The other day, Sharmila and I were hanging out with some friends and I was gently chiding her about all the clothes and shoes she has – that she never wears. I do not remember most of the rest of the discussion (no, she did not hit me on the back of my head causing me concussion) but I remember how the ladies agreed that they do not want to be seen twice in the same dress. I am sure, in the past, it was possible to abide by that rule and still wear a dress twice if the people to be met had not seen the dress before. Today, of course, with any party getting memorialized forever with obligatory pictures in social media – that wiggle room has gone right out of the window.

However, what I remember most is that Sharmila immediately retorted “You have lots of clothes in the basement too”. I brushed her comment aside chalking it up to be a defensive reaction from her.

But later, I did reflect upon those discussions and got stuck at that comment. While I certainly have far less clothes than her, it is true that I have a lot of clothes. I am defining “a lot” by stuff that I wear only a few times in a year.

That drove me to an uncomfortable realization that I probably suffer from the same challenge that I ridicule others about. Why do I have so many clothes? Why do I need 5 running shirts when 2 should be enough? Why do I have so many office shirts when 4 should be enough? (Even that, in these days of work from home, I am not sure I need all 4).

Lest it be ever said that I lack the capability to go from an awkward realization to a crazy decision faster than you can cry “Uncle”, I managed to conjure up my next personal challenge.

Can I live my life out of a suitcase?

Not all my stuff, mind you – for, it would be difficult to fit my motorbike in any suitcase – but at least, all my clothes, shoes and those stuff. Anything I wear. And if I buy anything new, one compensatory item has to go out.

No doubt I will be ridiculed for this clothes project – if not for anything else, for insisting on thinking inside the box only – but then again, I get ridiculed no less for my choices in what I wear anyways.

Have any of you ever tried such a project? Shridhar and Suzanne, I think you have some experience in this kind of minimalist living, right? Any tips on how to plan, what mistakes to avoid etc?

First thing first. I have to call dibs on the biggest suitcase we have in our house now!

Just this morning I was talking to my Geography teacher from my middle school days – Mrs. Jayanti Bhowmic. And this blog reminds me I need to call up my English teacher from those times – Mrs. Devyani Biswas. The love of geography and the love of writing that they had instilled in me came together on Nov 2, 2014 when I had decided to track my blog readers by country. The blog itself was over nine years old by then. So, all the tracking has been in the last six years or so.

Reached 149 countries this morning with that one reader from Tajikistan logging in. I am sure he/she was completely lost in the internet-dom and landed on my page. But I am tantalizingly close to reaching the landmark of 150 countries.

Some interesting facts:

Most commonly hit page is : About Me

Second highest hit page (I have no idea why) is a translation of a Bengali poem that accompanied a photo I had taken with my DSLR.

Most hits from China? The puzzles posts !!

“I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel — a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.”

Fivi, did I get the script right?

Every year, like clockwork, I wish you enough. It is an outstanding perspective-setting story from Bob Perks that reminds us of all the blessings we already have and how, to truly enjoy the benefits of life, we have to endure the pains too.

Even against that backdrop, it appears to me that wishing you enough this year is not enough any more. Not in a year that enveloped each and every one of you with the dreaded pandemic that upended your and your family’s lives as you knew it.

In a year when the person who had originally wished me enough got the dreaded cancer affliction, in a year when I came to the realization that the goodbye I had waved to my mom earlier in the year was going to be the last goodbye to her ever, in a year when I got cut off from my friends in the hospice – worse each one of them died without even being able to see their near and dear ones thru as much as a glass window, it seems it would be blissfully insensitive just to wish you enough.

This year, therefore, I wish you more than enough.

Whatever it is that makes you happy, I wish you a little more than you yourself are wishing for.

And in that pursuit of happiness of yours, should you be looking for some company, I wish myself that you will accept me in that journey – at least for a while. For, the best answer to the question of “What is more important – the destination or the journey?”, I have learnt this year, is “the company”.