Invitation to a Scruffy Way of Life

What if we could be comfortable with our dark, dusty and threadbare corners that we hide from each other?What if we could be comfortable with our dark, dusty and thread-bare corners that we hide from each other?Sona had recently moved back to Delhi from abroad and invited some friends home to reconnect and catch up.

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After the meal, she was left with a sense of disappointment though she could not figure out what was missing. “I had planned everything perfectly,” she said, “for friends | love and who matter so much to me.” | was very curious about what she meant by the word, “perfectly”. She sat still for some time and then with a sigh, wondered, “Maybe that is the problem, | was trying too hard to make it perfect.”

Sona explained how she had worked for days in micro-planning the meal, rearranging the furniture and hiding the shabby stuff. “I was so busy performing and perfecting that there was no time to connect,” she reflected. | wondered if she could remember times with her friends from the past that she cherished. With a tender smile on her face, she remembered how they would gather spontaneously, over “a potluck meal and have addas where the only thing that mattered was togetherness.” | asked her what was different in those gatherings and she replied, “All of us welcomed all of us.”| was reminded of this conversation while listening to a podcast in which the writer Oliver Burkeman talked about the concept of “scruffy hospitality,” (attributed to apriest Jack King) which honours, “If we only share meals with friends when we are excellent, we aren't truly sharing life together.”