Bilbo Baggins was happily smoking his pipe in his garden when suddenly a chain of events started happening which led him onto a totally unexpected adventure. And when he was being pulled into the adventure he resisted joining it like anything. I often enter a somewhat Bilbo-ish mode when I need to leave my usual lifestyle -- work at office, workouts two days a week, yoga every day, some violin practice and some eating-out. You see, my usual life keeps me pretty energetic and satisfied. Which is why I was having an uneasy feeling as I left Delhi and headed towards Pune for a four-day paragliding course. It was not at all that I didn't want to do the course. I had wanted to learn paragliding long long ago. So when my super-active (by average Indian standards!) wife brought me news that a friend of ours was going to do paragliding in Kamshet I immediately said yes. But, back to that morning -- I was experiencing some uneasiness inside me although I was looking forward to the days ahead.
Landing in Pune and arriving at the hotel changed all that. Pune felt a very good place to be and to live. It reminded us of Bangalore -- trees, cyclists, women of all ages roaming freely till night, and people behaving in a much more civilised manner unlike the jungle called Delhi/NCR we live in. To me these factors don't matter much any more since I have acquired my degree in surviving in Delhi/NCR. Still they made me think of moving to Pune sometime in life, if possible.
The paragliding course was at an altogether different level of awesomeness. The first day was gruelling, but the next three days we reaped the benefits of our hard work. And flying solo in the air is a terrific experience. Thanks a lot to FlyNirvana and their trainers. So much so that at the end I badly wanted to stay two more days and fly everyday.
I am not going into the details of my flying experience here. I want to record what I felt about staying away from home for these five days. I didn't feel that I needed a break from routine life and all that crap. But I did feel I could carry out my regular activites in a different setting as well. I generally dabble in programming, practise the violin and enjoy life in general. I could change the background of my current life to a new place once in a while and see if that made any change in how well I was doing everything. All I needed would be to carry a laptop, my violin and tanpura. There might be some reason why artists and poets often stayed at different places for working on their creations. What could such a place be -- a vibrant city like Pune, or maybe a scenic place in Himachal Pradesh, or maybe a quiet and charming ciy like Bhopal or Mysore? I am randomly wondering. I might do this some day. But even if I don't at least I think I'll try to kick myself out of my Bilbo mode frequently from now on.
(written on a flight from Pune to Delhi)
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