Mumbai Part 3

Wipeout!

Wipeout.

Thats the word that comes to my head, to explain the kind of day I’ve had today. Woke up at 8, ate, slept. Woke up again at 10, ate and slept again. Woke up at 6 and now I am writing this. I am clocking more sleep that ever these days. 15 hours on an average.

Come to think of it, not just today but last few days, have been like this.

Is it because I have just too much inaction in my life right now? Or something’s wrong with weather? Any other plausible explanations? Why am I lethargic these days? What’s wrong with me? Any medical professionals on my TL?

Gaming Mumbai. Part 1 – Managing Traffic

I wrote this originally as Mumbai Part 2. Now that this is Part 3 of my affair with Mumbai, I would post this as a part of Part 3.

Mumbai is a tough place to live in (compared to Delhi – where I come from). There is never ending traffic jams, air so polluted that you cant breathe, roads and potholes that could put minefields to shame and so on and so forth. If I was to scribble it on paper, the list of rants against Mumbai, the trail could go to the moon and back and yet not get over.

But then this post is not about the rant list or the distance between earth and moon, but is about how I plan to game Mumbai and its travails while I am here. I mean I know that I am going to be here for some time, so I better get used to it and start gaming it. Gaming as in manipulating, scheming it to suit my purpose.

So the plan to game Mumbai is in nascent stages and shall evolve over a period of time. Right now I would talk about how to avoid traffic, that is probably my biggest crib against Mumbai.

And few assumptions. Unlike a lot of people I can control my time most of the times. I have the luxury of not going to office and hence I can control my time and meetings, except a few times when I am supposed to meet people. I realized that the gaming bit has to start with managing life around traffic. If I can do that one thing, my life would be so much sorted.

Here is the list that I shall take up seriously to avoid traffic in Mumbai.

Avoid rush hours. Never never never (three times for emphasis) travel between 8 AM and 11 AM, and between 5 PM and 930 PM. Leave home at 11 and be back by 530. All the meetings, interviews, digging out, sniffing out, research and other work related chores must happen between 11 and 530. This is a good 6 and half hours and this is enough time for three, one hour long meetings. And the commute time to reach from one meeting to another. If I have to have to leave before 11 AM, leave before 8 and reach
destination by 830 and wait. Numerous McDonalds across the city are open
and they serve really good breakfast. If I am somehow left on the road after 530, I’d park myself at the
nearest coffee shop for few hours and not waste time getting stuck in
traffic. And while at the coffee shop, order the cheapest beverage – a
bottle of water.
Meet when absolutely necessary. No more socializing and making new contacts. Phone calls and emails work as well. If I have to travel to meet, club meetings as per locations, as much as possible. If not at the same place, stay within a particular locality. So one day I could have meetings at Bandra, the other day at Powai and then one at BKC and so on and so forth.
Stay close to highways / stations. So, for example, an ideal place to meet is Oberoi Mall if I have to meet someone Goregaon.
Use peak hours for self. The time between 530 and 930 could be an ideal time for a catnap. And socializing could happen post 930. This time can also be used for ~~gymming~~ swimming, reading, dinnering etc.
No first thing in the mornings. If someone insist a meeting “first thing in the morning”, politely decline and schedule a “last thing on the previous evening” meeting.
Spend time frugally. Always carry some reading material. In case I am getting stuck at a
coffee shop without any inspiration to write or create, I would rather
read, than idly surf the web or tweet away to glory.
Maker hours. Use a tweaked version of maker hours. A concept I borrow from PG, maker hour is defined as a time where you don’t have any meetings. I actually do something in those maker hours rather than just push paper. So two days in a week (Monday and Thursday), I plan to use as maker hours. I would write for longer duration, update the blog, design and do things that I need to do on a computer. I am writing this post on a Saturday, the first half of which, I am using as Maker Hour.
Multi task. Get a car and a mobile phone headset and use the commute time to make phone calls and get work done on the phone. It could be a good idea to keep a list handy that would have all calls to be made during the day. Unless there is fire when the call flow would become unpredictable, this overall is a good idea. Not applicable for jobless me.
Know my traffic. And shortcuts, back alleys, city etc. And use Google Maps for traffic predictions. It is fairly accurate and when I know that I am heading into an area with a lot of traffic, I can avoid it or take a detour.

Thats it. If I do these things well, I believe I can cut a lot on useless commute and I may actually do something, rather than merely talking.

Of course one may argue that I dont have to stay in Mumbai if I am peeved so much about traffic and I need to think so much about getting out off my house. I can just go live in Delhi, Bangalore etc if I have to. But then, despite all my cribs against Mumbai, there is no denying that there is something about Mumbai that brings me back over and over again.

Anyway, more on Gaming Mumbai in subsequent posts. May be a list of places in Mumbai where I could park myself without paying a lot of money while I am in transit.

A tragedy etched in wood

That writing table that I got, remember? I even wrote it and the pic that you see on the left. So that table, is of no use no more!

Its got infested with termites and the wood has already started to chip. I thought furniture was meant to last generations and all that but this table had other ideas.

I paid a mini fortune to buy that table, thinking that I would recover my “investment” in it by penning (aka typing) my best seller. But thanks to my world famous addiction with procrastination, I havent been able to. Of course I’ve had excuses for not writing but since I am jobless now, I shouldnt have no more excuses and I must complete a book. Before the table is rendered useless by humidity, moisture, termites and boredom.

Oh, by the way, I bought the table from Shoppers Stop, you know that big retailer? And despite repeated calls to Shoppers Stop, no one seems to be doing anything about fixing the table or giving me a refund. I dont know what to do about it, except making noise on the Internet about it. And since I am Joe Nobody, dont think my ~~voice~~ noise would get heard.

Longer than the longest day of my life

Today, whoever is reading, ladies and gentlemen, for the records, was the longest day of my life. No wait, longer than the longest day of my life. One of those days when you spend one entire day, about 12 hours of your life doing something and yet there is no output to show for it. Not show it to the world but show it to yourself. Like when you are lying awake in bed late at night and you are talking to yourself, about things your did during the day. Those things. That output. And the worse part, its not even a step in the general direction of output. More so, now, when I am apparently the master of my own destiny, days like this suck even more. I should be on my way to greatness, riches, pursuit of vain hobbies, wild parties, world travels and other such things. But here I am! Stuck and confused and dazed likes its nobody’s business. Or as Siddhu would say, as a child in a topless bar.

Sigh!

Four Months of Frugal Life

Credits: This Link

Update. This post that you are reading was made in end of July. Since then, here are the updates on how I fared on living a frugal life. Here is the update from August.

Now that I am probably the most expensive city in the country with no stable income, I need to somehow stop spending as much I used to once upon a time. In fact lot of my gurus in life (Warren Buffet, VS, VK etc) are proponents of Frugal Living. I never understood the importance of the same before this. Now that I am jobless I will try an experiment with it. It cant really hurt more than a bank balance of Rs. 3417. No?

So first things first.
At any given point in time, I have had just one stable job. And that has been my only source of income. So whatever I make from that job, I survive on it.

I have used buxfer and a custom made excel sheet (mail me if you need the sheet) in the past to track my spends. And the categories where I spend the most are petrol, travel, flights, eating out, gadgets and gifts. Apart from petrol, I could have avoided pretty much all other expenses. When I had a steady paycheck, it did not matter much, now they would. I would work on not spending money like I used to when I was earning.

My spending policy has been, its one life and rather than saving money to help you when you are old, save experiences that you can recall when you are old.

Second.
Thanks to my attempts at tracking where money goes, I can clearly see there are few areas where I could stop spending immediately. Gifts for example. I have always given expensive gifts, even when I couldn’t afford them) to friends, family and strangers. I was like the secret “secret Santa” that I even I wasn’t aware of and even the recipients did not realize that they have been on the receiving end of pseudo-largesse. I dont know why was I doing it. Now I will stop it all. Family and friends would understand. If they don’t, good, Id know who to avoid. Strangers wont care anyway.

I can completely avoid eating out. I can reduce it to bare minimum if nothing else. I would stop working out of coffee shops and make my desk my best friend. I would spend more time at home and thus reduce the cost of intra city travel.

I can live without buying any more gadgets. I have the best smartphone in the market and I think I dont need to change it for another year or so. I have a decent laptop that I am ideally supposed to return but I wont unless my office calls for it. And I dont really need anything else. I would want a large television and a playstation and all that but no. I would give it all to younger cousins etc and try and live a simpler life. More on it later.

Having said all this, I will not compromise on

Cost of living. I would continue to stay at my current place, expensive by all standards and continue to maintain the same lifestyle (food etc). I dont booze so that saves a lot of money and heartburn.
Travel. This is my biggest passion in life. I would not let travel opportunities go by. Even if they are expensive, I would take up loans if required.
Internet. Whatever I am and whatever I am not, is because of my excessive exposure to Internet. I would not stop it. But I would change the consumption pattern. More on this later.
Time. And finally, I will save time, rather than saving money. So if this means taking a flight to Delhi, rather than train, I would take a flight.

Baby steps to Simpler Life
I read somewhere that its better to err on the side of action. Its been a few months and I have taken it to my heart. So before I wrote about a frugal life, here are the things that I have actioned already

One of my two phone connections is a Blackberry. It translates into a fixed bill of Rs. 399 per month. I stopped using it. Although this is not a big number, its more of a symbolic thing. I am thus no longer connected on email 24 x 7. Also this would mean that I am no longer stuck in the rut of immediate replies that push emails demand.
No to long phone conversations that I am dearly fond of. I dont know of an alternative but maybe less talking would help me save money, energy and time that I could use on other pursuits.
Reduce the amounts I spend on coffee shops and eating out. I would ration em out. And Even when I am forced to wait a ta coffee shop, I shall do so by ordering the cheapest thing on the menu, without any add on. I am ok with facing the wrath of social proof but I wont spend money. In last three days, I have spend some 300 bucks on coffee. If I was not jobless, I would have spent atleast 5 times than this.
When traveling I would try and use public transport (read local trains) as much but I would not compromise too bad on this. Its expensive and I would live with it. I would thus walk a lot more and try and spend time close to home only. No more extravagant travel bills to meet random people. This also means that I handpick people that I meet and thus avoid all unhappy, depressed, sad people. I would ofcourse spend on meetings that can get me work et al. I would maintain a separate account for it. Last two days, I have walked lot more, compared to what I would have done in regular situations.
And no more expensive gifts. Period.
And no more gadgets, like I mentioned already. Except one. A music dock. I dont really need it (I evaluated it on this flowchart by Vishal). I WANT it. Dont know why. I am in that waiting period of ten days that Vishal recommends

On Internet and On living a simpler life.
When I say Simpler Life, I mean a life where I am completely free and I dont get emotionally attached to objects and hoard them in closets. Probably to never open them again. Us humans have that stupid tendency to attach ownership and names to stupif things like books, gadgets, objects. I have been guilty of that. I never give my books to anyone, not even to VG. Starting now, I will start parting with these lifeless objects. They would hopefully free my head of conversations about ownership et al and let me think of other things.

And on Internet, I have been the connected kinds. I have million updates all the time.
From facebook, twitter, foursquare, emails from five email accounts that
I have, membership to multiple groups (MDI Alumni, Mensa etc). When my phone doesnt ring, I tend to get jittery and am scared to know if the world was falling apart. I always wanted to be the first one to know about anything happening anywhere in the world. Now that I dont have a BB and I have disabled all push notifications, I select times when I login to Internet and check everything. This is keeping my mind at peace and I am not in that constant state of living multiple lives – one in present and other on the TL. Someone said on twitter, “life is what happens to you when you are refreshing your TL”. Its a brilliant insight. I would live in the moment lot more. With no notifications to drag me towards them, I would have only one thing to focus on. The present.

Plus I believe if there is something that I need to know, it would permeate through my network and reach me irrespective of my use of Internet or not. So, if the world does fall apart, I would get to know about it. Sooner or later.

Thats it.

What next?
I would spend these four months chasing frugality like its nobody’s business. I would try and write about it as well because I have realized that writing makes me structure my thoughts better, apart from helping me hone the craft. I would also continue to make changes in my lifestyle to help me get fitter, calmer and happier. Of course I want to get richer as well.

Do help me if you think I must know of something that would help me in this “project”.

The keywords for next four months are freedom, frugalily, life-hacking, simplicity and action. More on these in the next post. Dont know when, but soon.

Summary!
Yesterday I called up my mom and I have never been happier while talking to her. Its probably toughest to mask real feelings when we talk to our folks. My mom, despite all the distance between us, she could sense and see that I was happy. Happy as in the Pursuit of Happyness happy. And I was totally loving it. Never before I have been so relaxed and happy.

And, do pray for me. This time, for a change, I mean it.