Life has been busy these days. 'No time' became a cliched phrase. I am revolving in a mundane daily routine. Going to office, coming back home, watching TV, playing online games, eating, sleeping, all in that order of priority. In between these, are 24 hours, family members, dearest friends, smiling kids, noisy teenagers, pleasant places, tasty food and many more. But I chose to ignore them. I have been doing this from the past 3 years. Well, I am stoned enough not to get bored for few more years, I realized that only recently. Realization about both getting stoned and bored.
I made a trip recently to my grandma's place, a village with 500 houses all in all, those including migrated and those still remained at their roots. I have experienced the unusual the second I stepped into the village. The good unusual. I was hit by a cool gust of breeze the moment I entered this nature-friendly zone. I perked my head out of the window to greedily breathe the fresh air as much as I can, forgetting that I have 2 more weeks here. There were never-ending crop fields on both sides of the muddy road. I landed in a place I mostly imagined (when read in books), sometimes seen (as shown in movies), but never been.
My grandma's house had a homely and welcoming feel. Every step and corner of the home made me comfortable. The untiled floor never bothered my pedicured feet, the huge pillars at the entrance formed the artifacts, the smoke from clay stoves din't burn my otherwise sensitive eyes, the lavishly big door-less rooms din't intrude my privacy. Instead, two big green fish formations at the entrance became my pets, the corners of the huge pillars helped me create a new game, round-and-round. There is a huge front-garden with vegetable plants and there was always a unique, different smell around us; a mix of stray animals wandering around, empty strip of land across the road and of familiar love.
I would walk barefoot on the fields, eat in earthenware squatting on floor, take long walks, spend good time with myself. In short, I did what I never get to do in my city life. I simply carried clothes, novels, a dairy and my phone for this one month trip. My phone couldn't get signals in this remote area and hence there was no internet, no facebook, no online chatting or browsing. I surprisingly realized, I am not missing any of them or my usual life. In fact, I found here something that went missing from my life few years ago.
In my alone time I tried to figure out the reasons for my 'mundane routine'. There seems to be more than one. The most important being - "I am surrounded here by humans, not machines". Humans who talk, laugh, touch, interact with me about trivial issues. They were not my family, friends, colleagues or neighbors. They were all noones and the topics we spoke about were nothings. My busy life reciprocated before my eyes. I counted the number of number of people I meet in my day. My family, neighbors, watchman, lift operator, kids going to school, bus driver- helper duo, co-passengers in the bus, office janitors, house-keeping staff, scores of employees, team mates and the same set of people on the way back. And machines include alarm, electronic shower, hair-styler, mobile phone, toaster, smokeless stove, refrigerator, A/C, ipod, tablet, laptop, data card, TV, remote, mood lights across the house. The list including both the useful and useless machines only grew and grew. And so did my understanding.
I carried my realization back home with me, now content and happy. I replaced the lights in my home with plants, reduced the usage of electronics as much as I can, never brought work back home at any cost, enjoyed every curl in my hair, bought a clay stove and earthenware for actual home-made food. And to humans, I gave my time, love, ears and a smile. Found a way towards my happy life.
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