Saturday, March 22, 2008

Army, Condensation, Respiration

Travel mode. The most peaceful way to be. The most uninvolved, unintense, free-ing, unlimiting and invigorating. All this at the risk of sounding like a really bad dictionary.
But after looking at endless patches of summer sky with white cotton clouds, i can't help but feel recharged. And the effect is most on your mind set. You come from clutter and exhaustion, traffic, hammering people with your elbows on trains, endless bouts of coffee and gossip, and here you are...in what is most serene. The freedom to actually see the sky and feel free. Cliched, but so true!
So here i am, living out some Goergette Heyer and Jane Austen. The army, people to meet, formal dinners, dressing up, politeness, and organisation. So completely different from outside. Where a party must mean jostling with a bunch of sweaty people, all trying to prove a point on the dance floor, where dinner must leave you sighing every time you look at your wallet, or embarrassed that someone else has to pay.
In some sense, more than the dress up and the pretense, there is something very calming about living in an organized society where people are expected to be cultured and articulate. It sets a certain standard to your living. And beyond a point, it ceases to be pretension. It becomes a way of life.
Whatever it is. It makes a damn good holiday, to live in the cantonment, and be transported to your childhood, where life was just climbing trees, cycling on neat strips of traffic less roads and having the entire world on your platter, however condensed that world might be.

7 comments:

vimal said...

interesting point of view
but patriotism was never more over-rated

Usha said...

U shud've lived where i used to. :)

sgm said...

Point 1: Meera never travels in crowded trains. Or does she now?

Point 2: I don't think you can climb trees.

Rest the writing is good in parts.

sgm said...

Point 1: Meera never travels in crowded trains. Or does she now?

Point 2: I dont think you can climb trees. Atleast not the last time I met you.

Rest the writing is okay in parts.

malted socktail said...

yea the trees i doubt too..
but a great write, a bit of nostalgia for me too...


aaaah us poor kids, who had the best of growing up and then shoved into the big bad metropolises of rubbish

Usha said...

i DID climb trees.
Litchi.
They grow low :)

Usha said...

I never travel in a crowded train if i can help it.