Fun

I'm tired of being asked if I'm having fun, and I want to address the question once and for all: no, I am not having "fun". I have never in my life had "fun", and have no wish to have it in the immediate future. I'm quite content to be content, happy, or occasionally joyful. But "fun", I want no truck with.

I'm either terribly old-fashioned or horribly repressed, or maybe just a plain old bore, but I can't get my mind around how activities usually labelled "fun" can actually be pleasureable. Every time I've been called a stick in the mud and been prodded to "come out with us and have some fun!", the plans for the evening involved going pubbing or clubbing, or peferably both, with a hasty meal thrown in somewhere--usually at 3 AM at a roadside dhaba. Depending on the crowd, it also tended to end in drunken hook-ups.

And I've always been at a loss to understand how braving equally determined crowds to get an overpriced drink, or shimmying to ear-splitting nerve-jangling music with loudly dressed (if one's in Calcutta, anyway) terrible dancers out for a grope--most of whom didn't bother to change or at least spray on fresh perfume after work--or making do with cold butter chicken and stiff naans can be considered time well spent. Or in any way relaxing. If you ask me--and I realise you don't--"having fun" seems like an aggressive advertisment of one's ability to pay for the privilege of sharing an illusion of a good time, possibly to bury one's head deeper into the sands of denial about the the messy, overstressed, routined misery that one's life likely is.

Aggression and a showy loudness. Those are the things that puts me off "fun". Actually, agression, a showy loudness, and a certain herd mentality are the things that put me off "fun". Well, aggression, a showy loudness, a certain herd mentality, and a boring predictability are the things that put me off "fun". And the same goes for "playing hard". I've often been advised to play hard, or indeed, play harder. The bloody thing is such an oxymoron that I entirely fail to grasp the idea. Working hard I get (or wish I did), but what on earth is playing hard? Making a checklist of all currently approved ways and places of having fun and sweeping through them in a determined fashion?

Now, I would hardly want nightclubs to close shop. To each his own, and besides, that would let loose an alarming number of shallow fools on the broader social scene. I merely wish people would stop trying to drag me off to rub shoulders with suchlike. Contrary to popular belief, I do have several ways in which I enjoy myself, and quite thoroughly too. I merely have simpler requirements. On hard day's nights, I usually order a sumptuous meal from a favourite restaurant, buy myself a favourite dessert, and have either a good friend or a good book to keep me company during dinner. Then I have a hot, soaking bath (no bubbles, they leave oily scum on my skin) and usually set up the laptop so I can watch a film while in the bath. Finally I make myself a cup of hot chocolate, have a quick chat with my parents, and crawl between the soft sheets.

I have quite a lot of fun on weekends too. Sometimes I do it by staying in to sleep, shower, eat, and read on a cushy sofa all day (a pot of hot sweet tea always works its way into this scenario). At other times I do it by hosting or going to a cooking-in or a potluck with family or friends (never family and friends). Sometimes, on my days off when everyone else is busy, I pack myself a couple of different kinds of sandwiches, a bottle of lebur shorbot or orange juice, a bottle of water, and a bag of grapes. Then I go to the Boston Public Library to read. If in Calcutta, I go on food-and-photo strolls, breakfasting on piping hot kochuri-torkari and jilipi, taking pictures of the morning flower markets, lunching at small roadshide eateries, capturing the first drop of rain falling in a glass tumbler of tea, snacking on bagfuls of jamrul or a guava, or phuchka. At evenings I make myself a basic sweet cocktail of gin or vodka (not for me the exotic liqueurs with silly names) and invite over a couple of friends who can talk up a blue streak and do not shy away from a caustic joke or two.

Happiness, and this is my piece of weekly wisdom, cannot be grasped at by hanging out at all the happening places (unless, of course, it can). In fact, I'm deeply suspicious of any mass-prescribed recipe for relaxation and joy, from alcohol to spas. However, if one must offer an easy path, I'd say, go for good food, good conversation, and good sex. Neon lights will soon cease to be necessary.