Weekend rituals

How to distinguish your weekends from the work week

My weekdays always end with a walk in the park. But I never ever venture out for a stroll in my regular haunts over the weekend because of how crowded they get at this time. This is the time that families, groups of friends, and giddy lovers get to spend time outdoors, enjoying a slap-up picnic in the great outdoors or just searching out cozy corners to have a bit of a cuddle. So, not only are the parks overcrowded, so are the parking lots and I can’t help but feel (I know, it’s terribly selfish of me, but there you go) that my world has been taken over by outsiders.

 

So, over the years, I have developed a weekend ritual of my own. Saturdays are working days (also the day on which I file this column) so I don’t do anything special. But Sundays have a rhythm of their own. It all begins with a late breakfast, nothing too elaborate, but something that involves a bit of cooking (instead of lathering on butter on a piece of toast). Then it’s time for a long shower and shampoo, followed up with some serious moisturizing. The grooming session ends with some quality time with my beloved Dyson airwrap to get my hair just so. 

 

The highlight of my Sunday is always lunch, the venue being agreed upon with my husband well in advance. It could be a pizza in the balmy sunshine of the courtyard at the Italian Cultural Centre; it could be a mysore masala dosa at Sagar Ratna; it could be a slap-up Chinese meal or an assortment of chaat. It doesn’t really matter what we eat as long as we don’t eat at home. Having lunch out has become a non-negotiable part of my Sunday routine.

 

A follow-up snooze is not mandatory, though it becomes inevitable if we have had a drink or two. But for the most part, Sunday afternoons are spent in my favourite armchair, reading a book, with a big pot of Chinese tea by my side. I don’t move from this spot until it’s time to make dinner. And Sunday dinner is always at home, more often than not a one-pot meal – a quick stir-fry, a basic risotto, or even a masala khichdi – because we are still so full from the enormous lunch.

 

I know that there are people who will be appalled by just how lazy my Sundays are. These are the kinds of people who wake up early to go play a round of golf, maybe put in a tennis lesson or two, or just hit the gym. Then, there are those who spend this day doing all the household chores that have accumulated through the week: clearing out the cupboards; dusting the bookshelves; doing laundry; and the like. But what can I say? I would rather put in extra hours during the week to finish all this stuff so that I have Sunday as a clear day in which I do nothing.

 

The Italians have a phrase for this. They call dolce far niente, loosely translated as the sweetness of doing nothing at all, or the pleasure inherent in pure laziness. And that one phrase sums up my Sundays – and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

Slow down...you're moving too fast

Sometimes the best way of doing something is to do nothing at all!

Admitting to a love of anything Italian these days tends to lead to accusations of being 'Congi' 'sickular' 'paid media' but I am going to stick my neck out anyway and fess up to just that. I love Italy. The small villages, dotted like shining gems all around the gleaming countryside. The tiny towns, with their amazing piazzas and dazzling duomos. The big cities, heaving with life, and drowning you in unexpected beauty around every corner. The seaside with its deep azure waters, the mountains with their verdant landscape, every corner of the country has something stunning to offer.

And then, of course, there are the Italians themselves. Okay, I am prepared to concede that they may not be the most organised or even the most industrious people on the planet. But what they lack in terms of a work ethic they more than make up with their sense of style, their natural elegance, and their love of 'bellazza' (beauty) be it in their clothing, their houses, or even their food and drink.

There is something magical about sitting at a roadside cafe in Italy and watching the world go by. Both the men and the women - no matter what their age, shape, size or social status -- have a certain individual flair to their dressing, a je ne sais quoi (sorry, can't think of a suitable Italian equivalent) that makes them look both stylish and elegant. (If you do find the odd graceless creature trotting by, you can rest assured that he or she is -- like me! -- a tourist.) I could spend entire days just feasting my eyes on the pictures of everyday life they conjure up as they rush to work, take their dog for a walk, play with their kids in the park, or simply enjoy an al fresco meal with their friends.

And what is even more magical is that the Italians have a special phrase to describe all this sitting around and watching the world go by. They call it dolce far niente. Or, loosely translated into the far more mundane English, the sweetness of doing nothing.

Over the years that I have spent studying Italian and travelling through Italy, this has become my favourite phrase. It perfectly sums up my state of mind when I am on holiday. I want to experience the sweetness of doing nothing. Of just wandering around and soaking in the atmosphere. No taking pictures. No obsessive checking of phone messages or emails. No dipping into social media to check what's happening in the world (or to tell the world what is happening with me). No peeking into guide books to check what are the must-dos and must-sees for every city.

No, I simply revel in the sweetness of doing nothing. Dolce far niente. What an absolutely marvellous way of flushing your mind of all the toxins that the stresses of day-to-day life produce and recharging your batteries for the time when you must inevitably return to the day job.

Last week, as I sat around in an Italian coastal town thinking about ideas for this column after days of doing absolutely nothing at all, I couldn't help but wonder why we have lost the ability of switching off and losing ourselves in the moment. One reason of course is the hyper-connectedness of the world we live in. The office is always an email away; social media means you can never really get away from it all. And thanks to the way our brains have been rewired by the Internet, our attention spans have been shot to hell. So, not only can we not concentrate on anything for too long, we cannot focus on nothing for any length of time at all!

But that's only part of the story, I suspect. There's also the fear of missing out that impels us to never stand still, to keep moving, to look out for more, to snatch the most out of any experience. We want it all, we want it now, and we fear that we will miss out if we don't keep striving for more every moment of our lives.

So deep is our fear of missing out that we have even infected our children with it. No longer are they allowed to just relax and enjoy themselves during their vacations (or even during term time for that matter). Instead we schedule swimming lessons, tennis camp, science tuition, guitar classes, and God alone knows what else, to make sure that they never experience a single moment of delicious idleness (the kind we revelled in when we were kids).

But you know what? It's okay to stand still some time. It's okay to slow down and watch the world go by. It's okay to lose yourself in the moment. And it's okay to indulge in a bit of dolce far niente. The sweetness of doing nothing: you really should try it some time.