Business trips give chances for a “Me-Me” time always. No routines of cooking, preparing daughter to school, long travel times to office – giving me an ample time for reflections, reading and writing. After a couple of years, was pondering about thoughts of “man-woman” relationship at home, work and everywhere.
“Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus” is a typical relationship book written by John Gray who is also a relationship counsellor. 45 mins by S Bahn gives me the time to do what I want and I started reading this book again. Every incident is quite relatable to real life and I start laughing as I read.
Usually weekends during Business trips are always a “Me Me” time and I travel alone. As a Geminian, I have seen two different extremes of myself. Extremely calm, trying to reflect on my inner self while traveling and reading myself; very talkative, non stop chatter box and always the first one to break the silence when I’m with people who I feel comfortable with. A lot of times I’ve questioned myself on how this is possible and which is the real me!
It was a new department and a new team and on a Friday evening after returning from work, we tried to look for a weekend plan. We were four – Arun, Varun, Raj and I. Having some coffee together, we did multiple project proposals – started with a two day trip, looked for hotels and didn’t get convinced and broke the project into two sprints and finally fixed to a day trip to Zurich.
We met at 5:10 am as planned at the hotel reception and took the trains to reach the Bus station to board the bus to Zurich. Arun and Varun were thick friends and got a seat together. Raj and I were scattered elsewhere. I started with some of the chapters of my book. “Man entering the cave” “Women like to talk to reduce stress and men like to be silent to reduce stress” were relatable.
As we got down at Zurich, we saw the scenic river flowing across the whole town. Water looked crystal clear and my hands were longing to feel the smooth pebbles but in vain. How nice would it be if people had such transparent minds and thoughts. The world would be such a simple place to live on! I smiled.
An old tree bent and bent trying to reach the waters below. However in heights he was, he bent and stretched his arms all around to reach what he wants. How true is that we need to strive and struggle towards our goals. Not to forget the hard times and stay humble bending down always!
The beautiful green neck ducks and their dull partners. She was chasing him and he was ignoring her. He walked majestically as she followed. Frustrated she left him and all of a sudden he looked lost. Value of a person is not known until we lose them!
We moved towards the museum and the church bell rang. “We are not so fond of museums. You can go and we can wait” Arun mentioned. “Let’s go elsewhere” it was me. We walked to see a PolyBahn – a kind of rope car that we have in Palani. I enquired about it and heard it was going to an old university. Quite an experience and we moved up to the other side. We looked around – each in one direction.
The university lights looked impressive. He was shining with gold crown and looked proud – how majestic! My eyes dropped down to see the women strongly holding him up above to shine. How true that a woman backing his man up is required for him to shine and vice versa too – I smiled.
We enjoyed the panaromic view of the city from the view point near the university. Toddlers running around giving their moms tough times, couples hugging for selfies, old people passionately holding hands, young men deep into their phones, girls talking together and a lot more struck me. My mind became a time machine for sometime as usual. Divya – my best pal – we speak non stop when we meet. Meenu – my sister – we speak throughout our drives anytime. Eva – the traveler from Spain who spoke to me non stop and discussed a lot of topics as we did a two day Venice trip last year. Khang – the girl from Korea who I met on a weekend trip who still tried to speak a lot, although she didn’t know English.
“Subha, let’s go” my thoughts were broken. As we moved around the city, colourful birds swimming on water fascinated me. The angry bird was flipping his head fast – his eyes were fiery – maybe he had a disagreement with his manager.
“Mirror, Mirror on the wall – who is the fairest of all” it was the proud Swan, holding her head high and walking with pride. “Let’s have the scrum meeting” a duck seemed to gather the others. Started smooth and ended in some disagreement, they walked out.
Gentle and kind was she – another swan swiftly swimming as graceful as her feathers looked. “How soft she is” even before my mind voice completed, “creech- hiss” it was she – angrily looked at the dog on the bank. The dog stood up and seemed to move a step forward. “Hiss hiss” her eyes turned red. “Stand up for yourself when you need. As gentle as I look, fiercely would I turn if you try to mess up” that seemed to be her attitude. Is she a geminian too?
We walked and walked with each of us looking at one direction like the ducks. No talks was unusual to me. I liked the place however my inner conflicts were throwing a lot of questions. “Maybe they are not comfortable having me in their group; maybe I’m an alien there; should I join them tomorrow? Am I a disturbance? Probably I should have made a trip alone?” many more. I decided to ask them and I did. Loud laughter from them. “We just switch off our minds from any topics and look around” Arun smiled. Wasn’t this similar to what I heard from my husband sometimes? “Why are you quiet? What’s wrong?” “Nothing” and how many times the answer of nothing made me feel rejected while he literally meant nothing!
John gray’s voice popped in my mind – “A woman feels uncomfortable and starts blaming herself when a man is silent. She thinks he is not happy being with her and hence starts getting into an argument asking why he doesn’t talk. Men, the Martians are in their caves and enjoy silence. This does not mean she caused a trouble or she is the reason for their unhappiness. In fact silence does not mean unhappiness in a Martians dictionary whereas silence means “unhappiness” in a Venusian’s (woman’s) dictionary.
“Why don’t you talk to me? What’s wrong? Are you not happy with me?” – I’ve often heard from my friends about the disagreement with their spouses on this topic. I’ve also been in similar situations many times with my husband. How often we feel this resentment in our lives?
Neither traveling alone nor traveling with women gave me this experience. Books, reading and reflection – I smiled. Yet another learning! I thanked my colleagues and John Gray in my heart as I left a smiley to my husband.
Zurich made my day!