Rebellion By Relaxation

By Shibumi Desai

In India, the eight-hour workday remains mostly an enigma. Work can and does happen anywhere; be it the office, home or even the commute in between.

Step counts are half achieved by running around the office. Calls are frantically muted to give instructions to the house help. Hands may be otherwise occupied, but wireless earphones have our ears and what’s between them during meetings. Night falls but the shutdown button remains elusive. Work and personal life merge until it’s all a blur.

We sometimes take to our keyboards to protest. At times we whine to our friends. Mostly, we adjust. But recently, we’ve begun to adapt. Or rather adopt.

Not a child, but dolce far niente, (the Italian philosophy of pleasant idleness) in bouts.

These are days we reserve; just to do nothing. Work calls and messages are blatantly ignored. Even plans to meet up outside the house are mostly refused. These days go beyond just weekends and public holidays, including leave days we take where our to-do list says, “Do nothing at all.”

It is our way of recharging.

For all the days begun with juggling morning ablutions with meetings; we sleep in and also take naps.

For all the hours in front of the laptop; we vegetate before the TV or at the most pick up a book.

For all the late nights and all-nighters, we loll about in bed on our phones though we’ll likely turn in much later.

A very dear person may be met for lunch. We’d both be yawning shamelessly throughout. We’d both aimlessly ramble. We’d likely not leave until long beyond “lunch time” at the restaurant.

People have some very strong opinions about these dolce far niente bouts.

There are those who call it laziness. They are probably irate at never being able to do this.

These bouts are also often seen as a rebellion of sorts. They spurn hustle culture outright. They are both premeditated and cherished. In a profoundly overworked place, relaxing is rebelling.

There are also those people who acknowledge it as survival. Days of doing nothing act like buffers for the larger number of days when everything is demanded of us.

This is new for us and isn’t easy. Indian culture is all about utmost respect for elders or superiors at work. Shunning rest is seen as championing hard work. Even in the face of rising lifestyle illnesses, this culture is too ingrained to be entirely ignored. So, we balance it out instead, to create a culture of our own. Lifestyle illnesses call for lifestyle changes. Our great lifestyle change is a shift in thinking.

We tune out the broken record saying, “You lazily sit around doing nothing. In our day…” as we tune into the inner voice saying, “This is your day to rest.”

The workday after a rest day comes.

The phone battery is at one hundred percent by morning and mostly so are we. The switch of relaxation is shut, and rejuvenated faces unlock phones and the week ahead.

By Shibumi Desai