Years ago, when I first went to New York, what struck me about the city was its incredible energy, its joie de vivre. That was the first thing that struck me about Shah Rukh when I first saw him on the screen. Energy sets a city and a man apart. You either have it or you don’t.
There’s nothing wrong with not having it. People run away from high energy cities to find R&R on sunny beaches or quiet mountains, to spend some time with themselves or those they love. It helps to introspect, heighten one’s own search. While high voltage cities excite you, you must occasionally escape them if you want to find yourself. In Mumbai, for instance, there’s simply no opportunity to do so. You are either hanging from a crowded train or caught in a nervewracking traffic jam. Or rushing from one meeting to the next, accomplishing nothing.
Breakneck cities remind me of Parkinson’s Law. That work expands to fill up the time available for its completion. Everyone here is so busy running around that I often wonder when they actually get some work done because most real work demands a certain degree of stillness, contemplation, thought. No one has time for that any more. Everyone feels that if they don’t rush around, they will miss out on something they can’t afford to.
This fear of missing out drives the new consumer obsession. Advertising offers us unbeatable arguments for buying anything, from a fairness cream to a fourth cellphone or a tenth pair of distressed jeans. It persuades us that the absence of that product or experience from our lives lessens us. So someone who lives in a lovely rented flat for Rs 5000 a month goes and buys a home for Rs 5 crore on borrowed money to become a slave to EMIs for 20 years. There was a time when we lived comfortably, well within our means. We did what we wanted to do. We had choice. Today we are yoked to compulsive ambitions forced upon us. Like Pavlov’s dog, we run on a treadmill that won’t stop. What’s worse, we pretend to enjoy it. Even our holidays are typical. The same Goa or the same Dubai, to hang around with the same friends. Oxford Street, to shop for the same silly stuff. Or boring Bangkok to pick up fake brands and cheap sex.
Mumbai’s energy is now boringly predictable. Perfectly decent roads are being messed up to build walkways in the sky that no one uses. Exquisite old villas are being torn down to be replaced by highrise slums, where you pay monthly maintenance bills that could fetch you a fine 3 bedroom flat on rent. 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 neighbour 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. DVDs we buy instead of hiring the movie from the video library next door. 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. Put up a sparrow shelter outside your window.
Live easy. It’s much more fun. Do I? Not always but I try. It’s like breathing. Whenever you remember, just take a few long deep breaths and exhale fully. Most times we don’t because we have forgotten how to breathe right. Rush is the new seduction. Stay with cool. That’s my New Year resolution.
There’s nothing wrong with not having it. People run away from high energy cities to find R&R on sunny beaches or quiet mountains, to spend some time with themselves or those they love. It helps to introspect, heighten one’s own search. While high voltage cities excite you, you must occasionally escape them if you want to find yourself. In Mumbai, for instance, there’s simply no opportunity to do so. You are either hanging from a crowded train or caught in a nervewracking traffic jam. Or rushing from one meeting to the next, accomplishing nothing.
Breakneck cities remind me of Parkinson’s Law. That work expands to fill up the time available for its completion. Everyone here is so busy running around that I often wonder when they actually get some work done because most real work demands a certain degree of stillness, contemplation, thought. No one has time for that any more. Everyone feels that if they don’t rush around, they will miss out on something they can’t afford to.
This fear of missing out drives the new consumer obsession. Advertising offers us unbeatable arguments for buying anything, from a fairness cream to a fourth cellphone or a tenth pair of distressed jeans. It persuades us that the absence of that product or experience from our lives lessens us. So someone who lives in a lovely rented flat for Rs 5000 a month goes and buys a home for Rs 5 crore on borrowed money to become a slave to EMIs for 20 years. There was a time when we lived comfortably, well within our means. We did what we wanted to do. We had choice. Today we are yoked to compulsive ambitions forced upon us. Like Pavlov’s dog, we run on a treadmill that won’t stop. What’s worse, we pretend to enjoy it. Even our holidays are typical. The same Goa or the same Dubai, to hang around with the same friends. Oxford Street, to shop for the same silly stuff. Or boring Bangkok to pick up fake brands and cheap sex.
Mumbai’s energy is now boringly predictable. Perfectly decent roads are being messed up to build walkways in the sky that no one uses. Exquisite old villas are being torn down to be replaced by highrise slums, where you pay monthly maintenance bills that could fetch you a fine 3 bedroom flat on rent. 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 neighbour 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. DVDs we buy instead of hiring the movie from the video library next door. 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. Put up a sparrow shelter outside your window.
Live easy. It’s much more fun. Do I? Not always but I try. It’s like breathing. Whenever you remember, just take a few long deep breaths and exhale fully. Most times we don’t because we have forgotten how to breathe right. Rush is the new seduction. Stay with cool. That’s my New Year resolution.
