Tip Top

A very dear and old friend asked me yesterday, “How are you doing?” And almost as a nervous response, I smiled and replied “Great!”

But aren’t we sometimes not so sure of that smile?

As we were growing up, we had stars in our eyes and a spring in our step. The world was a fantastic & mysterious place. The biggest drudgery was homework, and the biggest worries of then, seem so trivial today.

But, assuming you are on the wrong side of thirty like me, things have changed a bit.

Days pass, as if in a blur. You are running but still sleep-walking through the day. All your waking energies focused on making ends meet after the EMI payment, driving through the dense traffic, meeting deadlines at home and office, the demands of boss as well as wife & children. You hardly have any time for yourself. When you hit the bed at night, most days, you are too tired to even talk to your wife, for more than a few minutes.

But some days, when the sleep doesn’t come and the reverie breaks, you lie awake staring long into the night. In the calm of the night, despite your spouse being right beside you, sometimes loneliness engulfs you.

Maybe, somewhere in order to please everyone you love, you forgot to please the most important person, YOU.

Ignoring the Revitals & the Chywanprashes that the marketing bandwagon will try to force upon you, I think you also need time to collect your thoughts, weave dreams and savor their electric energy. You need friends to unwind, talk, play and above all, be yourself. You need to go back to your hobbies, maybe reading, painting or writing, plunge in, express without conscious thought, reflect on the experience, and then do some more. Maybe slip out alone for a short walk early in the morning, before the din of traffic drowns out the birds.

But alas, there is so little time. And we have so many things lined up for the weekends as well. Sure, they are important, but so are you. As we speak, the weekend is already upon us. And I hope some of us will find time to replenish the YOU in yourself, so that when on Monday, your colleague asks you, “Kaisa hai yaar?”(How’re you doin’ pal?)

You answer, “Tip Top!” with a REAL smile.

Author’s note:

• Nobody responds “Tip-Top” in real life to questions like “how you doing buddy?” It happens only in “Andaz Apna Apna”, which I enjoyed recently, and have been dying to try out since then.
• Though mostly in the first person, the psot is written keeping in mind lots of urban guys in my age group, and hence is not applicable solely on me