A Day in the Life of...

WARNING: THIS IS BY FAR THE LONGEST POST I HAVE EVER WRITTEN. PLEASE BE PATIENT WITH IT.

DISCLAIMER: The events that follow bear no resemblance to any person living or dead - other than me. Any resemblance found would be considered extremely creepy and therefore must NOT be shared with me at any cost. These are actual events and have not been modified in anyway to make them sound funny.


A couple of days ago, one of my favorite bloggers, Scott Adams, gave a detailed description of his day on his blog. I found it quite interesting and have decided to share with you the detailed description of a random meaningless morning of my life.



6:00 AM - Woke up, silenced the alarm and sat up on the bed. Looked at my toes for about 5 mins. Now people like to do various things when they get up early. Some go and make themselves a cup of tea, some go for a walk/jog, some study, some do meditation or yoga. I have this really simple thing that I like to do first thing in the morning -- sleep some more.

8:00 AM - Woke up again, looked at the time, cursed, and sat up on the bed. Looked at my toes for about 5 mins. Still wasn't sure if I had woken up or not because I could vividly remember the dream that I had been dreaming... I am strangely good at remembering my dreams... In this dream I was a member of an elite assassin squad preparing myself to hunt down an enemy spy hiding somewhere in a big warehouse right in front of me. I was carrying a Desert Eagle and an AK-47. The bullets were of orange color for some reason. I woke up just as we were about to enter the warehouse. Anyways, thankfully, something inside me clicks at this point of time and I go into Auto-Pilot mode. I go to the door and collect the milk packet, go to the kitchen and begin to make myself a 400 ml glass of cold coffee. There are no clean spoons. I begin to wonder if I should wash a spoon or just re-use an old one. I don't remember how long I ponder upon this because I am still in auto-pilot mode. I eventually decide just to rinse the spoon with water and re-use it. The cold coffee more or less makes itself since I have been doing this for so long now that I don't have to think about the individual steps.

8:15 AM - I sit down on the carpet in front of the TV with my glass of cold coffee and stare at the newspaper for a while. I realize that the words are not making much sense, which meant I was still not out of the auto-pilot mode. My hand reaches for the remote and automatically changes the channel to Zee Cafe where last night's run of "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" is coming. I watch it again (having already watched it last night) for about 15 mins. Finished about half the cold coffee by this time. Still in auto-pilot mode. Not good.

8:30 AM - Switch to Star World and start watching 'The Simpsons'. This is another morning ritual. Watching 'The Simpsons'. In about 15 mins, I have finished the cold coffee, but, I am also beginning to get out of the auto-pilot mode, so it's all right. I don't *officially* wake up till I have seen 'The Simpsons' in the morning and drank about half a liter of Cold Coffee.

9:00 AM - Did 'thing' that must be done in the morning.

9:10 AM - Read newspaper for another 10 mins.

9:20 AM - Started watching India TV - the greatest news channel in the whole world. They show only 'Breaking News'. The other day, for about 1 hour, they were showing 2 cobras mating in some town near Delhi.
WITH RUNNING COMMENTARY!
AND I WAS WATCHING!!!.
They were also playing that haunting 'Nagin' tune in the background. Brilliant!

9:30 AM - Realize that I should probably start getting ready for office. However I need a proper setup before I can start getting dressed. This primarily consists of two things - India TV running on the television with the sound muted off and some music playing. Generally, I like to begin my day with some good ol' Classic Rock. But today, I decided to start by listening to some soft country music.

9:35 AM - Manage to find some freshly washed underwear and head to the bathroom. Suddenly the song "Tennessee Stud" by Johnny Cash starts playing. Now I really love this song and suddenly, midway to the bathroom, I realize that I DON"T know how to play this on the guitar. It sounded like a pretty simple song with a great Chord Progression. So I retreated my steps back to the bedroom, connected the laptop to the internet and searched for the chords of the song. At about this point of time, I made the decision that I would write about today morning in my blog.

9:40 AM - Decided to check my Orkut homepage for new scraps while searching for the chords. Not many people scrap me, but I guess that's because I don't scrap many people either. Anyways, decided to delete all the scraps in my scrap book... Remove all evidence. Found the chords of the song and started practicing on the guitar.

9:45 AM - Could play the song pretty well by now. Decided to practice some singing as well. This song really suits my 'voice'. Or whatever it is that comes out of my mouth when I blow wind through my "voice bone thingy". My fingers start to hurt by now because I haven't been playing the guitar regularly recently. I decide to stop.

10:00 AM - Go for a bath.

10:05 AM - Come out from the bath. Some horrible song is playing. Spend the next 5 mins making a playlist for the remainder of the morning. Really tempted to play "Tennessee Stud" once more but decide that I am really getting late now. Mentally declare Code Red. Well... Maybe not red but definitely Code Dark Orange.

10:10 AM - Couldn't decide what to wear. Started ironing a freshly washed trouser but decided that I didn't have time so picked out some already ironed clothes from the wardrobe. Suddenly realized that most of my casual clothes either belonged to the yellow or the red color family. Was confused for a bit as to how this ended up happening. Made a mental note to buy some new formal wear soon.

10:30 AM - Fully dressed. Have to go the university today to collect my degree. I graduated 2 years ago. Find my marksheet and put in my bag. Go through the checklist of items that I cannot leave the house without - 1.Mobile phone 2.Keys 3.iPod 4.Wallet 5.Sodexho coupons
Everything is in my pockets. All set to go. Switched off the laptop, turned of the TV and tossed the remote on the sofa, switched off all the lights, pulled all the curtains, closed all the doors, watered the plants, picked up the lock and suddenly realized that I hadn't had any breakfast!!!
Now they say that breakfast is the MOST important meal of the day. So, needless to say, breakfast must be had. I figure that since I am already so late, a few minutes won't make any difference. Went to the kitchen, managed to find a clean bowl. Served some Kellogg's Chocos into it and put a little bit of cold milk. Then realized that there are no clean spoons left. Stand still for about 1 min, looking at all the dirty spoons lying in the sink to see if I can find one which might be reused. Finally decide that i'll have to clean one after all.

10:32 AM - Bring the bowl of Chocos to the living room. Then realize that I can't switch on the TV because the remote is lying on the sofa and there is the carpet in between and I am wearing shoes and I have this self imposed rule of 'No Shoes on the Carpet'. The laptop is also switched off. So, I just stand there in the living room, in total silence, looking at a some freshly washed laundry drying on the clothes rack, and begin to crunch the Chocos. Soon I notice that the Chocos make a crunching noise which resembles footsteps and if I time the crunching properly, I can make it sound like a parade of marching men. Not the republic day kind of parade. More like a group of men marching victorious into a city. This train of though leads me into imagining that I am a general leading a troop of allied forces into Berlin after the surrender of the Nazis - while I am eating Kellogg's Chocos.

10:35 AM - Finished the chocos. Locked the door and since I am on a fitness drive these days, I decide to take the stairs. Of course, since my building does not have any elevators, I don't have too many options.

10:35:30 AM - Climb down the 5 stories in about 30 secs. Could be improved. Clean the seat of my bike and decide to start it by rolling it down the slope of the parking lot instead of the usual boring method of kick-starting it. Drive away.

10:36 AM - Realize that I forgot to turn on my iPod. Stop the bike on the side and ponder for a while which song to listen to. Finally settle on 'Another Brick in the wall - part 1' . Drive off again.

10:39 AM - The song changes to "Theme of Don". The old don... with Amit ji. This brings a smile to my face. "Don" is one of my all time favorite movie characters. I get into full 'Don' mode. Thinking like him. Acting like him. I happen to be in that part of my office-bound journey where I pass through a stretch of narrow winding roads. So I start imagining that the Police is chasing me and I begin to look suspiciously at passer-by's. I am sure I managed to freak-out a few of them. I have a very vivid visual imagination and I like to call this phenomenon "Hallucinations on Demand". Then comes the best of part of the song - the conversation between Amit ji (Don) and Helen (Sonia). It goes something like ...

Sonia: "Insaan yeh jaan sakya hai ki chaand aur suraj mein kya chhupaa hai. Par yeh nahin jaan sakta ki ek ladki ke dil mein kya chhupaa hai."
Don: "Mujhe ladkiyon ke dil mein koi dilchaspi nahin. Isiliye to aaj tak zinda hoon. Oh god! Getting late. "
Sonia: "Ek peg aur banaoon? "
Don: "Some other time baby!!"

Sheer cinematic genious!

10:43 AM - The song changes to 'Bitter sweet symphony' by The Verve. Now this is the kind of song that makes me want to look at trees out of the window of a moving car on a rainy day. But since my bike doesn't have any windows, I decided to take the next available option - looking at the reflection of the trees in the rear window of the car moving in front of me.
Now some of you may think that this is a dangerous thing to do, but I have practiced this art to near perfection. I just use all my concentration power to focus on the rear window of the car in front of me and making sure that the distance between us remains constant. Now since the car acts like a shield to protect me from on-coming traffic, if done on a relatively pot-hole free road, this is a fairly risk-free thing to do. I do this for about 2 mins till the trees disappear from the road and I have to make a turn. The next few mins pass uneventfully.

10:48 AM - The song changes to "Tennessee Stud" !!! Now I happen to believe that the best place to practice singing for a budding singer with no-voice is while driving on the road on a bike. The noise of the engine coupled with the music already playing in your ears drowns out pretty much all the cacophonous frequencies that come out of your "voice bone thingy". This way, the only people you creep out are strangers on the road who don't really matter coz you're not likely to meet them again. Although I stay alone and have the whole house to myself, somehow, singing at the top of my voice in my usually-quite house always ends up giving me nightmares for days.
Anyways, I spend the remainder of my journey singing "Tennessee Stud" on the top of my voice while passers-by look on.

10:55 AM - Reach office. Park bike. Climb up the 4 floors in about 20 secs. Not bad.

11:00 AM - Log on. Read mail.

11:05 AM - Start writing this post.



The End.