Is it that boring?

I was reading a travelogue. A nicely written account of a road trip. The post included some very good snapshots too. The author made a concluding remark that the trip was a much-needed break from the monotony of daily life.

I met my colleague who was back to office after a vacation. She told me how it went….the fun things she did. Then she said “now it is back to the daily grind”.

The TV channel was showing some festival….many people were celebrating and the anchor interviewed some people at random. Everyone said they were super happy to be there. They were also a bit sad that after today they have to go back to their monotonous lives.

26^th January is India’s Republic Day. In my housing complex, there was some small-scale celebration. People gathered, there was flag hoisting, followed by some sports events for the kids. I did not join them. I wanted a quiet sunday at home. My mom called me and asked if I had participated in the celebration. When I said no, her reaction was “why? It would have been a nice change from the boring daily routine.”

Except I do not find life boring. I don’t feel I need new excitement every now and then in order to be happy. I am perfectly content to follow my daily routine. In these restless, uncertain times we live in, it is a privilege to be able to do what we planned to do with our day. Sure, I enjoy traveling. But it never feels like “grind” when I am back from a trip. I do take part in festivals too. May be not as much as some others…..I pick some, and let go of some other fests. But after it ends, I don’t feel that my life is dull.

Why do so many people say things like that? Is it just a way of speaking? Is it fashionable to declare boredom in everyday things that all of us have to do? Like going to work, buying groceries, cooking, cleaning, taking care of family? Or is it actually true that the vast majority around us are indeed bored and fed up with the mundane activities of their daily lives? That sounds very grim and depressing, no? I don’t believe that can be true. So it must be something that people say without really meaning it. But why? What is the point of saying something so negative so frequently when it is not even true? Does it make them look cool? I seriously doubt that.

By no means my life is an exciting one…my life is very ordinary, typical. But I never think it is boring….honestly I don’t even understand what that means. Take today for example…it was an uneventful day. But that does not mean it was dull. There were moments of simple pleasure. In the light-hearted banter exchanged with colleagues, in the simple satisfaction of sticking to my diet and exercise routine for the day, I find fulfillment. To make my point, I will give more details about these ‘mundane’ events.

Last week I had hosted a conference at my work place and was extremely busy with that. So today morning when I was sipping a cup of coffee at my office cafeteria, one colleague waved at me and said “so your daughter’s wedding is finally over?” It was not spectacularly funny but it was good-natured humor. He noticed I was running around whole of last week and I felt grateful and happy for this acknowledgment.

After over-eating in the weekend, I was happy when my calorie counter app (newly installed as part of New Year’s resolution) showed a green bar for fat and carb intake. In the weekend it had become red! After lazing around in the weekend, when my fitbit recorded more than 12000 steps today, it felt good.

As I was driving out of my housing complex in the morning, kids were getting into the school bus. One child of about six, was fighting hard with his mom because he did not want to board the bus. He wanted to pet the stray dog instead, which was waiting patiently with its tail wagging, for the mother-son tussle to get over. I watched this episode as I was slowly rolling out of our main gate and my smile lingered on my face for several more minutes.

I know these are very ordinary things and people who declare life is boring, will definitely find this blog super boring. But is it too difficult to appreciate these small pleasures? Is it too difficult to realize that many years from now, if I remember this period of my life, then it is the ordinary things that I will miss most? I want to make the most of it while I can. I don’t need excitement or novel, outlandish experience to take a break from my boring existence. I wish people would just stop saying ‘boring life’ all the time. It makes me restless and puzzled.

Action Reaction

Year 2007. I was in my late twenties. Flying from Zurich to Dusseldorf. In my next seat was a Swiss lady in her middle age. A kind face and a warm nature. She told me she lives in Zurich and is a doctor. She asked me what is the purpose of my journey, what do I do, where do I live. I remember her eyeing my dress. I was wearing a salwar-kameez, a traditional Indian dress. I didn’t mind her curiosity at all…I was happy to chat with her. At some point she asked me if I was married. I was not. She then apologetically asked me how old I am. And then came the surprise: “Are you allowed to remain unmarried till this age, in India?”. The surprise in her voice was genuine, and my surprise was also equally real. I have traveled to many countries and I understand what cultural shock means. But I still can’t imagine one educated person can have such sweeping notion about a whole country. When I told her there are many women in India who are highly educated, hold good jobs, and some of them may have family, while some may choose to remain single, not all women in India marry at a young age and have children….she stared at my face and I sensed she was trying to see if I was offended by her question. I was not. But I admit she made me self-conscious.

Year 2016. Just landed in Frankfurt international airport. In the queue for passport control an Indian family was before me. Father, mother, and three kids one of whom was a special child. I noticed everyone in the family was being playful with him. They were cheering him, joking with him, keeping him happy. He was a happy child indeed and it was heart-warming to see him surrounded by such warm affection and love. Without me knowing, my lips had curled into a smile as I looked on. When their turn came at the counter, they handed over their passports. While the person at the counter was examining the passports, this particular child was looking at his face with interest. The father noticed it and after they got back their passports, before leaving the counter, the father asked the child if he would like to shake hands with the man at the counter. The child happily extended his hands and the man took it, shook it, the family left. It was my turn now. As I stepped to the counter, I found this guy is applying hand-sanitizer in his hands, with a disgust on his face. I remembered the glowing face of the child as he left the counter and the disgusted face of this germ-maniac made me sad. He checked my passport, put his stamp, and slided it back to me over the counter. I suddenly decided to act differently than I normally do. I held the passport pouch in my left hand, and using my right index and right thumb pinched one corner of the passport and put it back in the pouch….as if I would rather not touch the object he had just touched. I made eye contact with him, and left the counter. Did he think I was crazy? Most likely yes. Did he realise I did it on purpose and got mad afterwards? May be, may be not. Did any of this drama have any effect on the happy child and his loving family? Absolutely not.

Through the rear-view mirror

I never feel brave enough to drive in that part of the city. The traffic is too dense, other drivers are too aggressive, streets are too congested. Whenever I need to go there, I take an uber. On this day also, I booked an uber and after waiting for few minutes the cab arrived, along with a cranky driver. When he found out about my destination, he immediately started complaining: “I had opted for a home-bound trip, my home is towards the eastern part of the city, but uber assigned me this trip which is towards far north. These apps are getting more and more useless with every passing day.” Now I am not very well aware of the interface experienced by the uber drivers, I only know how it works for an user. May be this guy had reasons to get upset because the app messed up. But certainly it is not my fault that the app paired me up with him. Throughout the trip he vented, and this made me upset. I chose to remain silent and ignore his rant. But he simply would not let go…he made the point again and again that he wanted to go east and because of me he is having to go north, how unfair all that is! It also turned out he is a lousy driver and this raised my irritation more. I mean, I myself chose not to drive and hire a cab, but the cab driver seemed to be a worse driver than I am, only difference is he did not care about it. It was a bad trip and I reached my destination in a bad mood.

While coming back I booked another uber. The driver arrived, a cheerful person. As soon as I climbed in, he started chatting. He told me he wanted to have a cup of tea and stopped near a street side shop sometime back, but while getting down from the car, his shoe strap came off. It is difficult to drive with a torn shoe. He has to find somebody to mend it, but these days cobblers are not easy to find, that is one trade which is disappearing fast with time. These days people simply throw away their damaged shoes and buy new ones and he finds it very strange. He did not forget to mention that he is lucky that he is not having to walk in those shoes, driving is a bit difficult but still lot easier than walking. He urged me to imagine that some person is walking down a street, no cobbler in sight and suddenly the shoe strap comes off…he thinks he is far better off than THAT. He also told me he earlier used to work in the sales department of a shoe shop and he knows all about shoes. It was perfectly delightful to talk to this man….in a very engaging and animated way he was holding the conversation. He had so much to say and there was a simple sincerity about him in everything he said. I reached home in a happy mood. My husband noticed it as soon as I stepped in: “Had a good day?”