Slackers United

Those who know me even remotely are aware of my extreme attraction to inactivity. And those who know me well probably share the same attraction, except for a few blood relations that fall on the other side of the genetic spectrum. I must mention that this is very common amongst Bangalees who even have a term called ‘gentomi’ loosely translated at mental laziness. I hear that Goans too have something similar called ‘shusheghaat’, though I am still ignorant as to its exact meaning. Maybe this ‘condition’ stems from generations of eating fish – both kinds – river and sea water fishes since Bangalees hunt the former with as much fervor as Bangalees can muster while Goans are the main reason for the extinction of the latter. I had read some theory once which said that we are so similar because apparently we migrated from Kashmir. I find that hard to believe just because of the immense travel involved (not that travel has become easier. I mean think of the numerous pieces of clothing you have to remove at the airport security checks and how far you have to walk between terminals in bigger airports). Assuming that is true, geography tells us that Bangalees are lazier as they stopped moving a lot earlier than the Goans. Why do you think unemployment is so high in Bengal? I guess it is no surprise then that Agastya Sen, the protagonist of ‘English, August’, the epitome of this quality (I consider him a personal guru, which means I have a fictional guru, which makes me crazy, which is still better than being active) was a product of the combination of these two great cultures.

We are the denizens of society who accompany teams to nearby cricket tournaments not to play with our enthusiastic fellow riders but just so that we can laze around on the grass under a shy sun shining down with timidity and producing what photographers call ‘diffused light’. We are the people who do not correct newspaper journalists when they get our fellow player’s last names comically wrong wondering as to the point of the whole publicity stunt in the first place. We are the people who drive around downtown Salt Lake City admiring the architectural magnificence but not stopping to take out our cameras to capture them. We are also probably the only drivers in the world who start a journey on a sports car on cruise control and then curse every time there is a curve in the road. It’s not that all of us love to sleep. Personally, there is nothing more satisfying than lying at an angle of 135 degrees on my La-Z-Boy and doing nothing. Maybe read a little sometimes, but that too can be taxing after five pages or so. As the protagonist of ‘Office Space’ puts it so effectively, “I would just do nothing if I had a million dollars.”

So, it is needless to mention that we are agitated more than active (abnormal) people when we ‘google’ for a South Indian restaurant, find the directions on Mapquest and drive the Goliathan (yeah yeah, tautology) distance (relatively speaking of course) to find it closed on Sundays. Then there are dilemmas in life like is it better to go all seven floors down (yeah, I know there was an elevator, still) to the hotel Jacuzzi and spend a couple of hours basking in the taboo thrill of watching beautiful Morman women in bikinis, or whether the bed in which you are lying in considering this will suffice. The latter situation always wins. We are also the only people in the world who don’t touch wood when talking of bedpans, and hail the remote control as the greatest invention of the last century. We grow our hair not to make a fashion statement but till the time we realize that combing the damn mane is actually more work than making our way to the nearest Great Clips. We criticize the Nintendo Wii for the realistic feel it brings to video games because the whole point of this sport is to only move the tips of a couple of fingers up and down. Right now you are probably wondering the reason for the randomness of the order of the contents of this post. I would go ahead and read it and organize it, but then I would rather sit back, zone out and increase La-Z-Boy Inc.’s share prices.