The Hindu Business Line : Of bus rides and irreverent poems

Reading, chatting with friends, watching plays or movies, visiting in-laws, sketching, window-shopping, trekking... there is entertainment in both splendid isolation or glorious togetherness.

When Satya Rao has some time off, and when pastimes such as reading and watching television seem rather humdrum, she does something which is quite literally off the beaten track. A long-time resident of Chennai, she is yet to discover its length and breadth, so when the fancy strikes, and time permits, she hops on to a city bus and asks for a ticket to the last destination, and indulges her travel-hungry self.

"I think this springs from my days as a student, when I'd stand outside Stella Maris College, waiting for a bus to take me to my local guardian's place in Ashok Nagar. I'd want to go to all those strange places mentioned on the boards on various buses... they sounded fascinating, but between the precious `outing' time that the hostel doled out, and my studies, I could never do it," she says.

But what could a busy, modern city hold to satisfy someone's wanderlust? "I've asked myself that question many times," laughs Satya, "but I haven't really found an answer. And it's not just the touristy places I'm interested in. I want the entire nuts-and-bolts, concrete jungle experience, drab and ordinary as it may be. Even after college, I kept returning to Chennai ... for job interviews, exams, marriage ... and ultimately settled down here. I felt I had to know the city I was so connected to, and now live in."

Like Satya, many people in Kolkata find it relaxing to take any number of rides on its slow-moving trams.

But this form of relaxation is rather unusual. Most people read, watch TV or just sleep. Many others chat, on the phone, or over coffee, or a meal. Some others embroider or busy themselves with similar craft. And the lucky few can entertain themselves in whatever they do!

Says C. Anupama, who works out of home, "I am comfortable both with friends and with solitude. I read, chat with friends, watch plays and movies, fight with my Mom or go out to eat, but the best entertainment I can think of is settling down with a good book in a hammock with lots of snacks." And where does she get the space to put up a hammock in her city apartment?

"Well, it's a fantasy, and that's why it's so appealing," she grins.

Says a trekking enthusiast who doesn't want to be named, "A fantastic way to entertain yourself, especially if you live in a place like Mumbai, is to take off on a trek over the weekend. The forest off Lonavala is a good bet. We've camped out in a village temple, with mist rising like a primeval fog ... it looks awesome. We've also camped out in a Buddhist cave on a mountain, with no one for miles around, ringed by forested hills. Getting lost in the mist, trekking up a narrow trail awash with a profusion of pink and purple blooms ... it's super; you should try it some time. If you don't have the luxury of weekends, you could just follow the Evening Trail in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, and try to spot hornbills and racket-tailed drongos. Another thing I'd recommend, though it's not really legal, is hiding up a tree in a forest reserve, for as long as it takes, waiting for a tigern — or a hungry bear — to stroll by. Or hear stories about the origins of stars from an old tribal dame, as you share her meal."

If that's not romance, what is?

Travel is a favourite pastime. Says D. Walker, a communications professional, "My wife, daughter and I love to drive. We take village roads, not the highways, and most often, we don't have a destination to begin with. We have a small car, and that makes us feel very close. As my work keeps me very busy and doesn't give me enough time to spend with my family, I always include them. When we are not driving, we are cooking gourmet food."

He adds that when he was younger, he would go fishing in the Nilgiris, near his hometown Coimbatore, for trout and carp.

A journalist friend of Satya says she goes to a movie alone if she has no company. And if she has no one around to bother her, she paints on glass, embroiders, makes handkerchiefs from scratch and decorates pots.

If you think this is ordinary, hear the rest. "Oh yes, I like to pen really irreverent poems, the more irreverent, the better," she adds. In school, she used to sketch her classmates. "They would ask me for the pictures but I didn't give them. They are now most probably rotting away in a cupboard in my ancestral home in Kerala." She also loves to window-shop. "The most important thing is to go with absolutely no money," is her advice.

Naughtier is a daughter-in-law. When asked how she entertains herself, she reels off a string of activities ranging from reading to TV to music and ends with "going to my in-laws' place" in a grin that is at once mischievous and sheepish.

Talking is another form of amusement. Says Meghana Menon, another communications expert, who loves to chat, "I do the usual things - new movies in the cinema, old ones on TV, window shopping at Spencer Plaza, and talk nineteen to the dozen." She's good at talking, in all the languages she knows, and even won a trip to Japan as a student because of her skill in that department. "Some of my friends call me a bore and a braggart but honestly, this is what I like to do the most," she says, without a hint of a blush.

For many, getting together with friends and relatives is a passion. "It's nice to have a session with your extended family," says K. Lakshmi, who grew up with her grandparents, who had about 55 first cousins between them. A close-knit family, all the more so as they all lived mostly in two towns within just an hour of each other, Lakshmi got to know everyone rather well, and this included the progeny of all the extended grandparents. She loves organising or attending get-togethers of the few cousins and aunts and uncles she has in Chennai. "Sometimes, the conversation crosses the realm of friendly banter and gets a bit personal, but it is dismissed as a result of the `boisterous' circumstances. And I exult in the company of this funny, exasperating, peculiar brood that I'm a part of," she adds.

From the ordinary to the wild to the exotic to the naughty and the impish ... whether it's splendid isolation or glorious togetherness, if you've been looking for something different to amuse yourselves with, you could probably take a leaf out of this. Enjoy!

Picture by Parth Sanyal

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