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Out of control
Like many others, I begin with this fantastic vision of being the woman in control. Dates, deadlines, travel plans, list of invitees, meal arrangements, cleaners, everything seems to be pencilled in with precision.
- By Suchitra Bajpai Chaudhary, Senior Features Writer, Friday Magazine
- Published: 00:08 May 18, 2008
Have you ever been in a limbo when nothing that you planned really works out? It's like being caught in a spiral staircase descend, only without the flight of stairs. It's you spiralling disastrously to a crash landing.
Like many others, I begin with this fantastic vision of being the woman in control. Dates, deadlines, travel plans, list of invitees, meal arrangements, cleaners, everything seems to be pencilled in with precision.
I proceed with inviting people, or planning a holiday or organising a surprise party with this great sense of benevolence, as though the onus of gratitude lies on the invitees.
When in fact, the poor invitees have no say in it. They are given a date, asked to be there and they quietly acquiesce because they have no choice so many months in advance, but to say yes.
And thus I proceed with my elaborately pencilled out plan. The flowers are ordered, the food planned to last detail of the colour and texture of the dips, the cutlery, the fabric of the serviettes ... And then the spiral descent happens.
The regrets start filtering in. Someone has a conference, he or she is rushing to halfway around the world, someone has a broken leg, a condolence to attend, a sick dog ... eventually as I keep taking down the regrets, I can see the number on the invitees list trickling down from 50 to just about twenty.
As the list shrinks so do my grandiose plans. The flower arrangement is out, the dips and starters scuttled down from ten to three, the magnitude of the entire party shrinks from being this giant bobbing balloon, to one that has rent a minuscule hole and is rapidly decreasing in size.
Eventually, when only 15 people finally agree to be there, I hurriedly change the venue from a rented space to my apartment and scale down everything to spartan limits.
The party happens, it's lovely, lot of bonding, chatting and fun. Eventually it is only those who really matter who make the appearance.
Think small
As the event draws to a close and the last goodbyes are said, I make a resolution for the nth time. Plans are good, but don't plan for others, plan for yourself.
Eventually we are not really in control of events, the events happening around us control us. So think small, modest and manageable. There is more fun in cosy tete-a-tetes than large impersonal dos.
I think it is very well to pretend to be a person in control, but we never really can control things. It is sort of efficient to write down things, make lists etc, but those are nothing more than pleasant distractions of life and help us get along with the business of things.
There is a larger scheme of things moving as per some divine plan and only if our plans are in tandem with that scheme, do they fall in place.
When things are successfully done, we like to believe in our success and take credit for it, when in reality it is just a matter of our plans being in harmony with the divine plan.
Over the years, I have come to this conclusion and think of plans as little "pretend amusements" or mocks that little kids indulge in.
Those wonderful, sublime thoughts stay with me until the next party where I start all over again going from grand, to big, to small. I just humour myself with the entire exercise, because I think I have got addicted to the spiral descents.
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