The Weekend Paradox

This has been one hell of an unbearable week for Delhiites. While we are no strangers to temperature reaching 45 degree Celsius and over in peak summers, it still is usually a one off occurrence in the whole season. But when a whole week goes by with the mercury refusing to go below the 45 mark, life can literally become a burning hell. And this is just the average temperature recorded for the city. Local observations have had recording going as high as 47. Its times like these I wish we could hibernate too. That wish partially comes true, for me at least, on weekends. Every weekend, I go underground. In my home that is. Sleeping late, and parking my ass on the couch for the rest of the day in front of the television, interspersed by the occasional grocery shopping. I am not even on the computer on weekends as much as I am on weekdays. Sounds pretty chilled and relaxed. But for some reason, I end up being bitter and angry throughout the weekend. And the main reason being - I just killed time, without being productive. 

People all over the world look forward to the weekends religiously. I think more odes have been written on Friday than on woman's beauty! Its like a gift of time, and everything fun you want to do in life is scheduled for the weekend. Shopping, trips, travels, visiting friends or family, movies, excursions, catching up on your reading, dusting, cleaning and a thousand other things fill up weekends for people. Or at least, the idea of doing these things. That's all I am left with usually. Just the ideas. Now don't get me wrong, its not like I am extremely productive or super busy on weekdays. That's as far form the truth as possible. But, still on weekdays, there is this illusion of not having time. Your time on weekday is already committed to a prefixed itinerary- in my case, apparently planned by a travel agent who's out to get some long lost revenge on me. You don't have a choice, you have to perform some mundane tasks including getting an education or making a living, and commuting to and fro from the places where you perform the said activities. But on weekends, you have a choice of doing anything else you want to do apart from these things, or even fill in the gaps you left through the week in these - if that's how you roll. For some people, the idea of a perfect weekend could also be the one I described. But somehow, that just leaves me with a feeling of bitterness, of being ashamed at my own laziness and lack of initiative, disappointment that I am sitting on the couch and watching a reality show on TV when I could have been watching live musicians play at the Escape music festival at naukuchiyatal  in Kumaon Hills of Uttarakhand, about which I had been hearing all week long on the radio. Ok, that might be a little bit too ambitious, considering I can't get myself to go to a mall 20 minutes away from my home, leave alone a music festival hundreds of kilometers away. But that is the idea of my life in my head, and the reality is just so distant from it that this rift causes a great deal of disturbance in my mind. Especially off late, since I turned 25 a week back. And as the realization dawns on me that this rant might be more of a reflection of my dissatisfaction with my life in general, rather than a measly weekend, I guess it would be safe to conclude it right here. 

Now I know there is no one who can change all this other than me, myself and I, and there is no one else responsible for it either, but God I wish there was someone I could blame it on! Or much rather, someone who could may be snap me out of this rut! Darn it! Now I feel like I should change the title too. Or rather, I'd just let it continue as a verbal diarrhea of literally thinking out loud. So anyway, in effect, I guess I want to reclaim my life back, starting with more productive and satisfying weekends maybe. And in case someone didnt get it, the paradox lies in the fact that while most people look forward to relaxing on weekends, I want mine to be more productive and ... well, not so lifeless.