A day in the life

What a tiring, exhausting day. There is nothing like travelling almost a hundred kilometres and running around and dancing to make you tired and weary at the end of the day. Of course there are things like doing back-breaking work like farm work (actual physical work in the fields, not Farm Town in Facebook), or layering bricks under the hot sun (in that case anything to do with construction), or work in the mines, or a million other things that will drain you out and sap your energy at the end of the day; but for people like me who spend five days a week sitting in front of the computer and the remaining two days in the house either prone in bed or again stuck in front of the computer, the mere act of going out and coming back itself is tiring enough. But today was not tiresome at all. No sir, it was tiring, but not tiresome.

In case you're wondering what exactly I did that was tiring but not tiresome, let me proceed to tell you. But first, to get a clearer picture of things, let me list out what I didn’t do. One, I didn’t work in the fields (physical or virtual). Two, I didn’t dig ditches or lay bricks or fell timber. Three, I didn’t offer my services to charity and other such noble causes. Four, I didn’t move house and didn’t spend all day running around lifting boxes and suitcases and whatnot. Five, I didn’t run the marathon or triathlon. Six, I didn’t mine any minerals. Seven, I didn’t go into battle with dust in the house. Eight, I didn’t go mountain climbing or bungee jumping or do any adventure sports. Nine, I didn’t play cricket or football or kabbadi or tug-of-war. Let’s stop here; you aren’t really interested in knowing what I did or didn’t do, are you?

Which brings me to the next discussion, are we really interested in knowing what a person does every minute of his/her life? Nowadays you see people updating every minute detail of their lives online (“just reached the airport, the coffee counter is closed.” “sitting in the taxi waiting for the light to turn green.” “the contractions are three minutes apart now, I’m soooo excited!! I'm going to be a dad!!!”) Think of the poor stalkers, you’ve just made them redundant with your constant stream of inside information. You’ve taken the joy out of their lives, the endless shadowing, the snooping with a camera to catch any picture of you (doesn’t matter if you are wearing your flinty old bathrobe and your hair is a mess), the curiosity to know you better that makes them ..well, stalk you; they are deprived of all these little things now. All they have to do is go online and follow you on Twitter and become your friend in any of the social networking sites and they can relax and lean back on their chairs and know every possible thing about you with just the click of a mouse. They can now know who is your secret inner goddess, which celebrity you are most like, which colour is your aura, which number is lucky for you, what song/movie you are, how you are most likely to die, which animal you are, how attractive/lazy/evil you are, and a hundred other things they never will know simply by following you on the streets and making blank calls to your landline number. And the photos! They will now have unlimited access to every picture of you, no matter how unflattering or fat you look, no matter if your boyfriend / girlfriend / wife / husband / squeeze-of-the-day was in every one of them, what a delight to their eyes you must be. Restraining orders became a fond memory which they will narrate to their grandchildren, verbal abuses and screaming matches they will now receive only from their spouses. Life has become so smooth, so easy, so plain, so boring. Ahh.. the wonders of technology!

(Let me quickly check what my online friends are doing/thinking).

Okay I'm back in the cockpit. Nothing heart wrenching or earth shattering or remarkable happened while I was away typing the above passages. Now I can breathe easy and continue with the story of how I spent a tiring (but not tiresome) day.

First, I woke up early in the morning at nine-ish (hey I slept at four so you can stop tsk-ing), called up my colleagues to arrange for transport to the picnic spot where our department was having an outing. Then did the usual morning things and was out of the house by eleven. The only guy I could catch hold of said we would be going by bike (I said fine, no other choice, serves me right for leaving it until the last minute). Out I went to the meeting point, and discovered it was blazing hot. Went into a nearby China Bazar and found they sold a few caps, but as luck would have it the only one I could lay my hands on was a dirty denim Livis cap which I bought for the grand sum of thirty-five rupees. Friend arrived, off we went, got lost for a while, reached the Nagpur highway, cap fell off a couple of times and finally I didn’t bother to pick it up at all. Saw three boys and a pot of rose in a moped. Laughed out loud. Reached the place, sticky and sweaty, the program had already begun and we missed the singing competition (I didn’t mind much because I've heard these people sing and believe me, they are bad). Sat through the dance and skit competitions and the catwalk and rewards-and-recognitions program, had a heavy lunch, roamed around for a bit taking photographs, went to the dance floor where enthusiastic friends pulled me to dance (little did they know that I haven’t danced in ages), did a few clumsy outdated dance moves, then sat on the sidelines laughing and passing comments at the sweaty dancers, posed for a few more photos, had tea, went for a ride in a friend’s new Bullet, went home with another group of friends in a cramped Alto, had coconut water on the highway, listened to hip modern English songs (Quit Playing Games With My Heart, My Heart Will Go On, It’s My Life, Summer of 69 etc etc), reached home at around seven, bathed, slept, woke up, went online, had dinner, and here I am now giving this detailed report. My face and arms got tanned which I didn’t mind much because I was never a beauty queen anyway and besides looks don’t matter (the ugly individual’s excuse). It’s still early (around 12:30 in the AM) but I think I will head off to bed, got a dental appointment tomorrow. There you have it, the inside story of how my day went.

Oh Lord what did I just do? My stalkers are going to be so disappointed!