I love buying toilet paper. The thought of deciding that I need to buy a second batch, gets me all excited. As odd as that line would sound to most of you, I believe it makes perfect sense. The thing is we are all merely hunters and gatherers (http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/05/17/the-human-animal-bbc/). It is in our nature to make every place we spend some amount of time in as homely as possible. Given that most of these places are transitory in nature, it still does not deter us from adding our own little touches, kind of like the drawings on the wall to say “I was here”. It is not just that woman are into it, men indulge in it as well. Although a woman’s personalisation can be more aesthetically pleasing, than the cigarette stubs and dirty socks lying around belonging to a man…enough said. You get the picture. So in my own little way, I decided to add a personal touch to my new room by adding little shiny glow in the dark star thingies. They look cute. Kind of make me feel like a kid lying down on the terrace and gazing at the stars. I also added a new calligraphy to the wall, which is proper shiny. (I like shiny).
Collectively we are Bedouins. Not literally, but by way of how we live our lives, we are not much different. We move from one place to another, for a variety of reasons. That movement involves one in acclimatizing to the new place, familiarising with the changes around ones person. We as people acclimatize, but not in the blink of eye. It takes time to blend in, and in that period one needs something familiar to hold on and have a sense of balance. Kind of like ragged old blanky kids might hold onto, though if they do the same when well past into their 30’s, red flags ought to go up! I digress. So, we all have our little knick knacks to ease us through the transitory phase. Mine’s my little boofle mug and fetish for buying toilet paper. But I have to say this, nowhere in the world have I seen people so gung-ho about personal artefacts and comfort items as that in India. We Indians love to carry our world with us. Whether it is a jar of mango pickle aboard an international flight, or our multiple god figurines, we love our little India everywhere. In my last work place, I was still getting used to seeing all the gods, all the family pictures, stuffed animals, prayer books, lunch bags and over-night change of clothes-all at one desk for one person! So here comes a new joinee, I walk past her desk, saying hi, being nice, and I walk back after 20 minutes and already she has made a mini shrine complete will bells and pink fluffy thingies around her computer. It was like the power puff girls attacked! I so wish I had taken a picture of that….hmmm.. As important as it is to hold onto something from the past to move into the present, sometimes it is more important to let go of a tiny bit to accept the new. A perfect balance is a utopian concept, yet we can but try. So whilst I relish seeing mini living rooms on every desk I pass at work, I shall keep missing my little white and red boofle mug back home..hmm..
As experiences go, I think (to be read as “I know”) that I am great at procrastinating. I mean, not just great but I believe there’s some subtle excellence as to how imaginative I can actually be once I put my mind to it. Now don’t you be judgemental my dears, I know no one reading this can deny their own run in’s with the imminent foreboding of having to actually get something done. Somehow the means always seem long and arduous when compared to the end. Hrmph! So having posted blogs almost on a daily basis and nurturing my new found hobby of a mental sieve, my computer decided to kick the bucket and hence the 2 month hiatus of not posting anything. Then further stretching of the hiatus by invented and innovated excuses to one self. Tragic! Apologies to all who asked me about it (warm glow), I appreciate your support. Much has happened in these odd months, and my thoughts at present are like them pretty shiny streams in the whatchamacallit Dumbledoor picks memories from and shows them to Harry the Potter! One that does come forth, or rather solidifies into a tangible experience is how seriously we take ourselves and our paltry situations. If one were to actually write them all down on these little sticky notes and spread it all on the table, I can bet, not only will they not amount to more than 5, but more often than not, can easily be tackled with a different approach. Misery begets company. There is this romanticism about self-pity and making oneself out as a martyr of circumstances which one feels is above all pain in the world and which is pushing us down, deeper into earth, which by itself is almost like our pain being fossilized! Pshaw! Tish Tosh! The fact of the matter is we haven’t seen what real worry and pain really feels like. It is because we haven’t seen what the “real” pain is like, that we sit and wallow in silly self-pity and ascribe words which sound oh so deep and meaningful. To talk of words, there is this one experience I shall never forget in my life. Back in the hostel days, I was having an insomniac night and upset with a few factors, hence I decided to pen down my very “unique” and “deep” problems because I wanted to flatter and exaggerate what I was going through, and feeling that I was the first and the last and lonesome in feeling the way I felt, I headed by the pool side and started writing, and continued to do so, till life started stirring around me. I read it and made myself feel the magnitude of my pain. It seemed so impressive and poignant, I was flattered. 6 years down the line, after serious consideration to spring cleaning, I happened to find the very same “poignant piece of literature” and realized- Man! What a load of hogwash! I can say that now because I have in those 6 years experienced such a varied variety of pain, that it never even occurred for me to write it down. No, I think one life time is enough to have experienced, writing it down would only be reliving it, and that’s a Hell to the NO! The point here is not that I have experienced pain more or less than others, or that we should not give credence to pain. The point is not to take it so seriously that it ends up becoming all encompassing. I don’t do self-help books, they make no gosh darn sense to me! They are so upbeat and positive; that it almost feels as if the sheer positiveness of those words are strangulating me. But if it works for you, well hey ho! Its only human to feel lonely in ones misery and to magnify it, but one must, for one’s own sake of sanity and for those who care of us, learn to pull oneself out of this self-loathing, criticism and extreme self-analysis. It’s a cul-de-sac. We are but children learning to walk. We stumble, and we fall, but we rise again. Its nature, quite simply. Just that one ought not to be so hard on oneself and take oneself so seriously. In the end, jokes on us! Fact of the matter is, that apart from the small things we crib about, when the real shit hits the fan, the shock of it is so over whelming, that quite frankly,it would render us speechless, as only silence can carry the magnitude of the pain which it will inflict on one. I guess Rainer Maria Rilke, (Duino Elegies) says its best: And we, who always think of happiness rising, would feel the emotion that almost baffles us when a happy thing falls.” So lets hold on to what we have, and not make too big a deal of what we don’t, because we really, and I mean really, don’t want to know/experience what it feels like to not have anything at all. Amen to that! Take it away Louis….
