DO NOTHING AND ENJOY

 Published in

Business Sandesh July 2016

http://www.businesssandesh.in/do-nothing-and-enjoy/

Web link: http://www.businesssandesh.in/july-2016/

DO NOTHING AND ENJOY

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Before my retirement FAQ was what I would do after retirement. I

was not much concerned about my post retirement financial blues. I

had already got my children settled and would not anticipate any

serious responsibility. My colleagues and friends who had retired

earlier always suffered from retirement blues. Luckily all of them got

placements here and there. This was enough for my better half to

rattle me with her pasted ‘answer me’ look, “why don’t you search

for the job like others ?”

“What for? Don’t you want me to give you company at home and

watch you doing daily chores since morning till evening and of course

night? I have been missing you always through all these years”

winking I had said. Females, however old, get and feel the essence of

massage and always respond with coyness and pleasing smile. Isn’t it 

so nice of them?

It was not that I was well off financially and did not require additional

income for support. Every penny counts during this century’s

economic upheavals and Sursa like inflation. I had 15-20 years still in

me (GOD permit) due to better medical care, yoga, exercises etc. The

fact was that I had become sick of offering and accepting

salutations.....sir...sir...sir....during the last 37 years of service. I

wanted to get rid of this sir (shit in rest) business. I could not dream

taking up an employment again. Venturing into some sort of business

was out of question.

Secondly the responsibility which I had thought would decrease after

my retirement, actually increased with the passage of time.

Attending to the nitty-gritty of household problems, tending to grand

children, making my own parents live comfortable life,

maintaining/reliving/reinventing social relations with relatives and

forgotten friends, taking my hobby of writing poems and short-

stories seriously apart from looking after self and wife were enough

to keep me engaged, engrossed and occupied.

Then one fine day I remembered William Henry Davies poem ' leisure'.“What is this life if full of care/We have no time to stand and

stare......”

This quotation propelled me to question the worthiness of yet

stressful and busy life even after retirement. The answer I got from

inner self was in negative. I then and there decided to enjoy one day

in a week doing nothing- NOTHING at all. Sundays had become

busier than other week days so I decided the Wednesdays to be the

day to enter into the venture: DOING NOTHING. I really loved it and

shall love to share my experience on doing nothing. Small but

notable things which we are missing to feel, to observe and to

absorb in our daily life. Doing nothing must have some pre-requisites

to start with as under :-

Pre-requisites : Your time, your house, any park, market, cross-road,

hill-side  & beach (if available ) or any place where you can park

yourself and enjoy, feel and sense the happenings going around you.

Mind you, you are not an idler. While doing nothing, you are still an

observer, keen watcher, a knowledge gainer, a commentator. You

will soon develop a sense of belonging to the environment while

doing nothing.

See your toddler grandchild trying to crawl and getting up giving you

his/her innocent smile making different facial expressions like awe,

fear, alarmed, superficial crying and seeking your attention. The

satisfaction you get is immense. Just enjoy and do nothing.

Watch a bird feeding its little ones from its beak from the balcony of

your house and enjoy the motherly love.

Watch a couple of pigeons  on your AC top trying to make nest with

broom sticks, rags, cotton pieces and appreciate the efforts made by

these lovely creatures to build a nest time and again. Time and again

you try to remove these nest, next day you find them there

rebuilding. What a patience and living hard way.

 Watch a house lizard staring and waiting patiently to gulp down its prey.

Stare at the beautiful rising sun bringing sun shine into your

compound and in your hearts early in the morning and observe the

setting of the sun like a fireball going down slowly and steadily. The

serenity of situation will dawn upon you and enlighten you to the

existence of cosmic life. Just do nothing and enjoy.

Watch the laborious ants making a bee line balancing and carrying

eggs and leaves to their holes in corners of your house wall or  under

the tree in the park.

Your neighbourhood will provide you ample enjoyment not available

on your TV screens. Listen to the folk, filmy, devotional music blaring

through loudspeakers. Watch ladies of the locality haggling with the

vendors over the price of vegetables. Car washerman washing the

cars with same dirty & muddy water, leaving these mean machines

spic and span. Children running after ice-golawala and racing on by-

cycles attempting stunts seen on TV ads. People of all ages walking,

jogging ,singing, discussing, playing making the park proud of its

existence. Just do nothing and enjoy.

At nearby market place go for window shopping. Watch intense

selling and buying, traffic at snails pace, people laughing, talking,

poking, sweating for parking place.  I am not telling that you have not

been to the market. But then you had a purpose and you had

pressure of time. You were oblivious of surrounding and happenings

around you as your concentration was on your need of coming to the

market. You couldn’t have enjoyed the market scene as one enjoys

standing doing nothing.

Stand at the cross-road and observe the urchins begging or selling 

everything pirated/spurious. Admire their skills at marketing or

begging. They may force you to part with your hard earned money.

See interns of MNCs advertising their new product and convince you

to go for it. Watch a traffic constable more interested in cutting

challans/ or pocketing money instead of managing the traffic when

signal lights are off. Just do nothing and enjoy.

Living near a hill side ( I belong to J&K state) just leave worries at

home. Don’t get involved in daily homely soaps. Wake up to singing

and chirping of birds, listen to the rustle of leaves, feel the

whispering of trees, breezy conversation between streams and water

falls. Enjoy walking on serpentine and zig-zag roads. Look down the

gorge from the top of hill and feel yourself getting sucked in a black

hole or watching the earth moving under your feet. Just do nothing

and enjoy.

As I mentioned already, doing nothing will not label you an idler. An

idler is one who just laze around, totally inactive both physically and

mentally. My version of doing nothing is that you do nothing yet you

gain an immense insight into the working of nature and human

forces and their behavioural pattern just by watching and feeling

which I have been missing throughout  my life till I decided to make

Wednesdays my do-nothing and enjoy days.

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Tribhawan Kaul

kaultribhawan@gmail.com

kaultribhawan@yahoo.co.in