Tuesday 30 August 2011

Things which make Life worth Living

Of course, in no particular order, sparing my friends and family from this list because of privacy issues:

1.Making someone smile

2.To glimpse the first rays of a sunrise

3.To have someone to hold while watching the sun set

4.Damien Rice’s lyrics

5.Woody Allen’s banter ( Of course, I love ‘Manhattan’)

6.To be loved beyond reason

7.To be reasoned with love

8.Have a stranger smile at you on the street or the train or the bus or anywhere
possible.(Makes living in a big city seem a lot less colder)

9.Taking a photograph that requires absolutely no editing

10.To know that even though your life may not amount to everything you had hoped it would be, you would still be loved and taken care off (Fine, I may never win a Palme D’Or, or a Golden Bear or a Golden Lion, I still have a heart of gold. :P )

11.To say everything there is to say by just simply looking into someone’s eyes.

12.To talk to a friend till 4 in the night despite having college at 7 in the morning, hoping to alleviate some of their pain or worry or if you can’t do that,then, just giving them company, so, that even if they are up all night worrying,they wouldn’t be doing it alone. Yes, even misery seems better with company.

13.Sipping hot coffee or tea on a rainy days near a window with a view

14.Having lovely conversations on long walks

15.Watching movies without commercial breaks on Star Movies at 1 in the night

16.A well written and well reasoned piece that also manages to show some warmth and
flashes of humour

17.Playing with my neighbour’s toddler

18.Lying on a bed of grass and watching the stars (Haven’t done this since a long
time)
19.Losing myself in a bookshop

20.The smell of a new book

21.Special footage and Director’s commentary on DVDs

22.Having the pleasure of enjoying a great meal for which you did not even move your finger

23.Still having the scent of your loved one on you, even though they left hours back

24.Footwear that really breathes

I’d love it, if you would leave comments and add things that make your life worth living to this list. Spare a minute to do that, it’d only make you appreciate what you have more and maybe jolt someone to appreciate what they had all along, but never noticed.

A note to whoever is still reading, some background into what went into writing this:

To even begin writing a list with such a lofty name would only serve the purpose accumulating schmaltzy clichés in a row. I have heard and often experienced, that whenever we are talking about things personal to us, our first kiss, that guy / girl who got away, chance encounters or divine interventions, we tend to talk in clichés, it’s almost like when we are expressing things closest to us, we become so conscious and vulnerable, that we tend to say things which we have heard others say and hope it’d sound or make us seem ‘normal’. Hence, you hear your guy/girl say ala Jerry Maguire, ‘You complete me’ and maybe you do too, or maybe you make him feel things that his vocabulary hasn’t equipped him to describe, yet. Or it’s just safer to go with a cliché than to risk saying what one really feels and be taken for a fool.
So, in describing things which really make my life worth living, am trying to be honest and as open as I can be, parts of it would make you nod; parts of it make you a naysayer. But, nonetheless, these things make my life beautiful and worth living and this was my way of showing gratitude for my life, when I was suffering from a terrible bout of Dengue (I pronounce it in a very Indian way and call it –Den-GU). It wasn’t exactly a near death experience, but boy, it hurt, and it hurt so bad. They call it the ‘breakbone fever‘ and there is some piercing accuracy to it alright! My back taking the worst hit, which as it is, is never in a good condition; I couldn’t even lie down for long hours and was so week, I couldn’t even manage to sit up for a short time.

To those who don’t know me personally or to those dropping by for the first time, don’t take me to be an OTT optimistic guy, my bouts with cynicism sometimes last longer than the great depression. And, my everyday diatribes make ‘Goodfellas’ seem like a nursery rhyme. (The word "fuck" is used in it for 296 times, for an average of 2.04 fucks per minute. Of course, it made Tarantino twitch)

I was also working on a ‘Things that make life NOT worth living’ List but I chucked it out, there’s enough cynicism in the world as it is, for me to add my proverbial two pence to it. Just so you know, Michael Bay’s movies did make it on the list.

2 comments:

Roshan Nair said...

Nicely written man, and I'm glad you chucked out your idea of writing Things which make Life NOT worth Living, and your reasons for the same. Profound happiness may last only for a few minutes, but the hope that those few minutes generate inspire us to turn around things. I remember watching the sunrise at around 5.45 in the morning while I was in the train on my journey back home from Kerala. That was a different feeling altogether, it wasn't raining, it wasn't cloudy, everything else had made way for the majestic sun and it's rays spread out and penetrated all sorrow. Everything else vanquished, I knew I would get back home to write something, (and I did get ideas for stories). It makes me want to live long enough, not just to write, but to live such, and better experiences.

Unknown said...

I loved your comment and the generosity of it but I really really
love the last line of it.