Stretch Out

Once upon a time, the greatest misery of my life was  traveling to and from work. After marriage when I shifted to my matrimonial house, I grumbled to myself all the time as to why I need to take up the inconvenience of traveling by public transport for 40 km, one way. The roads are pretty good, and the shuttle buses here, are equally good. It took me almost an hour each way. I dreaded that, then. With us, moving into our apartment next door, I should say, to my workplace, I was saved, blessed, and life turned out to be easier and happier.

For the past eight years, I have not traveled by bus, and in fact I had hardly traveled anywhere on my own. I confined myself, I realize now, within the ‘L ‘ shaped walk way between home and work. It is no doubt comfort, but that has brought in me a lack of stress and strain, which doesn’t let me stretch myself to my fullest. I always feel I do nothing, its not really that I stay aloof. It is because I can do much more, and I am not exhausted with whatever I do now. I get bored that there are no happenings in my life. Maybe I am becoming too unconventional and non pragmatic.

Yesterday I traveled to a remote village, of course without my guardian angels – husband/parents. I took a bus from here to half the way. Thereafter I went in a car with a student; we were going on an official task. The journey was lovely, the fields, the small colourfully painted houses, the thulasithara -  the tulasi pots , the ploughing muddy buffalos, the irrigation canals and gurgling flowing clear streams, the river, an old fort – a protected site, the monster trucks and the quarry point,  it was a beautiful journey. And I enjoyed the feel that I am in charge, and not under charge and care. Even in the bus, I enjoyed the vibration of the engine, the strangers around, their talks, and all that I had seen once as a torture. I know that I appreciate all these now, because I know that it is not a routine.

I think I should move out more, as a simple person one among the crowd, not just in the air conditioned personal space on wheels. It makes me realize a lot many things and understand life and people better. After seeing the remote areas and the lack of public transport there, I wondered how students reach at 8am even on a rainy day, and how I had failed to understand them, when they made ‘excuses’ for not reaching on time for their assignments, and when they cannot grasp sometimes the elite scholarly philosophy which are being discussed. Unless someone is exceptional, circumstances condition one’s ability to learn. And language bar is also a learning difficulty. Just because they don’t deliver, as per expected standards doesn’t mean that they are less brilliant.

It was all a paradigm shift for me.