Wanderer

Two posts down and I am thinking why did I name this blog "The student of life". The fact is that I am not a student of life. Else I would have learnt how not to be dissatisfied with status quo. At best I am an observer on the sidelines just watching life pass by. At best I try to cling to an idea of life that I have created in my mind, which slips away like grains of sand from a hand.

At best I am a wanderer.

I wish I had the same driving force as many others. You know the usual- money, cars, clothes, big LCD TV. Life would have been much simpler, much more logical. Sadly, for a long time I actually thought I had the same things driving me.

Now I know that I strive on a utopia created in my head- a mythical world that has no realistic probability of being in existence.

Occasionally I do indulge in the mainstream- after all that is how my conditioning has been thanks to the world and my intensely right-winged education- but these things leave me with a hollowness that befuddles me. These are the same things that my peers find so fulfilling!

Now, do not get me wrong. I am not suggesting that I have risen above the shallow sense of living that pervades this day and age. I have no such illusions about myself. Perhaps my internal machinery is not attuned to the way the world functions. The world is ridding itself from the kind of things that I insist on clinging to. When everyone is raving about the latest e-book reader, I want to visit the Sunday market in Old Delhi for second hand books. Nothing would please me more that to just sit outside on a cool, wet day and read from the crumbling pages of an old paperback.

Where is the time for that? All the reading I ever get is on the go or for 15 minutes before I sleep.

People rave about their modular kitchens, but I love to live in the house where our boundary wall is almost black with moss because of the incessant rain that Delhi has seen this season.

Everybody wants to move to a bigger, better city where there are more opportunities, better schools for their children, fancier places to hang out at, more multiplexes and malls, bigger labels. I want to live in the hills away from all the insanity, the traffic jams, the parties, the god-dammed public transport, the shopping malls, the multi-storied glass buildings. Where I can ride a bicycle without the fear of being run over by an SUV. I want my children to play outside and come home all grimed up. I want them to climb trees and not surf Facebook.

Perhaps mine is too big a dream to come true. Bigger that owning a BMW. Bigger than living in a 5-star penthouse. Because the sacrifices to be made are bigger. I would have to let go of the security of the 'normal'. I would have to walk in the opposite direction of the rest. Am I ready for it...? It's a pipe dream...

Today, in office we were discussing how some of us have got disillusioned with our jobs and lives. One of them was saying that no matter what she does, it does not matter in the world. She was frustrated because of that. She thought that with her job she will be able do make a difference, but it was not happening in reality. I actually envied her because I am beyond that kind of frustration. I do not want to change the world. All I want is the strength and vision to break the mold and live for myself - if like a hermit, then so be it. I do not want to seek comfort in my washing machine and air conditioner. I do not want the ease of being in a job. I want to free my mind from clutter, of trying to fit in by struggling to move 'up'. I do not want dependence on insurance and provident fund schemes to 'plan for the future'. What future? The one I already hate? The one which is dissatisfying even before it has happened?

S, a colleague, knew what I was thinking. We both looked at each other accusingly, grudging the other of starting this frustrating and pointless conversation. We knew no one would understand how we feel. Wandering women in Delhi- bound by mundane concerns like survival, family, love, safety.

"Let's go somewhere!", she exclaimed! "Let's go to Sikkim in December."

After a moment she mused, "May be not such a good idea, December will be difficult. Due to snow..."

"Then let's go to Rajasthan," I pitched in. "I have always wanted to go to Pushkar."

Yes...!

Come December, I'll like to see if I have wandered as far as my mind.