for the certificates—I’ve never needed those—but to live inside that world of thought, prose, and poetry; to learn how the greats wrote and what courage in writing really means. That was my education.
The one thing I truly believe is this: original, moving work says more about the writer than any certificate ever could. If the work is poor, no degree can rescue it. And if it’s good—really good—it needs no defense. My father, whom I lost far too early, used to say something in Malayalam that I still hold close: gifted students can study even under a lamp post. Of all the things he said, that one stayed.