As I complete living almost half the lifespan of my generation, I have come to realise, like many of my contemporaries, that I am probably not living how I would ideally love to, and equally acknowledge that I don't push myself hard enough out of my settled space to start living the way I love to. It is quite an endless vicious cycle, so to say.
I am currently on a flight from Chennai to Mumbai.. and I am scribbling all this down in offline mode on my silly Moto X. So, what triggered me to write against the mighty struggles of a hefty neighbour pushing my elbows off the armrest, a scarce board to rest my hands on and the company of an empty Maggi masala cup?!
Well, the reason is this intriguing conversation I had with a stranger uncle (sometimes wonder if I should call such ppl ‘brother’, my hairline is just an inch better) at the Higginbothams store in the Chennai airport. My primary intent: kill time. Every time I touched a shining book, my rather sarcastic mind reminds me of many such in my cupboard, still shining. And there, my stranger friend was perusing some books too, he took one and said to himself, “I didn’t know this author was a Nobel laureate”. I said to myself, “ You knew this author existed?!” What is your business listening to him, you might ask. And that shows, you have never visited this store in our airport. It's like the hand-wash in Adyar Ananda Bhavan - 3 basins in the place of 1 and inevitably, you sometimes get so close to another that you even hear what they are thinking in their minds! (#Detour: Reminds me of the words in my office elevator: Avoid unwanted body contact 😅😅)
He probably had the same intents as me in that store, but then he must have been inspired seeing me looking at books like I was Chitti, intensely scanning the contents. He smiled and said, “So do you have any suggestions?”. I said, “Well, I am looking for new releases by Robin Sharma or Mahatria.” He said, “Aah okay…” I elegantly floated out of the store and stood by the boarding gate, wondering about this conversation. His question, and my response had zero relevance, an absolute zero.
And I started reasoning what had made me give such a response - and this simple thing struck me… the monotony that our lives have become. 5 years back, I would have asked that person what his interests were and managed to build a decent conversation. But now, our human interaction abilities are diminishing primarily due to the monotony and the borders we prefer to stay within. The forced exposures to the society and new people during my college, school days and internship years are now gone. Today, I choose whom to interact with and to what extent. My only new exposures are colleagues at work, and how I interact is almost defined by his/her professional relationship with me - as a customer, peer, subordinate or manager. As much as I try to be genuine, the interaction will not be fully expressive - in the confines of the pseudo free corporate environment.
I only wish I get better at dealing with such situations, and I also wish Higginbothams has enough space to avoid such collisions. More pertinently, I wish I live the “present” moment as I aspire and be more focussed on what I am saying and doing “now”. And that my folks, is my karuthu for the day!
PS: The inquisitive me went around the store 20 mins later to check what my stranger friend had purchased. He had 3 books in his hand. The look on his face and the title of books somehow reminded me again of my shining collection.
Happy storing, friend!! 👍👍
