Okay, NaPoWriMo’s prompt today was to do a walking archive: where you go for a walk and gather interesting things from that walk. Owing to the present circumstances with COVID-19, their very helpful suggestion is to walk around the house and pick up interesting things at home. I didn’t want to do that. Instead, I think the idea of a walking archive has made me think about the act of walking itself, and how much I miss the freedom of walking wherever I’d like.
On Strolls
The only walks I take these days are to buy groceries –
Nothing else,
No speed-walking around campus to get from my hostel to the administrative block,
Or to get from one end of the administrative block to the other.
I never ran,
Always speed-walked,
Even at school, as if being late to class would
Be the end of me.
What I wonder today, though, is what
I’ve missed while speed-walking
How many cricket matches I could have caught a glimpse of at The Oval?
How many times my friends in school would have convinced me, in the
hallways,
To bunk Physics – and
I know that after this lockdown ends,
I will take a stroll,
Meander through the streets,
Traipse along the pathways,
Deliberately – so
I never forget what a privilege it is to be able to walk freely without
The threat of illness in the air.
Tejas Rao 