The fun bit with being a client is that you have agencies
trying their best to vie for your attention. Of all places that I have gone
thanks to work, this month I found myself in Russia.
Moscow to be precise. I have had a fascination for the place
ever since childhood. Russia, the big super power of the world and an ally of
India, against the mean big consumerist USA! Oh what a fool I too was. The
communist country collapsed under its own weight and then came Peristroika and complete
confusion. I don’t think Russia knows what they are anymore. Whether they are a
controlled or a free market economy or a political nation.
But I was super happy to see Moscow. These are cities that
will not normally be on your tourist radar. I am happy that my work has taken
me to these places and I was able to add to my experiences. Jispa has to find
her own experiences that take her places. I feel bad for Jasmine though. I
would love to take her places that she hasn’t been to before.
Travelling abroad is a real irritating thing for me these
days. The fact that you going abroad means you are spending a whole lot of
money and then you really want to make the vacation count and take in as much as
you can. You have to do a lot of research and you have to plan and figure and do
everything. It’s a painful process. I then suddenly realized that I have been a
real pain. A complete ass. Now I am making a decent sum of money. Our daily
life is small and our daily requirements do not really amount to much. We can
after we have accounted for all our expenses manage to spend that money once a
year. Jispa wanted to go to Greece and I
agreed but then when we researched we realized that June July is peak season
with long queues and high prices it may not be the right thing to do. And then
in any other season we would get a smaller break and then I would love to go
for at least two weeks! So we ditched the plan. I feel so mean.
In around 2008, we had planned to got o Hong Kong and then
the economy went kaput and we felt scared and did not go to Hong Kong. I think
that was the biggest regret I have had with respect to Jispa and taking her to
vacations. I think while she was growing up she would have enjoyed Disney Land.
I have always wanted to go to Disney land as a child but never did and I wanted
my child to go to Disney land. I am feeling like a joker now that we cancelled
the plan. I so goddamn regret it. So now we have a 14 year old kid who hasn’t been
to Disney and because her father was a jerk.
Now I realized that I wasn’t taking her anywhere else as
well because of the same reason. SO we ended up doing a lot of India vacations.
Not that India vacations are bad. You can get to see a lot of what is
interesting in India. It can end fun and enjoyable and enriching as well, but
there is of course a lot of enrichment that can be done outside India, that
will completely help you expand.
One interesting thing in Moscow that I noticed was that
Moscow built the most amazing dense network of underground tube stations. All
the lines cross the city and try and connect people. They started this
following the British and I think they picked up steam after the world war. In
the heart of the network they built a circular line through which every other
line would crisscross. Obviously these would be the most used lines by the
people. These station on the circular line were chosen for beautification and beautification
in a totalitarian regime is nothing but propaganda. The stations are amazingly
beautiful. One has beautiful stories depicting the great Russian history on the
ceiling, one has absolutely magnificent stained glass and the other has statues
of brass alongside the platforms.
Everyone saw it as beautiful, which they were, but I saw it
for what I think it was – propaganda. The tube stations are used by the proletariat
for their day to day life, and it would be impossible to miss the main circle
line on your daily commute. It is here that these monuments were built to the
glory of the working class, instilling a pride of being a Russian. A lot of the statues were about humble people
working and of course believing that this work is going towards nation
building. The poor people are always fed on dreams of a greater society working
for a greater good. No book comes close to explaining this within the communist
context than Animal Farm, which explains how the poor and the hardworking just
have to work harder and harder. Large beautiful nameless generic statues are
built honoring the hard work and selfless dedication of these beautiful people.
You are supposed to look at them and find yourselves in them and believe that
your boring drudgery is a part of the greater purpose.
This is also one the reasons we honor the soldiers through
another long set of nameless statues. The tomb of the unknown soldiers is a
perfect example. These poor kids went off to battle and died saving the
motherland. These wars are fought on the behest of idiotic politicians who put
these young brave soldiers in front of bullets without much care about these
lives.
When we in corporate life took a lot of these structures and
ideals onto the organization, we too took these ideas and put them as at the
hall of fame thing. We inspire and make professionals believe that this is the
glory of life, we make them believe that we are what we are thanks to the effort
of the common worker who slogs his ass out from 9 to 9 leaving his health and
family at the altar of the common greatness and shit like that.
What a pain. No wonder I have never received an over
achiever award ever in my life. I have never won anything like that – no best
student, no best worker nothing. I don’t think that I have ever received any
incentive for anything either. Just end of year bonuses. Nothing else.
I guess I am proud of that. The only real award I received was
in college, ”principal’s special award for extra-curricular activities”, that’s
it. That was good enough for me. I won that for basically not attending class
but doing all sorts of fun things in college. I was put on the college magazine
as one of the stars of the college. Hah!
So yes travelling is fun and you do get to learn a lot, and
the further you travel from home, the better it is for you. Any pretext is
good, as long as you travel. So I am planning to do so as far as I can afford
to. Let’s see. I plan for sure to go somewhere in the next summer vacation that
Jispa has. Till then, this vacation, I am going to the Indian Himalayan foothills
this Diwali vacation. A cheap simple vacation where the most of the learnings
are going to come from the train ride that we will be taking with Jispa after a
really long time!
