I have been pondering over a good topic to write about since a long time.. and it just struck me.. why DO I have all this time to ponder? Its because its vacation right now! (bless these sweet times..) And its such a great thing to write about. All of us have attachments and longing towards vacations and beautiful memories that go with it. Here are some of my thoughts on why it holds a special place in our hearts..
1. It brings life back on track
There is a reason why this is the No.1 on my list (or anyone else's if they think similarly). Non-vacation times is when usually I'm either attending a semester at university or working. For graduates students like myself, school is more stressful and busier than work life. It also hurts socializing. Let alone meeting new people, I usually fall back on keeping in touch with my existing friends. This doesn't end very prettily when I have to, later, wade among fights and misunderstandings to remind them that I DO care about them :)
Absolutely no time to think about health, exercise or a balanced diet. Pizza becomes the savior on the days of deadlines and umpteen assignments. Hail Papa Johns!
And about the "busier than work" part, yes working for a company does seem a lot more streamlined than slogging day and night at school. But its got its own cons like, you have to get up on time each day to go to work whereas in school, the day can end at 5 am and begin at noon \m/ Working = constant work+sleep, Studying=highly variable work(increasing as the semester progresses) + sleep(decreasing) monotonically earlier and then exponentially during "dead week".
Bottomline is.. vacation gives us a chance to catch up on beauty sleep and quit the regime that makes us look like coding zombies fueled by coffee.
2. Family and Friends time
Most Indian students fly back home as soon the end of semester looms near - to be surrounded by the loving care and pampering of parents, siblings and friends. And of course, the thing that we crave for... delicacies like Cheese Pav Bhaaji with sinfully buttery pav, Roadside bhaiyya wali Chaat, Triple Schezwan Rice in a small shady hole-in-the-wall "indian-chinese" restaurant and the hot-roasted chana-mungfali in Rs.1 or Rs.2 paper cones! Okay I'm kinda drifting away from the sub-topic here :D
Nothing beats seeing your parents' proud faces when you arrive home from school in other parts of the nation or world. In my case, I was sweating like a pig and covered in soot-like dirt that stuck because of that sweat when I waded my way out of the Mumbai airport. My mom had specially worn a saree just to greet me :) and then my dad displayed some extraordinary driving skills to make our way out of the airport boundary in Andheri, which alone took us an hour. But I was home and I'd missed every bit of its liveliness that stays on even into the wee hours of the night.
This winter break, I stayed on campus itself and spent quality time with my room-mates and their sets of friends who kept replacing earlier sets in our apartment-cum-free-accommodation-for-others :)
Coming back home, we stayed up most of the night playing card games, poker or watching movies and sitcoms (just the feeling that I have 3 hours to spend simply staring at the screen lazily is more awesome than the movie itself!)
The cherry on the icing was I had a car at my disposal to just whip out and hit the road even at the slightest craving to do something in the evenings.
3. Exploring Mother Nature and beautiful places
The remaining most obvious perk to vacations is getting to travel to exotic places or go hiking up mountain ranges or down river valleys. I visited Smoky Mountains during Fall break where the changing colors of the leaves and watching the sunset from the topmost altitude was a treat to the eyes!
I want to know what you guys value the most about vacations.. please comment and add to it :) A song to end the post..
I think I'll leave it 'til tomorrow to unpack Try to forget for one more night that I'm back in my flat On the road where the cars never stop going through the night To a life where I can't watch the sunset I don't have time, I don't have time
Nice post. Although i should add, i have a love-hate relationship with vacations now.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I’m off on a vacation, the thrill and the anticipation always leave me buzzing. Tolkien’s words find my lips, and I start murmuring:
ReplyDeleteThe Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
Being home reminded me, that the life I left behind- wasn’t a bad life either. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed/felt the same, but I think we ‘feel’ a lot less after being in the States for a prolonged period of time. I was sure that the smiles wouldn’t come rushing back- that it wouldn’t be ‘great to be home’. After all, I’d grown up, matured, wrestled with life (and especially recession). I’d realized what true dedication to my work is- that I wouldn’t miss the 'desi' way of doing things… it took me all of 20 minutes with my college buddies… and there I was with tears of laughter in my eyes over escapades that would’ve been all but forgotten, had my friends not dragged me back from the brink..
You talk about 3 hours.. try beating the feeling that you’re going HOME after an age, with no assignments, lectures or work pressure.. to Lucky’s franky, Seema’s ganne ka juice, natural (non-preprocessed) milk with real cream on top, to Mum’s sinfully good cooking, to the clichéd vada-paav, to Monginis to InOrbit (Oberoi is good, but InOrbit has sentimental value :) ), rickshaws, local trains .. well… you get the picture…
Seen the States, been to places like Vegas, but there is still something very special, something truly romantic that stirs within you… when you go to South Mumbai (bringing out that side of you that you were sure died while debugging Umakishore’s assignments)… to Merwan’s bakery in Grant Road, stand in front of Haadji-Ali, see the tall buildings that adorn the Mumbai skyline… and you think to yourself.. I was here… this was my life… NO.. this IS my life… sudden, incomplete flashbacks that take you into retrospect..
The cherry on the icing is resting safe in the knowledge that you have a ‘rick’ to take you wherever you want, at any crazy whim… ;)
If a lot of this seems ‘synonymous with India/Mumbai’, rather than generic, then think again… you can have weekends, and you can have long weekends… but you will never have a ‘true’ vacation unless you find yourself back in your element.. you see that is what brings life truly back on track. Or you will long wistfully thinking about the ‘good times’, but some small part of you will remain lonely, incomplete… longing for those haunting memories… like a half-remembered song…
part 1 of 3
Speaking of hikes, Mama Nature and beautiful places… I once went on a hike to this place… (the name eludes me) in Sem 5, somewhere on the Harbour Line a few hours from Mumbai… we took the 12.15 am LOCAL TRAIN to Karjat (Is that on the harbor line?).. got to the place at 2.00 am.. slept on the platform (a group of 11 people).. woke up at 4.00 am .. to find 26/7 esque rains.. we trudged on the railway track for a good 20 minutes.. till we came to a small ‘fatak’… that lead to a mountain in the distance… we walked continuously till 6.00 am, till we came across a village… morning light was just about creeping down to earth… almost a half-hearted sunrise that was reluctant to penetrate the thick sheet of rain and dark (of the kind that I’m sure you’d love to watch, cuddled alone in a warm blanket with a cup of coffee/hot chocolate in your hand, as you watch the world at a standstill.. no one to interrupt you from simply staring at what is quite frankly a mesmerizing sight). I digress…. coming back to the hike- a few of us went and had a word with the natives who agreed to make tea for us. There we were, sitting in straw huts that were completely dark (no electricity in those parts-this was just 2 hrs from Mumbai), and they used mirrors to try and reflect what little sunlight there was inside the hut, so we could see. That was my first taste of tea made from natural, unboiled cow’s milk (freshly extracted)… if you’ve never had it… well.. don’t.. it isn’t very good… :P
ReplyDeleteBeing a bit of a lazy killjoy back in the day, I was horrified to learn that the base of the mountain was 2 hours away, and we planned to climb to the very top of the darned thing (I’d tagged along just for kicks). Needless to say that I fought bugs, ticks, vegetation, and lashing rain (that actually hurt.. and bitter winds reminiscent of Atlanta) while whining, bitching, complaining and being a general pain-in-the-ass. Cutting to the chase, it wasn’t the easiest of climbs, and we were 2000 feet above ground with rivulets of water that loosened the soil and made us slip.. there were one or two places, when we were faced with sheer rock- about 12 feet tall- and I now have a hard time believing that among the many emotions that I was feeling at the time- fear was not one of them. I’m glad that I braved all the B.S that came before, because nothing could’ve prepared me for what lay on top of that mountain, in a place so inaccessible that there wasn’t a soul around- a secluded Shiva temple next to a magnificent (and bitingly cold) waterfall. The few hours spent atop that mountain, went by in a daze. There was no phone network in that remote place. ‘Orange’ didn’t cover that far. We were completely cut-off from the world.
A 7-hour climb, and the descent would be even more dangerous. One misstep and you’d find your way down a lot quicker than you’d like it to be. The small stream we had crossed at the base of the mountain was now a raging tempest. Where we had had ankle deep water, there was now enough force in the thing to power a small ship without engines (no exaggeration). Luckily for us, we saw a few people on the opposite bank (who were very late for their hike- there was no way they were going now anyway), and we just happened to have a thick rope. They tied it to a tree, and held it fast themselves too. We made a noose-like loop out of the other end, and one-by-one put the ‘noose’ around our arms, and let the water carry us- making a sweeping 180 degree angle to the other side. (So, the guys on the other side had divided themselves into 2 groups.. some were holding the rope, others were standing a few meters away. The rope holders were at 9’O Clock, we were at 3’O Clock… the water swept us almost upto 8’O Clock, where they caught us).
... and THAT is what I love about vacations- the feeling that something AMAZING is about to happen.
part 2 of 3
Not really sure why I’m telling you all this… reading your blog brought back a few things. I couldn’t agree more with everything you’ve written, and probably couldn’t have put it better myself. I read 1-2 posts, but I'll be back.
ReplyDeleteNow, I, in turn will leave you with a far, far better poem (in spirit) than the one you’ve jotted down:
Upon the hearth the fire is red,
Beneath the roof there is a bed;
But not yet weary are our feet,
Still around the corner we may meet
A sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen but we alone.
Still around the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And although we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the moon or to the Sun.
I only rip-off from the best- and Tolkien is the best! Remember these words:
Still around the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And although we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the moon or to the Sun.
The spirit of adventure is within you. Act on it. And keep writing!
part 3 of 3
Hey it would be really awesome if you weren't anonymous any more :) I enjoyed reading your detailed encounters and would like to know who you are. Thank you btw for the compliments..
ReplyDeleteHahaha… ‘detailed’ is right! I feel like ‘Subodh’ from Dil Chahta Hai.. ‘mujhe time bhi yaad hai’ :D
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, your blog brought back the hike memory, and I just kept writing as I thought about that trip. It was an unforgettable experience. Didn’t realize it’d gotten so long, or so 'statistical'. :P
Nice to see you’re calling my convoluted rambling, ‘detailed encounters’. I think the point I was trying to make might have been lost in translation somewhat. To sum up, I just meant that ‘Change is good’, and for somebody like me, who is fond of traveling, a completely new and totally spontaneous trip/adventure is always a bit of an adrenaline rush.
Yes, vacations give you a chance to catch up on much needed beauty sleep, but they also give you a chance to be yourself, as opposed to being a ‘coding zombie fueled by coffee’ (nicely put btw) - an observation I frequently make myself. I would’ve added one more point to that list of yours- Vacations give you a chance to read. I read 7 novels in my last vacation. I guess different people have different ideas on what constitutes a ‘good time’; I know most people find reading about as pleasurable as RTS summaries, but yeah… reading would’ve been right up there with the rest on my list.
Uhhh… about the anonymous part.. I have no qualms about telling you who I am- I just seem to be finding the ‘anonymous’ tag strangely liberating. So, the point is not to err…. 'blog-stalk' you or play silly guessing games- but I think I’ll stay anonymous for a tad longer.