BRAToSPHERE

Category: TIMEPASS

  • Rainy season life

    There are times when you feel like just writing. Just penning down your thoughts. There is no good time or a bad time for this. Thought strikes, pen it down. Simple. Thanks to the digital age, we have mini assistants in our pockets all the time waiting to capture the thought. This is one such moment.

    Friday evening. Raining outside. The weather has been playing up the last couple of days, and the rains are joyful. Keep aside the fact, that the mosquitoes and all virals also find the rain fascinating and show up their ugly face during the rainy season.

    Everyone would have memories of the rainy season from their childhood. Good. Bad. Both. I still remember the way I used to spend all evenings staring at the rain water flowing through the slope road next to my apartment, merging with the drain. The view from my second floor balcony made it all feel rhythmic and then I would see people rushing with hands or handkerchiefs on their heads scouting for some shelter. I still fail to understand how the tiny handkerchief protects anyone from this torrential rains?

    Gurgaon rains are different. Most of us privileged lot are well trapped in our high rises without even coming to know that it is raining outside. The temperature controlled atmosphere at the astronomical heights of the apartment keeps us away from the earthy smell of the rain. The only thing kids would probably remember is that they were denied going out to play. Such a sad state. Cities trap you within in the process of freeing up your mind. Such is life.

    The drops of rain on my balcony railings splash on my face and some of it in my hot tea cup. The weather gives a completely positive feeling about it. Thank God am at Home. The rainy season in Gurgaon is a nightmare when you are within the car. The car could take forever to get you to your destination. Such is life!

    Off I am to just stare at the water dripping from the well manicured trees below, and transporting myself on a nostalgia trip. Such is life!

  • New Year Plans

    New Year resolutions are made to be broken, or so goes the adage. True to its word, I am nowhere there on any of my New Year resolutions. I think having a date of start to any activity, be it dieting or working out, just does not work. Setting a date in the future for something that you believe is for your good, is a way to procrastinate the thing. Isn’t helping anyone.

    If you are actually kicked about starting a good habit (the so called resolution) there is no better than time to start doing it, than right NOW! You are at your peak motivation level right now and getting to do the good thing right now will hold you in good stead to inculcate the habit.

    New Year resolutions,

    “Will start doing this from next month onwards”,

    “Will do this once this phase of my life is over”

    These are all reasons we give to ourselves to justify our procrastination.

    To top it all, more often than not, a majority of us then justify to ourselves why we should not be doing a particular thing after the date of start has gone by.

    “Oh! I had to quit smoking from Jan 1st 2017. It is already 10 days past that date and I am nowhere there. Chuck it! Will quit from Feb 1st”. Or worse, “Will quit in 2018! 2017 is too hectic and important a year to be going through all this heartache and mood swings”. Classic ways of procrastination.

    Sounds very familiar right?

    Procrastination – One big reason why we don’t achieve most of the things we set out for ourselves and attain a mediocrity level in most of what we do!

    So this year, unlike all my previous years, I have decided not to have any New Year resolutions.

    I would rather have plans. Plans for the year. This has been working at a very sub conscious level over the years.

    Plan for the month and sub plans for the week. Targets for the period and clearly defined milestones and goals to be tracking against them. Yes, there is an element of time again, but this time with a timeline. With targets and tracking achievements. This should help overcome the inherent procrastination.

    I am now completely corporatized!

    Happy New Year folks. Do let me know of your plans for the year.

  • Train to Kanpur

    “La Camisa Negra..”

    Song playing in the headphone, thinking of the discovery of voice program. The naughty kids wails are still audible piercing through the headphones. Sue you Bose QC. Noise cancelling it says. Can’t silence a small kid.

    Am in the train en route to a major town in UP, to attend my Niece’s wedding. Niece’s wedding? How old are you? Well, this one is a long story involving 10 off springs and a huge lineage, better left for some other time.

    Song changes to “Cup Song..”

    Coming back to the train. I am in the Shatabdi train, so called king of the Indian railway trains (Maybe the prince, if Rajdhani can be called the king) hoping that it would be a pleasant silent journey for 5 long hours. Little did I hope that these five hours would seem like an eternity.

    The journey to the railway station in itself was pleasant. Thank you Delhi Metro. Post my experience, when I had to drop my Mother in law to the station, and I nearly got her to miss the train, I rely on the Delhi metro more than the Delhi Roads. Not my fault. The un-predictable traffic. Even Google Maps goes wrong by a large margin when it comes to Delhi Traffic. Well, maybe I should have estimated the travel time better. Or better still, I should have seen the departure time better. 2:15 and 2:45 look so similar right?

    Song Changes to “Tribal..”

    Anyways, coming back to the train. Post the pleasant trip to the Station I was welcomed to the very familiar filthy and dirty station. I think it is high time we get a crusader against dirtying public areas. The 0.5% cess for Swacch Bharat clearly is not working. (No! 1% would not work either. Intention and action would probably work!).

    I don’t know why we Indians cannot keep basics in place. How much more effort does it take to walk a 50 mts more to spit in the spittoon, or discard the empty chips packet into a dustbin. No!  We just throw wherever we need to!

    Song changes to “bumbaya..”

    Coming back to the train, after the dirty experience at the station, I was looking forward to the train. Shatabdi’s are generally clean. I am at the platform at 3:30 for a train scheduled to depart at 3:50. The train is still not at the platform. I kill time browsing the wheeler books trolley, and buy a couple of magazines. The time now is 3:45PM, The train is still not here. I walk to the snacks stall and pick  a bottle of water and just when I manage to wriggle to manage the last currency note out of my wallet, I hear the train’s whistle. The anger of the vendor not having moved to cashless is subsided by the coarse whistle sound.

    I jump on in the train to my seat (Thankfully this is clean) and get ready my arsenal – iPad, Music, headphones and the magazines I just bought on the table in the front. I was looking forward to the short journey. 4:15 PM. The train is still on the platform. It probably would not be that a short journey. Why God? Why? Why does it always happen to the train I am travelling in? Who is this damn lawyer Murphy?

    Song Changes to “play..”

    The train finally moves at 4:25 PM and I settle in my seat. The train is relatively empty and I wonder why? Indian trains are always crowded. I sit by the window side, deep into my iPad reading and occasionally watching the roads outside. Very soon we would be out of Delhi and the view from the window would be full of mustard fields. What a pleasant sight. I already feel like SRK.

    The train screeches stop at 5PM and gets me of the slumber. Wait! Where did so many people come from? How did the ‘not-so-empty’ suddenly get overfilled with argumentative middle aged men and young women with wailing kids? Ghaziabad. UP sure has to be the most populous state in the country. The kid behind my seats starts wailing. He probably does not like my remark on UP.

    Song changes to “My life..”

    This is my life right now. The far from perfect train journey.

    I take up the volume on VLC to 200%. Creaking sound is better than wail sounds. Damn you Bose QC.

    p.s.: Just in case you are curious, the playlist of the music is Running Music Workout 2016

  • 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.