The Sweetness of Doing Nothing

It’s been a little more than 4 months now since I stopped working. After 4.5 years of working, 4 months seems like a long time to have taken a break for. And for almost the entire duration of the break, I’ve been in one of two modes – couch potato mode or constantly on the move mode.  No prizes for guessing which of the two I would prefer to be in for the rest of my life.

The former does have a certain appeal; in all honesty I think it’s akin to a holiday in your home. You chill all day, you mindlessly watch TV, your diet goes for a toss, you sleep and when it gets too much, you curl up on the rocking chair with a book and a cup of hot tea. Makes for a perfect winter holiday...

The latter is an eye opener. It’s like a ball rolling downhill – rather difficult to stop. From Coorg to Hampi to Delhi to Kasol to Bitherkad to Goa, back to Bangalore, it’s been one long trip. Each place obviously had something different to offer.  Coorg was refreshing – it was after a really long time that I was bonding with extended family once again, and I had the wind, the cold winter wind in my hair all the time. Hampi was fun – any trip with friends is – more so when you go exploring and wind up with a seriously fucked up ankle; a villager offered to give me a piggy back ride too, I politely declined and then gave one limb each to friends to carry me to safety. Delhi was cold –cold enough to make me buy thermals. The evenings were lovely though.  I have never been one for waiting. But wait I did, and the minute my boy came back from work, the cold didn't seem so bad. Chilly weather does give way to romance, allows you comfortably bury yourself in the arms of a loved one. Delhi was also a recce of sorts - do I see myself living here in a few months from now? I absolutely do! Kasol was breath taking – I touched snow, I had a snow fight, I warmed my bones by the tandoor, I was baked, I had a killer New Years, I went on holiday with my boy and there were so so many gorgeous dogs and 1 cat.  

Home aka Bitherkad happened next. This has been a roller coaster ride of sorts – I think trying to live in the same space as your parents especially after you have spent most of your time away from them in hostel or by yourself, always is. From many rounds of rummy to yummy food to fist fights to shouting matches to drunken brawls to promises of sobriety to estate work to even cop calling, the 10 days at home have been insane. A couple more days will be spent here and they promise to be exciting as well. Among the various things that I’m looking to do are also the following:  

• Paint the pots
• DIY Project – Make pots out of a tyre. Thanks My Sunny Balcony for the idea and Two Material Girls for the inspiration
• Piss off the cats
• Walk around the estate
• Cardamom drying and storage on a daily basis
• Water therapy for my foot
• Prepare my resume

I proceed to Goa from here. As commercial as it will be, it’s once again a trip with friends and therefore will be brilliant. Post that i get back to Bangalore for a little while – most of February at least. It will be my party month, a month of unabashed drinking.  There are 4 birthdays to celebrate including mine. There’s a big fat Indian wedding which will feature more drinks. My boy will be visiting, so it will be interesting to figure new dynamics in our old setting.

So while I tell the whole world that I’ve been jobless, the past couple of months have been more packed with excitement and fun than I can remember.  So much so, that I want to be on a break forever, I want to go out more, I want to see the world, I want to go to Italy! If only I had the money.. for the money, i need a job. With the job, I'm sure to need a long break. With the break, I will live it up. To live it up some more, I need money. Aaaaaaaahhhh… vicious cycle it seems to be.

In any case, I am so thankful for the present which in the words of the Italians is, "Dolce far niente" - the sweetness of doing nothing.  

Flight 6E 141 from Delhi to Bangalore

I write this out of sheer boredom. I usually find something to do or rather look at once I've depleted my stock of books while travelling by air. This time round I've finished V for Vendetta and am unable to get my head around A Brief History of Time, and I'm terrified my phone will die and with it so will the music. So to entertain myself and you I present to you, "Observations from Seat 20C".

1) Children should  be sedated. They are noisy; the parents/grand parents of these kids are noisy too. The last thing i want to hear is the lady across the aisle screaming at the toddler who has slipped from her clutches and is presently staring at some random passenger, who i'm sure has no kind feelings either, especially when the toddler is all red-faced and splotchy. Maybe the  lady should have been sedated too. 

2) The next time you are in an aisle seat and the food trolley stops right next to you, see if you get claustrophobic.

3) The in-flight magazine is called "Hello 6E". For those missing the word play, 6E would be sexy. Baaaaaarrrrrrffffffff!!! 

4) Some of the puns that Indigo comes up with are fun though. My favourite is 'nut case' for the little tin box that the masala nuts come in. 

5) People who take a window seat should be tasered if they sleep. What's the point of hogging the window if you're not going to look out of it? In addition, if these people wake up only to go the loo or to get off the place, one should feel free to trip them and hope to hell they fall on their face and pass out on the aisle. This could also ensure that noisy child doesn't get out and that the trolley cannot come by again with its claustrophobic intentions. 

6) I'm not much of a talker, especially when it comes to talking to a fellow passenger. But I long for the day when this mysterious, brooding passenger strikes up a conversation and we hit it off. We could stay friends for the rest of our lives and then visit each other with our future families. 

7) More claustrophobia! Not just the damned trolley; its accompanied by a whiff of stale deodorant and sweat. 

8) In case of turbulence the overhead compartments could open, bags and boxes could fall out and the heads of a good numbers of flyers in the aisle seats could be decapitated. I would be spared of course. 

9) How can anyone use the loo? It sees an average of 1 user a minute. That would mean on a 2 hour, 40 minute flight if you happen to be the last one to go, you're likely to be peeing on 159 instances of pee. YEW! 

10) And Bangalore is here... Excitement! To see and feel the sun would be brilliant. Especially if the temperature at landing is 21 degrees Celcius. That would be 18 degrees more than what it was when I woke up this morning in Delhi. 

That's all folks! I have landed... almost actually. I wait for the thud of the wheels on the ground to make my pen go crooked and then stop the entry. I see the familiar looking plots of land. Not that I know them personally, just that they look Bangalore like. And touchdown in 3, 2, 1... OK then, bye bye. 


P.S: It's sad that digital entries cannot convey handwriting. Mine is spectacular, especially after the thud of the wheels. 

Hampi

over-packed bag
a bit much for 2 days and a night
intoxication to get through the shaky bus ride
a boat ride across the tungabhadra
waterfall guest house with ramu and vasu playing host
charlie with his gorgeous eyes and rancid stink
hash brown potatoes, nutella pancake, mint tea and lemonana by the dozen
bike rides
more intoxication
maus & pi for company
a dip in the river; the smell lingers
some more intoxication
sleep
breakfast that stretches into brunch that stretches into lunch
scouting for 300 year old trees
through the fields, through the trees, over the rocks to the river
but wait; a foot slips, an ankle twists
hobble hobble hobble back
away from the river, the rocks, the trees
carried over the fields
intoxication to numb the pain
rocky road back to the city
hampi was a blast - and i've a sprained ankle and a fractured wrist as testimony

Pining

Doth distance make the heart grow fonder?

It certainly does, and gives you time to ponder.

But pondering only does so much,

And puts perspectives such and such;

I would now like to screw the distance, pack my bags and go yonder.

Rhyming to Ramble???

It’s but difficult to ramble without a machine

Or is it because my writing has lost its sheen

Maybe it has

Rhymes too are scarce (and badly written)

And how long the yucky writing lasts remains to be seen

Tales from the Locker

In 3 days from now, i will be leaving a place that has become home for the past 4.5 years, The Fuller Life... And part of the process of leaving TFL is also clearing out the locker that's been assigned to you. 


So this locker means or rather holds different things for different people.. Some boringly use it to stow away their bag for the duration of the work day; some others (mostly the cyclists) keep their clean clothes in it, so they can quickly change into them when they step into office in their stinky, sweaty gear; some store miscellaneous client paraphernalia... 


My locker on the other hand, had oodles of character... or to be more specific, 4 and a half years of stuff that i thought i couldn't do without if i threw it away and thank God for that! Some of the things i found are: 


- a brown stuffed dolphin (where in the world can you find brown dolphins) 
- numerous files and brown paper covers 
- many, many books - all kinds of them.. chick-lit, periodic romances, action novels, morbid as hell graphic novels, and my personal favourite, The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid 
- safety pics, paper clips and sticky rubber-bands by the dozen... why, i stored them in the locker rather than the stationary kit, i don't understand
- a mini Indian flag, complete with mini flag-post and mini 24-spoke wheel
- Moov, Odomos and Toothpaste
- 1 Centerfresh chewing gum 
- My PSD and Adv notebook from my pre-TFL days. For idiots who don't understand the aforementioned cool acronyms, they're Product Sales & Distribution and Advertising. And the notebook obviously captured notes (oooooh!) on the intricacies of the aforementioned subjects. 


This notebook came along with my post-grad degree and a bunch of 7 called The Clings. And apart from the notes, it also captured snippets about a day in the life of the Ganga of yore, when life was so much simpler, sillier and oh so lovely. Along with a couple of shots at Name Place Animal Thing, loud thoughts such as "the poppets eyelids got heavier", number puzzles, list of clothes to pack for my cousins wedding and a note to self about calling oneself Scarhands, i also found in the notebook a little feature called "All thought, no show", that i had written. It contained my aspirations when i was young. And funnily enough, i aspire for the same even now. I wish i'd cleared out my locker earlier, so i found this.



And just in case you're wondering, it took me 3 whole hours to clear out the locker!

All Thought, No Show....

"Where the mind is without fear, and the held is held high. Into that heaven of freedom my father, let my country awake. " 

- Rabindranath Tagaore, Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo

Where do we start when we aim to achieve a specific goal in due course? The first step is the hardest. Not because it's actually difficult or requires a certain amount of energy to be spent that we think could be better utilized, but because we are hesitant to take that first step. Hesitant as a result of what people might say, hesitant to take that extra effort, hesitant to make a decision supposing it might be the wrong one. 


We tend to either put off for later or put away completely, things that actually require to be finished right now. We assume things we want will automatically fall into place sometime in the future if we merely want it enough - publish a book, own a house, work with snakes, or even a very basic decision to complete a pending piece of work or make a call to an old friend. We procrastinate and postpone as a result of a baseless conviction that it will eventually be done. What we do not realize is people might commend us, that the extra effort we put in is probably worth it, that the decision is the right one. Things do not merely get done. We need to do them. 


What one does with one's life, is in one's own hands. It will not fall into place as one believes. Dare to do what is necessary. Make a move to set things in perspective.  Be bold and fearless. Take the first step. 


You will have served your purpose.