Find the difference

 11:06 AM

I am sitting on my usual seat in the auditorium/class, trying to figure out a posture that does not disturb the drape of my saree. The speaker is lecturing about some financial code which I’m not paying attention to. I think it’s too late to pay attention now—he’s midway logging into some portal, and who am I to pop up as an error in it. So I fidget through my bag and fish out my phone.

The ceiling above the podium has a semicircular protrusion with lights embedded along its circumference. Only half the lights are on—no, actually a little more than half—and that irks me in a way I can’t quite explain. Symmetry equals structure, which in turn equals order, or so I believe. Perhaps that’s the J in my INTJ speaking.

A lot of things are not symmetrical here—the blue squares painted in the corners of the hall, the fans flanking the front screen, and several others. Do you remember those ‘find the difference’ pictures in kids’ magazines? I don’t think I ever outgrew that phase. I’m still finding the differences.

11:21 AM

The speaker pauses for a moment, and I notice because there is silence. He drinks some water, which reminds me that I should too.

The vast extremities of human potential amaze me. A mind capable of solving complex equations, of reading Camus and Dostoevsky in the same day, forgets something as basic as drinking water. Amazing.

The speaker has resumed speaking and the class continues—With the unsymmetrically lit lights, without my attention. 

We shall delve into the nitty-gritties of the mundane—and my amusement with the basic—some other day. For now, i should drink some water.