Listen to the pouring rain...

And take time off to revel in the magic of the monsoon…

It has certainly taken its time about it this year, but finally the monsoon is upon us. And not a moment too soon, either, if you ask me. Just when we were about to wilt under the unrelenting heat and melt into a little puddle of humidity, the skies opened up and gave us the magic of the monsoon. The rain came crashing down, washing away the dirt and grime of an Indian summer, and suddenly the world looked green, clean and freshly-laundered, with the smell of petrichor filling the air.

As you can tell (and you certainly can, if you have been regular readers of this column), I love the rains. I love the sight of dark, gathering clouds. I love the fat little droplets of rain that fall on my window. I love the drama of the thunder and the flash of the lightening. I love the romance of walking in the rain, getting soaked to the skin and drenched to the bone. 

Which is why I can never understand the monsoon nay-sayers, the ones who moan and groan about the onset of the rains. Yes, I know that traffic can become a mess after a five-minute shower in some parts. I know that if a storm breaks, a power cut can’t be far behind. And that the slightest hint of rain is liable to make Tata Sky (less a DTH service; more a weather app) disappear off your TV sets.

But come on! It’s the monsoon. It’s the season to leave all your inhibitions aside and embrace the promise of the rains. It’s the time to sit on your balcony and watch, hot mug of tea/coffee in your hand, as the showers transform the urban landscape. Or just snuggle up on your couch, with a good book, and read all day long with a thunderstorm providing the perfect background score. 

Are you really going to be put off by a few puddles or even massive waterlogging, for that matter? Isn’t a traffic snarl a small price to pay for the privilege of gazing at those darkening skies, until they finally split open and shower their largesse upon us? Does kitchdi ever taste better than when it is accompanied by a light but unrelenting drizzle? And did I mention that the temperature falls by as much as 10 degrees?

Growing up, my idea of heaven was getting a ‘rainy-day’ holiday from school. During the monsoons, I would get up and run to the window to conduct a ‘rain-check’ first thing in the morning. And my joy knew no bounds if the rain was already coming down in its full glory. If it lasted for an hour or longer, the odds of school being called off because of ‘rain disruption’ were very good indeed. And then I could do all the stuff that made monsoons memorable: get down and dirty in the puddles in the garden; plug the drainpipes and create my very own swimming pool on the terrace; gorge on pakoras and other deep-fried delights.

So, my message to all the monsoon kill-joys out there is this: lighten up and embrace the season. It is going to rain – incessantly, if we are lucky; on and off, if we are not – for the next couple of months, whether you like it or not. So, why not try and get into the monsoon spirit this year? In case you’re game, here are just a few pointers to get you started:

• Take a monsoon break. Kerala never looks more beautiful than during the rains. Beach destinations like Goa take on a particular charm at this time of the year. Or you could simply head to the hills for a spot of R&R. Take off for a week or even a weekend to enjoy the stunning beauty of the monsoon in these scenic locations. An added bonus: off-season rates ensure that you spend a fraction of the money you would have during high season. 
• Can’t take so much time off? Or simply can’t afford another vacation after the expense of the summer holidays? Never mind. Make the most of what your neighbourhood/city has to offer. Slip into a raincoat and head out for the park, thermos of hot tea tucked away under your arm, to be enjoyed in some verdant spot. Organize a rainy-day barbeque in the backyard and call the neighbours over. Or simply walk along a sodden beachfront and watch the waves roll in, a grey symphony with the overcast skies.
• Getting stuck in traffic snarls is a given. Don’t be caught out. Take along an ipod loaded with the best monsoon songs, which you can sing along to as the rain batters your windshield. Use the time to make a call to a long-neglected friend or family member. Or just chill out and clear your mind of all the clutter it has accumulated during the day. Don’t stress yourself out because of the delay; that won’t make the traffic move any faster.
• Want to feel better about yourself, even if you can’t about the season? Then take this opportunity to set up a water-harvesting unit at home, in your building, your colony or your cooperative society. The water table will thank you, as will future generations. And who knows, you may even finally get the point about the monsoons!

A question of answers

Why the media need to rediscover the lost art of the interview

I can’t be the only one who mourns the demise of the art of the interview when I watch what passes for one on our television channels. The questions are often longer – and frequently far more convoluted – than the answers. The interviewers tend to be so aggressive and overbearing that their subjects shut down completely rather than open up to them. Couple this with an appalling lack of research and a complete absence of curiosity and you are left with an exchange that may have a lot of sound and fury but which ultimately signifies nothing.

I was reminded of this yet again as I read the British journalist and ‘celebrity interviewer’ Lynn Barber’s new book, A Curious Career. Barber has been interviewing celebrities and writing them up (and sometimes stitching them up in the process) since the late 60s when she began working for Penthouse (yes, you read that right) magazine and after stints with the Sunday Express, Independent on Sunday, Observer and Vanity Fair, now writes for the Sunday Times. Her new book is a curious hybrid creature: part memoir, part riff on journalism, interspersed with some of her most famous interviews.

Half way through it, though, I began to wish desperately that some of our own ‘celebrity interviewers’, both on TV and in print, would read it for pointers. But just in case they don’t have either the time or the inclination, here are some of the golden rules of interviewing, in no particular order of importance, some of them gleaned from Barber, others just plain old common sense.

• An interview is always about the person being interviewed. It is not about the interviewer. The interviewer is only there to find out more about the interviewee, so that this information can then be passed on to the viewer/reader. So, keep the questions coming. Keep them short and sweet. And frame them to elicit the maximum information. If you are speaking more than your interviewee, then you have failed as an interviewer. 
• It is the interviewee’s views that matter, not yours. We don’t need to know what your views are on the Indian economy, the Modi victory, or even the new rape laws. If you want to tell us about them, write an article about it. An interview is about the person sitting in front of you. Pay attention to him or her. And stop banging on about yourself and what you believe in.
• Do your research. You need to know everything there is to know about your subject that exists in the public domain. And it would help if you knew some stuff about him/her that is still unknown to the general public. So, talk to the potential interviewee’s friends, colleagues, family, neighbours, to get a handle on their personality. Forewarned is forearmed. And since we are already in cliché territory, knowledge is power.
• Found out everything there is to know about your interviewee? Now be a dear and forget about it. Don’t bang on about the same things that have been written about the subject for years on end. Everyone knows that Shah Rukh Khan was an outsider from Delhi when he made it big in Bollywood. Sachin Tendulkar’s relationship with his first coach, Achrekar Sir, is now the stuff of cricket legend. Manmohan Singh…no, scratch that, he would never ever give an interview. My point is that there’s nothing new and interesting about any of this. Try and find a fresh angle for your story. It is tough to do when the subject is a celebrity who has been written about for decades. But nobody said this was going to be easy.
• Listen. This cannot be emphasized enough. You need to listen to what your subject is saying. A good interview is akin to a freewheeling conversation in which one party talks and the other watches out for cues to take the conversation into more interesting directions. Have a set of printed questions with you by all means as some sort of security blanket. But don’t just rattle them off in sequence, ignoring what the interviewee is saying. Pick up on interesting bits, push further, tease out some more information. And you can only do that if you are listening.
• An interview is essentially an artificial construct. You are not there to become best friends with the interviewee. On the other hand, there is something undeniably intimate about sitting in a room with a stranger and getting to ask him/her questions about life, politics, religion, sex, marriage or family. But don’t fall into the trap of believing that you have to establish some sort of personal connect with the subject. Sure, go out for a drink, trawl the nightclubs, have dinner together, if it helps you establish a rapport with your subject. But never forget that this is a professional engagement, and you need a story at the end of it.
• And finally, a ‘celebrity interviewer’ is someone like Lynn Barber, an interviewer who talks to celebrities. In India, alas, a ‘celebrity interviewer’ is an interviewer who thinks that he/she is a celebrity. 

Let them eat cake!

Teach your kids to treat food as a fun friend – not a mortal enemy

“No,” she said, turning away from the chocolate cake being sliced up to celebrate a friend’s birthday. “I can’t eat cake. I will get too fat.” She stopped for a second, looking stricken. “I think I already am,” she said sadly.

I would probably have thought nothing of this – my friends tend to say this sort of stuff every time we eat out – except that this young lady was all of six. Yes, six years old, and already full of self-loathing for her body and weighed down with an unhealthy relationship with food. And this, despite the fact that she was not in the slightest bit chubby (let alone fat). 

All of us present turned accusingly – as you do – towards her mother, unspoken rebukes all too apparent on our faces. She turned a bright red and stammered, “I really don’t know where she gets this from. I have never told her that she is fat. Or that she can’t eat cake.”

And you know what? I believe her. Knowing her as I do, I am pretty darn sure that she could never be so insensitive as to say such things to her daughter. And yet, that is the message that her daughter has picked up from her. 

Sometimes it’s really not about what you actually tell your children. It’s about how you behave around them. It’s about non-verbal clues that they pick up from hanging around you at the dinner table. When Mummy sticks to salad and soup for dinner because she has put on weight that tells her daughter two things. One, that it is not A Good Thing to put on weight. Fat is bad. Thin is good. And two, that food is the enemy. 

You probably know girls like this as well (yes, for some reason, it is mostly girls who fall prey to body dysmorphia). Children who have internalized the message that fat is bad and that – as Kate Moss so famously said – nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. 

How could they not? We live in a world that venerates skinniness as some sort of divine attribute. The media are awash with airbrushed picture-perfect images of thin women showing off their washboard stomachs and toned behinds. Film actresses and other female celebrities are routinely slagged off when they put on a few kilos, even if it is after a baby. 

Remember the bad press Aishwarya Rai Bachchan got when she arrived in Cannes carrying a bit of post-pregnancy weight? And the praise showered on her when she did her Cannes call last year, looking like her old svelte self? That is the kind of size-ist nonsense that passes off for media commentary these days.

There really is no way to protect our children from this stuff. It is all around them all the time. But to counteract that it falls upon mothers, much more so than fathers, to send out some positive messages. Because like it or not, girls are more at risk, and it’s their mothers they look to as they try to navigate the world.

So, for all the mothers of young girls out there, who want their daughters to grow up with a positive body image rather than eating disorders, here are some do’s and don’ts. 

• Don’t fetishize food. Don’t get into fad diets in which you give up entire food groups claiming an intolerance or a food allergy. The message you pass on your child is that food is the enemy.
• Instead, teach your daughter to treat food as a fun friend. Get her to help you in the kitchen, giving her age-appropriate tasks. Teach her how to lay the table. Make the dinner table a place of family conversation, laughter and the happiness of eating together; not a minefield which may blow up in your face if you end up mixing proteins and carbohydrates (no, I don’t know what that’s all about either). 
• Serve up healthy food by all means but don’t restrict your menu to exclude all ‘treats’. That just turns them into forbidden fruit, which – as we all know – becomes all the more attractive for being verboten. It makes much better sense to serve up the odd sugary treat or French fries so that they seem like just another food choice.
• If you must obsess about your weight, don’t do it within her earshot. She doesn’t need to know that you were ten kilos lighter before you had her. And how hard it is to get your pre-baby figure back. She thinks you look perfect anyway. Don’t tell her any different.
• Don’t compliment other women by saying how much weight they have lost or how thin they look. The subliminal messaging that goes through to your daughter is that losing weight is what matters. That you can never look good unless you are thin. And that starving yourself to achieve that goal is perfectly okay.
• Don’t ever use the word ‘diet’ within her hearing, even if you append it with the politically correct ‘healthy’. If you must, use the phrase ‘healthy eating’. Or better still, ‘healthy lifestyle’ which involves eating well, and getting enough exercise.
• Do tell her how lovely she looks. But never make it contingent on how much she weighs. Beauty does not lie in a particular shape or size; as the old saying goes, it lies in the eye of the beholder.

Seasons of plenty

With most fruits and vegetables available through the year, are we losing out on the joys of seasonal eating?

I can never understand why people wax eloquent about mangoes at a time when litchis are flooding the market. Mangoes are all well and good: juicy flesh, voluptuous sweetness and whatever other nonsense that people spout about them.

But how can you possibly compare them to the loveliness of a litchi? The prickly skin that comes off in a tantalizingly thin layer to reveal the beautiful ivory flesh underneath. Flesh that is so full of juice that it’s an art in itself to leave it unscathed when you peel the fruit. The rush of sugar that goes straight to your brain as you take the first bite.

Litchis. There can’t be a better fruit in all of creation. Well, at least, I think so. And putting my mouth where my money is, while the litchi season lasts my dinner consists of a large – well, okay, very large – bowl of litchis which I consume slowly over the course of the evening to make the sweetness last just a little bit longer.

If there is one bad thing about litchis, it is that the season is so brief. And even before you have had anywhere near your fill of them, they disappear from the market without so much as a by your leave.

So while they last, I look for them wherever I go; but without much success. Hotels will send a fruit platter to your room with every exotic fruit from Thailand or even New Zealand. But litchis, that are available in such profusion locally? Perish the thought. Ask for litchis instead of mangoes as a dessert option in restaurants and waiters will look at you as if you are mad. Or worse, they will produce a plate of the tinned variety, which is to the real thing what Styrofoam is to blue cheese.

Partly of course, it is that the litchi is such a fiddly little fruit. It takes a lot of effort to cut up and serve. But partly it is that we have lost the art of eating seasonally – both in our homes and outside. Yes, I know, we all make much of the ‘mango season’. But such is our impatience that we try and pre-pone the season as much as possible by artificially ripening the fruit (no, it doesn’t taste anything like the real thing). And then, when by the laws of nature the mango season should be long over, we keep flooding the market with a late-ripening crop (yes, they taste pretty rubbish too).

It is the same with such seasonal vegetables as methi (fenugreek to all you Masterchef afficianados). It tastes best during the winter when it is in season; and that’s when you are supposed to have it: for breakfast, lunch and dinner if you are as much of a methi enthusiast as me. If you still pine for the flavor during the off season then you should pick the leaves, dry them and stock up in airtight containers for use during the rest of the year.

Well, at least that’s how it should work in a world that believes in seasonal eating. But alas, we no longer live in such a world. Methi now seems to be available pretty much the year around, if you are willing to pay more money for poor quality. As, indeed, are most other seasonal vegetables and fruits.

The times when our menus changed seasonally are over. Now, if you feel like it, you can pretty much serve the same menu throughout the year (and most hotels and restaurants do just that). The produce may cost a little (or a lot) more when it is sourced from other continents, indeed other hemispheres, but the same dishes can grace your plates come rain or shine. You can start your day with a methi thepla. You can have gobhi-mutter for lunch. You can feast on strawberries and peaches at tea-time. And you can have mangoes or litchis for dessert.

Yes, you can eat whatever you like whenever you like. But where is the pleasure in that?

You will never know the happiness of sniffing the aroma of the first aloo-methi of the season. You will never experience the joy of biting into the first tender mooli of the year. Or, indeed, of biting into the succulent flesh of the first mango of the summer, if that is your thing.

The truth is that everything tastes better when it is in season, when it arrives on your dinner table at a time that nature intended. And you appreciate it much more when you are eating it after a while.

An orange tastes most delicious when you are eating it after a gap of months. Apples are at their best when they are fresh off the tree. If it’s summer it must be watermelons, mangoes and, of course, litchis. If it’s winter, then nothing hits the spot quite like an orange.

It’s all about delayed gratification in the end. And the ineffable joy of seasonal eating. There is a reason why the Italians make such a fuss about porcini mushrooms and the English about green asparagus when they are in season. A pity we don’t treat the luscious litchi with the same respect.

Put up, shut up, and move on...

Whatever the merits of the Preity Zinta-Ness Wadia case, it is the commentary around it that is truly troubling

First up, the disclosures. I do not know either Preity Zinta or Ness Wadia. I was not present at Wankhede Stadium on 30 May. I don't know what happened during the altercation between the two co-owners of the Kings XI Punjab franchise of the IPL. So, I can't find for either the defendant or the plaintiff (which is, in any case, a matter for the courts). But what I do find extremely troubling is the commentary that has swirled around this case ever since Zinta filed a complaint at the Marine Drive police station.

So, here in no particular order of importance, are just some of the reactions that have left me gobsmacked.

* Women who are rich and famous cannot be abused/harassed. And certainly, it would be impossible to humiliate a successful actress like Zinta in public.

Really? If you believe that, I have just two words for you: Zeenat Aman. She was abused and slapped in public by the irate wife of one of her lovers at a society party. Did anyone come to her aid? No, they looked the other way obligingly, pretending that this was not happening. And we all know this happens all across 'high society' not just in the glamorous world of the movies.

* At a time when young girls are being gang-raped and killed in villages, women of privilege should not file 'frivolous' suits like this one.

This is a bit like saying that I should not complain to the police about a burglary in my house because there are so many murder investigations that they are dealing with. The truth is that it is incredibly silly to draw some sort of equivalence between crimes, or try and grade them in a sliding scale of 'seriousness'. A crime is a crime is a crime. Each one needs to be dealt with appropriately and with the full force of the law. And maybe if all of us had the courage, the patience, and the energy to report the 'minor' abuse we put up with in our day-to-day lives, there would be less 'major' stuff to deal with.

What's even more offensive about this 'whataboutery' is that it turns crimes against women into an either-or category. There is no contradiction between standing up for rape victims in India's villages and standing up for the right of an actress to seek legal redressal for harassment. One does not negate the other, it just reinforces the policy of 'zero tolerance'. And I suspect that if this zero tolerance policy was applied in our villages as well, the incidence of rape would only decrease.

* What is the big deal if an ex-boyfriend calls you a 'f***ing b***h' or a 'w***e' in public? Get over yourself and sort it out with him behind closed doors. Or just give an interview to the media and get it out of your system. Why go to the police?

Because we all know what a breeze intimate partner violence – whether verbal, emotional or physical – is, right? Not like 'real' violence at all. And if you must air dirty linen in public, why not get some media attention why you are at it? After all, isn't that exactly what you are after?

Actually, no, it isn't. Sometimes taking a public stand is not enough. Especially if the harassment is consistent and ongoing. Naming and shaming is not enough. The only way to wrestle some control back is to take recourse to the law. And that is your right, no matter what your previous relationship with the accused.

* In any case, if you are currently in or have been in a relationship with the guy, harassment doesn't really count. This kind of thing happens between ex-lovers. Call it a lovers tiff, if you will. Or an ex-lovers tiff, if you want to get all pedantic about it.

This is the kind of language used by people who use the word eve-teasing to describe harassment and who think that stalking your ex is just a bit of harmless fun. No need to get your knickers in a twist about that! Perhaps somebody should explain to these people that today's stalking can easily turn into tomorrow's molestation, just as today's abuse can escalate into tomorrow's violence. This kind of thing needs to be nipped in the bud, and now.

* A beautiful woman of 39 years is an 'ugly, washed-up hag' who can't bear the thought that her ex – a very eligible bachelor indeed, at a mere 44 years of age – has a new, younger, hotter girlfriend.

Ah yes, the sexism and the misogyny! It's never very far away from the surface, is it? She has never gotten over the fact that he didn’t marry her. And now she's taking revenge because he has fallen in love with someone else. Her acting career is washed up, so she is trying to stay in the headlines by filing frivolous cases against her ex. Never mind that no matter how much of a 'has-been' she is, Zinta is still a far more famous and recognizable figure than Wadia. And that both parties have been in relationships after their break-up without this kind of ugliness surfacing.

In any case, just a cursory look at some of the pictures surfacing now will tell you that Zinta is still pretty darn stunning. In fact, even more so, because a woman never looks better than when she is standing up for herself – and by extension, for all of us.

Many happy returns!

Birthdays are always fun; but those that come with the big 0 are something special

Most of us would count ourselves blessed if we could get on a short-haul flight when we hit our nineties. Not so George Bush Senior, the 41^st President of the United States. He had celebrated his 70^th, 80^th and 85^th birthday by skydiving. And he saw no reason to desist merely because he had hit 90; or because he was now forced to use a wheelchair due to a form of Parkinsons. So the day he turned 90, Bush Senior jumped out of a plane yet again. His only concession to age and infirmity was that he tandem-jumped, harnessed to a former member of the armed services.

The images of the 90-year-old Bush landing awkwardly on the green of his Maine ranch and being surrounded quickly by members of his loving – and I am guessing, nervous – family, must have brought smiles to the faces of everyone who saw them (they certainly did to mine). His wife, Barbara, just a year younger, rushed up to kiss him. His children and grandchildren smothered him with hugs while his great grandchildren looked on.

How utterly amazing to be alive at such an age! And what’s more, to have this kind of zest for life in what are usually called your twilight years. We should all be so lucky.

But just in case you are not the kind to jump out of an airplane no matter how significant the birthday (yeah, me neither!), here are just some of the best ways to make merry on a birthday with the big zero in it.

Sorry, young ones, 20 just doesn’t count. So, let’s skip ahead to 30. This is a tricky one. It creeps up on you when you are busy doing other things and taps you on the shoulder to announce that you are now all grown up. Thirty. The word is enough to strike terror in the hearts of those who still haven’t figured out how this life thingey works. So, how do you cope with a birthday that says that you’ve already lived through nearly half of yours?

Why, you throw a party of course! The mother of all parties, a party would put all the parties of your 20s to shame. A party that would announce that you are still young, still with it, still fun. And with a bit of luck, still standing at the end of it.

If thirty can come as a dreadful shock, forty steals upon you like a familiar friend. You notch up a relationship or two, have a couple of kids (or not), settle into cosy domesticity, start clambering up the career ladder, all with a wary eye on the passing of time. And then it is upon you. The big Four O.

No, a knees-up won’t cut it this time round. You need something more elegant, more sophisticated, and just a bit more sedate. Pick a Sunday and host a brunch. Keep the food simple and easy. Keep the drinks circulating. The adults can relax without worrying about bedtimes (or hangovers). The kids can run around and wreck havoc. Enjoy this time before they turn into surly teenagers and refuse to speak to you for a decade.

By 50 you will be fortunate indeed if even 50 per cent of your friendships survive. So, thank your stars for the ones that do, and take all ten of them for a weekend away. It doesn’t have to be Paris, the Maldives or anywhere exotic and expensive. Just choose a place where all of you can spend quality time together, reminisce on the days gone by and raise a glass to the future.

Sixty calls for a trip away with the spouse, to rediscover one another now that the kids are all grown up and producing kids of their own. Do something fun and adventurous before the knees begin to give way and the backs start acting up. Go trekking in the mountains. Take in a walking tour of Switzerland. Try a spot of white river rafting. Live a little.

I do hope that by the time 70s rolls along you will ticked off most things on your bucket list. In case you haven’t, then mark this anniversary by doing at least two of those things. It could be going on a cruise along the Mediterranean. It could be visiting the Great Barrier Reef. It could be praying at Tirupati. What works for you.

At 80, it will probably be your family’s turn to throw a grand knees-up for you – even though you will probably have to stick to nimbu pani at the doctor’s advice. Take my advice. Sneak in a glass of champagne anyway. You deserve it; if only for having made it this far.

And so finally we come to 90. Don’t worry if you are clean out of ideas by now. If all else fails, there’s always skydiving!

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.