I think the pleasure of navigating lies with the person behind the wheel. Losing your way often results in finding adventure when you have all the control. With control comes the thrill of determining the next move – the provocation of impending discovery, the extended comfort of making decisions that are bang on, the anguish after ones that are not, the joy of correcting yourself and the general euphoria that comes only in moments when you know you’re breathing freedom, moments when you believe in free will. Who can tire of knowing that the road ahead depends on him?

The *passenger-seat-company* meanwhile, gets the pleasure of spacing out – the way you can only do when you relinquish all control or stand unaware of its existence. The bliss of watching your thoughts run into each other is liberation of another kind, intoxicating too. At its worst it is but laid back idleness. At its best though, it brings your senses alive. This particular freedom is quite diligent about knocking at the walls inside our minds. You’d think it’d be distracted once a few bricks are down and there are new windows to peep out of but it rests only when they’ve all been razed. I guess it’s the only way when you’re in transit and powerless. You belong nowhere, you know nothing. All that lies in your control is creating the new and unseen. Maybe the first travelogue was born out of this need. While, the idea of navigating is pure romance, I remain partial to this other freedom for the way it allows my mind to nurture what it loves best… thoughts. I think it’s why I’m not exactly possessed with excitement at the thought of driving around but can’t resist drives.

But then there is that wretched entity called time. It is a constraint that is known to strangle all freedom irrespective of what kind it is and the capacity in which it is being enjoyed. It pulls the most leisurely brooders down to earth and whips them into becoming practical. I thus, ask for directions. And I did. It was a heritage building that we looked for so I assumed any person could be relied upon. We slowed down at a tea stall that was entertaining a dozen late-afternoon slackers. One in particular, was not exactly attentive but he was the closest to us. You could tell that he had just been handed his cup, full and steaming and all. Possession of freshly made tea however, didn’t seem to break his daze much. He was perched on his bike, staring blankly at his feet. Of course I could relate to his daze so almost hated myself for snapping him out of it just to ask for directions. At the mention of the building though, he stepped down and drew himself tall, cup still in hand. I braced myself to internalize complicated directions but much to our surprise, he said, “I’ll take you people”. “Is it very close?” I asked. “No, but you’ll waste time finding your way, soon the place will shut down for the day” was his explanation. He put his cup aside on a plank, full and steaming and all. We were soon following his lead through the chaotic marketplace of our slightly-less-alien-and-more-friendly city.

Was our impromptu guide that kind a person that he’d chuck his tea and fantasies and step out in the raging sun to maneuver through choked traffic just so a couple of knuckleheads could click some fancy pictures of a dilapidated building and put them up on Facebook? Ok so he didn’t know about Facebook intentions or he might have (should have) refused, but still.

Or was he that proud of his town’s heritage that he couldn’t bear the thought of any visitor not appreciating it?

Or did the sense of duty and purpose towards helping strangers meet their goals give him joy that was more gratifying than all other freedoms?

It’s not an altogether absurd idea. Some of you *would* do that wouldn’t you? I know I would if I could. What good would his intention and knowledge be if he didn’t have his vehicle? I need to become a better driver.

When I miss conversations I ask questions.
Answer this for me?
I don’t care if you get literal or esoteric or philosophical or metaphorical.
Tell me what’s on your mind is all I ask.

Have you noticed how so many of us, so often feel ‘low’? Maybe it’s just us bipolar ones but as soon as we are a notch below “the-ideal-happy” we become aware of the sink. And we dream of going up a rung again. It makes us realize that something is not right with us. That something ought to be done about it. “Time to distract yourself” we tell ourselves and start watching some inane sitcom or call up some small-talk making person we otherwise would never call. Why?

It’s like hotness. 10/10 hotness is the ideal. Yes, every time I look in the mirror I’m very aware of the fact that I’m about 2.74 (us geeks, we love random decimals, especially if they rhyme with 3.14) on that scale but I don’t start doing sit-ups each time I’m reminded of it? Do you go for a run each time your elbow digs into that extra tyre? Why don’t you? Too much work? And happiness is just a ‘state of mind’ so it can be reached instantly? Minds are *so* much easier to work on than bodies.

You wish.

I say D-I-T-C-H.

Strive for cool. Cool is when you’re trying for nothing.

Take an hour out for a run.

Take a couple of hours out on things you love (has to be double than exercise please)

Live with the tyres and sunken feelings at other times.

And if you have more than three hours to spare to really work on your mind and body. Hell, You’re Sorted.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this makes you go “it’s not that simple”. Well it isn’t. I think that’s one of the wisest realizations of all respectable intellects – that hitting *simple* is complicated. Which is why, all respectable intellects must eventually fall back on their gut (wow you totally didn’t see that coming huh? I could have just said listen to your heart and made you hurl).

What is simple then? How does one fall back on the damn gut? That great releaser of know-it-all instincts?  The only answer I have is that you know. Do you know anything? Something? That…yes…you know a bit about that? It will feed your intuition because that’s what happens to the things we really know. They get devoured by the intuition monster which then does a funny dance that our brains can’t ignore and all the stupid of our life follows. All the stupid that defines us, makes us tick and helps us wade through the crap we were sure of drowning in. We are all about the stupid. It’s just effing hard to remember it when you need it the most. When choices are breathing down your neck. Yes. The times you *really* need to remember everything you’re about? Are when you know you could easily do any of many things.

Complicated: is trying to find that perfect scheme of things which will blow your mind and rain comfort down your parched brain. It is waiting for that moment when everything you want strikes the right note with each other and your thoughts jiggle in harmony.  It is doing all you can to make that moment happen. It is thinking all you can to make that choice ‘naturally’ emerge, all the while gathering alibis that will readily vouch for that choice. Maybe then, life will be simple?

Simple: is being ruthlessly honest to yourself. It is knowing that you’re a weakling who can’t do without some things. It is owning up… to yourself…(in secret perhaps?). To keep it simple, you keep the one thing you can’t do without. And you hold on to it. You wear it around yourself because all the things you chose not to grab and accommodate? Boy that’s gonna make its presence felt. Antidotes however, don’t make you immune.

Immunity in fact, is never an option.

Knowing that, what do you wanna try? Complicated or Simple?

Today I’m convinced that the devil lives in what is behind you. Though it doesn’t really imply that there are angels waiting for you in what lies ahead. If you stop driving though, the chances of being run-over be quite high.

Convenient. This life thing. Very.

Filed under: sketch Tagged: evil, kinetic, life, past ]]> http://royourboat.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/look-ahead/feed/ 6 Rrrrohini Well If I drove something fancier this would've looked more appealing. But that's the point. http://royourboat.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/who-cares-wins/ http://royourboat.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/who-cares-wins/#comments Fri, 09 Apr 2010 19:07:49 +0000 Rrrrohini http://royourboat.wordpress.com/?p=180 ]]> Last year I set out to find answers to one simple question – What part of her family life does the Indian home-maker love the most? Such questions are often asked in agencies, what with almost every product hoping to make its way to the home-makers’ shopping lists and every brand hoping to find a cosy spot in their minds. This was no different. Oh the speculation. We’ve seen our mums and grannies and sisters and cousins and ourselves and it’s not hard to imagine what the happy moments must comprise. Each one of those imaginable answers is valid. But it was fun to ask them anyway. Just to see which memory takes the cake? It was usually an unassuming one, plain and ordinary, but riding ahead of all other thoughts. They didn’t even need to be asked. These front-runners of their minds tumbled out as if dying to be relived.  Imprints of love have more mileage than any other. We all know that.

I can’t come up with any happy memories of my own tonight. So I decided to dig some of these up. They never fail to amuse me and make me wonder all over again… what would the story behind each of these memories be like?  

‘My in-laws and their extended family had come over… even though my husband made arrangements, he was too busy to participate… so I took them on a trip around Gujarat and handled all the planning and decision-making and really tried to take care of their comfort … so my mother-in-law went  – you’re like my third son!’

‘My father-in-law had great confidence in me, he’d be the first person to say “she can handle anything on her own” and never doubted my ability to shoulder any responsibility’

‘My parents had come to visit. My husband unexpectedly took leave from work and all and took us all on a trip and he took it upon himself to entertain my parents. I felt really cared for that day.

‘My husband booked me a spa session on valentine’s day as a surprise… I myself had never been to a spa even though I kept thinking it’d be the thing to do…’    

‘This one time my son saw that I was extremely tired and offered to make me breakfast… he can’t even serve himself food normally…’

‘My husband reads out peaceful, spiritual things to help me calm down, it’s the best stress-buster’

‘My mother in law was illiterate but very religious. My father in law used to sing/read out religious verses to her in the afternoon’

‘My husband took my parents for a movie. My dad had always refused to enter a theatre, he was a traditional reserved man but my husband managed to persuade him anyway and there were no complains’

‘You’ll be surprised to know that I don’t have the patience to make tea for my husband according to his timings so I just put it in a flask but every Sunday he wakes me up with steaming hot tea – no matter what…’

‘My husband was far away on our anniversary I was actually expecting to spend it alone. Last minute he took a bunch of flights and trains and god knows what he did but the doorbell rang in the morning and I opened the door to find him standing there with a bouquet…it was out of a movie’

‘There was a time when my husband stood up against his own family members in support for my father. That day I was grateful to God that I’m married to someone who sees my family to be his too’

‘On valentines day my husband filled a friend’s gazebo with flowers, teddy bears and candles and surprised me by taking me there… I’m a fan of these things’

‘I can’t cook. He doesn’t expect me to cook. He’s a foodie mind you. I could NOT have asked for anything more’

‘On our anniversary I had been visiting my mother’s house. When I came home my husband and family literally swooped me up in their arms and surprised me with a decorated house and a small party going. I thought they had lost their minds…’

‘My daughter gave me a surprise b’day party at 12 in the night just between the two of us. She had put balloons and cake in a room and bought me a lil present. It was silly but sweet.’

‘My husband made it a point to teach me how to drive after we got married so that I could have my independence. I would’ve never learnt otherwise and I am really glad I have this freedom.’

‘My husband cooks really well even though he doesn’t need to do it on a regular basis. Sometimes when I’m tired from work though, he himself takes the initiative of cooking for our whole family of seven. I don’t even have to ask’

 ‘My husband always catches me off guard.  He knows me well… when I’m least expecting something he surprises me with it… like say I’ll find him waiting for me somewhere or he’ll still sometimes take my hand while walking… it helps to know that I’m on his mind as well…apart from other things… ”

 And men thought their wives bitched bout them the first chance they got.

How?

Through a personified love- spreading, joy-causing, warmth-giving, happiness-infusing HIPPO. A Hippo that talks to us from the pack.  A Hippo that talks to us from the adverts. A Hippo that talks to us  on twitter . And Hippo doesn’t just talk. Hippo makes our heads swoon with affection. Why? I mean seriously, what is it about this voice that is sucking us in? Sure it’s cute and entertaining and witty and funny but so are the  many other smartly written pieces of communication out there?

Yes. But what sets this apart is that it’s painfully endearing. I say painfully because we’re not used to this kind of empathy  anymore. Especially if it exudes such innocence. Extending it or expressing such love  is considered to be a weakness of our times. And here is a faceless entity extending heaps of it. To everyone. No questions asked.  And boy have we have been starving for it. Literally, figuratively, metaphorically, whatever.

So much that it is unsettling. We don’t know what to do in the face of it. Sure you can be nice to Hippo in turn. But it doesn’t seem good enough. So we do what we know best and what can be tried at the least. We join its cause. We spread the word. We buy the snack. We share it with friends. We take Hippo’s loving hunger-feeding voice to the uninitiated.

Why do we do it? Are we that gullible to marketing gimmicks? Or are we that jobless in life? A bit of both you could say but the truth is that we’re tempted. It just happens to be that effective a nudge. The entire Hippo experience. Call it the power of love and nice flavours to match it (I recommend the blue one, Italian Pizza, goes well with the texture and feel of the snack) but I would do this with no returns any day. And I would’ve continued to, but it so happens that I did get some returns!

I came home to find a large Hippo Hamper waiting for me! With a more-than-sufficient supply of Hippo munchies that’ll keep me occupied for a while now!! Here’s a glimpse:

But what takes the cake is THIS letter! I mean just look at it. Read it. When was the last time you got a note like this?

Well I’ve never gotten it. It’s not the kind of thing we do anymore. Even when we were kids it was probably a bit much? Maybe that’s why Hippo’s innocence must remain childlike. It is not acceptable coming from adults. Or anyone with ‘good sense’.  And that’s why Hippo has us charmed to bits. An almost-fictional entity giving us much needed real-world warmth.

If evil, deceptive, profit-making marketing is gonna make me feel like such. Bring it on. I will buy such products. I will follow such brands. I will listen to what they’re saying. I will do what they ask me to do.

Thank You and Congratulations Hippo You rock. <3 <3 *Hug back*

The story is about a busy father who comes home to learn that his 7-yr old son smoked a cigarette. Throughout the story he plays the devil’s advocate against his own sense of reasoning and weighs various alternatives on how to educate his son – so that he learns for the right reasons. That the father is a public prosecutor by profession, is only fitting.

Now these are three ways in which Chekhov drove home some insights simply through his title and it is only the tip of the iceberg considering it’s his story:

At home with your thoughts – Random thoughts and musings come to your mind when it’s free, resting and allowed to think privately. These appear to be homelike thoughts, home standing for rest, comfort and a spot that allows you to unwind.The protagonist strolls through them till he finds his solution. The son is perpetually at home with his own thoughts until his father finds a way to enter them.

For people who are forced for whole hours, and even days, to think by routine in one direction, such free private thinking affords a kind of comfort, an agreeable solace.

Think close to home – The father struggles to discover the right lesson that’d make sense to his son. He tries all. The son buys none. At the brink of frustration, it finally strikes him to speak the son’s language. The lesson is wrapped in an interesting story which more than catches the boy’s attention and forms an imprint. Is his title now referring to the target’s comfort zone?

From daily observation of his son the prosecutor had become convinced that children, like savages, have their own artistic standpoints and requirements peculiar to them, beyond the grasp of grown-up people. Had he been attentively observed, Seryozha might have struck a grown-up person as abnormal. He thought it possible and reasonable to draw men taller than houses, and to represent in pencil, not only objects, but even his sensations.

Drive home a point: Deeply moved by the story, the child vows to never smoke again. Home is now the desired destination. Having succeeded in his little mission, the father is left once again to ponder on the things that human beings are agreeable to.

“They would tell me it was the influence of beauty, artistic form,” he meditated. “It may be so, but that’s no comfort. It’s not the right way, all the same. . . . Why must morality and truth never be offered in their crude form, but only with embellishments, sweetened and gilded like pills? It’s not normal. . . . It’s falsification . . . deception . . . tricks . . . .”

He thought of the jurymen to whom it was absolutely necessary to make a “speech,” of the general public who absorb history only from legends and historical novels, and of himself and how he had gathered an understanding of life not from sermons and laws, but from fables, novels, poems.

“Medicine should be sweet, truth beautiful, and man has had this foolish habit since the days of Adam . . . though, indeed, perhaps it is all natural, and ought to be so. . . . There are many deceptions and delusions in nature that serve a purpose.”

More than anything, this story reaffirmed my faith in advertising and it’s attempts at being closer home to the consumer’s mind rather than pocket.  Advertising tries to give people a reason to buy. The right reason to buy. A reason they can relate to.  A reason that is about them because most people only understand things they can relate to.

Short story shorter: Understand people, diagnose the problem, give them what they need, make the medium engaging as hell so that they sit-up, listen to what you’re trying to say so as to indirectly influence their future course-of-action.

Now most branding, advertising, copy, planning books say this but how much cooler is it when it comes from Chekhov?

She lunged, in a sure lil step
Landed steady, safely at bay
Plunged I, dreaming of Yet
Crashed and bled, it swept me away

Hasty dry she raced the beach
Clutched my strength I battled the deep

What a picture she was, they matched her stride
Further I swam, invisible wasn’t I?
Sand in its face, it followed her still
You see it’s the crowd it really doesn’t think

But land stretched in her strained eyes
The end she had known, why wasn’t it near
while I swayed no more surprised
Her feet sank, their purpose unclear

They had seemed behind but the crowd was she
She was on her left, on her right ran she
Her arms limped to rescue her sides
The waves pushed, setting me free

They closed in, trampled on her
Eager to reach what the beauty seeked
My fingers brushed the waiting shore
An island of peace, a mountain of me