Viswanathan K's Thoughts

When we’ve gone for vacations in the past, we’ve done home stays and stayed at hotels. The recent trip to Kabini involved a first for the kid: a stay at a resort. When she asked what a resort was, I was very tempted to say, “You’ll know it when you see it”. Wisely though, I held my tongue. On the drive to Kabini, she lay down in the back of the car and started to doze off. Unfortunately, right about then, I had to hit the brakes hard, and she slid off the rear seat. She woke up on the floor, groggy, and in a little pain. After we made sure she was OK, I couldn’t resist telling her at least this Humpty Dumpty got back in one piece. She was not amused. She was blown away by the resort. You can imagine how good the place was when I tell you that the place didn’t have any TV, and yet in 3 ½ days, not once did she complain. Sure, she had the tablet and free wi-fi, but TV is different. Now and then, she did pester us with “What’s planned for the evening? For tomorrow?” like questi...

I remember my boss getting very pissed that her daughter expected her holidays to be in London, New York or Dubai. But can you really blame the kid, I remember thinking back then. If that’s what she sees her friends at school and in the neighborhood do, then that’s what she’d want to do. I was also smug that such a thing wouldn’t happen to me since I didn’t make (anywhere near) as much money as my boss did. Sadly, my assumption is proving to be wrong, bit by bit. While my boss obviously lives in a far better house than mine, she doesn’t send her daughter to some fancy international school. Rather, her kid was going to an academics-is-the-most-important-thing kind of school, which means most kids come from middle/upper-middle class families. And yet, her kid expected foreign holidays. I should have seen it coming… My daughter started expecting holidays around when she was 4. For the last few years (and touchwood, even now), a holiday is good for her as long as we go to any pla...

In an earlier blog , I talked about some techniques on how not to be drawn in by the siren call of the Internet when on vacation. It must be even tougher for journalists where even regular surfing can cause you to stumble onto something related to work! So Melody Kramer, a journalist, asked her colleagues how they handled that temptation (expectation?) during their vacations. One guy tried reading by not responding to stuff. How did that work out? “This has, in practice, turned out to be the worst of both worlds. I’m still glued to my phone and my mind is clearly occupied by things other than the people around me, perhaps even more so than if I just took the time to respond, because I’m seething about what I’m going to do or say when I get back.” Can you even separate work from non-work sources anymore, asked another: “Having work email on my phone, as well as work social accounts, has blurred the lines considerably.” Others try slowing down the inevitable succumbin...

Most of us know the impact our smartphones and tablets have on our vacations: checking mails (personal and office) is the most obvious one. You start reading a book on your iPad and ooh, there are messages on Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. The beauty of the place demands a selfie be taken and posted; and then the narcissistic you wants to keep checking the number of “likes” your photo got. This problem is so bad that we now need tips on how to live like we used to before we became “dead-eyed, slack-jawed phone zombies who only manage to feed ourselves because an app reminds us to”, says Alex Balk. Nick Bilton points out that the obvious solution (not taking our gadgets with us on vacations) is not really an option because: “That ignores the fact that our devices have replaced some vacation essentials, including physical books, magazines, music player, cameras, maps and in-flight entertainment.” Of course, after a tremendous exercise of will power, you can choose to ca...