Home Alone 2012

Despite my age, I still live with my parents. Most Indian men in middle class families do so. Anyways, the point is that my parents have been away for a week. And I was all alone for those days. First time in I think three years when I was alone for this long. And I learnt a lot of things. I mean I have lived along in the past when I was in Mumbai, and that too for more than 2 years but somehow I dint realize things back then.

So here are few things that I have learnt/observed in the last few days when I have been home alone.

1. When you are alone, you dont sulk. I was fucked up in my head read bad on Monday night. Normally, when I am fucked up, I go home and sulk. And sulk so bad that I dont even have my dinner, dont speak to my parents, shut myself in my room and just not do anything. But then when you dont have your parents, you dont know what to do when you want to sulk. Like, on Monday, I reached home, I was alone. I put on the TV, played some poker and slept. I woke up the next day as fresh as a baby. I mean I did ignore work that I was supposed to do but I dint sulk.
2. Time expands to take up all available work. I could do everything that I was supposed to do/fix/buy etc. For a change I dint want opinion of my mom or dad to buy the soap or what to order for dinner. With lesser opinions, things get done faster. You get lot of free time. You actually create time. I used that time to live like a free bird. I could wake up at any time I wanted. I could sit anywhere in the entire house.
3. Breakfast gets screwed. Ever since I came home from Mumbai, I have always had a good and heavy breakfast. And since my mom is the world best cook, the breakfast was super awesome. Compare it to a time when I was living alone. That time, I would grab a sandwich or a fruit on the way to work and thats about it. It also meant that I would have a heavy lunch and that translated into the 36″ belly! To be honest, I dont like to be erratic with something as important as food but I dint have an option. Once I start staying alone again, I would put a schedule in place. I really like the diet that they taught us during Vipassana. Two simple meals and an empty stomach while sleeping.
4. Simple tasks lose their meaning. Like every day when I get up, I am used to folding my rajai neatly into 5 folds and then putting it in an almirah where we store all other quilts, from all other rooms. Now with me living alone, I know that I would come back at night, goto the almirah, unfold the rajai, bring it to my bed and sleep with it. So today, while I was getting up, it occurred to me, that if I left it on the bed, it would be ok and actually save me trouble of folding it, storing it, retrieving it, opening it etc. Of course it’s not about a mere rajai, but about larger things. This is how anarchy in initiated. Seemingly harmless things, balloon into stuff that is easily labeled anti establishment and we start talking of blasphemous ideas like revolutions!
5. You hardly speak ten words (apart from conversations with your work colleagues). I have always had an innate need to speak up and express myself (a large reason why I maintain this blog). But when your folks are not home, you cant really speak to anyone (assuming you are married and sgMS is not around). Does that translate into more thoughts and more productive things? I am not too sure but its an area that is worth exploring.
6. You party lot more. Since there is nothing that you do apart from office, that is anyways boring, you attend lot more parties. I partied on three consecutive nights. Each day I reached home well after midnight. And for the record, the number of times I went out is more than the combined number of times I have been inside a club. Ya, I am boring like that. I’d rather be on the open sky, on a highway, heading towards dunno where.

And I think this is it. Ofcourse I was alone for just a few days. I am not too sure if I was to live alone for longer, what how would it be. But all in all it was an interesting break. Both for my parents and for me.