Just don't do it, just feel it

T, C and I are having tea at the local tea shop. It's one of those bustling places were strangers stand side-by-side at the cold metal counters and indulge in snacks and tea. And some of the lesser enlightened ones have coffee. (One of Buddha's quotes, though not that well know, is aham only satyam vadami, only ahimsa karami and only tea drinkami) So we're standing there, drinking our small quantities when T suddenly starts reminiscing about his first study and how he changed because of that. Though not as expressive in his first few minutes, he turns raconteur, gesticulating wildly as he describes how the 'funness' was sapped out of him. One of the scenes he mono-acted involved him standing over himself, arms akimbo, and then whipping his victim for having too much fun left over. C and I watched amused, silently laughing, but trying simultaneously to sympathize with our emotionally scarred friend. T ends his story with the line, 'I am a penguin'.

Happiness and purpose are the only two reasons one can lead his life. For some time I was of the opinion that the two are mutually exclusive. But now I have reason to believe that two of my assumptions were wrong. One connected to our current conversation and another, not quite. One, Happiness is a flexible and redefinable rabbit. On the other hand, Purpose, to a large extent, is not such an adjusting pet. So though your initial expectations of purpose and happiness are often contradictory, you have to rationalize the two in order to retain your sanity, and Happiness often ends up being the peace-maker. Two, human beings waste too much time thinking. About anything and everything. About life. About death. About lunch and dinner. About friends and family. About cars and cell phones. About what the spectacled middle-aged woman in the yellow saree is thinking about me sitting here with her in this cinema theatre. About whether that man in black shades, who looks so much like my paternal uncle, has seen me driving around Chennai with all my friends at this time in the night. About abouts. So remember, when all Hope is lost and you sit down to think about life, ask not whether you're happy, ask not whether you have purpose, but ask yourself what's on TV?

So the three of us were walking back to the office. T was still mumbling something about how cold penguins feel during summer, C was trying to perfect his left-arm bowling action with live commentary and I was musing aloud about a good common friend who is to move to our city soon. As we reached the doors of the office, still in the babel of our mutually disinterested ramblings, T stepped back and said, "After you" to C. C replies, dead-pan-faced, "After me what?". T is a good sport, forever the butt of our jokes. In an instant, he turns from chivalrous to irked to serene. I smiled and complete his nascent word, "Siddhartha". He nods with closed eyes and goes into a penance.

Readers, if you've noticed, and I'm sure you have because if you have enough time on your hands to be reading this bullfunky, then you have enough time to have noticed, this blog has some new sections. One, and this one is to attract the (really cool) star wars geeks, is the jedi or sith that T and I resemble the most. And two, this is also for T (*winks*), is a section on chat conversations we have because often the funniest things in life are best rehearsed. Or is that unrehearsed. One of the two.

And, if you've noticed another thing, and I'm sure you must have by the same logic as the last time I was sure, I am trying hard to be unstructured. Because I think there exists some correlation between structure and seriousness and we all know which side of the cuckoo's nest this blog is. Thus this is yet another milestone post in my quest to become completely unstructured. It's hard for chaos to reign in the world of order, but as Nike doesn't say and the Star Wars geeks do - 'Just don't do it, just feel it'.

Like a farmer in a 'feel'd,
H