Eclectica

• Get up early, just before sunrise, when it is still dark and the birds haven’t started chirping yet. After a wash, have a cup of hot, filter coffee and sit down to listen to a CD of M.S. Subbulakshmi bhajans—Bhajagovindam, Meera devotional songs. After this listen to one more CD, this time the ghazals of Talat Mehmood. There cannot be a perfect start to your day.
  
  
• Take a long walk in the garden or park near your home. Watch the children play, earnest walkers puffing away those calories. If there is any street or maidan where there is a cricket match going on, stop to watch and cheer. And should the ball come near you, scoop it up and bowl it to the bowler. You will feel like Kapil Dev.
  
  
• Watch, from a distance, an early morning meeting of a Laughter Club. Do not laugh with them. Just watch them howling and you will know how ridiculous they sound and act when they laugh without any reason. Then you can laugh and come home, in good spirits.
  
  
• Search for a TV list in your daily newspaper. At least one sports channel will be showing the ‘Caribbean Kings’ featuring the 1976 visit of the West Indian cricketers under Clive Lloyd to England. You can watch enthralled Vivian Richards smash two doublecenturies (232 and 291) in the series and the batting will transport you to another world.
  
  
• Have a breakfast of Venpongal with chutney plus filter coffee. Sink into a sofa with a P.G. Wodehouse classic, Jeeves or the Blandings Castle series. You will love people who care so much for a pig, who are so full of the milk of human kindness. And just in case you are not a Wodehouse fan, relax with a book of James Thurber. You will feel good in no time.
  
  
• Watch one of the following films: Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Chupke Chupke, Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi
  
  
• If you are an outdoor type, collect some friends and try climbing the nearest hill. Not very high, of course, but the more you sweat, the better you feel.

V. Gangadhar is a columnist and satirist, always in pursuit of happiness