Brown About Town with Suma Iyer

The Importance of Indulgence

It’s the end of the year, and like many of you, I intend to do the bare minimum until Christmas Eve rolls around. I also intend to do the bare minimum after that because I’m nothing if not consistent. It is also the time of year when we indulge a bit. Or a lot, depending on the occasion. Canberrans also like to flee the city and enjoy a wee holiday. Which is a fine thing.

However, I’ve noticed that many folks in the Capital aren’t that good at putting their feet up. I’ve seen you pacing around outside Public Bar in Manuka like anxious zoo animals, talking to your SES Band 2 about an imminent Cabinet Submission with furrowed brows and weary good intent. You are diligent and a credit to all public servants, but you need to stop and smell the roses (calendar allowing).

Lucky for all of you, I’m really good at revelry, indulgence and taking holidays. I hope you can get some guidance from the rest of this column.

It’s ok to be soft

It’s hard to believe that my ancestors survived the Bengal Famine because I do not thrive in adversity. I’m like the ooze from a particularly ripe piece of brie: soft, excessive, and a fine pairing with champagne. It’s not like I’m proud to be a living example of the excesses of late capitalism in the Western world. I just am.

I function best when injected with the right amount of caffeine, wearing shoes with arch support, and covered in a moisturiser you have to be a waiting list to get. If those conditions aren’t met, my interactions and output quality dips quite a bit.

At school, I tried to do the 40-Hour Famine. But tens of hours on water and barley sugars alone was too much for me (or too little). I ate three pieces of tea cake at Little Lunch with the gusto of a golden retriever snarfing pizza boxes out of a bin.

I want to think that this was my way of dealing with intergenerational trauma.

Nap lots, eat anything cooked in butter

My downtime needs to be more comfortable than my everyday life. Which is very comfortable. Last holiday I went on, I had baklava, massages, and napped in a bed swathed by pillows. Every day. Like an Ottoman Sultan.

When I say that I’m good at overindulgence, I mean it. I once went to a restaurant for breakfast, and they accidentally gave me the dinner menu. I ordered the tortellini, which was cooked in butter. Realising their mistake, I was allowed to change my order – but I didn’t. Why would I order muesli when I could have pasta cooked in butter?

Avoid pain (and creepy men on long bus trips. And bedbugs)

I haven’t managed to avoid every problematic thing life has thrown at me. Which is a shame. Pain avoidance is a good survival tactic and one I use whenever possible. But in the pursuit of extravagance and debauchery, sometimes discomfort simply must be endured.

After a week of revelry, my friend Amy and I caught the bus from Goa to Mumbai.

It was not salubrious.

It was a sleeper bus, and the bunks were riddled with bedbugs. I was in the top bunk. My scarf fell on the floor, and the man in the bottom bunk across from me, who I had caught staring at me several times, stole it.

I watched him pick it up off the floor before he stared at me once again and slowly drew the curtains of his berth shut, taking the scarf with him.

This happened at around hour four of a 16-hour trip.

Luckily, I had a litany of bedbug bites to demand my attention for the remaining twelve hours.

I did not eat for the whole time or go to the toilet, as the pit stops we made were at odd hours. It wasn’t quite the 40-Hour Famine, but I felt like an ascetic; I felt closer to my ancestors than ever before. They were victims of a callous colonial power that didn’t care about the human cost of defending its territory. There were forces over which they had no control.

And here I was, stuck on a bus after a dissolute holiday, wanting a meal.

Which I duly received. And how! We asked to be dropped at a McDonald’s in central Mumbai. We rushed in, and made lavish use of the bathrooms before ordering four burgers apiece with mint yoghurt.

It truly was a happy meal.

Camping (is insane)

Tests of survival in the name of recreation. Why?

Camping is mystifying. Actively seeking out deprivation is insane to me. Why leave your home, with coffee machine, to sleep under some glorified tarp outdoors?

My parents didn’t move to the Western world for their daughter to spend holidays sleeping in a tent, using drop toilets and being mauled by mosquitoes. When you say ‘communing with nature’’ I hear ‘slum living and malaria’.

I’m just gonna go ahead and say it: going outside sucks. It’s scary, and I don’t like it. The weather is inconsistent. And you can’t turn it on and off.

Going outside (sucks)

Did you know there’s rain outside? I fear you don’t, as so many of you still insist on venturing outward.

There’s rain on the inside, y’know, and vastly superior it is too. It comes from a receptacle in your bathroom and can be controlled for temperature and force.

Also inside is a fridge. This is a cold cupboard for food and moisturiser, and I heartedly recommend.

Going outside is like going to meet an unpredictable person. Inside? It’s just me. Outside? I have to wear decent clothes. Inside, I can wear track pants, or Donald Duck it and just wear a t-shirt if I so choose.

Outside, I have to bring the things I need for that trip – wallet and keys and phone and water bottle and snacks and headphones and GAH!

Just listing all this crap is getting me mad. You know what other thing is Inside? ALL MY STUFF.

“But what about nature, Suma!” you may opine. “Trees, fresh air, our beautiful native wildlife? There really is nothing like it.”

And to you, I say simply: Windows; television.

Sure, you’ll see a possum or some shit if you go outside. Cool. But there are way better animals on TV. Like dragons. Dragons are better than possums. Objective fact. Dragons kick ass.

You don’t need to let anyone who does not live in your house into your house. Out there it’s anybody. That’s where “anybody” lives. I don’t live there. You know where I live? My house. Know who else is there? WHOEVER I ALLOW.

Dream situation.

Stay at home, have A Lie Down

The best thing about being inside? A Lie Down.

Lay in the wrong place outside, people ask if you’re okay, or they try to take your pulse and/or wallet. Inside? I can (and do have) A Lie Down on the kitchen floor.

Who’s to stop you? Sure, your partner, children, pets and/ or general sense of propriety. But theses are mere objects to step over on your way to self-fulfilment.

So remember, the best way to relax this holiday is by eating butter-soaked food items, lying down, and avoiding the outdoors. That, my friends, is truly Living.

Suma Iyer is a Canberra comic who performs across Australia. To keep up to date with Suma, head to @sumaiyercomedy on Instagram.