Breaks of the day !

This morning sipping the tea and thinking of what to write for the today, cup slipped from my hand, broken. In the park during morning walk, I was trying to break my head as what to write. Nothing came up, my mind was blank. Came home, readying breakfast, broke eggs, still no luck on finding a good topic.

It looked like today is a day of breaks. I thought I will take a break from the daily illness of writing!

But then, I thought why not the topic “break” itself.  I have broken or tried to break three things in a span of three hours, cup, head, eggs ! There are many things one breaks frequently. Intentionally or quite inadvertently – but a break is a break and it deserves some attention today.

My office was on 4^th floor in a building on MG road. When I used to write and compile a program, many a times the compiler used to throw innumerable errors. Those times the editors were not intelligent enough, even syntax errors will not be checked while source code was entered. Once the syntax errors also got added, one would get 500 lines of errors while compiling 100 lines of code! When that happened, I used to take a break. Walked along MG road, Plaza theatre, Blue Moon theatre, entered Church Street where no church exists, walked past Hotel R&R and Chinese restaurant Blue Heaven and returned to office. These land marks are no longer there now, they were also forced to take a break. Now new things have come up there. Once back in office after that walk, I used to go through the code and fix  obvious mistakes and recompile, number of errors would reduce to three or four. Such powerful were those breaks!

I had witnessed a series of breaks in a span of 10 minutes while working in the same office. That day I was standing in the balcony thinking of going for a badly needed break. This was not because of any program I intended to compile successfully. It was due to the “Mouli’s” dubba lunch I had in office, half cooked rice and poories soaked in oil along with a few unknown things. As I was wondering which direction to go for a quick “breaking walk”, I heard a loud noise, I didn’t have to negotiate much. In front of Spencers shop on MG road. I rushed to the spot. My heart was broken. Seeing the Contessa car with fully broken windshield and other parts, the 14 year old driver had rammed it into the vehicles in the parking area. Then a rugged Mahindra jeep belonged to ITI, Bangalore with broken rear view mirror due to the impact by the Contessa. Then a Maruti Omni Van bearing no 3477 totally broken in the middle, two LH side doors broken and on the ground, axle broken due to the impact on the back wheel hitting the ramp – all because of that innocent Mahindra jeep forced by the Contessa to hit the Omni. And that Omni, just a month old, which used to get thoroughly cleaned and wiped twice a day belonged to me. My heart had to break much more !

At times one has to break certain thing to gain it. My neighbor’s late night dinner parties were a weekly affair. Some times Jilebi, sometimes Nimbuda, sometimes paan that too banaras wala. These are not menu items for the dinner but Hindi songs that can be heard by many of us. We kept silence, we ignored that as it was happening only once a week and that too till 11:30 PM max. Last few weeks complexion had changed. It became almost a daily affair with more items in the menu. Parties extended till 1:30 AM next day. “We had to break the silence to bring in silence in our neighborhood”. A few nice words did the trick. Now no more Jilebies after 11 PM !

Taking a small break is a good thing, it refreshes you. But if at all you are planning for a long break, try to have some concrete plans in place for that “broken” period.  

What I like most is the break that most of us take on a daily basis. It happens so naturally. We do not take any food, we go for a fast during that daily break. Those 7 to 8 hours of sleep at night. And we break it with a “breakfast”. This might sound like a sermon, but it is effective if practiced religiously. While going for that daily break or fast in the night, remind yourself of a few good things it happened that day and reflect on those many mistakes you committed. And while having the breakfast next day morning, feel strong that many good things will happen with a few non repeated mistakes on that day!

I really need a break now!