Try Doing nothing for a change

Winter is finally here. I love the metro rides in the cold early mornings as most of the world still sleeps under their blankets. I find summer very baring and exhibitionist. Compared to that, winter is more snuggly, warm and rather demure. The sun too is soft and tentative as if it's trying to test its warmth. There's nothing like toasting your back on a sunny winter afternoon. I usually stand with a book in hand in the balcony and within minutes I doze off. It's the ultimate pleasure in an off day. No work, no tension, just lazing around in the sun.
Talking of tension, there's too much of it going around these days. Everyone I meet is in a hurry, in a huff, rushing to or from a meeting or just pissed trying to meet a deadline. The worst thing is that there is no end to these things. We carry all the tension from work to home and make our evenings and weekends miserable. So there is really no break as such, no time to unwind. When was the last time you lay in bed swinging your foot and listened to some peppy music on youtube? When was the last time you just sat in the couch and did nothing for an hour? I bet you cant even remember! Well, that's what I mean by relaxing. We got to stop running, meeting deadlines, worrying and making ourselves sick. We are only hurrying our race to the grave.
Just try it. Laze around the house doing nothing for a day. It's the ultimate answer to all our troubles. You think i'm kidding? 

Sing- a- joy-pore!

Last fortnight i was in Singapore making my biannual visit to see sonny. After all these years the city really feels very familiar which translates into thus: No more wrinkling my nose as i pass Chinese food courts, not minding wearing shorts and mini skirts and walking alongside the shapely and petite singaporeans (i am as slim and pretty as i think i am, what?) and waiting patiently in queues and accepting loose change humbly from taxi drivers. The general opinion of tourists is that the city is rather clinical and not exciting enough. I believe it all depends on your definition of excitement.
Singaporeans are extremely polite and protect their personal space. Life is so orderly that everything works like clockwork and you feel as if you've entered a make believe fantasy world. There's nothing that they wont or cant do, apparently. There's a saying that the city quite often moves around huge monstrous trees and replants them in strategic points overnight. And they actually leave the lights on in the skyscrapers so that the city looks beautiful from the air!!
While you'll probably pass some of the world's classiest shopping plazas you'll also find casual shoppers in shorts and flip flops ambling past you. It isn't brand conscious like Hong Kong or completely laid back like Indonesia or purely touristy like Thailand. But the best thing i like about this city is the complete absence of road rage or any signs of temper or annoyance. Coming from a city where even a hello often sounds gruff and dipped in selfish motive, this 'ice cool' trait gets my vote. It's just the right frame of mind to be on a holiday.

There is no tension of being shoved off a queue, handed the wrong change, fooled into buying a defective object by the shopkeeper and fed stale food on the sly.
But yes, it's an expensive city. The Singaporean dollar (to my utter surprise) is almost running neck and neck with the US dollar. There are very few cheap deals these days and unlike Thailand shopping can drill a gaping hole in your pocket.
But hey- i'm not complaining. Each city to its own. For a stay that promises no eve teasing, no cheating, clockwork timing, picture book surroundings and sumptuous food- it's worth the money!

Cobwebs in the brain- how to dust them?

Saw a video today about the exponential growth of technology. I won’t even begin to describe how fast the world of information is growing. My mind boggled just watching the video. The bottom line is : things are getting outdated so fast the words in this blog will be passé by the time you reach the last line! How exciting! Will life be worth living at all in the next few decades? What about humour? Will anybody have time to laugh anymore?
Here’s the link for all of you who are interested in it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

Meanwhile I’m more worried about the exponential growth of information in my head. Every day, every minute I’m adding more information. But is it relevant and worthy? Mostly, it’s drivel if you ask me. Dogshit really.
Look at the news- realms and realms of it appear everyday and all I care about are bits of sports news, whether the Delhi metro is coming up with something else to screw my happiness and if Charlie Sheen said something really stupid so I can stretch my facial muscles while gulping my morning tea before rushing to work. I might as well ask my newspaper man to aim the paper straight at the garbage chute for the attention I give it. In fact I read the funny forwarded messages with more attention than I read the news!

Time, i have realised, is a finite entity. There is never enough of it. On workdays I keep rushing from one job to another and pushing all things in the low priority list to weekends. But on weekends I am so fagged out that I need time to recover and so the pending jobs get pushed down to the to-do lane. Now multiply those into endless weeks and what have you got? Dusty alleys full of cobwebs...in my brain.

The jobs never get done physically- that's ok. It's the mental burden of not doing them that gets to me. Never get to read enough books, never get to hear my favourite songs, talk to my favourite people and think about the good times gone.
If this is what the twenty first century is about- hooray for civilisation! It's excruciatingly vapid. All the leaps in technology and all the handholding of internet connectivity cannot bring back the sheer pleasure of relishing a slow paced, lazy, johnny-head-in-air twentieth century life. So then, how do we get to dust the cobwebs??

Wanted: a personal punching bag

Has to be human; age,gender no bar; should be immune to all swear words and abuses in any language; should have immense patience; should have only one word and its synonyms in their vocabulary: yes; should be prepared to work 24/7 and be on call even after hours; and should NOT COMPLAIN! Salary handsome and negotiable.*


* For the uninitiated it may be clarified that punching bags are a must-have in the 21st century. They are part of the survival kit like a toothbrush and deodorant.

(Roo is sick of the heat, the humidity, the viruses, the traffic jams, the rat race, the shallowness of people, the disregard for human values, the wars, the deaths, the disappearing sense of humour and the ticking clock of life that grows louder and louder...)

Hat in the ring

The British ruled over India for several centuries. I've often wondered why we Indians never picked up the hat as a useful accessory. We picked up rousers, shoes, and even cigarettes. Why not the hat? It should have been the answer to a lot of our sun related problems. A wide brimmed hat in a hot sunny country like ours is almost like carrying an umbrella without a handle. And top hats go very well with suits. Our farmers who keep sunrise to sunset schedules preferred the ubiquitous cloth to the hat. I think because it can be used as a towel, duster, muffler, turban and of course a cushion to carry heavy objects. A hat cant even think of competing. But what about the city slickers? Why the hell did they reject it?

Fooling people is an art

A British autistic teenager pretended to be a tycoon and fooled a lot of airline honchos recently. It was a scam that rocked the aviation world. I love this chap. Just imagine his guts and his confidence and not to mention the planning that went into the entire thing. He proved once again that if you make the right noises you can fool people from this so called 'upper class' world. He sat in meetings with industry bosses, sold them his plans and schemes pretending to be owner or a fleet of jets. How gullible are these people! He would have gone on had it not been for some journalists who smelled a rat and exposed the chap. I think that age old saying about the dress and the haircut making a man is entirely true in this case!

Recession and underwear

According to Alan Greenspan, the first thing to show signs of recession is the sale of underwear. He says it goes down because people believe that torn underwear can be hidden. !! Trust Greenspan to come up with such whacky theories. There are people who even in the best of times think it too troublesome to go and shop for UW. And how is he going to prove it? UW is a cagey topic- like sex. People can never be trusted to tell the truth!

flea markets

A friend of mine introduced me to a local weekly market called the Thursday market. It's a mobile market very much akin to a flea market that comes up in a nearby locality on Thursdays. There is also a Sunday market which consists mostly of vegetable and fruit sellers and a Saturday market which has a huge range of electronic goods. I must confess i used to frown and look down upon such markets. Not anymore. It's been a revelation and i've been hooked. We dont spend much but just hop from one stall to another, one table to another just looking. There are clothes (mostly for children), linen, toys, household goods and trinkets galore. And at throwaway prices. The trinket stalls are my favourite and i never tire of buying beaded necklaces, bracelets and anything that catches my fancy. They are all made locally, cheap and ethnic. They make nice giveaway gifts. After a good hour of doing the rounds we dig into some hot baked biscuits and go home. But there is a down side to this too. It's spoiled me for big time mall shopping. Even in Singapore i kept looking at stuff and thinking -i can get this for peanuts at the thursday market!

Pill poppers beware

The oldest woman in the world is dead. She was going strong at 130 and had it not been for misdirected government generosity she would have still been alive. The kazhakstan government found her living in 'squalor' and decided to move her to 'better' and cleaner quarters. She did and promptly slipped on the polished floors, broke her hip and died. So much for good intentions.
She had no secret of longivity she said. But she never took pills when she was ill. She made do with herbs and home remedies. Hear! Hear! The pill poppers beware!
PErsonally, i fear my days are numbered.

A utopic world

The best part of a holiday abroad is the complete absence of eve teasing. Of course it depends which country you are visiting. In Saudi Arabia, which is a strictly gender segregated country i.e. they even have separate doors for men and women, I had the misfortune to face eveteasing. There, teenagers driving in swanky cars throw eggs at women (ugh) and if you happen to get caught in one of those busy, crowded bazaars with jostlers god help you. Especially if you are a foreigner without a head cover.
Being brought up in the mean streets of Delhi and travelling in buses forces you to think of ingenious ways to dodge gropers and all kinds of underhand eveteasing. I remember often using my elbows as daggers for anyone thinking of any funny business. I would force my way into crowded buses with my elbows poking out from the sides and took great pleasure in jabbing it if anybody dared to invade my space. But whatever you came up with, most trips in public transport or down a lonely lane would leave a bad taste in your mouth.
In contrast, places like Singapore are a delight for women. You can dress how you like, go wherever you like and at whatever time suits you. You are safe. In fact, I saw some women jogging in the middle of the night. Such freedom gave me goosebumps. Can we ever, ever think of such a scenario in India? It's a laugh to even think about it.

Guru Darwin

This week the world is celebrating Darwin's birth centenary. I think Darwin was a 21st century lifestyle guru. Here's why:

a- Great planning and foresight: Invest in one major journey and then sit back and reap the fruits all your life-- Darwin took a voyage at 21 (5 year long) during which he collected all the materials he could collect, visited all the places he could visit, dated all the girls he could date (i just added the last one up) and then sat in his armchair the rest of his life.

b- it's never too late to change your mind: Darwin was at medical school training to be a doctor when he thought- God, this course sucks! I'm getting out of here. So he quit and left to study arts. He actually got the best of both streams. He got an arts and science background and had an edge over everyone else.

c- You should have the guts to say what you believe even if the world thinks you've lost your marbles: Darwin said humans descended from the monkeys at a time when people believed we were specially ordered, stamped and delivered by the lord above.

d- If your neigbours complain about you tell them to go to hell- they might be keeping you from discovering the next big thing-- Darwin kept his huge collection of dead animals and plants in his backyard for years. Can you imagine the stink in his home and within miles around?

Darwin, you are my guru!