Goodbye Cruel World

Read an excellent story today in the Guardian about the ‘Exhaustion Epidemic’. A lot of people complain of tiredness and exhaustion from the daily stresses that batter them: jobs, family, work pressure etc. Go to work, rush back home, do the household chores, get ready for the next day…without respite for weeks and months on end. No wonder people feel like physical wrecks.
It’s a feeling I am all too familiar with. Work leaves me with very little time to do anything else, and what free time I get is spent catching up on sleep. I maintain a stoic calm and go about the week like a zombie on auto-pilot. The one off-day I get is spent sleeping off the effects of the past week’s exhaustion with maybe 2 hours spent alone in the bar next to home drinking beer and staring at the wall. Sometimes this façade gets ripped open. It usually happens when I see pictures of the lunar landscape of Ladakh on Lonely Planet or lions lazily stretching about in the wilds of Kenya without a care in life on Discovery Channel. Then I curse this life of mine.
Once, two years ago things reached such a pass that I began questioning the meaning of my life. All sorts of existential questions popped in my mind in rapid succession during the course of a turbulent 3 month period. I questioned the purpose of my life. At the end of it I was so sick of my modern urban existence that I was seriously contemplating quitting the rat race and living in Ladakh for a year.
That phase has since retreated, but I am sure it will surface again. And when it does what will I do? Will I be prepared to deal with it? Can I keep my sanity intact? Or will the urge to explore rip me apart?
I have this intense desire to travel. Not the well worn travel packages that are advertised for rich Indians these days: 4 days, 5 nights in Geneva; 7 nights of exclusive romance in Maldives, Experience the lights and sights of Paris (Indian food guaranteed in case you can’t eat boiled snails or roast beef).
What I want to do is see the sunrise from the craggy heights of Macchu Picchu, trek in the wild steppes of Central Asia, photograph the gazelle frolicking in the plains of Namibia, prise out the secrets of the statues of Easter Island, walk the poetic streets of Kom in Iran, go up to Everest base camp in Namche Bazaar…
But right now I am trapped in the great city of Bombay living (being dragged along would be more appropriate) the great Indian middle class dream and feeling more dead with each passing day.
The train ride to work is a reminder of how set my urban nightmare has become. See my fellow passengers on the Churchgate fast local and wonder how they could live this inflexible and unyielding life. It’s been the same story every day for the last 20 years of my next seat ‘pyare mohan’: fight with the crowds to get onto the 7:43 am fast local to Churchgate and spend 45 minutes standing, the experience being akin to a dirty shirt in a washing machine. Work, work, work. Take the 7:54 local back home, prepare for next days battle. I don’t want to live this life because I like to think I am special. I was not born to get bogged down in the ‘comfortable’ existence of middle class life: gadi, banglaa, biwi, bachche…
Can I escape this middle class dream and live the life of a nomad?

The wild world of the Internet

When was the last time you experienced a mind trip? I am not talking about an alcohol or drug-induced trip, rather when a thought or an idea or an experience expanded the horizons of your mind, made you see the world differently or even generated an immense feeling of joy and contentment. I last had that kind of a trip when I went to the ‘Bring Your Own Film Festival’ in Puri. But lately I’ve been getting my kicks from the virtual world of the internet.
The net is an amazing place to get lost in. You can wander down virtual lanes and by lanes for hours. As the famous New Yorker cartoon once said, on the net no one knows you’re a dog. There is something for everyone. Travel, sports, personal journals, videos and more.
The other day I discovered the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forum where people can ‘bluelist’ their travel experiences, basically give gyan about their favourite travel destination for the benefit of others. I logged on and enthusiastically wrote about the best trips I’ve done. It’s the next best thing to traveling and its addictive. When I read about ‘sammy’ describing his amazing camel ride in the deserts of Namibia or ‘Amy’ talking about how much fun she had crushing grapes underfoot during the harvesting season in a little village in Greece it acts as a proxy for my latent ambitions to see the world. If I can’t go there myself I can at least relive the experience through the words of others. Of course, its no substitute for the real thing and one day I hope to travel around the world. Till then I will have to satisfy my wanderlust online.
The other thing that has caught my imagination is blogs. Some are silly, some frivolous and some funny. The media blogs are hilarious: mediamamu, war for news and media malice yank the pants off hacks who take themselves too seriously. The best part is that you can be part of the blog by leaving your comment, anonymously if you choose. Then there are the political blogs. These allow dissent to be articulated in a manner which is unthinkable in the mainstream media. The internet has opened up a platform for anyone to post their 10 paise’s worth. In a sense it has democratized publishing. Call it the flat virtual world (thanks Thomas).
And apart from these the regular sites that I visit, salon, slate, countercurrents, caferati, arthedains.