How My Hobbies Make My Days Perfect

Next time is next time. Now is now.

While there are many films that have made me feel seen and have visualised so much of what I carry in my heart, watching Perfect Days felt like it was about me.

Watching Perfect Days is like going on a slow, silent walk in the woods to carefully lend your ear to the birds' music.
In a world where every piece of content — films, videos, or music — is riddled with visual hooks to grab your attention, Perfect Days sits back quietly, like an old grandfather who has a lot of stories to tell but takes time to unravel them.
The film very gently, very unassumingly, takes you through the life of an ordinary man whose extraordinariness is revealed without any intention or effort.
It is a serene experience, so much so that after the film is over, you will find yourself a bit drunk on its tenderness, a bit curious about its unfolding, and full of love for the main character.

A toilet cleaner, shown with the utmost dignity and respect, whose attention to cleanliness and detail cannot be missed, takes you through his everyday life in a small town in Japan.
For a minute, I felt like I was reading his daily diary and learning about his day-to-day life through his written account.
The man, while an ordinary toilet cleaner, is very much extraordinary owing to his many everyday hobbies - photography, reading, music, cycling, to name a few.

If I were to ask you to imagine a toilet cleaner’s life in a city, someone who works hard and lives a life of routine, where every day is as mundane as the last, you would perhaps never think of making a film about him.
And that is exactly why Perfect Days shines through: an ordinary film made extraordinary.

Hirayama (the lead character) lives a life of wonder, gratitude, and discipline.
Armed with his creative mind and fueled by a love for detail, the film follows him going about his days finishing work on time, then engaging deeply with his favourite activities.
He photographs the light coming through the canopy of leaves, listens to his beloved cassette tapes, cycles every evening, and reads a book before sleeping.

Watching the film mirrored a lot of what I feel and do almost every day here in the mountains. In the past 18 months of living alone, I, too, have found myself hanging tight to my hobbies and routine.

When I was working in corporate back in Mumbai, I used to despise the routine life.
Waking up every day only to hurry to work, getting stuck in heavy traffic, killing time at the office, and facing more traffic on the way back home, only to repeat it all five days a week. I had a very negative relationship with routine back then.

After I left my job, for the longest time, I bathed in the freshness of independence and freedom, with no routine to adhere to.
At 25, discipline and routine sounded unsexy.

It’s been three years since I left my job, and I have toyed with all forms of working styles - from requiring no discipline or structure at all to the one I live now, where my life is centred around a beautiful routine that I absolutely love.
And as you can guess, I am so happy that I slowly formed a new, nourishing relationship with discipline and routine.

When there was no routine, I seldom had a hold on my time and days.
I would watch days pass by without any real sense of where my time went.
While in the beginning, it was a freeing experience, it turned sour with time.
I realised that perhaps having a structure to adhere to could not only help me value my time more but also give me more freedom to exercise my creativity.

These days, when I wake up at 7:30 am, I allow myself to slowly wake up, have my water basking in the sunlight, and let my eyes take their own time to greet the new day.
Later, I read for a while not with any pressure to finish a set number of pages or to understand everything, but simply for the leisure of starting my day with something I wholeheartedly love.
I make my coffee, my smoothie, one after the other, and once I feel ready, I take my shower, keep the house in order, and prepare for the day ahead.
Once my work is over, I keep my evenings for long walks, mostly with my camera in hand again, with no pressure to capture anything perfect but just to observe and be present to everything around me.

Sometimes I fancy the splash of golden light on a part of a tree, and other times I try to capture my favourite mud houses bathed in golden hues.
Sometimes it is the wheat dancing in the fields, and sometimes the flowing water from a nearby stream.
At home, if I feel lonely, I put on some good music and sing aloud, and on days when I want my body to move, I do not shy away from dancing a little in front of the mirror.

My perfect day is any day sandwiched between these small things that I love.
My perfect week is the one in which I send this newsletter to all of you.

Here’s to another perfect week.
And I wish you a perfect week too.

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I invite you to reflect and write on the following prompt:

Write about a small, almost invisible ritual in your daily life that gives
you a sense of meaning or comfort, even when everything else feels uncertain..

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As a feature of all my newsletters, I share one song, one book, one plant-based meal, one film/video that inspired me, and some photographic updates from my life.

• Song: Got this beautiful recommendation of the raw version of Aahatein on YouTube.

• Book/Newsletter: I am still reading Gunaaho ke Devta. It’s a challenging read for me since I recently started reading books in Hindi but I have been enjoying reading a page or two of it every day.

• Meal: Had Sushi today in the evening!

  

• Film/Video: I have another song recommendation for the video recommendation today. Teri Deevani, soulfully sung by the legend Mukhtiar Ali.

• Photograph(s):

  

  

  

Read my other newsletters :
Why I Ran From Vipassana
The story of moving to the mountains
My relationship with failure
Photography, my first love

Read my short stories :
Socratree
Quenched
Chetak
Coronaceptive

Compilation of all recommendations :
Video recommendations
Music recommendations
Books read

Free Journaling eBook:
Last year, I compiled a journaling ebook for myself for times when I feel I have nothing to write. I am offering it to you for free. Whether you’re starting your journaling journey or feeling stuck in a creative block, this guide will help you find your way.
Download your journaling eBook here.

Thank you for reading my work
Rishabh Khaneja
Creative Writing Laboratory

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