Slow Living....in a fast world !!

It has been almost 6 years since I opted out of the chaos of a moderately successful career and shifted base to a small coastal municipality on the west coast of Southern India with no friends, family or roots here, and embraced the “Slow Living” lifestyle

“Slow Living” is a mindset that has it’s origins parallel to the Slow Food movement of Italy in the 80s. The proponents of the lifestyle believed in taking a step back from the fast life to do things that you care for/value most (as against being obligated to), at the right pace, being conscious enough to stop and admire things around rather than head for the deadline

As I reflect on these 6 years, I tried listing down things that I have endeared me to this lifestyle

Physical Wellbeing

• A life without conferences and seminars, without celebratory team lunches, without customer entertainment Dinners allows me to have nutritious home cooked food at a specific time each day, everyday. Cooking also allows me some culinary indulgences ?
• Having moved to a hamlet with a total radius of 1.5 Kms ?I have the luxury of walking instead of driving. Anywhere to anywhere is a 10-12 minute walk and I also don’t fumigate the environment
• I don’t load the supermarket trolley with supplies of groceries, fish and vegetables for a week. Only fresh fish from the Harbour 5 Kms away, and vegetables sourced on a daily basis just meant for the next meal. Tomorrow’s meal is another walk away!
• I get time for my beauty nap after breakfast, my siesta after lunch and a good 7 hours rest at night. Who can complain!!!

Mental & Emotional Wellbeing

• No early morning/late night flights to catch, no conflict resolutions, no labour arbitrations, no performance reviews, no career benchmarking with batch-mates, no trade fairs to attend in Frankfurt, no visa forms to fill. Just clean fresh air to breathe and blue sky to gaze in a town where there are no polluting industries. Stress doesn’t exist in my country
• I get to devour content that interest me?- on Food, Travel, Wildlife, Corporate Governance, ESG etc etc . Gives me ample time to pursue my passion for chronicling the 75 Cuisines of India – their subtle differences and their striking similarities! My repository now is over 5,000 dishes strong

Financial Wellbeing

• In a small town with no malls and high-street retail, there is limited opportunity to splurge on impulse purchases. The fanciest dine-out place doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg
• No friends & relatives equals no socialising and no periodic replenishment of the wardrobe. There is no matching up/catching up to do! With the largest expense being “Travel” once a quarter, my income-expense statement looks more balanced today, than what it was when the it was skewed on the income side

Spiritual Wellbeing

• My mandatory 5 AM and 5 PM walk through the winding alleys of this small town, admiring its vernacular architecture and the divinity of the art-deco building around the precincts of the Udupi Krishna temple allows me the required “me time” to unwind and connect to the super-natural
• Watching the rains lash during the monsoons and the silence on the streets elevates my being to the next level of spirituality. I travel to Bangalore once in a while to watch the traffic and appreciate why I am in such a good place !!!

Environmental Wellbeing

• I have begun to appreciate the seasons – I keep a track on when the first mango arrives, when the cashew-nut season starts, when the breadfruit harvest gets over and the when the breeding season for fish starts around June, July so that I can shift to a vegetarian or poultry diet. “Vocal for Local” and “0Km sourcing” has a totally new dimension here
• Unlike in the cities where “Disposable economy” thrives, I have realised that in small towns there is a whole eco-system that works on repairing and repurposing stuff especially the fans, the mixers, the cookers. It is used, repaired and reused until it works no more
• A Prudent lifestyle leads to “Want not, Waste not”

Am I enjoying it??

Yes of Course. I wouldn’t trade this for anything else in this life. I wish I had done this at least 5 years earlier

What next?

With no subscriptions to newspapers, and news TV channels I depend on my hand-held device for all the content and keeping in touch. That’s what connects me to the rest of the world. One-day I aspire to be like MS Dhoni –snobbish enough not to have a mobile phone. I am working on it. Till then my life chugs on – Slowly……….at 15 Frames Per Second