It’s Not In My Nature
There are so many people ‘retiring’ early and shifting to Goa, The Nilgiris, Sat Tal and other places where time stands still, nature clutches you to her bosom, you find your inner self and other nice things.
What are they doing there?
Some are doing organic farming (in fact lots are)!
Others divide their time between Delhi and their utopia, as they manage their design business or book writing or some other similar fancy job.
So if you are say a chowkidar or a chauffeur then it might be difficult because one has to report to duty every night, and the other every morning.
The rest are moving away.
Away from the traffic jams.
Away from the pollution.
Away from the maddening crowd.
One morning I decided I wanted to move away also. So I said to my wife, ‘Sonia dear I have an idea.’
She said ‘what kind of idea?’
I said ‘one that will change our lives forever, for the better.’ Naturally she was immediately suspicious, so she decided to put down her Candy Crush and hear me out.
I told her my plan.
She raised her eyebrows very very high (she can do that) and said ‘you want to move away to find peace and tranquility.’ I nodded confidently. She paused, gave her teacher look and asked (eyebrows still sky high) ‘what will you do?’
I said ‘what do you mean what will I do?’ She waited.
I said ‘I’ll do whatever it is that they all do.’
She looked at me for a good long while and then said ‘okay, phone Kaks. Ask him what he does’. And went back to her Candy Crush.
(Kaks was one of my first friends who did this – at the age of 42 he sold his company and moved to the Nilgiris.’)
So I called Kaks. The phone rang and rang and finally he picked up.
‘Jeetuuu – how are you’ His voice sounded strange – like in slow motion.
I asked him ‘Kaks, Sonia asked me to ask you what you did today?’
He seemed to think long and hard. Then said I got up…I said great…he then said it was so beautiful that I lay in bed and watched a squirrel hiding a nut then another one, it was so lovely’…great I said… he continued …then I went down and …let’s see…I said …you read the paper? …no silly he said…no papers here…I walked on the grass…and there was this other squirrel…this time near a stream.
Then through the day he had cooked a beautiful organic meal, washed his clothes without detergent, taught English to his gardener’s son, shaved with soap rather than use aerosol spray, and written a poem about a jacaranda kissing a sunflower.
He had gone for a long walk, at least five miles, where he counted eleven more squirrels and came back very tired. Night had begun to fall, so he had an early dinner and went to bed. Since it was dark he watched squirrels with Night Vision glasses which he ordered from Amazon which had its nearest delivery point 165 km away in Tarantukupporavati.
When he put down the phone I fell asleep immediately.
A few days later Sonia asked me with a knowing look ‘what about your big moving away plan?’
‘A squirrel ate it’ I told her.
