How I Keep Myself Productive While Traveling

I hate travel, especially business travel. Having said that, I must add to it that I love personal travel. I have to travel because my office asks me to do that at least twice a month. However, I have to keep myself productive because first, I have too much of work, and two, I don’t like to sit idle. People call me workaholic, but I don’t care. I do talk to people, but when I have time and willingness to do so. Let me write about how I maintain my sanity when I have too much time on my road trips or flights.

Work on less intensive work

When I am in office, I have many stressful jobs to do. However, I cannot have the same ambiance of my office at a bus station in Roorkee in North India. It is way too much to expect. Rather than cribbing over the lack of private space, I plug in my earphones and gather the less productive work. I can check my emails, pay the bills, register on a few freelancing websites, and do anything that seems too mundane in office. I hate doing these chores when I have more important things to do. But traveling gives me time to accomplish all these seemingly trivial but important things to do.

Advance planning

I have traveled to Bangalore from Delhi at least a few dozen times by now, which has made me experienced enough to understand what I should expect from the city. The situation of traffic, for example, is bad around my office in Bangalore. So I book a cab to reach from airport to office or hotel, and I use the time to do my pending things as I wrote above. However, when I have to travel for leisure around the nearby hill stations, I simply take a Car Hire in Bangalore and set off for the gorgeous hills. Similarly, whenever I have too much time to spend on an airport, I make sure that I carry my laptop charger, a novel to read, at least one academic book, and a power bank for my phone. I hate it if the battery of any of my gadgets goes too low to work. All these things need prior planning and I cannot go without it.

Adjustments, adjustments, and adjustments

Travel is just another name for adjustment and compromise, just like marriage. Even though I am not married, I can still say that I am lucky enough to have gained enough experience of adjusting to adverse situations. I hope it will help to cope with my married life. Nevertheless, without getting distracted from the topic, I should mention what I do to not feel distracted from my work. I know that I can use the headphones and listen to some really loud music, but it is not healthy throughout the journey. I feel several distractions while working in office as well, but I have learned to focus really hard on my work, no matter what is going on around me.

When it comes to kids getting cranky at an airport, I have to ignore them and focus on my work. Sometimes, I have a presentation to give within a few hours of landing in another city, and I cannot pay attention to the mess around me. Therefore, I have trained myself to just concentrate, despite everything.

Isn’t it a blessing in disguise to have developed so many traits just by traveling for work? I feel great when I look back at what I have achieved and I have so many milestones to achieve.

Things I Learned on My First Visit to Bangalore

Even though I had never thought about living in Bangalore, life took me there in the beginning of 2018, and it was a mix of sweet and sour memories. The best part about this city is that Bangalore is full of vigor and joyful people. On the other hand, the worst part is that you cannot bear the traffic situation here. The roads are too narrow to bear the huge number of vehicles on the road.

Thankfully, I had to spend only a month in Bangalore, so I used to take everything in a happy stride and be cheerful about things. Having said that, I cannot blame people for cribbing about a few things about their metropolitan life in Bangalore because they were absolutely right in their place. I, being a traveler, understand that problems tend to magnify when you have to face them again and again.

Since I am quite comfortable in the English language, I did not face any problem in communicating with people. A few people that I had met while traveling, though had a problem with the locals never speaking in Hindi. The local residents here speak either English or Kannad, their mother tongue.

Once, I had to go to the Cubbon Park, which was a few kilometers of distance from the mall where I was. So I tried to board an auto-rickshaw, but could not find one. I asked a guy standing beside me waiting for an auto as well; he responded that finding an auto in Bangalore is sheer luck. Sometimes, they come and at other times, they would just never cross your way. It was a brilliant thought for my mind, and I thought that it is better not to rely on the auto-rickshaw drivers for traveling.

I asked the same man about the alternatives to traveling around, to which he said that I should hire a cab or a car rental Bangalore, the latter of which is the better option because I did not have to depend on a driver to come. I cannot thank that guy enough for his valuable suggestion because having a car ready to drive anywhere I wanted saved a lot of time, even though I had to bear the traffic at times. But at least, I did not have to wait forever for a cab or an auto-rickshaw to come.

In my short stint in Bangalore, I visited the old places like Bangalore Palace, Vidhana Souda, Cubbon Park, and Lalbagh to witness the glory of olden times. Additionally, I visited the new constructions such as unique restaurants, high-end hotels, IT companies, and multiplexes. It was certainly an interesting vacation plus work stint in Bangalore, about which I have fond memories.

I also went to Coorg, which is just a few kilometers from Bangalore, and it was a mesmerizing vacation for sure. I got to know a lot about coffee plantations, and I can never thank the polite locals of Coorg. I think I would go to Bangalore again, given a chance because there is a lot more left to explore around this city.

How My Dog Welcomed a New Member to the House

Dogs have much higher intuition than the humans. While everyone knows that dogs can sense things that are going to happen, it is still a miracle to witness any such incidence on your own. We had heard that dogs already know it when a lady in the house is pregnant. However, not many Indians keep dogs, especially when they have little kids in house, so we had never heard any story about a dog sensing a pregnancy.

We had a golden male Labrador who was very fond of all of us, and he loved playing with anyone who would come home. A week before I got to know that my wife was pregnant, King, the dog had started behaving much funnier than he was. He would be elated whenever he saw someone. He would roll on the floor and sit in my lap so that he can get a head massage. Although he had his designated bed to sleep, he would come between me and my wife every day to sleep for the entire week. He would embrace us like a baby and never stop licking us. We would have to hand-feed his food to him, at least his first bite, and only then he would eat the rest of his meal.

We were amazed at this sudden change in his conduct, but we realized it only a week later when we got to know that Riya, my wife, was pregnant. We realized that King already knew about the baby in Riya’s belly, which is why he never left her side since then. He would never stop licking her at any given chance. Whenever she would eat food, he would sit beside her. As she went for a shower, he would sit outside the bathroom as if he wanted Riya to come our safely and should not hurt herself in the bathroom. Every time, she would cook food in the kitchen, he would dance and rejoice outside the kitchen as if he is happy that the mother of the house is cooking food for him and the new baby.

The delivery

I did not want to trust the cabs in the traffic, so I had hired Self-Drive Cars in Bangalore and went to the hospital with Riya for her delivery. Around 4 am, my mom called from home and said that King had suddenly started barking at the door, but he seems cool. He was taking rounds around the house and jumping on the bed and sofa, and would not let her sleep. The moment my mom told this to me, I told her that King knows about the arrival of the new baby in the house.

Mom was elated at the news of the birth of a baby girl. As we got the baby home, King would never leave her side. He had got his sister in the house. That is when we again realized that dogs are actually much more intuitive than humans.

Why I Love Bangalore More than Any Other City in India

No matter where we are born, a village or a vast metropolitan, the place always remains close to our hearts. Then comes one place in the nation that accommodates everyone from every part of the world; such is the city of Bangalore. People from various cities and countries come to Bangalore to build their respective careers, and many make it their home forever. When you have lived in the City of Gardens for a long time, it becomes impossible to take it out of your heart.

The memories of school

The friends that you make in college and school are often the ones you can never leave, despite the number of fights and arguments you have. There was a friend in school, Alisha, with whom I used to commute. We used to have lunch at her home; her mother cooked delicious food for us, and I returned home around 6 pm only after attending tuitions with her. When you spend such length of time every day with a person for years in a row, it becomes impossible to take that person out of your heart. Although life happened, and we happened to live in different cities for college and job, we still meet once or twice in a year and cherish the time we had spent together in our childhood.

College in Mumbai was even more exciting than the time in school. I made quite a few friends in the college, went to parties with them, and a few vacations as well. However, despite staying for a few years in Mumbai, I still prefer to be in Bangalore any day.

What is great about Bangalore?

I have been to several metropolitans in the world such as the New York City, London, Mumbai, Paris, etc. Not everything about these places is as good as it seems. People seem to work all through the day and night, and still, they cannot find peace. It is my personal opinion that you have to be crazy about the materialistic things if you want to live this maddening life. I cannot live to work; I like to work only to sustain myself a reasonable standard of life. An existence without greed is the one I prefer, and I can have all of what I want in Bangalore.

In my hometown, I can travel domestically and internationally. It gives me the opportunity to drive fancy cars (not to mention the traffic jam), buy designer clothes and handbags, have decent investments, and still save for my holidays. I can rent Self-Drive Cars Bangalore in various models to drive to multiple neighboring places and have the time of my life with my friends and family. What else do I need in life? I don't want to live a dissatisfactory life where I can afford to live in a huge mansion, but my mind is not at peace.

I have been brought up with fundamental human values that my parents and relatives have given to me. They always taught me to stay away from a paycheck-to-paycheck sort of life, which I often see people doing, especially abroad. It makes no sense to me to pay a fortune for the rent of a beautiful apartment in a luxurious city when I can pay the EMIs for my house in Bangalore. My home city gives me a chance to live a modest yet modern life, and never forget my roots. People make their own choices in their lives, and I have made mine to live in Bangalore forever no matter what.