Taking It Easy

I read a column by Pritish Nandy in Bangalore Times yesterday titled – “Taking it easy”. Not sure if it was my yesterday’s contemplative mood or the relevance of the article which made me like this one so much. Word by word, I found it to be so significant and applicable to lives of many of us.

A piece from the article: “We pay fees for clubs we seldom use, gyms we never visit, doctors we have no faith in, time share resorts we will never go to. It’s all part of the same syndrome. Keeping up with those who you think are better off than you. It could be a friend, a neighbor or that guy in the office you hate the most. You want what he has without figuring whether you really need it. Or even want it. That’s why our homes are crammed with stuff we have grown out of. That stupid music system no one uses because we each have our own iPods. Those ridiculous sneakers we bought that promised to tone our butts as we walked or that joke of a cream that claimed to stop ageing. We are idiots, blindly responding to the stimuli of commercial messaging.
Is it possible to get off this treacherous treadmill? It is. The answer lies in breaking the sameness, deconstructing the routine of our lives, finding new things to do. None of this costs money. What costs money is staying on the treadmill, constantly running. Migrating from your Nokia to a Blackberry may be expensive but leaving it at home and hanging out at the local bookshop is not. No, it doesn’t diminish you if you carry last season’s LV or drive a Nano. You don’t have to afford that paint job in your house every Diwali. Instead, frame those family pictures and hang them up. You may recall many lovely memories that a spotless wall can’t offer. Skip some episodes of Bigg Boss; learn to play the guitar instead. Drop that Ceasar’s salad; try a vada pao. It won’t wreck your diet plan. Even if it does, it won’t matter as long as you’re happy. Feed a street dog. Buy a flute from that young flautist outside the Jehangir. Go trekking. Skip the newspaper. Stroll in a park.”

Sameness, scheduled and stressed…ain’t most of the working young people experiencing the same? Baring a few, I think to whomsoever I speak these days have to say almost similar things about their lives. Speaking about me, I have been going through millions of questions in my mind for past few days. Some spinning around this article and many in different other trajectories.
To think of it, it’s now 7. 5 years for me in Corporate career, don’t remember having even 7.5 days of my own every since I started working way back in mid of 2003. Yes, same rat race every day, every week, every month and every year. Did gain a lot in career but then did I get even few days of my own to sit back, relax and think…well no! Did take some short vacations too but most of them were spent running back to my home town, then after marriage it was in-laws house and if nothing else then managing different tragedies which kept on happening one after another. I try to think more and no, I don’t remember having even a week’s off which was just for me and myself! There are books all around me now but no time to read, so many places which I wanna see but no time to go, those dream holidays which I can afford now but no time to take off, those yum food which I always wanted to try but health does not permit now to do so, that strong desire to just go out and laze around in the warmth of sun on those bright sunny days but then it’s yet another weekday, that……….well I think I can list down some endless desires which most of the times end with but, but and some more buts. And I also know it’s not just me, it’s many like me who go through the same every day. Where’s that thing known as “Taking It Easy” gone for us? And will it ever come back? Well……..

Don’t miss to read the complete article by Pritish Nandy here.