It has been quite some time that I have been thinking of starting to write….. As I sit down to pen my thoughts one thing that has stuck to my mind for a few days now are my 75 minutes….. Every morning Monday to Friday my 75 minutes are a regular feature now…. They are those 75 minutes when I am lost in my thoughts…. Visuals, intuitive correlations that I draw or those that come to my mind on their own…. Whatever the case may be these 75 minutes for 5 days a week every week are soothing, make me connect to my own self.. I thought that I will share these 75 minutes with people I know and here I am J

My 75 minutes start every morning when I am ready to board my cab to office… I call up my driver almost every day to check if the cab has arrived and we both greet each other with a “Good Morning”… We pick our fellow cab mates and start our daily commute to office…. There is silence in the cab and each of my cab mate has a thing they are busy with…. I look forward to the next 75 minutes before I would reach office to start another day at work…..  NH 24 (my riding zone) till about a couple of months back was a headache… however recently 9 km stretch of the Delhi Meerut expressway got inaugurated and it is a driving treat… The drive is smooth, fast and peaceful… wide open and clean roads makes the car whistle at about 90-100 kms per hour… I have started enjoying the ride so much that I have given up on my sleep in the cab… I eagerly wait to see the vertical gardens on both sides of the road and trust me you can actually feel the freshness.. The greenery on both sides looking over the yellow grill is resplendent of a royal feeling… daily as I pass through the vertical gardens I promise myself to take better care of the environment around…. These bright, fresh and multi coloured plants have become my friends… we greet each other every day with a silent smile…

As I continue my journey I witness (on a daily basis) 2 construction projects… one is the construction of a Sea World (similar to the one we have in Bangkok) and another is the National War memorial… This is my all-time favourite area around the India Gate… Royal, Enduring and Suave…. That area has a SWAG of its own and a place which fills us all with a feeling of pride…. The drive continues (and mind you I hardly hear the cars honking, maybe it is just the morning) and I pass one roundabout after another… green, greener and greenest…. Lush, well maintained, fresh and designer…

The day has just started for us all and people are still getting out of their beds… however nature is ready with a breakfast of fresh air served with bright sunshine, I see a lot of people enjoying their morning walk and cyclists pedalling their way to good health…. I will be honest I wish everyday if I could also cycle to work (45 kms it is one way and am I really ready) with miffed chuckle, I postpone it to another day which till today has not arrived…. Will it arrive soon… let us continue with the cab ride as of now J

I am smoothly and surely progressing in the right direction and it is time when I hit the ‘Sardar Patel Marg”…. I am in a confused state of mind everyday whether I want to focus on the right side or left side of the road… my attraction on the left side of the road is that on a daily basis I get to see either a Labrador wagging its tail and enjoying the morning walk or sometimes 2-3 Beagles walking carefree… the right side of the road has a forest area and I see ancestors of human beings, Monkeys playing, eating and just having fun… I will be honest I seldom end up focussing on the left side… I love dogs specially after Delhi Police’s special dog and my favourite “BABU” won a gold medal… this often reminds me of the Raymond advertisement when a group of 5-6 white puppies run to hug the owner of the house every evening…. Dogs take away all the stress and I have a different glow looking at them knowing that I may not be able to have my own “BABU”…… now comes the difficult part…. We are now heading into the difficult part of the journey… DHAULA KUAN…. Peace will get wiped of, honking will start and lack of driving discipline will make people start abusing each other…. But what have I started to witness is not mundane… the corridor is being re-developed and it has started making people feel special… they all say – In Silent Chorus “Atleast someone is trying to solve our problems and I must say Mr Gadkari surely wins a lot of accolades everyday… wait a moment – Did I bring in a political, BJP angle to my journey… may be yes… but I am only thinking that if everyone starts empathising – Delhi NCR will surely become a better place…  we are cruising along well and I see NH 8 from a distance…. This road is jam packed with traffic and I am so engrossed with my positive thoughts that I just don’t want to give up…. I slowly slouch on the back seat of my cab, start closing my eyes and knowing that I am still 20-25 minutes away from my destination my eye brows start to blink faster and I know I am starting to feel sleepy…. My driver like every day will safely park his car in the basement of the building but while he reaches that stage I want to hug my thoughts and have a quick power nap… I doze off for a quick power nap and the car makes its way through the maze of several other cars around….

Finally the journey has come to an end, the car is parked and it is time for me to get out and fulfil my responsibilities with great rigour and determination… I know I will have another ride late in the evening when I will be heading back home…. I have started enjoying it and I look forward to it now on a daily basis……

Everyday these 75 minutes make me realise one thing…. Everything that comes in our way – Living or Non-living, static or in motion, speaking or being silent…. They talk to us… they communicate a message and through my own thoughts I have started developing a connection… It is my 75 minutes every day that our mine and apart from a few repetitive moments of connect I have new thoughts everyday… I share them, I feel them, I put them into action and I move on…. We all have our own 75 minutes (less or more) and I am sure if we develop these connects…. Life and viewpoint will change…

I invite each one of you to find your 75 minutes and be your own self… Trust me you will be more empathetic, more thoughtful, more calmer and would have a zeal to do a lot more… a lot of things that I witness in my 75 minutes do not even know that they are changing me for the good…. They do it selflessly and inspire me…   

As is said “We Do Not See Things the Way they are, We See Things the Way we are”…. Let us try to see things from a different angle from here on…..