DAILY DOSE YOU GOTTA GO, YOU GOTTA GO Indians are perhaps the most potty people on the planet. The rest of the world goes when it feels the urge. We go with the precision of Swiss trains. At 7 am. 7.35 am. 8.10 am. Every day. Each one of us rising and shining to a time slot. It does not matter how late you were getting to bed the night before, the morning timing is sacrosanct. Our whole lives are centred around this major movement and so is our mood. Woe betide the train is late and then it is calamity time. And if the train does not come at all then it is a defcon 4 crisis situation. Hit the panic button. It is embedded in our genes. Beyond our control. From childhood we are told that life has the sun in it only after the morning ritual. That life is not a song if things go wrong. As a result the fear of missing the bus (or was it the train?) is palpable. If you are taking an early morning flight you are deathly afraid that your clockwork is going to mess up and you can begin to worry about the possibility a couple of days in advance. People even make elaborate plans with which they intend to ward off the disaster. Lots of water, exercise, long walks, every scrap of suggestion given by well-meaning friends counts. After all, one of them or even a combo might do the trick. And we wake up hours earlier just to accommodate any hitch or hiccup caused by factors as varied as jet lag, over indulgence, spicy food or the sheer historical fear of there being much ado about nothing, a fear as tangible in our psyche as the wicked witches in Macbeth. A change in the food, water in another country, anything like that can trigger a domino effect that has us truly worried. This is true. As Indians, we worry endlessly about this kickstart to the day. We not only work ourselves up into a lather, we are well armed in our crusade to ward off the evil conspiracy. Thanks to our multiple schools of medicine we are spoilt for choice. There is no home in India that does not have some sort of laxative equivalent handy. Not having it is like going into rough seas without lifebelts. For us folks, these things lying in the medicine cabinet are lifesavers, our security blankets. We gaze upon them with deep and abiding fondness and we all have our personal preferences, ranging from isabgol to herbal tea, a range of churans and hazmas( a grander word for digestion)mint leaves, flax seed, prunes, figs, tablets, syrups, powders, homoepathy, naturapathy, Ayurveda, yoga, you name it, even the evil stimulant of puffing on a cigarette kicks in, all in the hope that we will be rewarded with some action. The Rolling Stones iconic song, “I can get no satisfaction” is our private lyric and steeped in vivid reality. There is nothing scarier than the realization that you are in an alien hotel or home, miles away from your comfort jar of Sofsal or Vacsof or equally clever branding because you forgot to pack it and the night is upon thee and a very bleak morning will surely follow. By and large we lope through life with practiced ease. On occasion things come unglued and the system clogs up and then there are consequences. We link that ba-aaad start to the day with chills, headaches, fevers, a feeling of malaise and to frost our fears a belief that good things will not happen today. The link is inextricable. More bad things will happen because of this non start. I know of people who have put off meetings, recapped pens from signing deals and simply taken the day off to worry about visiting the loo. Visualise thousands upon thousands of people waking up in the morning and stretching, swallowing, sipping, hoping, hoping, hoping, with baited breath and all that, for that first little spasm that indicates the Lord is in his heaven and all is right with the world. courtesy Times of India April 8,2014
Posted on: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 05:59:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015