How Deep is Thy Rot

How Deep is Thy Rot

featured in The Open Letters | by Mahek Sadhwani

The open Letters

Nov 04, 2026

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From

Mahek Sadhwani

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Here’s hoping that the crevices in your brain run deeper.

On Sundays, we write. Or so I have been telling myself.

Getting myself to write online was one of my resolutions for 2026. Writing is supposed to help one think.

To think is to be. The only poem I know by heart echoes this axiom with unmatched brevity.

आदमी मरने के बाद कुछ नहीं सोचता।

आदमी मरने के बाद कुछ नहीं बोलता।

कुछ नहीं सोचने और कुछ नहीं बोलने पर आदमी मर जाता है।

I think I have been dead for a while. And this writing exercise is my last shot at jolting back to life my mental faculties. Or at least what remains thereof.

Crevices of a Valley, Kinnaur, India

It was not until January of 2026 that the graveness of my condition dawned on me. (Let not this pathologisation of my state surprise you.) I was sitting my first bunch of exams at the London School of Economics. The preceding semester had sapped me bone dry. Apart from not enjoying the core courses my degree mandated, I just seemed to have forgotten how to study. I was using ChatGPT to understand concepts and the underlying mathematics. I would think I had understood something but experience abject dejection moments later when I could not solve a problem set. My actual retention amounted to very little. And it was heartbreakingly disproportionate to the time and energy I was pouring into learning.

Learning is what I had forgotten. However, to my own confoundment, here is what I think scares me most: I do not remember when I stopped learning. The steady elimination of the need to learn, it turns out, was too steady for most (myself included, obviously) to take notice of. Tracing this impairment back to its genesis appears to be a tedious ordeal and one I would like to save for another Sunday.

Today is reserved for writing. For the first time. Writing to think. For the first time. And thinking for thinking’s sake. For the first time. After a long time.

Apropos the sentiment delineated above, I have set out to do something deceptively simple every Sunday hereafter. Let me give you a quick rundown of what this entails. Sitting in front of a blank page, first and foremost. And then letting ideas I can truthfully, even if not proudly, call my own make themselves known to me. I have been warned that the best ideas oft-times do not announce their arrival with much ado. Silence and patience are, therefore, essential requisites. Once sufficiently equipped, I must watch out for any friendly taps on the shoulder or murmurs so soft anybody who is not prepared would miss. My task after this is to put pen to paper and set these ideas free. These ideas, free as they are, can now go to anybody who will have them, and this marks the last stage of what I call the life cycle of an idea. More on this later.

For the time being, I would urge you to pardon my anthropomorphisation of ideas. It is crucial to the method. Why crucial, you might ask. My defence is straightforward: when I am writing, I am duty-bound to stay true to the idea visiting me. A closer inspection of the argument will reveal to you that ultimately this decree is what helps me stay true to myself.

Back to the life cycle of an idea. I like to believe that the life cycle of an idea mirrors the Kübler-Ross stages of grief. Avoidance, confusion, and fear are emotions I am sure many would admit to being struck by at the sight of a novel idea. What comes about next is a gruelling combination of anxiety and frustration, and this I attribute to the nebulous nature of an idea when it first presents itself. The gravest of all human follies is arguably our inability to sit with anything murky. The following stage is characterised by overwhelm and helplessness, and sometimes, a flight response. I would assert that this stage is where most people quit, and understandably so. Unravelling a glob of murk-coloured cotton candy is no cakewalk. Perseverant individuals will next find themselves bargaining, typically by engaging in meaning-making and wringing out any last ounce of meaning from the idea, and lastly, hopefully carrying the idea to its resting place. This concludes the writing part and sets the stage for acceptance. This idea, your idea, now stands a chance to earn acceptance everywhere it travels.

Enough about writing. A little about this Substack. I initially reckoned that my first article should vivisect the title of my publication. Side Lower Berth is an odd title choice. It is, however, a choice I remain incredibly thrilled to explain. It is nice to know what I am writing about next Sunday.

I know I ought to write, for deep runs the rot brought about by all the slop.

I did not intend for the previous sentence to sound like an Edwardian couplet. Hand to Lord. But more seriously, I believe I ought to write as a teeny tiny act of rebellion against the obstinately omnipresent harbinger of doom and gloom, Mr. Rot, and I am well within my rights to be putting up a fight for a monopoly on my own brain.

Because Lord knows that my brain is the last thing I want to grieve.

Crevices of a Time Bygone, Spiti, India

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Mahek Sadhwani

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