What's your work/life balance?

There has been a lot of chatter lately on - where else - social media about how important the idea of work/life balance is, and how relevant it is to being 'successful' in life. GenZ appears to be particularly interested. 'There should be only four-day, thirty hour work weeks for all', some are clamouring, while others want you to work 90 hours or more. 

I found the discussion rather pointless, not because there is anything wrong with the idea itself, but the fact that most people who are offering strong opinions seem to have forgotten that this is a very, very personal thing, and there is no one-size-fits-all prescription that could work for everybody, no matter what every 'influencer' seems to think. This is not to say that I don't have a very definite opinion about it myself (and I have held firmly to it since long before the first GenZ kid was born); it only means that I should not want to impose it on anybody, just so long as they don't want to impose theirs on me.

There appears to me to be several different categories of people with definite opinions on the subject, depending on their psychological orientation and their own life experience. 

There are first, the workaholic millionaires and billionaires, who proudly ascribe all their worldly success to their working non-stop, virtually until they drop dead. I admire some of them, especially if they are doing something meaningful and still at it into their eighties and nineties (Bernie Sanders, Clint Eastwood, Sir David Attenborough), but of course I don't see eye to eye with them. Firstly, it is not true that you have to be a slogger in order to become very rich - a lot of people have done so by inheriting fortunes or winning lotteries or getting lucky at the stock market or only occasionally producing masterpieces of art and scientific inventions and so on. Secondly, most sloggers still die poor - witness all the labourers and farmers throughout history: that's a sad fact, but life gives very few people a fair deal. Thirdly, it's dangerous: I know, and have heard of, far too many people who have actually dropped dead or become invalids early in life through over-exertion. And fourthly, it all applies to only a very narrow band of (ignorant? unconscious? silly?) people who limit their whole idea of 'success' to making money, not even thinking of keeping time aside to the necessity of enjoying that money (what will I do with a vast fortune if I cannot eat and sleep and travel and rest all I want, maintain good health for a long time, have good conversations and read a lot of good books, watch a lot of excellent movies, listen to a lot of fine music, be at the side of loved ones when they need me?). I find them pitiable at best and disgusting at worst, no matter how much money they have. Besides, it's usually their wives and children who get all the fun...

Secondly, there are the rascally tycoons who want you - the miserable plodder who keeps his nose to the grind to earn at best a modest middle-class living with no long-term security - to go on working harder and harder so that you have no life left to live, and their vast piles of  filthy lucre can grow larger and larger. Without mincing words, they are vermin, true enemies of the people; keep a long list of their names for the time when the Revolution comes.

Thirdly, there are people who are caught in soul-drying, dead end, seemingly pointless jobs (usually ill-paying to boot) - I'm sure I can put thousands of jobs in that category - and find even a 9 to 5, six days a week schedule suffocating and increasingly intolerable: if they are too timid or unable to find better alternatives, I shall only sympathize with them, not advise them to work more. Those who enjoy the work they are doing will automatically work hard: you don't have to tell them; sometimes you should tell them instead to slow down and smell the flowers.

Fourthly, there are people who are inveterate shirkers, bone lazy, people who hate the very idea of having to work. Unfortunately - in this country at least - there are far too many of them, and they can only be whipped into working at all, so in this case all my sympathy is reserved for the managers who must keep slave-driving them. Their ideal work/life 'balance', after all, would be, if possible, sleep all through the day when they are not chatting or revelling or getting stone drunk, while daddy or mummy or the wife keeps slogging to put food on the table...

Even those who in their youth are working hard and doing well, materially speaking, need occasionally to hear a word of caution: don't work so hard at your job that time flies by and many of the most important responsibilities, such as raising children well and attending well to old parents, are not properly taken care of. And if you have worked hard and saved well throughout your adult life, the work/life balance should tilt further and further towards enjoying your leisure and fulfilling many of your long-held dreams - if you have anything like a decent pension, going on making more money in your old age is a sad frittering away of all the opportunities that life throws at you.

You could think of a few more types, but I think I have made my point: the same formula does not suit everybody; we are not identical and simple robots. Some readers, I can visualize, will scratch their heads and say 'I didn't think so much about it!' Exactly. That is why it is not good to dwell too long on social media 'debates': better learn to think and decide for yourself. It's your life.

The hills once again

Beginning 1971, when I was all of eight years old, I have been visiting north Bengal continually but after long intervals. This year I did it twice. I went visiting the Dooars in late February, and I have just spent a week in the hills again. 

As always, I begin to grumble three months before the pujo that I am having difficulty deciding where I should go to escape Bengal's annual madness, and which of my favourites I can take along for enjoyable company. This time round I couldn't confirm with anybody other than Arka Choudhury (who had accompanied my family on a day's road trip along with his batchmate Saikat back in 2010), and though I made all the bookings in late July to be on the safe side, the outgoing tickets on the Vande Bharat Express were put on the wait list, and I had to hold my breath till ten days before the journey to learn that they had been confirmed. Then, after sending off my mother to stay with her brother and some friends in Kolkata (more and more I hate to leave her alone for any length of time, though there are a lot of people around to keep an eye on her), I set off at dawn on Sunday the 28th September (shoshthi), and took the train from Bolpur, arriving on time at New Jalpaiguri. The station, being reconstructed, is a mess right now, and the sun was blazing. The pre-arranged driver dropped us off at the oldest homestay (large and lavish enough to be called a hotel, actually) in Teenchuley just after sunset. 

The room was big and cosy, with a sun lounge looking down on the twinkling lights of Kalimpong; the surroundings were quiet, clean and lush green, with the forest beginning within a hundred yards from the gate, the sky alternated between overcast and azure, the food was mouth watering, the service was excellent, so I would have been in seventh heaven had it not been for all the chatter from the adjoining rooms, clearly audible through the paper thin wooden walls. But there was some compensation: my next door boarder complimented me unasked about the quality of my voice that he had overheard, and, a little taken aback, I couldn't think of a better way to thank him than to send him a link to my YouTube storytelling channel via Whatsapp. The host - probably my age, but cheery and sprightly - treated us to beer and a few songs one evening, and I made friends with two young locals of my daughter's generation whose courtesy, English and general knowledge of the world won my admiration. We spent the days eating, sleeping late, chatting and wandering about the very steep roads or getting our breath back sitting on tree stumps inside the pine forest. It was as relaxing and enchanting as could be.

Around eight on Wednesday morning we drove off to Tukvar. We had to pass through teeming and hyper-congested Darjeeling on the way, and it was a nightmare: of the three-hour journey, just crossing the town took an hour and a half. All our old and classic hill stations are now bursting at the seams; I have heard it's the same in Nainital and Mussoorie and Shimla, and I had exactly the same experience at Ooty last year. Anyway, Tukvar is a steep climb down from Darjeeling, and it was beautifully unspoilt and quiet and clean again, nestled among tea gardens offering fleeting views of mighty Kanchanjungha when the clouds cleared. This time the homestay was a humble affair, but the host was most decent and friendly, and the hospitality was earnest and very good, so the two-day stay was once again very pleasant, especially every time I recalled the crowds and traffic and noise that I had escaped. On Friday we rose and left early to avoid the Darjeeling jams and drove off to Bhalukhop on the other side of Kalimpong, which I had liked very much the last time, and spent another peaceful day among the clouds, though there was a bit of unpleasantry over dinner, which I shall gloss over.

On Saturday we left early again, because it was very foggy and overcast, and drizzling all the way. The weather app predicted heavy thunderstorms. Our luck held, and we arrived early at NJP, which was already waterlogged. A plain and leisurely lunch at a streetside eatery, squelching through the mud and slush, then we were on the train. It arrived at Bolpur only a few minutes late, and Firoz brought us safely home, though ugly and cacophonous bhasaan jatras held us up on the way and even late at night. But we were very, very lucky: that same night the hills and roads we had traversed were flooded, and as everybody has heard by now, landslides have claimed many lives and injured far more. Evidently Ma Durga was looking after me, or I have accumulated a lot of good karma!

I must thank young Arka for being a very good travelling companion. I only pray that his snoring problem goes away! And also many, many thanks to my old friend Subir Dubey for suggesting such lovely places to visit. I only so wish he could have come along with his magical flute and harmonica.

These breaks are vital to my well-being, but travelling during holiday times is becoming more and more irksome every year. I wonder what I am going to do as I grow older. Perhaps taking refuge in the rural homes of people who care for me, with no amenities whatsoever beyond the peace and solitude they offer, would be the best option. Meanwhile, one thing is certain - excessive 'development' is ruining this country and bringing us closer to danger and disaster. I have read about locals in old and scenic towns all over Europe beginning to protest loudly against the tourism 'invasion', and I won't be surprised if the people of the hills in India join them in the not too distant future.

For photos, click here.