I rest my case

I recently learnt a new word in German --stubenhocker. It refers to one who loves to be in her room. It immediately struck a chord since I had just returned home from a 36-hour trip to Bengaluru, wheeling my cabin bag full of papers after a lecture and a head in which a migraine attack was blooming like a winter flower, slow but strong. I slumped on my bed, snuggled into the pillow, which knows the shape of my head like no one else, inhaled deep from under my comforter and went to sleep, thrilled with my bed and bedside full of unread books, half done embroideries, and chargers lying entangled like lovers.

I am exhausted with travel or at least the compulsiveness with which we are travelling during every other long weekend or a spell of holidays that one faithfully searches for the moment calendars arrive in our hands. With travel vloggers announcing the long weekends coming up in 2027, I am already under pressure to see it all. Now that the race for AI has made extinction almost certain, there is an added urgency to travel and make the most of it before the agents pull the plug on a nuke head or something.

The must see, must try template of modern travel, which adds a layer of fomo, like salami in between a sandwich, means that it is not enough that you go see Bangkok or Bengaluru, but you must have also eaten K Panich’s Mango Sticky rice or Rameshwaram Idlis after braving the queue of hundreds like you, who are gripped with the virus of must do and must see. It is not merely enough to have eaten these but also managed to get aesthetic photographs (preferably flatlay) that can then be circulated across platforms in status, stories and posts. It is the modern equivalent of tribalism, where heads have to be displayed for winning the honour of the tribesfolk.

The reason I have withdrawn support for travel is on behalf of my humble client, Leisure, a word that rhymes with pleasure, rather justifiably so in my observation. I read the poem Leisure by W H Davies in high school, and since then have always pleaded the case ‘to stand and stare’. If I were to form a republic, this would be on my flag. Of course, I went to school in an age where language and literature were taken rather seriously. We were taught to find beauty in verse and grace in prose. We used words like vice versa and nevertheless in our conversations and felt smug when they rolled off our tongue naturally, like rain from a cloud.

Bertrand Russel in his book The Conquest of Happiness (1930) wrote an essay on Boredom and Excitement which is relevant till today. I read it at 17, as part of course work in college and found myself nodding in agreement with the line on how fear of boredom has driven mankind to half the sins in the world. I have quoted it in umpteen lectures from the podium and drawing room conversations to yawning guests.

We have lost the ability to get bored and the ease of travel is one of the culprits, alongside television (read OTT platforms now, cable TV back then), social media and a host of other stimuli tech capitalism has offered us. Half the things in our cupboards have been purchased online during the mindless scrolling to kill our boredom. Chatting online with strangers in vacant moments, “just for fun” has invited more crimes, in the name of love than hatred. Mindless arguments in our WhatsApp groups are another symptom of modern boredom.

Now for the virtues of rest, leisure and stand and stare (sit if you must). It is a matter of common knowledge that Newton observed an apple falling off the tree while resting under it, which made him wonder about the pull that drew it downward. Restful moments lead to maverick questions, but only if we would sit alone and listen to the voices in our heads. Archimedes was submerged in his bathwater, when the idea of displacement and volume struck him. While running naked in the street crying Eureka is debatable, I am all for long baths. If in a bathtub, better. In 2026, Newton and Archimedes would have definitely had phone in their hands making any thinking impossible.

If sitting under a tree and bathing puts you off, let me recommend sleep. The Bible promises that God grants sleep to those whom he loves, and all are toiling in vain. In the Malayalam version, the promise has a nuance. It says that mortal men toil in vain, but to his favourites, God grants things even while they are asleep. I favour the latter interpretation. Remember how Paul McCartney wrote the iconic Yesterday in a few minutes after seeing it in a dream! God’s favourite he was. John Steinbeck famously solved problems by letting ‘the committee of sleep work on it’.

Oh, the joys of creative pursuits and peaceful co-existence the world would have, if we all rested, or better just slept. These days, I just want to be in my room. Rest. Allow myself leisure and stare at the ceiling if I please. Leisure traces its etymology to the same root word, licere as of the word license, to permit or allow. In the age of must do and must see, allowing oneself to rest is an act of love.
I rest my case.