The Great Circus of Likes & Lifestyles

There was a time when “liking” something meant you paused, smiled, and perhaps carried that feeling with you through the day. Now, it comes with a price list.

We live in fascinating times. Those with money are spending it like it has an expiry date: holidays curated for reels, meals plated for strangers, and laughter that must be captured before it can be felt.

Meanwhile, those without? Well, they are working overtime, creating content, chasing trends, hoping that one viral moment will catapult them into the same glittery illusion. They manufacture moments, rehearse emotions, and upload hope in 30-second clips, waiting for validation to arrive in the form of numbers.

It is, quite honestly, a spectacular circus.

“Likes” can be bought. Meaning cannot.

And somewhere in this frenzy, reason has quietly stepped aside—perhaps unwilling to compete with algorithms.

So, I’ve decided, purely for my sanity, to step aside. Not away from life, but away from the noise pretending to be life.

Because somewhere, in the quiet corners of ordinary days, reality still exists… Because I come from a time when life didn’t need amplification.

Of Roads, Routines, and a Car That Was Family

My sense of sanity, I realize, was built on long roads and early mornings.

Every transfer my father had from North to South, Central India to the North-East meant one thing: we would pack up our lives into our beloved Hindustan Motors: Ambassador and set off before sunrise. Our journeys were always in our grand old HMs Ambassador.

Not just a car, mind you. A family member. That car wasn’t transport. It was temperament.

My father would clean it like one tends to a living being. It was polished, brushed, and lovingly tended to by him, with my younger brother hovering like an eager apprentice assisting Dad with great seriousness.

I, of course, contributed nothing to this mechanical romance and stayed gloriously disinterested. A fact that would come back to haunt me years later, on the roads of Chandigarh with my rebellious TVS moped. Something that would later result in my rather dramatic solutions to vehicle trouble.

And my solution? Call a rickshaw, hoist the moped onto it, climb on top myself (yes, yes, I can hear the suppressed laughter), and land up at our HIG flat like royalty in distress. My brother, unimpressed, would deliver his standard line: “Why do you drive when you don’t know how to fix it?” It never quite dented my spirit.

But back to the Ambassador.

We would begin at 5 a.m.: “Sunrise means we move; the sun should find us already on the road”, Dad would declare. By sundown, we would halt at a Circuit House or an MES Inspection Bungalow, our version of five-star luxury.

Three dogs in the backseat. My brother and I wedged in between.

My father driving. My mother navigating, not just roads, but moods, hunger, and the rhythm of the journey.

At my feet sat the camper. With Mom rested her beautiful Kashmiri wicker basket carried more love than provisions. A literal home to treasures: a pair of red thermoses (cold coffee for us, tea for her) and those glorious, round biscuit tins – one red, one blue – filled with mathris and a devilish chocolate cake cut into perfect squares.

No music system. No distractions. Just songs we sang, conversations we carried, and memories we revisited as we left one life behind and drove into another.

Silence that wasn’t awkward. And here’s what I realize now……………

That pace… that simplicity… that un-curated living… made us.

Today, we rush through everything and arrive nowhere. Back then, we moved steadily and arrived within ourselves.

People often speak of rootlessness, of the lack of permanence. I never felt it. Each move added a layer of belonging: to places, to people, to the country itself. It deepened my connection to everything around me, to India itself. New schools didn’t unsettle me. Temporary homes didn’t bother me. We adapted, adjusted, and moved forward. Each new school, every temporary barrack, the interesting MES furniture, those lines of unopened trunks, nothing, none of it felt unsettling or disturbing or without a foundation. It felt alive. Because it was becoming the very foundation and the very roots which would tie me to this country and make me love it and know it and learn about it with such fervor and ardor and inquisitiveness and autodidact-ness which has stood the test of times.

And Perhaps That’s the Difference

Today’s chaos demands visibility.

That life required presence.

Today, we perform.

Back then, we experienced.

And maybe that is why, even now, when things feel beyond control, I don’t crumble under the noise. I don’t sit and brood over circumstances. I rearrange them. I adapt. I step away, recalibrate, and move.

That is the permanence I carry even today.

Not of place but of perspective.

After all, I come from a life where even the roads knew that nothing stays, yet everything remains.

Because somewhere in me, there is still a child sitting in the backseat of an Ambassador at sunrise: unbothered, observant, and quietly certain that everything will fall into place… one road at a time.

Because in the end, it is the ordinary that stays… quietly extraordinary!

#OrdinaryMoments
#LifeUnfiltered
#RealOverReels
#MemoriesMatter
#SlowLiving
#ThenAndNow
#GrowingUpIndia
#ArmyLifeMemories
#SimpleTimes
#LifeLessons
#StoriesOfLife
#NostalgiaDiaries
#FindingCalm
#QuietReflections
#MeaningOverMetrics
#LifeBeyondLikes
#HumanOverHype
#AuthenticLiving
#BackseatStories
#AmbassadorDiaries

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