Comfort Zone

Yesterday I received my standard daily newsletter from Craig Ballantyne. I hate that guy. After each of his workouts, my one wish is to hunt him down...and...well, I don't know what I would do if I meet him - but he is freaking awesome. Intense workouts are here to stay, hate it as I must. Anyway, yesterday he exhorted "do me a favor, get out of your comfort zone." I don't know why, maybe it was because I was particularly down that time, and my mind wasn't in the 'reject everything' mode that it normally is, but this sentence struck.

I thought about it. How do I get out of my comfort zone? It's as simple as doing something different. Being something different also counts. For long now, I realized I have been comfortable being unhappy. I wear sadness like a shield. Its darkness is comfortable, cozy, and warm. I feel at home. When I am unhappy. Harsh as that sounds, it's true. So I decided then to cut the umbilical cord to unhappiness and be happy. To be happy is to get out of MY comfort zone. Every time I found myself thinking of shitty people who are not worth a moment's thought, I pushed it out. That too was getting out of my comfort zone. To not brood. Gosh, that is serious non-comfort zone territory for me. I watched a movie in the afternoon. Simple thing. But not my comfort zone. I usually watch movies in the late evening. At the gym, I switched my usual hit intensity interval training from the one I usually used to do. My body struggled with the change, but non-comfort zone. I did every single damn mountain climber I could. Till then, I used to think I can't. I lifted heavier weights. And the funny thing is I loved it. I went ahead and told my parents my future plans, which I had been dithering about.

Maybe there is something to it. Each time we challenge our mind and body, it responds. It may appear difficult, but I think it makes the soul spring alive.

And I loved this poem I came across in the movie I watched. Still trying to understand it though:


One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

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Some Days Are Like This Only

I have had a very happening day. It's odd how we spend days together seemingly closeted in a little space of inaction, and then there are days like today where it seems that all of life's clowns have gathered together to pull your ears and twist your elbows and dive their fingers through your nose.

The morning was fairly uneventful. I had had a dream in which I was back in class, except it wasn't class, but the office, and I was irritating my manager in varied ways - including rattling my desk, against which he was sitting in his chair, and opening the newspaper in such a way as to cover his head. Naturally, he was irritated, and naturally I think to myself what's eating him! There is a strange character in the real office, who I have taken a fond dislike to. My good friend at work is fascinated by her weirdness. But me thinks that considering that this new gal is occupying an old throne of a colleague who was the weirdest of them all, you can't expect much different. At breakfast, I snatch the comb from the pockets of an unsuspecting guy.

After lunch, on our usual walk, my friend and I are accosted by India's own special characters - eunuchs. One eunuch followed us for a while - but he/she was relatively mild. Her friend who came along clearly was hungry. He/she tugged my friend's shirt. My friend moved away, or rather tried to. "I have nothing," I protested showing my empty hands. "Give me your trousers then," aggressive eunuch asked. It seems so funny now, but back then we were just irritated. Just how a society can allow open extortion in broad daylight is beyond me. We shook them off, but it was a sour end to a good lunch. But then the wheel swung again! I was so happy to know that something I was waiting for so long had arrived! In my mailbox! Then the wheel moved crazily - I didn't know what to do with what I was waiting for, because I still have to wait for another to arrive in my mailbox. Horribly confused is a state of mind I hate.

As if that isn't enough, I was to go on a trip over the weekend. Then again, I wasn't. Oh, now I can. But no, the resort is full. So shut the case on that for now. On the drive back, Bangalore has well and truly entered the World Digging Competition. The rules of the game are simple. Dig as much as you can. Wherever you can. As wide as you can. As deep as you can. As messily as you can. Dig. Dig. Dig as if your life depends on it. And the last I checked, we are right in the Top 10 of the Competition. The prize of course is the well-deserved and coveted label of being called the Worst Jokers on the Planet, as well as the Only People Who Can Systematically Destroy Whatever They Have Built, and the title of City of Diggers. So I meander through narrow lanes that have sprouted huge mounds of earth on either sides, navigate through treacherous swamps, and come home thinking that I don't need a trip to wild Wayanad. This is as wild as it gets.

Come home, still confused about Dilemma One Regarding The Possibility of Waiting for More Waiting. Hurry through my workout, then buy vegetables from the shop downstairs. Quarrel with the guy at the counter who tells me that the vegetable I want is over, even though I have seen it myself, simply because he is too lazy to fetch it himself. I give the guy at the other counter an earful, but nothing seems to work really because this is also the Land Of The Great White Scam Called Customer Service. Did you not hear about it? Those damn Pakistanis have taken all the Customer Service we had! Drat! Interfering Pakis!

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Wow

Yesterday, one of my good friends, Birdy, did something absolutely amazing. No, she didn't fly to the Moon and back. She did something better than that. She reached out to an ex-friend. What's amazing about that? It is. I am in awe.

Physical acts are hard to perform. We all admire the ones who run the Iron Man or Woman marathon. The ones who finish the Tour de France. The ones who climb Mount Everest some million times. There is a certain sense of respect, admiration, jealousy, and plain wonderment that accompanies such acts. But to me, breaking the boundaries and barriers of the physical self is one thing, trying to break through emotional barriers is another. It's just as much a huge feat as climbing Mount Everest to reach out to someone. And unfortunately, this gets such short shrift these days. Sure, we need the climbers and the runners, but I feel our world needs the reachers - the ones who can keep aside their ego, and reach out to another person. Especially after things have ended spectacularly acrimoniously, bitterly and sadly with the other person. Especially after you know in your heart that you are not of much value to the other person. Yet, you take the risk. Why? Because that person is of value to YOU, never mind what low role you play in that person's life.

I know I wouldn't have done what Birdy did, being ruled as I am by the presence of sinful pride, and the knowledge of rejection. I know many others wouldn't have done what Birdy did. It's a different matter that I think the person she reached out to may be dumb enough not to understand the value of the offering, and be ruled instead by the sacred vaults of fear. But to me, Birdy climbed an Everest yesterday. The emotional Everest we all keep in our hearts that allows us to store petty grudges and painful swords deep in the past, and refuse to throw it out even if the past is bleeding us to death. In climbing this Everest, she showed me just how beautiful a person can be. And how small Everest can be if we allow it so. Indeed, she reached the Moon. And back.

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Dribble Drobble

At this time of the day, I normally would be in the gym. Today, resting with an aching back, I instead read The Partisan's Daughter. I feel I have missed something. I am restless. I have a bag of popcorn. Not what I should have had. I feel guilty after having it. It was not my cheat day. I try to write, and I end up with disjointed journalistic recordings like this.

Not my day. Or perhaps it is. I come home early, and I am surprised to meet my sister. She stays close by, but as is the case with anyone these days, distance means nothing. Nor does closeness. I feel we are retreating more and more into being individuals with a Me the more the world tries to Facebook you. Come on now, where is your avatar? You are not on Facebook? What did you tweet? Reach out. Call out. Flood the world with the petty details of your everyday existence. I just had my first coffee of the day. Update. It was black coffee. Just saw a black cat cross my path. 45 likes. Now here you go 400 pictures of my trip to the neighbor next door. But here, I am having a conversation with my sister. As sisters do, lounging around in bed. It was a lovely moment that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't ruined my back, and come home early and stayed in bed. Somehow, all things happen for a reason. The hard part is trying to find the reason. Or may be the happening is the reason.

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2011

And so it has happened. It's supposedly another year. I woke up not feeling any different. Raucous music from a club nearby kept me awake till midnight, and then fireworks kept me awake for another half an hour. I could hear the screeching. The hooting. Screams as I lay in my dark room with the light from a weak street lamp for company. And I can't help but think of 'new years' in the old past gone by.

The first New Year I spent abroad was in China. I remember me, a Scottish friend of mine; Sherry, the Chinese international office director of the school I worked for, and William, the driver sitting around on a freezing night in Lianyungang. The heating was not on. A policy of the school to switch it off when you need it the most. We huddled close to a small portable heater, watching programs on T.V. The Chinese were palpably bored. This was not their New Year. We made some desultory conversation, and it was obvious that the Scot was missing home - the West where we borrow this concept of New Year from the most. The clock ticked over. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief. We wished each other. Hugs. And it was over. I stepped outside, and the draft from an open skylight hit me. The wind howled. I went back to my room, and looked over at the mountains that graced Liangyungang. It was bitterly cold. And somehow, I felt everything was really new. It was to be a New Year. In my life. Not just a day on a calendar that someone devised centuries ago.

Then, there was the New Year in Thailand. Having reached Thailand on the day the tsunami struck, my friend and I just slept through the night in the country's north - Chiang Mai. I had slept deep, tired from a long day's journey into Asia's own triangle of Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. I remember feeling a bit disappointed, although I wasn't the party person, I didn't want to sleep through a new year either. But then, with calamity around you, there wasn't much to celebrate. It was a strange time.

Two years later, I was once again in China. This time, I was determined not to spend it staring at the T.V. There were 3 of us - me, an Indian friend, and an American. There were fireworks promised by the Bund. Stuck in a small provincial town in China, the American was craving for a wild night of partying. We weren't quite so sure - that is me and my Indian friend, but it was Shanghai - that seething seductive mistress of chaotic lights and unabashed richness. We were game. The Chinese were curiously excited this time - the government was celebrating a date that means nothing to the Chinese, but it was doing so to show its willingness to open up to the world, as it has so famously done in its economy. We got a few beers, and already the Bund was full. It wasn't a raucous crowd. It was obvious that the Chinese still didn't get it. But they were willing to try anyway. We sat by the Bund, staring out at the spectacular promenade that has never failed to move me. After a while though, we turned around, NOT facing the river but the street where traffic swirled slowly by. We talked about life. We abandoned plans to go to any nightclub. The American got some street kebabs. I was hungry, but I knew I couldn't afford to buy anything. The countdown began. Rather muted. The police stood nervously. The Chinese government hates gatherings of any kind. We turned around, stood on the parapet. And the fireworks began. It was a small drop compared to the massive display I have seen during the Spring Festival. We watched for sometime. And that's it. Another year slipped into the past, and 365 days stretched out.

And there was the New Year against the Petronas. I was in mixed company - friend, strangers, and my Dad. I don't remember much of it. The fireworks must have been great, but from my point, I could barely see it. I was thinking what am I doing, crammed in this sweaty space with masses of strange bodies for company...and I think that my thoughts weren't on the year ahead, but the year gone by. And as always, a lump rises in my throat, and my eyes sting with all that is dead and buried in the past. Memories. People. Moments. So much a year holds. So much it gives away.

I wonder now if the promise of a New Year was something that was a cherished gift from naive youth. Yesterday, I was just irritated with the noise, wanting to sleep. I know that there is no difference in today from yesterday. I wonder if I have become less of a romantic and more of a realist. I wonder if I have lost that spark in the magic of a New Year. But I know that of lesser stuff are dreams made. Each time, the year falls back, I know that I stand again at the threshold, like an eager child wanting to know just what chocolates Life will hand me. As long as I have that curiosity to dream then I know that I am alive.

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