'Sometimes I think I understand everything... and then I regain consciousness'.
So runs the post-script on the title bar of my chat msngr. I think I understand why I am here, isolated in my hotel room for the second consecutive day, working my third weekend in a row, passing up opportunities to spend time with friends the way I want... I get paid for it, right! This is a part of my job. I accepted the possibility of the occurrence of such situations when I signed the contract with the employer.
I think I understand why my folks cannot quite figure out, at the first instance, why I am almost screeching my frustration into the phone's mouth-piece... I gave them no warning! The last time that I called them, a week ago, I had assured them that everything was on track, that I would be home when they expected me. I also explicitly asked them not to call me. How would they know how the circumstances, perceptions changed?
I think I understand why my friends are almost shocked that I could be so rude, when I snap at them, hang up the phone without warning, refuse to respond to their concerned probing, make them look like the enemy... They are after all different from me. How would they know what's been going on in my head over the past week that I've not spoken with them? I didn't provide a context, did I?!
And yet, I expect! I expect to be elsewhere on my weekend, on a well-earned break! I expect that my folks would be able to tell that I'm not in the best of moods, and calm my agitation! I expect that my friends will call more often and check on how I'm doing, or at least promise to do so...
I get tired sometimes of being such a rational human being. "Logic", they say, is the ruin of the spirit. I don't want to be a robot that goes about the wordly motions based on what logical consequences of actions would dictate. I want to be a little irrational at times, to stop worrying about how I'm perceived by people around me. And I expect people to understand that! At least the ones who claim to know me... it can be too much to ask, I know. I might have hurt someone because of the expectation. I'm sorry, I really am. But I owe myself some honesty. And the truth is that I am only concentrating on myself, at least for now.
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"If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours; otherwise it never was. But if it just sits in your living room, messes up your stuff, eats the food you cook, uses your telephone, takes your money, and doesn’t appear to realise that you had set it free... then you either married it or gave birth to it!"
tiramisu
Sunday, 23 October 2005
Tuesday, 4 October 2005
Jammers unite!
It’s 6.20 pm (Time Zone: GMT + 0700). I’m sitting in a taxi. Have been sitting in it for the past 45 minutes. I am now half-way to my destination. Ideally, I should have reached my destination ten minutes ago, but then how would I have got the chance to write today?! Guess what I’m thinking of at the moment?... the situation that I am currently in – a traffic jam!
Now I’ve been in traffic jams several times before this, in several different situations, in several cities, in several countries. The things that go through my mind in the first moment of realisation that I’m stuck, however, are remarkably (!) the same. How and why did I get onto this route?! What could I have done to avoid this? What are the follow-on effects of this delay??
Maybe I should be a little forgiving. Maybe I should think about other things that might actually make my life easier. So what goes through my mind in the next moments after that first one?
When I was stuck on Andheri-Kurla Road in Mumbai in peak hour traffic for 55 minutes on a stretch that should have taken 12, all because the municipal corporation had dug up the pot-holed roadsides reducing the motorable road to half its size, I thought about whether I would be around to see when the road was a four-lane highway.
When I was being driven to my home in the suburbs of Mumbai on July 27th 2005, I thanked God for keeping me dry and safe at a time when the incessant rains had taken so many lives in the city, let alone destroying the homes of tens of thousands more.
When I was returning from my local bazaar tour of Chatu-chak market in Bangkok, I took the opportunity to appreciate the colourful costumes of some of the older generation Thai locals, and the happy co-existence of the uncovered, polluting tuk-tuk (Thai version of the Indian auto-rickshaw) with the latest versions of luxury cars on the same road.
In Kuala Lumpur, I could see the Petronas twin towers (next to which my office is located) from the entrance of my hotel’s lobby. The distance of 1.5 kilometres, easily walkable in 20 minutes, took more than 35 minutes to drive through. I wondered whether mankind had traded efficiency, health, frugality and peace of mind for wastage, arteriosclerosis and environmental deterioration.
In London, I almost started to agree with the logic behind such a hefty congestion charge (GBP 5.00) for each entry into Zone 1, the city centre, during the peak hours.
Now, as I sit in this high-end air-conditioned taxi in Jakarta, protected from the sultry heat and smoke that’s on the outside, I think first of the cabbie who is being robbed, literally, because the taxi-meter runs on distance rather than any combination of that and waiting time. Yet he manages to smile at our predicament and proposes a solution in his broken English. A weak solution, but a solution nevertheless. I shall give him a decent tip.
Next, I think of the multitudes across the globe trying to get somewhere. The vehicles on the roads have increased by an order of magnitude from the number there were five years ago. Cheaper cars, more cars, more people, more cars, higher income, more cars, sometimes more roads too, but mostly, more jams!! Man tries to devise methods to reduce the time required for any activity. The better he is able to do it, the more he rewards himself – the youngest scientist award, the child prodigy, the fastest man on earth. Where do traffic jams fit in? I am now about a quarter of the way to my hotel, the destination. It’s 7.20 pm.
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The best way to forget all your troubles is to wear tight shoes. :D
Now I’ve been in traffic jams several times before this, in several different situations, in several cities, in several countries. The things that go through my mind in the first moment of realisation that I’m stuck, however, are remarkably (!) the same. How and why did I get onto this route?! What could I have done to avoid this? What are the follow-on effects of this delay??
Maybe I should be a little forgiving. Maybe I should think about other things that might actually make my life easier. So what goes through my mind in the next moments after that first one?
When I was stuck on Andheri-Kurla Road in Mumbai in peak hour traffic for 55 minutes on a stretch that should have taken 12, all because the municipal corporation had dug up the pot-holed roadsides reducing the motorable road to half its size, I thought about whether I would be around to see when the road was a four-lane highway.
When I was being driven to my home in the suburbs of Mumbai on July 27th 2005, I thanked God for keeping me dry and safe at a time when the incessant rains had taken so many lives in the city, let alone destroying the homes of tens of thousands more.
When I was returning from my local bazaar tour of Chatu-chak market in Bangkok, I took the opportunity to appreciate the colourful costumes of some of the older generation Thai locals, and the happy co-existence of the uncovered, polluting tuk-tuk (Thai version of the Indian auto-rickshaw) with the latest versions of luxury cars on the same road.
In Kuala Lumpur, I could see the Petronas twin towers (next to which my office is located) from the entrance of my hotel’s lobby. The distance of 1.5 kilometres, easily walkable in 20 minutes, took more than 35 minutes to drive through. I wondered whether mankind had traded efficiency, health, frugality and peace of mind for wastage, arteriosclerosis and environmental deterioration.
In London, I almost started to agree with the logic behind such a hefty congestion charge (GBP 5.00) for each entry into Zone 1, the city centre, during the peak hours.
Now, as I sit in this high-end air-conditioned taxi in Jakarta, protected from the sultry heat and smoke that’s on the outside, I think first of the cabbie who is being robbed, literally, because the taxi-meter runs on distance rather than any combination of that and waiting time. Yet he manages to smile at our predicament and proposes a solution in his broken English. A weak solution, but a solution nevertheless. I shall give him a decent tip.
Next, I think of the multitudes across the globe trying to get somewhere. The vehicles on the roads have increased by an order of magnitude from the number there were five years ago. Cheaper cars, more cars, more people, more cars, higher income, more cars, sometimes more roads too, but mostly, more jams!! Man tries to devise methods to reduce the time required for any activity. The better he is able to do it, the more he rewards himself – the youngest scientist award, the child prodigy, the fastest man on earth. Where do traffic jams fit in? I am now about a quarter of the way to my hotel, the destination. It’s 7.20 pm.
*************************************************************************************
The best way to forget all your troubles is to wear tight shoes. :D
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