COFFEE WITH ME

COFFEE WITH ME

October 2009

By Megha Bajaj

Flooding our lives with people and activities, we tend to distance away from the person who matters the most – our self, by Megha bajaj

Have you ever heard the song of rains? It starts with a hum, builds to a loud, emotional singing, and reaches its crescendo with the thunder. Never the kind to be happy as a bystander, I jump in to drench myself with the heavenly notes. What a feeling it is to see nothing but the silver rain all around, to hear nothing but the rain song and remember nothing but rapture. I feel no consciousness of who is watching and I feel no embarrassment to express my childlike joy– rains and me – me and rains, dance away.

Music too has a similar effect. It is like my magic carpet that transports me to different worlds. Listening to slow, meditative music I am transported to the bank of a sacred river, surrounded by silent snow-capped mountains. I imagine myself flowing with the river, no resistance, no conflict, just going with the flow. Drumbeats, on the other hand, transport me to jungles where I dance with a tribal group and feel a primal, raw energy flow through. Imagination refuses to be chained and sitting solitarily on a chair, listening to music I visit places unknown and unheard of. Music has the capacity to make me forget everything – it is the notes and me, me and the notes – in silent symphony.

‘Love your work, and you will never work again,’ this quote finds consonance with my life. As a child, I wrote to my family whenever I felt sad, whenever I felt happy, and also whenever I wanted a gift from them. As an adolescent, I wrote in my diaries of crushes and infatuations. And today I write books. Writing is a part of me – the way my right hand is a part of me. A paper, a pencil and thoughts just fly around, competing to be pinned down. When I am writing an article, someone could be staring at me for hours and I wouldn’t realise it. I lose all consciousness – all I am aware of is my thoughts and my words. Words and me, me and words – we need little else.

As I wonder what to name this article, I look around. And here I find my answer. I am sitting at a café having a coffee with me. Everyone else is sitting in little groups. Lovers in a corner, exchanging shy looks over the brim of the cup, some elderly people chatting about their aches and pains in the middle and youngsters guffawing around. Undoubtedly, it is a beautiful feeling to share life’s moments with someone close – but today I realise that it is as important to do a few activities in a day, which are just for me.

Flooding our lives with people and activities, we tend to distance away from the person who matters the most – our self. I now know that each day needs to be filled with at least one activity that I enjoy thoroughly, that I am doing only for me. It could be eating a strawberry ice cream, it could be playing with a dog, it could be singing in the bathroom, it could be scratching my ears – the activity hardly matters, what matters is that it’s bringing me a little closer to me, making me more intimate with me. So, do you owe yourself a coffee date too?