My journey across India has led me back to the place where I started off from. Just by taking the next bus/lorry/walk I have come a full circle without even intending to. The beach where I threw away one last piece of equipment I called my own. I now stand here again a person vastly different from the one who left. I don't feel like I have come home or anything. Its just a familiar place.
I have walked around Chennai all day and I have felt one small emotion that I thought was dead within me. Nostalgia. My feet seem to have led me to all the old and familiar spots. My old office, my old flat, my old life. Its funny that I still refer to them as mine even though they long ceased to be so. I have had the cushioning layer of time to look back at the old times and smile at them. Its not like I have suddenly become an enlightened soul or anything. I have found out that one can travel around India in a very inexpensive manner but that I suppose many others have already documented and spoken voluminously about.
There have been instances where I have felt that I should stop the madness and get back to resuming the way of life like I knew it. But then I would also wonder if it would lead to boredom again. And how how would my life be if I had not actually given in to boredom? Maybe if I had shown the patience that I have developed over these few months, I could have been in a place very different from where I am now. Don't get me wrong. I have no regrets. Its just the musings of a person who has seen too much and yet not seen enough.
I have made an entire round of all these places and now I stand back at the beach. Its late into the night and there is a cool breeze. I now have to sit and decide if I want to go back to my old life or live this life of a nomad. I have come to realize that adventure on a megalomaniac scale like mine does not necessarily reform you into a new person. And my old life was not all that bad in retrospect. The question still remains if I want to go back to it. I lay back on the sand and hum a few lines from an old song while drifting away into the fertile lands of sleep. " I see trees of green, red roses too, I see them bloom, for me and you, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world. I see skies of blue, clouds of white, bright blessed days, dark scared nights, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world."
I have been sitting for a long time at the beach now. For the last couple of hours, I have been looking at the waves and been blank inside. Its early evening now and the usual flock of couples in love are making their way to the secluded corners of the beach without of course realizing that there is no such place in an open space of land. I have been making trivial observations on everything around me. When you give patience enough time, you will notice the smallest of things, the smallest change in patterns, etc. I notice that there are now a slightly older couple making their way to the beach too. They seem supremely happy and obviously in love with each other. I look a little closer and I see that it is Lila. With someone who looks like a successful vice president of a company. Someone who has had dreams and has kept them alive. Some one who hasn't let boredom get the better of him. Someone, who looks like.. me.
The End.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Thus Spake the Bored -part 3
Goa didn't last as long as I thought it would. Quite frankly, I got bored with the put on hippie culture and was mistaken like many other people mistaken or masquerading for a priest, a god man with special powers, a burned out junkie etc. Each of these association brought along their own company of people and events but none of these are good enough to actually recount. Except for the free crack I got mistaken/masquerading as a junkie. I spent some time on the beaches but was driven out of most other places thanks to my soiled clothes and a beard that reached my chest now and my hair that was beginning to look a little matted.
There seems to be a blind spot in the way people think about their counterparts. The moment one has a beard and long grown hair and all, he is mistaken for some 'gyani' type of a person who was suffered in life and has reached a philosophical plateau in his life where he can quantify anything with the ease reserved for such people. I have on my way through Goa resisted efforts by people to suddenly get me to talk on the facts of life. I mean I do get a strong urge to slap any woman who has short hair and asks too many questions cos she reminds me of that irritating pipsqueak Barkha Dutt. But I don't. And similarly I would love it if people left me alone as another variety in the great Indian circus.
I was sleeping beneath a tree somewhere in the midlands of India, only, to be woken up by strange voices around me a while back. Apparently a group of foreigners with their penchant for turning paparazzi on holiday had included making me an object in their photo sessions as well. And after that it had taken their fancy to actually sit next to me and take photos. And then just when I was wondering what the girl snapping away with the camera would look like without a head, they decided to hand over some money to me. They then spoke in slow and stilted English to ensure that I understood that they thought that I was a beggar. I felt a strong urge to throw the money back at them and tell them in chaste English to bugger off. But then long period of silences had made my reply processes redundant and I just pocketed their money and turned around and went back to sleep.
In continuance to experiencing new dimensions, I for the first time have had an out of body experience. I just spent a night on a park bench in Dalhousie, a hill station somewhere in Uttarakhand. My body had developed a special resistance towards heat and I came to the realize there that it was completely helpless against the cold. I shivered until it became an integral part of my nights sleep and in between had a view of myself in a shaggy beard sleeping on a park bench in a remote hill station. I woke up in the morning not expecting to only to find a shriveled old man standing next to me. I woke up with a start and he gave me a toothy grin and handed over a steaming hot cup of tea. It was the most beautiful liquid I have ever tasted in my life. He just gave me the tea and went away. As with other things life continues to be a new experience for me.
My legs have somehow carried me on to Varanasi and I have spent the last couple of days here. I have in the company of other souls like me who seem to be in abundance here, tried to make sense of my life and where it is heading. And I have failed miserably. I even tried one of their ganja pipes which they guaranteed would give me a new hold on things. It just made me as sick as only a shared ganja pipe could. And my hold on life hasn't changed from whatever hold I had before.
Its funny when I sit and think now at how all of this started. I left a promising job, lost a wife, let go of all I had worked to build for 10 years and had become a nomad in last couple of months. I wouldn't have changed anything that was in my control and for the stuff out of my control, well.. It jolly well doesn't make a jot of difference now. I am now on a bus going through the vast lands in the andhra region. or is it still orissa? I haven't a clue. I had finally decided to clean up a little and had taken a long bath at a stream that had come my way. I felt a little like Terence Howard now. Clean, but wearing dirty clothes.
To be continued..
There seems to be a blind spot in the way people think about their counterparts. The moment one has a beard and long grown hair and all, he is mistaken for some 'gyani' type of a person who was suffered in life and has reached a philosophical plateau in his life where he can quantify anything with the ease reserved for such people. I have on my way through Goa resisted efforts by people to suddenly get me to talk on the facts of life. I mean I do get a strong urge to slap any woman who has short hair and asks too many questions cos she reminds me of that irritating pipsqueak Barkha Dutt. But I don't. And similarly I would love it if people left me alone as another variety in the great Indian circus.
I was sleeping beneath a tree somewhere in the midlands of India, only, to be woken up by strange voices around me a while back. Apparently a group of foreigners with their penchant for turning paparazzi on holiday had included making me an object in their photo sessions as well. And after that it had taken their fancy to actually sit next to me and take photos. And then just when I was wondering what the girl snapping away with the camera would look like without a head, they decided to hand over some money to me. They then spoke in slow and stilted English to ensure that I understood that they thought that I was a beggar. I felt a strong urge to throw the money back at them and tell them in chaste English to bugger off. But then long period of silences had made my reply processes redundant and I just pocketed their money and turned around and went back to sleep.
In continuance to experiencing new dimensions, I for the first time have had an out of body experience. I just spent a night on a park bench in Dalhousie, a hill station somewhere in Uttarakhand. My body had developed a special resistance towards heat and I came to the realize there that it was completely helpless against the cold. I shivered until it became an integral part of my nights sleep and in between had a view of myself in a shaggy beard sleeping on a park bench in a remote hill station. I woke up in the morning not expecting to only to find a shriveled old man standing next to me. I woke up with a start and he gave me a toothy grin and handed over a steaming hot cup of tea. It was the most beautiful liquid I have ever tasted in my life. He just gave me the tea and went away. As with other things life continues to be a new experience for me.
My legs have somehow carried me on to Varanasi and I have spent the last couple of days here. I have in the company of other souls like me who seem to be in abundance here, tried to make sense of my life and where it is heading. And I have failed miserably. I even tried one of their ganja pipes which they guaranteed would give me a new hold on things. It just made me as sick as only a shared ganja pipe could. And my hold on life hasn't changed from whatever hold I had before.
Its funny when I sit and think now at how all of this started. I left a promising job, lost a wife, let go of all I had worked to build for 10 years and had become a nomad in last couple of months. I wouldn't have changed anything that was in my control and for the stuff out of my control, well.. It jolly well doesn't make a jot of difference now. I am now on a bus going through the vast lands in the andhra region. or is it still orissa? I haven't a clue. I had finally decided to clean up a little and had taken a long bath at a stream that had come my way. I felt a little like Terence Howard now. Clean, but wearing dirty clothes.
To be continued..
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Thus spake the bored - Part 2
The house is all dark around me. I have not been out of my den for the last 10 days. The shock of suddenly being all alone has ebbed away. I think she came in once to clear out her shelf and said something about sending papers or something. I was too busy watching Rocky to pay her any attention. I did hear a high pitched 'woosh' suggesting a car of much higher power than the miserable Alto that I had bought her a few years ago. Maybe the 'woosh' was directed at me. Or she still hasn't figured out the clutch. Whatever.
The refrigerator is empty. The shelves are empty too. I have nothing to eat. And this situation has forced me out of the house. My eyes hurt in the bright sunshine outside and I finally realized how dirty my t shirt looks once I saw it in sunlight. The sunshine is spoiling my mood and my preference to remain in the dark. I make a run through the aisles of the supermarket tipping random stuff into my cart.
I am bored even now. If you thought that Lila leaving me would spur me into action and I would suddenly turn into a templar knight, then boy do you still have some catching up to do on me. Its true that I felt hurt by Lila's ditch act but then I ve realized that not having her around the house hasn't changed much. I mean its not like we were by the fireplace everyday fanning the flames together or anything.
I now have a luxuriant beard and I look nothing like the person who quit his job two months ago. My boredom got to such a point that combined with my laziness, I thought I would end up killing myself. I wasn't letting much happen in my life and anything that would have happened by its own volition wasn't venturing towards me in my current state too.
I have now decided that instead of staying put in one place, and being forced to give it the name of a 'home', I would travel to different locations and see how life went with that sort of a no-plan. I have some cash left in my accounts and I think it should see me out for a while. After that, its all maya.
The last few weeks have been extremely amusing to say the least. I cancelled the rent on my flat and sold off whatever I owned except for stuff that would go into a backpack. I sent a cheque to Lila for 51% of the earnings from the sale just to avoid getting pulled into any idiotic legal hassles. Then, I threw my cell phone into the sea and started off my journey from the beach into.. well nothing. There was no plan and therefore I could head in any of the 8 directions around me. I quite randomly decided on south west and started walking.
I have taken the bus when I felt like it and walked endlessly for hours on end. I have found that various religious houses delight themselves in providing free food to the destitute and I seemed to fit their description of destitute to a 'T'. In this case I see that there seems to be a great spirit of secularism in the country and no one at least denies another person food served in the name of god. Any god. Or maybe I haven't seen enough. Whatever.
And so, I have been walking, riding on top of buses and lorries and been living off religious food for all these days. It has been great at times and equally nasty at times getting a lift from lorry drivers. Most of them don't seem to mind you. But some of the places they stop at makes my state of boredom and desperation or, the lack of it, seem pale. And tripping through the country in a merry manner and taking the next bus, next turn, next lift, I found myself on the outskirts of Goa. How I reached there after starting off in a southwesterly direction from Chennai beats me. But, here I am.
To be continued..
The refrigerator is empty. The shelves are empty too. I have nothing to eat. And this situation has forced me out of the house. My eyes hurt in the bright sunshine outside and I finally realized how dirty my t shirt looks once I saw it in sunlight. The sunshine is spoiling my mood and my preference to remain in the dark. I make a run through the aisles of the supermarket tipping random stuff into my cart.
I am bored even now. If you thought that Lila leaving me would spur me into action and I would suddenly turn into a templar knight, then boy do you still have some catching up to do on me. Its true that I felt hurt by Lila's ditch act but then I ve realized that not having her around the house hasn't changed much. I mean its not like we were by the fireplace everyday fanning the flames together or anything.
I now have a luxuriant beard and I look nothing like the person who quit his job two months ago. My boredom got to such a point that combined with my laziness, I thought I would end up killing myself. I wasn't letting much happen in my life and anything that would have happened by its own volition wasn't venturing towards me in my current state too.
I have now decided that instead of staying put in one place, and being forced to give it the name of a 'home', I would travel to different locations and see how life went with that sort of a no-plan. I have some cash left in my accounts and I think it should see me out for a while. After that, its all maya.
The last few weeks have been extremely amusing to say the least. I cancelled the rent on my flat and sold off whatever I owned except for stuff that would go into a backpack. I sent a cheque to Lila for 51% of the earnings from the sale just to avoid getting pulled into any idiotic legal hassles. Then, I threw my cell phone into the sea and started off my journey from the beach into.. well nothing. There was no plan and therefore I could head in any of the 8 directions around me. I quite randomly decided on south west and started walking.
I have taken the bus when I felt like it and walked endlessly for hours on end. I have found that various religious houses delight themselves in providing free food to the destitute and I seemed to fit their description of destitute to a 'T'. In this case I see that there seems to be a great spirit of secularism in the country and no one at least denies another person food served in the name of god. Any god. Or maybe I haven't seen enough. Whatever.
And so, I have been walking, riding on top of buses and lorries and been living off religious food for all these days. It has been great at times and equally nasty at times getting a lift from lorry drivers. Most of them don't seem to mind you. But some of the places they stop at makes my state of boredom and desperation or, the lack of it, seem pale. And tripping through the country in a merry manner and taking the next bus, next turn, next lift, I found myself on the outskirts of Goa. How I reached there after starting off in a southwesterly direction from Chennai beats me. But, here I am.
To be continued..
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Thus spake the bored - Part 1
There is no such thing as a stable life cycle I suppose. Many people call a stable cycle boring. Which is true. But truth is that if you have decided that you are bored, then you might as well jump off a cliff for your dose of adrenaline but you ll still be bored on your way down.
Me, I got bored and quit my job. I had been offered a promotion with a fabulous pay hike but engineering isn't the mistress it once used to be and I just decided to walk out. I have since then neither applied to other jobs, nor felt the need to get out of my den. My wife, Lila, threw a fit when I told her that I had quit but now she has resigned herself to the fact that she is going to be the sole breadwinner for the family for the foreseeable future. Poor thing. I think I can see dark lines forming under her eyes already.
It is funny to think that I, a topper in school, a flunkee in college, a resurgent force in training and a gifted project manager decided to stop working. At the age of 25 when I decided to marry my long time girlfriend, I thought my life was made. I would retire at 58. The kids Would have been through school and college by then and we would have saved enough cash to go travel the world.
Would-a, should-a, could-a. But Not-a. The savings haven't materialized, the job was rubbish and we don't have any kids either. The kids part was out of my control though. Nothing much you can do when you have loaded your gun but fire only blanks. Its 10 years now since I got married with all these lofty dreams. 10 years where I seem to have come cropper.
This morning has been no different from yesterday. I woke up well after Lila would have started work in office and decided to give the shave a miss today too. I like the 'stubbled' look and I am thinking of keeping it. I then made myself a cup of my favorite black coffee with no sugar and have been sitting in the den ever since with my laptop open. I seriously have nothing useful to do. I tried following the stock market for a few days but then I just got bored. I tried watching one of them serials on tv and I felt a strong urge to kill myself. I ve tried sports but I just get too tired. Hence, I just sit in the den.
Lila called a while back to tell me that she is going for an office party. Its funny how there was no offer for me to join in. Not that I would have, but I still find it funny how she hates to just introduce me as her bum of a husband in front of all the shiny staff around her. I just think that I will settle down with some leftovers and watch butch cassidy and the sundance kid until she comes home.
Its morning. I woke up on the chair in the den with an aching shoulder and then realized that I had slept all through the night in the den. Lila had not woken me up and there seemed to be no other presence in the house meaning that she had probably left for work. I just walked dazed to the bathroom to take a shower and noticed that the laundry basket was empty. Which was odd cos usually Lila would have left her previous days clothes there for me to throw into the washing machine. But there was nothing. I suddenly had a premonition that something was not quite right and saw that her bed hadn't been slept in. All the remaining sleep vanished from my system and I rushed to call her.
I m sitting in the den again. The long and short of Lila not coming home during the night was that she was never gonna come back. She has found the perfect person to share her life with at the party last night. I know that a tequila induced haze is a dangerous thing but even through that one thing had been clear to her. I no longer fitted in her life and she had decided to break away.
No worries. If this is how life was intended to turn out, what else can I do but live along? It does hurt a bit thinking about Lila but there is only so much a human being can take I suppose. Or maybe she was just a selfish bitch. Whatever.
To be continued..
Me, I got bored and quit my job. I had been offered a promotion with a fabulous pay hike but engineering isn't the mistress it once used to be and I just decided to walk out. I have since then neither applied to other jobs, nor felt the need to get out of my den. My wife, Lila, threw a fit when I told her that I had quit but now she has resigned herself to the fact that she is going to be the sole breadwinner for the family for the foreseeable future. Poor thing. I think I can see dark lines forming under her eyes already.
It is funny to think that I, a topper in school, a flunkee in college, a resurgent force in training and a gifted project manager decided to stop working. At the age of 25 when I decided to marry my long time girlfriend, I thought my life was made. I would retire at 58. The kids Would have been through school and college by then and we would have saved enough cash to go travel the world.
Would-a, should-a, could-a. But Not-a. The savings haven't materialized, the job was rubbish and we don't have any kids either. The kids part was out of my control though. Nothing much you can do when you have loaded your gun but fire only blanks. Its 10 years now since I got married with all these lofty dreams. 10 years where I seem to have come cropper.
This morning has been no different from yesterday. I woke up well after Lila would have started work in office and decided to give the shave a miss today too. I like the 'stubbled' look and I am thinking of keeping it. I then made myself a cup of my favorite black coffee with no sugar and have been sitting in the den ever since with my laptop open. I seriously have nothing useful to do. I tried following the stock market for a few days but then I just got bored. I tried watching one of them serials on tv and I felt a strong urge to kill myself. I ve tried sports but I just get too tired. Hence, I just sit in the den.
Lila called a while back to tell me that she is going for an office party. Its funny how there was no offer for me to join in. Not that I would have, but I still find it funny how she hates to just introduce me as her bum of a husband in front of all the shiny staff around her. I just think that I will settle down with some leftovers and watch butch cassidy and the sundance kid until she comes home.
Its morning. I woke up on the chair in the den with an aching shoulder and then realized that I had slept all through the night in the den. Lila had not woken me up and there seemed to be no other presence in the house meaning that she had probably left for work. I just walked dazed to the bathroom to take a shower and noticed that the laundry basket was empty. Which was odd cos usually Lila would have left her previous days clothes there for me to throw into the washing machine. But there was nothing. I suddenly had a premonition that something was not quite right and saw that her bed hadn't been slept in. All the remaining sleep vanished from my system and I rushed to call her.
I m sitting in the den again. The long and short of Lila not coming home during the night was that she was never gonna come back. She has found the perfect person to share her life with at the party last night. I know that a tequila induced haze is a dangerous thing but even through that one thing had been clear to her. I no longer fitted in her life and she had decided to break away.
No worries. If this is how life was intended to turn out, what else can I do but live along? It does hurt a bit thinking about Lila but there is only so much a human being can take I suppose. Or maybe she was just a selfish bitch. Whatever.
To be continued..
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