A yatra and its side effects

After retiring from government service in 2019, I became an easy prey to a life of ease, enjoying the revdi of all revdis: the Old Pension Scheme (OPS). So much so that the adage "work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?" sounded truer by the day. This attitude was further strengthened by the pandemic restrictions on going out.

But someone at home had been watching my evolution closely—my wife. When she saw that I had practically given up even walking, she proposed that we buy a treadmill.

That woke me up. I knew it was the thin edge of the wedge. If I did not shoot down the suggestion, other things were sure to follow—dumbbells, barbells and finally a home gym with a trainer and dietician thrown in. I was in a quandary as to how to oppose the idea when reports came of young people, including some celebrities, dying of cardiac arrests triggered by working out on the treadmill.

Thus, I was back to the state best described by Alexander Pope in Ode to Solitude: Blest, who can unconcernedly find / Hours, days, and years slide soft away. So when Rahul Gandhi launched his Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kaniyakumari (sic), I paid as much attention to the event as the mainstream media.

However, as the yatra and its popularity began to move northward, its vibrations came knocking at the door of my home. "Twenty-five kilometres a day, 25 kilometres a day," the tap tap began to reverberate throughout the house, creating a sense of unease, perhaps similar to what Rahul's critics felt.

The yatra had entered Rajasthan when one day my wife asked me to get something from a shop two furlongs away. As I was taking the car out to go, she asked, "Why do you need a car for such a short distance?" I said, "For two reasons. One, more pedestrians die in road accidents than car riders. And two, taking the car out once in a while is good for its health." She was not amused. "Do you know how much Rahul Gandhi walks every day? And he is doing it for more than a hundred days, braving all kinds of weather and threats to his security."

"Okay Okay," I said to save myself a harangue, but the message was home. Love and harmony, whether in a country or at one’s home demand sacrifice, tapasya, I understood and completed the errand on foot. Needless to say, the first thing I did on returning was to search out my old walking shoes.

Well, I have resumed the morning walk, but the thought that keeps disturbing me is this: Rahul Gandhi’s ordeal would be over in a few days, but the tapasya of a householder like me does not end even after retiring honourably.