But lets just say, that I, for sometime ignoring my work ( or the lack of it) do aspire to a holiday...here are the set of rules that I mean to follow
- For starters, going to the right place at the right time...the right time being decided not by the lonely planet guide, but by yours truly...for example, most people would advise against going to Shillong in Dec-Jan, totally forgetting that these harrowing winters that chill your bones and freeze every drop of blood in your body also bring the most delicious smells, sights and sounds with them...Christmas carolling on streets, the smoke of coal angeethis, the mist travelling across hills, the lights of festivity, the red cheeked native infants in their colourful winter wardrobe, the oranges, O I could go on and on. To me Shillong in winter, rocks.
- Avoiding anything remotely to do with fashion, style, glamour etc. I just feel the entire point of a holiday is lost if you turn it into a narcissistic rendezvous with yourself in the mirror. For one, it wouldn't do me any good...as far as looks are concerned I have reached a point where the law of diminishing marginal utility begins to operate on any additional effort that I make to look anything better...for the other there are just too many interesting things to do on a holiday to bother about something that is , well, beyond help.
- What interesting things, you ask? Loads. Reading, for instance...anything at all...old classics that have been read several times can take on a new feel in a different place...my personal experience. Also, some of the best books I've read were while I was on the move...on flights, airports, railway stations, even at homes of more accommodating relatives.
- Which brings me to the other point: visiting-relatives, friends, old flames (kidding), friends of friends-anybody at all...is a strict no no for me on a holiday. As a kid I couldn't help it...my parents made sure, whenever they were in any particular place for a supposed holiday, that they visited everyone staying within a logistically convenient radius...even people whom they had to squint and blink at several times to recognize... meeting similar responses at the other end. I remember hating the inevitable exclamations on how I had grown ( as if I was expected to remain a prenatal embryo all my life), the polite yeses and nos and even politer smiles with which I was asked to respond to some of the most asinine questions and the absolutely humongous amounts of food, especially mishti, that would almost be pushed down my unsuspecting oesophagus. So, no offence, but NO visiting.
- As for company, well reads are good enough for the most part, but I wouldn't mind human presence if it doesn't find a need to make its presence felt ( my apologies for using the neuter pronoun...nothing personal)...when on a holiday, I prefer doing as the Martians do (by which I mean doing whatever I feel like and calling it Martian culture...nobody will then assume you are trying to do anything unconventional...if that doesn't work, I might call it moonstruck madness, surreal schizophrenia...anything that sounds grand).
to be continued if my footloose mood continues
