Category: #fakeAutoBiography

The Television Conundrum

Context
I live as a “bachelor” in Mumbai.

If you are from Mumbai, you’d get it. If not, its a (often derogatory) term used to define people who are un-married, live without parents in accommodations that are sparsely furnished (no beds, tables – just the bare minimum furniture). Often these bachelors “engage” in wild parties, keep the place unclean and in general, lower the standard of living at the community you live at.

From personal experience, in large part this is true. And in some parts, as far from truth as things could be.

Of course its not unusual to live as a bachelor. Blame it on urban mobility, concentration of jobs in certain pockets etc. What is unusual is that at my age, very few people live like that. Either they get married (India!) or they step up enough in life to start owning assets and make enough money to actually buy designer furniture, state-of-the-art gadgets and other things vain. None of the above two is true for me.

Story
So I’ve lived like a bachelor for about 10 years now. In cities like Gurgaon, Chennai and Mumbai. And because I’ve had a fairly limited access to money, I never had the fancy places. And while I have wanted to buy things that could take me out of the perceived bachelorhood, I havent been able to afford those. Plus whatever little I could buy, I did not because my sense of decor is fairly fucked.

And I’ve always remained light. I mean when I moved last, I had 2 bags of clothes, 1 guitar, 1 writing table and few cartons of books. Unknowingly I was being Steve Jobs ;P

The point is, I did not have any material possessions. And because I was growing old (not up), I saw all these friends, acquaintances around me growing old and up and getting things that I’ve dreamt of since I was a kid. And of course I am / was jealous and I long /ed for them.

So, when in the last year I made some money I started to splurge on things. I bought a book shelf. I got a shoe stand (to make space for those numerous pairs of shoes that I buy by the dozen and do not wear). And I got a TV!

Day 30 / #100HappyDays. Who says money can’t buy happiness? It helped me but this TV – my first “material” possession. And I love it. pic.twitter.com/uDFk46LXW6

— SG (@saurabh) July 14, 2017

The next in queue, after a TV is a car and then, a house. And then, world domination! 

The TV Conundrum
If you ask the brand planner in me about three things that transform a house from a bachelor pad to a home, I’d say it would be a double bed with a proper mattress, a clean and functioning kitchen and a television!

The place that I live at came with a double bed and almost functional kitchen. So all I needed was a TV.  And I have wanted one for a long time. I dont know why. May be to tell myself that I am not too far behind from my peers?

Anyhow, since I got the TV, I have rearranged my entire house to make the TV the focal point. I mean I don’t even remember how the hall looked like when we did not have a TV. I mean the houses where they don’t have a TV, where do the sofas and other seating structures face? Ask Simpsons ;P

The Reason
So, coming to the REAL reason why I started writing this post. I want to analyze the decision. And then may be bookmark this post, remind me often of the foolishness that I epitomize. Yes, I believe that buying the damned TV was a wrong decision.

When I had the money to be able to buy one and I decided that I want one, I knew of a few things. Here is a list, categorized into positives, negatives and neutral.

Positives

  • A TV becomes the focal point of the house and the bachelor pad starts looking like a home. I wanted that (as mentioned above). Call it my mid-life crisis. Or call it the rat race. I wanted one. While this looks like a negative, this to me is a positive. 
  • Allows my parents to kill time when they visit me. If they visit me. Thats all they do now that they are retired. Not trying to be derogatory. But thats how it is. And thats ok. Not everyone is on a mission.  
Neutral
  • Its a good to have thing. Like a checkbox in that long form! 
Negatives
  • Money. My budget was 50K. No, its not a small amount by any stretch of imagination. For 50K I could’ve bought a holiday and dont know what all. 
  • Maintenance. I will have to lug it around when I move houses (I still live at a rented accommodation – and its contingent on whims and fancies of the owner of the house). Plus its an electronic product – it will get damaged and will stop working. It will give me unnecessary heartbreak when that happens. 
  • Time sink. With Netflix and others, a TV is such a time sink that its not funny. No wonder its called an Idiot Box. 

Apart from these three, here are few more notes that I dont know where to categorize…  
  • It was not an impulse purchase. For some weird reason I wanted a TV for a long time. I actually looked online. I went to the stores. And I sat on the decision for at least a month. And then finally one fine day I got it. 
  • Since I’ve got the TV, after the first few days, I have hardly used it. Key reason being, I dont have cable TV. I rely on Netflix and since I have a bad connection at home, I cant spend time on it. Which is a good thing. 
  • A great influencer on the decision was the 15K worth of reward points that I had on one of my credit cards. It made “sense” to buy a 60K TV for 45K. I could see a bargain. I made the classic mistake of looking at potential savings and not at the money I’d have to spend. A great case where points look good to you, but are bad! 
  • Ideally, in life I want to be at a place where I dont have to think too much about money and these decisions. But till the time I reach that point, these incidents are interesting milestones, to help sharpen the decision-making acumen. 
Conclusion
As I was making the list, I automatically realised that the list of cons outweigh pros already. I dont have to think too much about it. The decision was a fucked one. I shouldn’t have bought the TV. But just to make a list, the mental models at play were Loss Aversion (did not want the points to expire), Validation aka Social Proof (from society about not being a bachelor), Constant chase of excitement (I bought it when I was probably not doing so well in personal / work life – though I have no way to validate this), FOMO (obviously), Envy. These are the ones I can think of. And I am sure there are more at play. What could those be? 
That’s about it. You are welcome to see the Smart TV I bought :). And here’s to making wiser decisions. What do you think waise? 

Epitaph of a hero

I did it!

I have been waiting for it for over a year now. It was always so close and yet so far. Like that trek that you go for, when the summit is always just a stone’s throw away and yet you need to walk a thousand miles to be able to even touch it. You can feel it in the air, you can see it, you know you can conquer it and yet it takes you so long. Two years, in my case. Two long years.

I think more than me, everyone around me was waiting for it. Everyone I met, everywhere I went, everything I read, was invariably about it. “When are you doing it?”, “Please do it soon.”, “We cant wait.”, I started getting tired of all the comments. I know that all of them were my friends and they really want me to do it. But after a point, the words became harsh and got into a very narrow zone. It sort of became the final frontier. Its like that last thing that a man can do. It started to feel that I’d die after this. Its like my epitaph is being written and everyone’s waiting for me to etch my final words on it.

What people dint realize was that I am a mere mortal and I too have dreams. And insecurities. I too want to scale the peak. And I do get scared every time I get an opportunity. And of course more than my personal achievements, I need to fend for a larger cause. I represent a collective. I can never let my focus wander and chase personal glories. If only words could describe the pressure you are under when you have more than a billion people expecting you to entertain them and live their lives.

I think that is what it boils down to. Live their lives. More than myself, I am living lives of millions others. Everyone has the potential to do great things but they dont really get as many opportunities as I have got. I got lucky I guess. What do they call it? Ovarian Lottery I think. And when I do well, they probably see themselves doing well. They celebrate my success, as if they have played a significant part. Of course they do. A performer can never survive without patrons! And they are sad everytime I perform poorly. As if they are responsible for my failure. And no, its me, am individual that fails to perform my duty, my karma, everytime I fail. For others, if I dont do well, they can move on. I on the other hand, am left alone. To reflect on things. Trust me, someone rightly said, its really lonely at the top.

But now that I have done it, I think I can take a sigh of relief. All my life I have been measured by everyone along a long highway dotted with milestones. It took me a while but I have crossed all the milestones. And now there are no more milestones to chase, the onus is on me to set the new ones for people who would walk on this road in times to come. This is what every artist wants to be! A benchmark. A milestone on the sands of time.

And you know the best part? I can now go out and play like a kid. The way I used to, when I first walked out on a cricket pitch and had the entire ground at the mercy of my strokes.