It’s weird to think that life really is divided into several phases. You’re waking up at 6am to get ready for school, and it swiftly transitions into living in a college hostel away from home. In the blink of an eye, you are waking up at 8am to sit in front of your laptop and start your day at work.

All these phases have many contrasts, yet one thing that manages to breathe amidst this continual change is monotony. It’s rare to live a life that doesn’t feel monotonous sometimes.

I often wonder, did I have days when I woke up and felt like skipping school because it was boring? I sure did sometimes. But sitting here, thinking about the excitement of seeing my friends to discuss a tv show episode we all saw the night before or waiting for the daily newspaper every day to defeat them in the word search puzzle competition, I wonder why I even questioned living that same routine over and over again sometimes.

I had this routine of travelling to college by metro every day. It only meant that I had to leave my house at least an hour and a half before my first lecture. Then there was the battle of finding a seat for the hour-long journey followed by a 5-minute walk to finally reach my destination. I had the same routine five days a week for a year and a half, but it was beautiful. Sitting in the metro wearing my headphones with no music playing is still one of my favourite things to do on Earth. I observed people just living their lives and even started recognising some of their faces towards the end of my first month of daily travel. Never interacted with strangers but acknowledged their presence in my monotonous but weirdly beautiful life.

It’s difficult to focus on small things in life unless we consciously think of them sometimes. Sure, life is monotonous on many occasions, but there’s always a pleasing observation about it that we never thought could exist in between this monotony.