Personal
Travel notes 1
Once again, after close to 9 months, I am travelling again. There’s something about travel that liberates the mind and makes me want to write.
Perhaps it’s the knowledge that I’ll be going somewhere me, somewhere exciting and very soon. Or perhaps it’s the excitement I derive from the change of routine. Or perhaps it’s none of the above. Perhaps it’s simply wanderlust.
Now, I’ve never been a particularly excited traveller. I’ve never actively sought out travel and adventure. I’ve always been the quintessential home bird especially to those who know me well. This desire to travel seems to be newly discovered. So new that even I have trouble recognising or understanding it at times.
But travel I will. At every opportunity I get. Because travel opens the mind to possibilities. Because there’s something exciting about leaving ones comfort zone and going away somewhere, to someplace unknown. Or even known but unfamiliar. So, until the next blogpost, probably coming up in less than 12 hours, so long!
On chivalry and assorted things…
Tell me honestly, when was the last time a man had the courtesy to let you pass before going through the door? Or held your chair for you to sit down in a restaurant? Can’t remember? Well, I couldn’t either until I met a friend recently. In an entirely unexpected meeting with a friend, I realised a fundamental truth: men seem to have forgotten to be chivalrous.
Now, I do realise that there are women who consider chivalry a form of chauvinism and at best, do not expect it. But, let me tell you. I’m not one of them. Give me old world charm and chivalry any day to modern-day individualism. As a woman, I enjoy being pampered. I love it when a man pauses to hold the door open for me or pulls up a chair for me to sit. Of course, I am perfectly capable of doing all those things myself, but I do feel nice to get that sort of attention from a man. However, the sad truth today is that men don’t seem to know how. Perhaps it’s the highly individualistic world in which we live, perhaps it’s the Indian male’s sense of entitlement or even an assumption that feminists don’t expect chivalry. Whatever it is, chivalry as an attribute is both disappearing and underrated.
Call me old-fashioned, but there is something incredibly attractive about a man who knows how to treat a woman. When my friend, let’s call him X, held the door open for me, I was more than just pleasantly surprised. Talking to him later in the day, I mentioned this and all he said was, “My sisters would give me a proper dressing down if they realise I didn’t do that. For me, it’s normal.”
This definition of normal seems to be fast disappearing, especially among Indian men. In my everyday interaction with men of all hues and shades, I find that almost none have the courtesy to hold a door from slamming on the face of the person behind them. Indeed, in several instances, opened a door only to find men race past me and through the door like they’re in a tearing hurry to catch a train. Very few have even had the courtesy to say thank you after I’ve stepped back and held the door for them.
In a world were common courtesy seems endangered, it was a happy surprise to know that men like X still exist. An uncommon species perhaps, but not yet completely extinct.Happy birthday, my darling
Chennai, my hometown and the only place I can call home turned 375 yesterday. For some reason, I have a strange love-hate relationship with Chennai. There are days when I’m completely contented with being here. On others, I would like nothing better than to get the hell out.
While I love the beach and everything associated with it, I could do without the heat and humidity that make life so difficult here. To me, Chennai means both freedom and stifling discipline. Chennai is where I can feel completely at ease. It is also where I feel constrained and restricted by social mores and everything that surrounds it.
Chennai is an oxymoron. Chennai is beautiful, but also annoying as hell.
But whatever it may be to everyone else, for me it will remain home. Perhaps my only and definitely my first.Decisions…
Every once in a while, we all look back and wonder how life would have been had we chosen differently. Talking to a friend earlier today, I was struck by much the same thought. A series of “what ifs” presented itself during my conversation, to which I don’t necessarily have answers.
What if, after finishing school with decent marks in the Sciences, I had chosen to pursue the same profession as millions of my compatriots? Would I have been among those comfortably settled in the US or elsewhere part of a several hundred thousand strong IT workforce? Or would I have, already fed up if being an IT wage slave have given up on a career and settled for domestic bliss?
What if, after graduation, I had actually taken the pains to write the civil services exams? Perhaps, I would today have had a comfortably cushy government job with all the associated perks.
What if I had not rejected the possibility of studying Social Work and ended up as a recruiter with some headhunter? Would I have found myself in a better, or perhaps worse, position than the one I’m in today.
What if I had chosen to stay in Paris rather than coming back? Would I have found an interesting job, love and life there?
What if I had chosen to marry young? What if I had been less stubborn, more focused or more flexible? What if…what if…
There are no answers to any of these questions. We will never know if life would have been better or worse had we made different decisions at various stages in life. Perhaps there indeed exist several parallel lifetimes like Richard Bach explores in One. Perhaps in another world, somewhere else, there is another me leading a different life.
And perhaps all this just too metaphysical for the human mind to comprehend. But, these questions will somehow keep coming back. Because,isn’t it always interesting to know how decisions affect our lives?
On life, love and everything else…
Every once in a while, life teaches you a lesson. It jerks you out of complacency and tells you to wake up and smell the coffee. I get the feeling that life has been sending out a very similar signal to me lately. For some strange reason, I thought of someone who hasn’t really been on the top of my mind anytime in the recent past. Nandini. The closest I’ve ever had to a sibling, she was cheerful, bubbly and everything else a 20-year old should be.
Over seven years after she passed away in a road accident, I’m suddenly thinking of her again. I don’t really know what triggered the thought, but something made me wish she were still around somewhere. What I wouldn’t give to be able to hear her voice and talk to her right now! All this is a reminder of how transient life really is. Here one day, gone the next. Today was a reminder of everything I’ve never bothered to notice all these years.
Today I learnt that you only live once. If you miss this opportunity, it’s gone forever and you may never get a chance to do this again. I learnt that the one thing money can’t buy is good health. Ruin it, and you may not even live to regret it. I also learnt that it’s easy to make mistakes but very difficult to correct those mistakes and ensure they don’t recur. I learnt that if you can only ever prioritize one thing in life, it should probably be your body and its well being.
Maybe, just maybe life gives you those little shocks and disappointments only to warn you that your time is running out. Maybe the Greeks we’re right all along. Carpe diem. Seize the day, because it’s all you have.