About Cats, Cornflakes and Faded blue jeans: A personal approach towards a less cluttered life.

-

Cats:

I like cats. I’m not a big pet person but if I were ever forced to keep a pet, I’d most likely adopt a feral kitten. I feel they would be a lot less emotionally dependent on me and we could set up a somewhat symbiotic relationship. It would not be My Cat, the sole property of its owner; but rather a cat that happens to live under the same roof as me. A freeloading roommate of sorts. And I in part will not have to make my pet cat my entire personality (here’s looking at you Dog lovers) but rather a source of companionship in my day to day. A mellow co-dependent form of living where a man and a cat, both distinct individuals live their own unique lives.

A neighbourhood zen monk meditating

One of my earliest childhood memories is of a feral molly which gave birth to a litter of kittens on the tin roof of our old house. For about a month I would awake to the incessant meowing of the kittens as they called out to their mother for food and warmth. I would always try to catch a glimpse of the little furballs as they came outside to sunbathe on the roof but mother cat was far too wary of me. That was probably where my fascination with cats first began. And As I grew older, I came to be more and more drawn to their general attitude towards life. Perceived as relaxed and lazy creatures, studies have shown the domestic cat to be the most effective predator in the animal kingdom. Their Wikipedia page reads ‘Social animals but solitary hunters’ and that’s what really strikes me as impressive. They enjoy the company of other cats and humans and need it to thrive, but when it comes to the hunt; they work alone. Something I try to emulate in my own life. 

Never quick to react as they silently assess every situation with a lazy, uncaring gaze they emanate a sort of zen like calm. The Egyptians were on to something.

Corn Flakes:

I’m not a food motivated person. I’ve been a skinny kid all my life and I struggle to gain weight. The thought of food just doesn't excite me. When I mention it in social settings the reactions range from mild surprise to utter disbelief. How can you not get excited about food! usally the most annoying person in the group will exclaim. The inability of some people to realize that all of us are NOT the same baffles me, and I’ve still not found the most effective way to deal with such clowns. Now I just try to divert the conversation with mixed success. 


Breakfast of the Gods

My approach towards food has always been utilitarian. I of course enjoy a well prepped meal on a nice day out, but  for the day to day I prefer my meals to be simple and efficient. Something that gives me my necessary macros, vitamins and minerals and is preferably not too complicated to prepare, consume or source. And here is where corn flakes come in like absolute champions. My breakfast of choice is usually a low sugar whole wheat cornflake muesli mixture with milk and a banana sliced in. Easy to prepare, simple to consume and very healthy for the most part. Khichidi comes a close second.


Faded Blue Jeans:


When Levis Strauss designed his denim pants, not in his wildest dreams could he have imagined the cultural impact of his creation. Perhaps the greatest American export after the bipolar junction transistor and a young Angelina Jolie, it has become one of the cornerstones of the 20th and early 21st century. If any alien race decides to create a Michale Bayesqe movie cheaply appropriating human culture, you can bet the Homo Sapiens will be wearing a pair of blue denims and converse sneakers.


The beauty of a faded blue pair of jeans lies in its versatility, ease of care and sheer comfort. It can be worn with any outfit and for any occasion and finds a place in all our wardrobes simply because we don't ever have to think about it. Like the underappreciated workhorse we never notice but simply can’t live without. As any CEO worth his or her salt will tell you, the sign of any great product lies in its inconspicuous ubiquity.


If you can't tell already, dear reader; I really love blue denim. Perhaps more than crocks, cats and even cornflakes.


James Dean: The man who brought denims to the big screen.

So what is the big takeaway here to tie up this blog post with a pretty little bow? What do cats, cornflakes and faded blue jeans all teach us? Maybe that the key to a stress free life lies in the mundane. So if your life is maybe just a tad bit boring, well done. You're probably doing something right.


Or maybe 2 years of working from my small bedroom is finally getting to me? 

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 4, 2022 at 8:57 PM

    Waking up on a weekend and catching up on this. Best!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grind, mindset and sheer dumb luck: How I blundered my way into business school.

-
Image
January 2020:  The CAT scorecard flashed on my screen. 96.x percentile was the final score. Not great, but certainly not bad. For a guy who gave the exam just to complete his bingo book of floundering through engineering (at least once try and raise funding for an idea doomed from its inception, flunk one placement interview so bad you go underground for at least a week and spend a semester flirting with the idea of dropping everything for Civil Services are few more honorable mentions). But it planted a seed in my mind that perhaps I should come again later, with better preparation and more conviction of thought. June 2021:  I join work straight out of graduation. And it’s fun. Nice team, cool colleagues, and a very relaxed work environment. No real stress or anxiety of any kind as I begin to learn the nuances of IT. But at the back of my mind, a niggling thought was ever present- What next? Like any self-respecting son of middle-aged Bengali parents, I knew I was expected to...
Read more

GAS: The art and science of bullshiting your way through B-School

-
Image
I have often viewed bloggers who would write exclusively about their college or work experience with immense contempt. They’ve infested platforms like Quora and Medium with their one-dimensional paper-thin analyses and rationales and yet built massive followings by preying on the aspirations of an ever-desperate populous. I had actively avoided doing the same throughout my undergrads on this blog. The trick I realized was not to let the college you were attending become your entire personality. It’s a little harder now than it was in my undergrads, partly because the entire curriculum is designed to take up every waking moment of your existence and partly because Jamshedpur is for the most part, ‘not very happening’. I am thus confined to my 40-odd-acre campus for the most part, and with grudging disdain, I must admit that I’m letting it consume my entire personality. That being said:  B-Schools are an absolute circus filled with every type of clown imaginable and that makes for ex...
Read more

The Joy of Writing About Nothing in Particular

-
Image
Language was invented for one reason, boys — to woo women — and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do.   - John Keating.  Dead Poets Society. I first heard these lines when I was 19 years old. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon and after a heavy lunch, I was lying on my bed with this seminal piece of modern film playing on my laptop. As a generally impressionable young man who naively believed everything he read and saw(to be honest, I’m still guilty of this), I was left deeply impacted by these lines and the apparent depth of their wisdom.  I was convinced that the point of all writing, of prose, poetry, and spoken verse to impress and inspire. Going forward merely talking will not do, I must move people with all that I say. I held long-standing visions of aping Antony with my voice, holding the sway of entire crowds. I dreamt of moving generations with my writing in the ways of the great Russians of yesteryears.  I managed to achieve neither but rather came across as...
Read more