(Today's article in BRUNCH is worth reading and I would like to share a part of it here.)
SOMETIMES I WONDER just how stupid we were as kids to actually believe in Santa Claus. Wasn’t it obvious that the fat Indian man (who looked suspiciously like Uncle Chatterjee from next door) with the fake white beard couldn’t possibly have travelled down from the North Pole in his reindeer-driven sleigh? Did we ever stop to think why every shop we visited while Christmas shopping had a Santa Claus who looked completely different from the one before? Or did we just willfully ignore all these alarm bells because we needed to live in a world where Santa came around annually bearing gifts that we had longed for the entire year. I like to think it was the latter. And so, in the same child-like spirit, I decided to compile a list of all the things that I would like Santa to bring me this year. So here it is: my own Christmas wish list (in no particular order of importance) .
- A longer attention span. I’d like to revert to the days when I could watch a movie without feeling tempted to tweet my views about it half an hour into the show. I’d like to read a book without stopping to dip into Facebook to see what my friends are up to. And I’d really like to be able to finish my writing without breaking off every 15 minutes to ‘research’ something on the Net.
- An Internet connection that times out automatically. I often wonder how people procrastinated in the days before the Internet was invented. How did they waste time before the Google search engine came along? And by ‘people’, of course, I mean myself. I have lost count of the number of hours I have wasted on news sites, on following threads that lead me into darker corners of the net and looking through the picture albums of people I barely know. And given my complete and utter lack of self-discipline, the only thing that will free me is a Net connection that turns itself off when I an unable to do so.
- A device that wipes my memory clean of all my favourite books so that I can discover them anew.
- A magic carpet that whisks me away to Venice every January. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Why January? Isn’t it cold as hell? And raining? And flooding, thanks to the acqua alta? Yes, right on all counts. And yet, that is the month that Venice appears most magical to me. There are no hordes of tourists jostling you aside in Piazza San Marco. The streets are deserted so that you can actually gaze on undisturbed at the many architectural gems carelessly displayed on them. And the hotel rates are, relatively at least, affordable.
