on your guard

The week long hiatus has done wonders for me. I have finally understood the meaning of life. It is nothing but a self-winding ukulele. And like everything nowadays, it too is probably made in China.

All this serious hardship-overcoming, weepy, mostly obese people you see courtesy Oprah or "I Lived Without Hope in a Coca-Cola Can" equivalent, motivational, self-help bestsellers are great. For television channels and psychologists' waiting rooms i.e. I mean, it can make you go all goose-pimply. And occasionally you might even get all charged up to take control of your life. Sure. But if you think that you too can become one of them, think again.

That's because to take control, you will have to let go first. Firstly, of the obsessions that we don't recognise as ones in the first place. And more often than not, it is mere routine. Our lives are governed by a persistent, urban tick-tock that we simply cannot ignore. Wake up. Make tea. Scan the headlines. Rush to the loo with an unlit cigarette. Hear the phone ring. Mutter bad words. Run around the shower. Take a cab. Ignore the rain calling out to the finer senses. Argue with the cabbie. Swipe your card. Ah. You are there. Ready to sit for 12 straight hours, staring at a screen. Doing random big things that have the potential to change the world. Your very own chaos theory.

The best way out is to get lost. For a few minutes everyday. Amid the grey walls. In that comic book. Or a small fragment of childhood memory. A bowl of yoghurt. A rubik's cube. A hand-written letter. A long distance call only to recount an old joke. In trying to hum the beginning bars of your favourite song. Calling up Dad. Maybe even polishing your bicycle.

It makes us superior beings. Far more evolved than the briefcase-carrying dork who crosses the road thinking of what stocks to buy. Or the morbidly ambitious, jargon-blurting executive who does everything for himself. Or the madman television evangelist with a villa in Greece.

My last post was a little more than a week back. I felt happy that day. It's been two weekends hence and I cannot recall what I did on any of the days. Most of the time, I was just lying on bed trying to answer these questions. A mismatch of ideologies, cuisines and weather patterns.

But this Monday morning, something is different. I feel a strange readiness to face the week. Maybe even torment it, my own way. But I refuse to succumb to it's cold routine. So I take a deep breath. Here I come.

Ready or not.