BRAToSPHERE

Category: ARTICLE

  • Intimidating Choices

    What do you do on a lazy sunday morning? Read the newspapers? Generally chill around? Go for a run? Play Badminton? Work out?

    So many options right?

    And still most of us are confused and bored and don’t understand what to do. We just while away our time, watching TV on mute (yes, that is what i do!), looking at the garden repeatedly deciding if it needs watering, aimless walking through the house looking if something needs repair and mentally making a note that some things really do, opening up amazon.in looking if you need something or just aimless lounging in the sofa. Not content, still.

    This is the trouble of choices. I was recently having this conversation with a colleague on how we Indians do not really appreciate choices, or probably we feel intimidated with them. Like in a restaurant, a typical middle class man would be baffled with the choices on offer.

    “Can you please get me a coffee?”, the man would ask rather thoughtless.

    “Sure Sir. Cappuccino, latte or Expresso?”, the over enthusiastic waiter would question.

    “Ah! Ahem.. the first one should do”, replied the man totally zapped and feeling like an engineering student being grilled during his VIVA.

    “Cappucino is a wonderful choice sir. So, would you like some cream on top”, the enthu cutlet pops again.

    The man is now completely intimidated and just replies, “Ah.. ah.. yes. cream. yes..”

    “And how many spoons of sugar do you like in your cup of whipped cream layered Cappuccino sir?”

    Whip.. what? I ordered for coffee. The man thinks. But with an ego filled mind and not wanting to look like an ignorant bumpkin just mutters, “Ah! one spoon.. one spoon sugar”

    “And would you like some cookies to go along with it sir. Or may be some grilled sandwich?”

    Done. The man blows his mental fuse. “COFFEEEEEE. HOW DIFFICULT IS IT ORDER JUST A CUP OF PLAIN COFFEE?”, the man thunders out of the restaurant with everyone staring at the outburst.

    But well, that is the predicament we live in. Being brought in up a pre liberalised era, we are not aware of choices. It was the era of rationing and we would be happy with the little something that would be doled out in terms of food, oil, whatever..

    We were content with the single white modern bread that we religiously ate every weekend for years and years. We didn’t know about the plethora of Brown, multii grain, oats, rye filled and the other seeming innocuous loafs sitting in the bread aisle. No!

    A news article reminded me again of this “i don’t like choices” attitude. Parents are apparently confused which nursery school to put their child in, as there are so many options around. Each with varied facility and different board affiliations – CBSE, ICSE, IB,etc. and different age groups for eligibility – three, three and a half, three years 4 months 6 days.. Options! Options again lead to intimidation and confusion.

    What was the choice during our times? The sole English medium school near our house which fit our budget. Choices bring in confusion for the normal indian and it would be a generation to be comfortable with all the chaos!

    So yes, till then it is going to be difficult to order a coffee, unless of course you are in the good old India Coffee House.

  • Home Vacation

    Early morning at 5AM. The morning run by the bay of the beach cancelled due to the rain. Sitting here in my balcony with a cup of coffee in my hand overlooking the vast mighty sea. Perfect bliss.

    I am in my Home Town, my place of Birth – Visakhapatnam, on a week long holiday. Holidays are always a good time to reflect. To ponder. To recharge the internal body and the mind to be ready for the ensuing grind.

    When i first declared that i am off for a week to go home on my holiday, the immediate reaction from a colleague was of shock. “Home! That is not a vacation. You are visiting family”.

    “Yes! Even better. It would be like a family vacation!”, i snapped back. The colleague was still not impressed.

    I realised, family visits are not perceived as a vacation. This appeared quite strange to me.

    Let us assume the same colleague is on a holiday to Vizag with his wife. He has no family here, and thus takes up a hotel/guest house opposite to the beach. Spends most of his time in and around the sea like any tourist would do and eat some good sea food everyday, again like a picture perfect tourist. That would classify as a perfect vacation by the beach.

    But well, i think i am doing exactly the same. I am staying opposite to the sea and by extension spend most of my time in and around the water. I get to eat good food, with an added bonus of it being home cooked. and i am chilling all day and evening doing absolutely nothing of importance or productive.

    The present day unicorns like AirBnB and the countless others offering Home Stays are selling exactly the same experience. Vacations at a home like setting.

    So, my trip to Vizag is as good as a holiday right? With an even better setting as all of this is in the midst of family and friends with whom i have spent all my childhood.

    This is like an annual holiday i get to take with all my family and friends. Could not get better.

    To top the overall experience i get to spend sweet nothing time writing such random ramblings sipping on a cup of good home made coffee overlooking the beach.

    This has to be the perfect vacation.

  • Relativity – on a Sunday Morning

    More than a quarter of the year has passed and things seem to still stand where they are. The passing, or shall i say flying, of time makes one feel how insignificant we are. In the big huge universe, we are mere speck of dust leasing sometime to spend here.

    In entertainment parlance, what relevance does a hit movie play in context of a decade? How does it matter if about a sporting great in the context of a century. Who cares about the veracity of a town in the context of multiple centuries. From this perspective, everything becomes relative.

    To make someone understand the importance of a milli second, we refer to a person who met with an accident which could have been averted by a split second. Similarly, to make one realise the futility of a particular incident, refer to a century.

    How relevant is that Monday morning presentation in the context of a decade. Do you remember what were you presenting in 2006? No one does!

    Think, this is the best possible living example of Einstein’s theory of relativity. The importance, or lack of it, is purely determined by the frame of reference.

    lets say, Completing the task in hand is of utmost priority right now. Right then, you get a call from a friend who has just met with an accident and needs your help. Will the task still be of the same importance?

    Of course, for some, even a ping on Facebook would disrupt the priority order.

    Enough said. I am sure by now you have decided the importance to place on reading such write-ups.

    It is already 12:30 on the clock! Now with this context that i am made aware of, sorry but this write up takes a lower priority. I have a presentation to work on!

    Until next time!

  • Time flies..

    It just feels like yesterday when I was in Bangalore, sipping my hot Café Latte in my favourite café in the world. That was New Year ’s Eve. And here we are, with one month of the year already complete.

    Have we suddenly shifted to some other galaxy? Has time started moving fast? The time here seems to be moving really fast and it always feels like a race against time on a daily basis, at every moment.

    Is there something called a leisurely life? At this age, I am afraid, but I believe the answer is No. I remember reading this a long time back –

    When you are young, you have energy and Time, but no Money.

    In adulthood, you have money and energy, but no time

    In old Age, time and Money are in plentiful (hopefully J ), but no energy.

    Such is life. There are always so many things that can be done, but just not enough time to accomplish them all. What does one do then? Just accept that there is never going to be enough time and go on with life?

    A life filled with regret that everything we wish is not getting done? An incomplete life yearning for more all the time?

    Maybe.

    Or maybe not. Maybe we could do with some prioritization and chuck the lesser important things out of our lives. Scheduling and being disciplined helps.

    Like we allocate money for various spends, I believe our TIME is more expensive and we should start rationing how we spend our time. Money once spent can be earned back, but well you ain’t getting any younger!

    One other major discipline to be inculcated is the art of saying NO. No to things, activities, no to people. Like someone had said, it is equally important to know what NOT to do, than what needs to be done.

    I am not suggesting that we all become machines and chuck leisure out of our lives. I totally believe it is important to let loose and chill sometimes, but it is equally important that we chalk out what really helps us wind and commit time accordingly rather than binge watch TV all weekend and then feel guilty of it on Sunday evening.

    Time is the biggest lever we all have in more or less equal proportions and it is up to us what we make of it.

    “Time and Tide wait for none!”

    So, here it is to a productive 2016. Er! The remaining eleven months of 2016 I mean!

  • Happy New Year 2016

    One more year done, and the other is here. Thinking about it, 17 days, or about 5 percent, of 2016 is already complete!

    Every year brings with it a hope. A hope of it being new (no wonder it is called a new year). A promise of brining in new experiences and some wonderful moments. No wonder again, New Year resolutions are so prominent across the world. Probably, New Year resolutions is the only ritual present across the world, amongst all the different countries, cultures and religions.

    If New Year is so sacred, I have always wondered why people drown themselves in liquor to bring the year. Are the party revelers so scared of the New Year, that they prefer ringing it in an intoxicated frame of mind?

    I am not judging here (in fact, I was one of those many drowning bottle over bottle, just a couple of years back), and neither am I passing any moral diktats of what is right and what is wrong? I am just perplexed at this behavior and trying to imagine the reason for this behavior.

    Is it the work of some marketing genius from some alcohol company? Maybe yes. In promoting this culture, but this ritual has been ages old. If I am not mistaken, there are stories of ancient land, where celebrations (including ringing in New Year’s Eve) is froth with a lot of liquid. Sparkling green liquid of intoxication.

    I am probably just over intellectualizing it. This probably is just one more day (rather holiday) for the party revelers to party. Just another occasion to throat down a peg too many. And, as long it is harmless, a drink or two never harmed anyone. Did it? (Notwithstanding the fact, that the UK authorities have recently declared that even a single drink a day is harmful and could be eventually carcinogenic). Again, should be left to the individual to decide, in legal standings.

    A small google search throws many more strange ways of celebrating the New Year’s Eve. Like in Estonia, People eat seven times on the New Year’s Day to ensure abundance in the next year. This is besides the fact, that there are many people I know of who do this on everyday basis. Probably to ensure abundance on a daily basis!

    For more such acts of strangeness, please be directed here.

    A very very Happy New year 2016. May this year be filled with joy, health and Abundance!

    Smirk!