My leisure, my pleasure!

                                                     My leisure, my pleasure!

                                                                   Parvati Shastri

          

The idea of putting my thoughts into words is not new to me. Such ideas keep cropping up in my mind so often. It has been a long passion since my childhood, which never saw an expression till recently. Simple reason, writing needs leisure (or when your passion outweighs your occupation, may it be the profession or the household). Of late, I have plenty of leisure. Not many people have it. I myself did not have it a few years ago. It is an old age boon! (Some of you may envy me, but you will also get this boon some day, don’t worry). So, why not use (my) leisure for (my) pleasure? 

That being so, my pleasure can be your leisure or my leisure can be your pleasure. Of course your leisure can be your pleasure too. Feel like reading, please go ahead. 

As I was musing over this title for my writing, I just glanced through google, which dominates our leisure and literature, to find out whether some one has used it as a title, in their writing. After all, you would like some novel feature in your writing and preferably a new title. There was none. But of course there are many closely related titles. One of them is a book titled ‘The pleasures of leisure’ by Robert Dessaix, (https://www.thestatesman.com/features/pleasure-in-leisure-1502569148.html ), which is available in Goodreads, Amazon. I have not read the book. I glanced through the above link in which a review has been presented. Yes, there seems to be a lot of similarity of thoughts. But two people can hardly have the same idea, same experience, use the same words and expression, despite being similar in many respects. And that is a book and we are busy and here is a small write up and you can afford your busy schedule. So let us go ahead and read my mind.

Last week, I wrote a blog (initially, it was a write up for private circulation with family, but then found it good enough to share with many), titled “Where is ‘manywhere’ “. I posted it for my friends on Face Book, shared it with a few whats app friends and also mailed it to some friends and colleagues who are not on these social networks, through email. Some read and appreciated very much, some liked and perhaps many did not have the time or interest. But the response was very encouraging indeed! After a couple of days, I asked one of my friends, a younger junior colleague of mine, to whom I had emailed, did she read the article I sent. She said, ‘no madam, every time I opened it, I read first few lines and then there was some interruption and I had to close it’. Not a sin, that is what our life is, so often. But then, she was at her desktop, so she quickly opened the article from her email, started reading and started admiring, in between googling, saying it is interesting and so on and at last she exclaimed, “Oh, did you write it madam, it is so nice. I thought you shared some one else’s article.” Good pay, I said. So in your leisure, you have pleasure.

Now, I want to be a little more serious. When I was in my teens, I grew up with my grand father, a great teacher, retired by then. He used to read many news papers, in our mother tongue Kannada; dailies, weeklies and monthlies and every thing that is available as a periodical. Those days, you know we did not have internet, no social media network, not even telephone, forget about smart phone. So how did an old man like my grand father, spend his leisure? Had his daily routines, eating, drinking, a few rituals both in praise of God and in service of nature, taught his grand children and their friends for some time, chatted with his friends about his and their children who have settled away from home, but still he was left with plenty of time, post retirement. So, he read, read and read in his leisure. One of the serials that appeared in the magazines (periodicals) those days was a ‘chat’ , (the right word in Kannada is ‘haraTe’,) by Paa Vem Acharya, also known as Langulacharya. He was very popular in those days and my grand father liked his writings. A couple of my college teachers, professors of Kannada, used to imitate his writings, sometimes. I too liked it and read occasionally and was quite impressed. I wondered, how he keeps dragging a subject which apparently has no substance in it,  but still keeps the reader engaged and interested in it! I used to think why can’t I write like him. Well for us (Hindus?), everything depends on ‘muhurta’ (auspicious moment) and for that I had to wait so long and finally this fine morning the moment has  arrived. I made up my mind to follow my instinct and started writing this ‘chat’ , dragging you so far. I do not think I remember any of those chats of Langulacharya today, but the impression remains. Of course, there is a marked difference between his writings and mine. He is well known for the humour he creates in his writings and based on almost anything. He was a seasoned writer and I am an amateur. There is a book on him and his writings (in Kannada), by Srinivas Havnoor, a great friend of ours from the bygone era at TIFR, a librarian par excellent, in which he has collected some of the writings of Paa Vem, if you wish to read. Now, if I have succeeded thus far to grab your attention and you are not bored, go ahead and read further!

So old (age) is gold(en). You get up in the morning, quite early sometimes, sip a cup of coffee or tea, relax in your arm chair, your day begins with leisure. Our grand fathers (because those days not many grand mothers had so much leisure even in their old age), were waiting eagerly for the daily news papers to arrive. But today most of us, both grand parents have smart phones, lap tops and internet facility, and our technology has reached far beyond the expectations of our grand parents. This was in fact un imaginable even for us, just a decade ago. So our morning ritual starts with sipping our favourite drink, tea or coffee leisurely, having the smart phone and glancing through whats app and face book posts. More serious ones amongst us would look at the daily news papers online or look at our email for some important correspondence. Most of us agree that whats app and face book have become so powerful, good or bad, right or wrong, we get plenty of information and misinformation through them. So, one of my missions, of late has been to use my leisure, to find out fake news and misinformation whenever possible and convey it to my esteemed friends on whats app and face book. Televisions used to be the source of both entertainment and news till recently since internet and smart phones took over and reduced the TV time which many people used to depend upon. I can not say much about this transition, since I never had a TV at home and I never felt a need for it, as I hardly had leisure to watch and had enough other things to do!

Recently, I read an article by Sudha Murty, addressed to her daughter, titled “Attachment in detachment”. She essentially expresses how she feels after her two children got married and settled. The article represents a generation of Indians, my generation, say having born in the two decades around the 1950’s, a decade post and a decade pre independence, a slightly more educated lot. As a generation, we grew up in big families and were brought up with core values and looking forward to be educated. Well we did do well in education, struggled quite a bit, left our homes for better future, settled in far away cities. That is exactly what our parents desired, finding fulfilment in making a new generation better off than themselves, at least financially. Being in a big family, some of them found some of their children living nearby or with them in their old age. We too repeated the same ideology, except that our generation produced less children and were better off financially and hence our ambition and expectation grew even more, to see our children grow up. By and large, two children per couple was the standard, during our generation, particularly the urbanites, though some had one, some had three and of course number of childless couple was very small (if at all, not by choice but by luck). Having talked about this article of Sudha Murty, after lamenting how she decided to live with attachment in detachment, she gives practical advice to those slightly disadvantaged ones, who are entirely dependent emotionally on their children, to cultivate hobbies (pass time, leisure?) big or small and learn to live independently. Well, as for myself, the whole article was just a mirror image of my experience. Often when I call my daughters, they would say, ‘mummy, I am busy, can I call you later’ and I say ‘ok, call me later’. And that later is sometimes never till I make another call! Or, they would say, ‘tell me quickly, some body is waiting at the door’ or that ‘the  little one wants to go out’ and so on. But I do not get offended at all! That is natural, I feel. We did not have telephone when we were young. We had, now almost extinct, postal system. We used to write letters, a forgotten art now! And I remember our parents lamenting some times, ‘you have not written any letter since so long’. Long before I read the article of Sudha Murty, I had learnt the philosophy of ‘attachment in detachment’  and  of course use my leisure for my own pleasure. That simply means I am one of the more fortunate ones amongst the people sharing her feelings. But her advice to the rest remains intact. 

So how do I get pleasure out of my leisure? First of all, yes, like Sudha Murty says, our children have their own interest and life of their own, just like we lived our life as per our will. Our parents would have felt the same when we were young and were caring for ourselves. Secondly, I feel we are better off today as far as communication is concerned than our parents or grand parents. Technology, used properly is a boon to humanity and not a curse!  So I use Whats app, I use Face Book, I express my feelings to my friends, I communicate with my children every day and when they have time they reply their whereabouts and whatabouts and howabouts! Nowadays if you are driving or using a fleet taxi, you can even track the location where you are! Of course I teach a few hours and meet the youngsters and I am happy during those hours too. Not bad indeed! By the way, my mother lived in a village, with one of her sons, but all her other children lived away from her in different cities or towns. She passed away a couple of years back when she was eighty six, and in the last few years of her life she was fortunate to have a mobile and communicate with all her children. She enjoyed her phone and each time she talked and chatted for long enough, as if we were just near her, she would say, ‘I felt as if I met you face to face. This technology (mobile) is so good!’ Even to enjoy the benefits of technology, you need the right mind set. Most people of her generation of rural area, (including my late father) had been reluctant to learn and use mobile, but she learnt and used it very happily, till her last breath! 

Now comes the question, is it that, I spend all my leisure on whats app and face book? Not really, though I do enjoy and spend a lot of time on my smart phone. And of course learning something on the net, listening some melodious film songs or classical bhajans or some times serious music, the intricacies of which I may not understand. I also watch good videos or even old movies sometimes (on you tube, all free of cost, once you pay for your internet, as you know!). I like to spread information about new inventions and discoveries, talents and achievements of weaker sections, who become successful in their profession may it be science, technology, art or music or any profession, with hardship. I do pay attention to women’s cause and share my views. I get involved in healthy, un adulterated political and social discussions, with friends alike, both online and offline.

But there is more to my leisure. It is not just the the digital world that fills my leisure. I had a passion for gardening, since my childhood. I love plants, like to know the name of various plants, particularly those which were there in my native place when I was a child, and like to learn how they are grown, what they need and so on. I like all herbal home medicines and keep investigating, again a childhood training. I have been successfully managing a window garden which has mainly herbs that grow easily. It has been my motto to contribute to make our world a better place to live, protect the environment as much as one can. I have been successfully managing my kitchen waste, using a very simple method and using it for my plants. More than 95% of my kitchen waste goes into compost! I use, reuse plastic and never throw away! I segregate and collect all plastic junk and dispose it off, in a special way so that it will be recycled or reused. In short it has been my obsession and I do it on war footing, to see that what I send as waste to the Municipality daily is almost nil, negligible. More about gardening and waste management is beyond the scope of this blog. Let us keep it for another occasion.

So, let us move on. Coming back, I had a cup of coffee in the morning very leisurely, with my smart phone on. What next? Our (mine and my husband’s) breakfast is too simple, too leisurely, of late. Forget about dosa and idli, which were our regular breakfast in the good old days, not even upma or poha, not even bread or toast. It has become quite rich!  We just have variety of seasonal fresh fruits, dry fruits and nuts. My husband loves to buy fruits and vegetables, going through the local market and finding out which is good, which is cheap and so on and so forth and buys in bulk. He enjoys doing it but not me! I am an armchair lover and more tech savvy than my husband. I like to do online shopping whenever possible. But then, some times they are more expensive, the pictures are deceptive, although many of them take it back if you are not satisfied. Returning is not a pleasure. You order because you want it. So, of late, it is an unwritten rule, our routine is that all the local shopping is done by my husband! I feel so good!! I do not have to plan our break fast. I take a cup of hot milk along with nuts and dry fruits and of course plenty of fresh fruits! There is no hurry to do anything. You can cut the next fruit, as and when you finish the first one. But then I make several detours to my kitchen, my window garden and that is a part of my walking! That reminds me, walking particularly amidst greenery and natural scenes was my favourite pass time, until recently. Being close to a place like IIT Bombay, I am lucky to have all that greenery around me. I enjoyed regular long walks in the IIT campus for quite a few years. Of late, that has been almost nil. Not because I have stopped liking it. But I have to listen to my body and my mind can not be my dictator. Well, that is what some doctors say, “ Listen to your body’ and I have to! I do miss it (walking) a lot!!

Our lunch and dinner are also simple. Plenty of vegetables and some roti, rice and dal or sambar. An astrologer, a palmist, had predicted in my childhood, that I will be highly educated (BA was highest qualification imagined, those days and that is what he told me) and hence (or otherwise) I will keep a cook! What a prediction!! No wonder he got a hint from my grand mother that I was very good in studies and I had just returned from my school with my right palm full of ink, to let the secret out.) Of course I did my BA and more and his first prediction came true. But the second never happened. No cook can cook for us because it is so simple. So we do not have a cook. Nor did we have any in the past. That is because we were very fussy about it. (Poor astrologer, I pity him.) One of my best friends in my college days, had a different interpretation of the astrologer’s prediction. She was very clever, and I am sure she still is, that the prediction she said, means that you will always have some one to help you in the kitchen; it need not be that you have a full fledged cook! Her prediction seems to be truly true. A few years back, we found a good neighbour who supplies home made rotis. They are really good and he is so regular and punctual. No more mess in the kitchen. We have been amongst his regular customers. So,we are cool. As long as roti uncle brings us roti, we do not have to make or think of a maid for that. Having said so, of late we have also hired a maid for cutting vegetables, so that we have more leisure!

We are living in an era of fast technological development. It has made our cooking even simpler. While cooking in the traditional way on the gas, we used to forget that we have kept something on the gas and often burn the food. Having faced with this difficulty quite often, blaming each other as to who does it more often, we have happily switched over to Microwave for most of our cooking. This means, I can keep on detouring to the kitchen on and off, doing whatever else I want to do and eventually, food is ready in time (no burning.) Of course it has been our privilege that we always had maids for cleaning the house and washing vessels, a luxury westerners would envy! Now you see why I am able to write this blog so very comfortably!!

There was a time, when I was younger, trying to balance between work and home, I wished to be left alone. But neither at home nor at work, I could get that. Now that is available in plenty. My husband and me, both are less vocal, and mind our own business, whether it is leisure or work. (The only time I am vocal these days is, when my maids are around. They always think they work so well and I always feel that is not true.) I definitely miss very much, that hustle and bustle of a house, children and their friends making noise around me. Relatives and friends making inroads to our house and me preparing variety of food, celebrating each and every Indian festival. But then I am not too unhappy also, because I have my leisure which I so dearly wanted. It is my pleasure to use my leisure. When I was seventeen I was vibrant with energy and dreaming and looking forward for an imaginative future and hardly had any experience of the real world. So I could not write like Langulacharya, who was a senior by then. Now I am seventy, had gone through all that dreamy future I imagined and I am cool! I am now more experienced. Experience maketh man (and woman) perfect, it is said.

So, if you have read this far and if your leisure brought you some pleasure, that would be my great pleasure! 

Thank you!!

                                             

Au revoir!!!