Deadlines, Migraines, and Other Gods

Writing in the shadow of delay and pain

Deadlines, in my world, have always behaved like gods. They demand offerings, inspire fear, occasionally bless, and almost always arrive sooner and louder than expected.

Most of my writing life has unfolded on this triangular battlefield: deadlines, migraines, and procrastination. The unholy trinity.

Deadlines glare at me from the corner of my desk. Migraines press their cold fingers into the back of my skull. And procrastination, of course, lounges on the sofa like a well-fed aunty with a bowl of bhujia, patting the seat next to her and cooing, “There’s still time, beta. Plenty of time.”

On these cursed days, my rituals are painfully predictable. I sit at my desk, staring at the blank screen like it’s an arranged marriage prospect I can’t quite refuse. The cursor blinks back at me with moral disapproval. The only real commitment I make is to tab-hoarding: retro fonts, obscure city maps, and rabbit holes about whether Mughal gardens were influenced by French landscaping. (Spoiler: they were).

When the work finally begins, the migraine makes its entrance. Not the delicate kind, not the “let me sip chamomile tea and nap” kind, but a full marching band inside the skull. The kind that makes light feel violent and smells feel offensive. The kind that sends me staggering into a dark room with a heat pack, muttering like a cursed epic hero: Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned.

Once an enviable writer’s haven, my desk mutates into a shrine to deadlines. Meds scatter across it like ritual offerings: triptans, muscle relaxants, anti-nausea pills, antacids, anti-inflammatories, magnesium, and the inevitable painkillers. Packets of salt flank a half-drunk glass of iced tea – my holy water. Physiotherapy resistance bands dangle from a chair like abandoned garlands. I’m supposed to stretch, breathe, and strengthen to appease the migraine gods. Instead, I hunch like a tragic gargoyle for nine hours straight and then wonder why my spine revolts like a betrayed union worker on strike.

And Bangalore joins the satsang. Inspiration walks in, the power promptly walks out. The construction site next door strikes up its drills like percussion practice. And to top it all, I make my own daily crawl through two hours of traffic for physiotherapy – a pilgrimage so slow, the journey outlasts the prayer.

Of all the tricks writing plays on me, procrastination is the cruelest. At least, deadlines shout and migraines sting. Procrastination, though, is sweet. It whispers comfort, and sells me faith. Faith in a future version of myself who will somehow rise at the last moment like a Bollywood hero, sweaty and glorious, to save the day. But this faith is a scam. I know this hero too well. She’s typing like a maniac at 2 am, cold compress tied to her forehead like Bandit Queen, whispering “never again” while fully aware it will happen again.

That’s the irony: procrastination feels like a friend, but really it fattens up the other two. By the time it’s done with me, the deadline is rabid and the migraine is hungry. I’ve learned they’re not enemies at all – deadlines and migraines are co-conspirators. One chases me into action, the other paralyses me the second I begin. And procrastination just watches, amused, like Krishna playing the flute while Kurukshetra burns.

And yet, sometimes the chaos works. The migraine lifts, the deadline looms, and the words pour out, jagged and desperate but alive.

Because art doesn’t roll off a factory line, polished and packaged by 5 pm. It arrives in stutters, in floods, in fragments scrawled at 2 am. It stumbles in at the very last minute, feral and unpolished. Deadlines crave discipline, but creation resists domestication. That’s why we resent them – they try to leash something that was never meant to be tamed.

Out of the rubble of missed alarms, half-drunk teas, and migraines that feel biblical, something always gets made. It may not be perfect. It may not even be what I first imagined. But it is breathing, stubborn, and real – and that matters far more than perfection.

That, I think, is the only true blessing these gods grant. Not peace. Not mercy. Just proof that in the middle of pain, delay, and absurdity, something meaningful can still be born.

And on the gentler days, when the migraine loosens its grip and the words flow unbidden, writing feels less like penance and more like being touched by grace.