There's more to it

It was a really tiring day. I went to work. The metro was crowded. The work was really exhausting. It was a long shift. The pressure was too much. The metro back home was crowded too. I have an early morning shift tomorrow so I should probably sleep early. But I have this assignment to finish…

Stop right there! If your diary or mind is full of such thoughts at the end of the day, then you are in some serious trouble here mate. The only difference between you and a pre – programmed robot would be fuel composition. More than 70% people in the world are doing a monotonous job. (CAUTION: The facts are based on nothing at all but my personal opinion which again, can’t be held in high regard. Regardless, if you have been following my blog, you should have become smart enough to understand the point and ignore the fictional data. Moving on…). If all these people have their minds full of work and work and more work, then our planet earth would be invaded by robot like humans! I can imagine zombie like people walking the earth in a mechanical fashion with glazed eyes and wires sprouting from their brains. Aaaarrgh! Mere thought of it is scary!

So coming straight to point. Why does our life have to revolve around work? Many of my critics would argue (as that’s the only thing they are good at) that we spend around two – thirds of our day, if not more, at our work place or travelling to and from work. One third of the day is spent sleeping which I strongly assert is so not enough!  Which leaves us with around 6 hours for our own selves. So logically, our life has to revolve around our jobs. But my dear buggers, the way to work can be rather interesting if you pay a little attention. And now follows one of my famous examples:

I travel around 3 hours everyday to and from work. Most of the journey is via Metro. The view isn’t really breathtaking, but it is rather interesting. My shift is early morning so I see the sky changing colour. I count the buildings. I test by memory by trying to predict which building would be next. My favourite stretch is between Indraprastha and Yamuna Bank . There is a railway bridge over Yamuna and the banks are so green and the birds fly over it and twice I saw two trains crossing on the bridge. It is just awe inducing. I involuntarily smile whenever the metro crosses this beautiful sight and people stare at me thinking I’ve gone mental!

And when I am underground, I pay extra attention to people. They can be so unintentionally funny at times! Especially the aunties. They’ll fit their ample derrière in a space where none exists forcing the others to sit on half their bum or get off the seat. Or the uncles who’ll talk so loudly on their flashy Chinese handsets. Or the Bihari young man who’ll play cheap Hindi songs or old English tracks or loud Punjabi numbers on their cheap cellulars to impress the ladies! Or the college crowd which tries to look cool with their earplugs while trying to look indifferent as they check out potential girlfriend and boyfriends. It is such an interesting mix of cultures.

And then there is so much to observe at your work place (to a level which doesn’t interfere your work of course!). So it doesn’t have to be all about your job. You don’t have to be mechanical. The world around you is so full of amazing things which deserve your attention!

So join the observational drive today and save the earth from robotic invasion!

:P

The Half - Truth: Merit List

The Half - Truth: Merit List

Merit List

In my extremely uneventful 20 years and 10 months, I have met thousands of people. Of them I remember a few hundred and rest I forget without a glimmer of regret. Of the ones I remember, I like about a hundred (most I like and some I like very much), I dislike around thirty and I don’t spare many emotions for the rest. Of the hundred I do like, I can count the people I love on my fingertips. Of these handful loved ones, there are only about ten people with whom I can be myself and I can trust them with my secrets, thoughts,  joy, sorrows and my life.

This part is easy. The tough part is answering the following questions. How many people find me worth remembering? In how many ‘I LIKE’ lists do I feature and how many people have added my name in their HATE lists? For how many am I like cellophane: Invisible and disposable from their lives. Who are the people who love me? For how many am I indispensable and trustworthy?

Of the above questions, the important task is to know the answer to the last two questions. If most of the people on your ‘I LOVE’ list find you lovable too, then you should know that you are an extremely lucky person. All you have to do is ensure that it remains this way always. And in case, you are special for a person who might have just made it to your ‘I LIKE’ or worse, ‘INVISIBLE’ list, then you just have to make some extra effort to understand them more and if not love, respect them and be grateful for their generosity towards you.

After all, these are the people who make your life worth living.

P.S. If I could name all the people who have made my life special with their lead role, supporting role and cameos, I would have. But then, written lists bring a smile to a face but remembering and cherishing someone in your heart brings joy to lives.

Liar Liar

Someone random: Hey, how are you?

Me: Hello. I am fine. Thank you. How have you been?

Don’t read too much into the conversation. There are no innuendos here, no double meanings. This is a conversation you might have had million or more times. And more than 80% of the time you would have been lying. (The statistics are purely fictitious, highly exaggerated and based on my personal experiences, which in most people’s book won’t count as anything. Moving on.). There are, of course, no prizes for guessing what the lie is. (For the dim witted, it is the three words written post the colon in bold type: I am fine).

You can of course argue that you actually felt fine or good or great or mast (or whatever one word adjective you might have graced the interviewer with). That would be touché. I only speak for myself. If I try and recall (with no guarantees of exact recollections because of my erratic memory), I have never ever been just fine. Go ahead, call me a filthy liar. But trust me, it saves a lot of energy and exercise of mental faculties on my part, saves the listener from bouts of extreme confusion or boredom and in general, saves a lot of time. And believe you me, you wouldn’t have wanted me to go on one of my incomprehensible ranting sprees anyway!

Don’t worry your pretty little head wondering why am I never fine. I’ll answer with another question; how can anyone be just fine? The term ‘fine’ seems like an imposter camouflaging as a positive word. In fact I believe it has a very negative connotation. Ok, time for another of my famous examples.

I have just had a huge fight with my sister (which is not a rarity actually). I am fuming mad; willing to have my only sibling’s blood on my hand. My hands are itching to throw something. The nerve on my forehead is threatening to burst unable to take the suddenly escalated blood pressure. And then:

Someone random (Let’s call the poor chap ABC): Hi. How are you?

Me: I am mad enough to kill someone right now!

ABC: Oh. What happened?

Me: I had a  huge fight with my sister.

ABC: You have a sister?

Me: Apparantly

ABC: Younger or elder?

Me: Anukriti is 2 years elder to me. Her birth date is 25^th September. She is a Libran. Her favourite colour is pink. She is recently engaged. She has two moles on her back and one on her hand. Anything else?! (Heavy sarcasm! I love it!)

ABC: Oh. Why did you have a fight with her?

Me: Because she wore something that I wanted to wear.

ABC: You share clothes?

Me: No idiot. We were just fighting for the heck of it!

And I would have ended up killing this someone random, so lovingly named ABC, eventually. To avoid risking arrest, I would obviously take the easy way out and politely offer: I am fine. How about you?

And anger and depression and all the other negative emotions aren’t the only things which are hard to express and explain. Even happiness can’t be explained to certain ‘someone random’s. I have often tried to share my joy with people by offering: I am ecstatic, I am on top of the world, I am so happy I could die, in place of plain old boring fine or good. But then the questions which followed are enough to kill your joy and change it into irritation. Of course, I speak for myself because I am one of those low – lives who get irritated at even a little show of stupidity. I can’t help it if I have high expectations of being perfectly normal from people! That’s silly of me. But that’s how it is with me.

And hence, I prefer to keep the interviewer in dark by offering a little lie which does a world of good to both the parties. And this is one lie I am willing to buy too!

Superglue

When I feel so lost

So tired and bereft.

To heal my broken heart

I gather all that’s left.

I think of all that’s hurt me,

He and she and you.

While I seal the broken pieces,

Together with superglue.

With your jazzy boots,

You crushed all of my dreams.

And then to crush my spirit,

You made those wicked schemes.

I pick up the little pieces,

They were shimmering green and blue.

Then I sat down to mend

My dreams with superglue.

He tries, she tries, you try.

They try a little more.

To kill my will and hopes

And bury them under the floor.

I just try harder

to keep my goal in view.

And that’s the secret strength

Of my super Superglue!

Stupid Wise Man

The wise man, who said that patience is rewarded, obviously had no experience of job hunting in the 21^st century. 

• He (I believe he was the male of the species because his female counterpart would have been more perceptive about the job scene in the future. Before I stray to feminism, let’s go back to current issue), he never opened accounts on a score or more websites, which promised fastest job offers suiting his profile, just to have his inbox flooded with spam mail.
• He never had to call a dozen companies a week just to hear a polite ‘Mail your CV. Will get back to you’, or a curt ‘No vacancy’.
• He might not have ransacked the city for a decent job, travelling in stinky DTC buses with his nose stuck in a hairy uncle’s smelly armpit.
• He doesn’t seem to have waited anxiously for a reply from some organization which promised to ‘get back to him soon’ for days.
• He might never had to swallow his dignity and pester his hardly – related relative for a reference in a company where the relative’s wife’s brother’s brother – in – law’s mother – in – law once worked.
•  He would never have become suddenly obsessed with technology, checking email every 15 minutes and impulsively glancing at his mobile every 43 seconds to check if his phone has full connectivity in case someone calls with a job confirmation.
• He definitely wouldn’t have tried to remain out of public eye in case someone conversationally asks: “So what are you doing these days?”.
• Lucky fellow, he wouldn’t have become paranoid wondering whether his parents resented him sitting at home doing nothing.

As you might have guessed already, being so smart and all, I am taking out my frustration at still being jobless despite my talent and skills and even looks! Not that life isn’t throwing lemons at me. I’ll explain my condition with an analogy:

My plate is full of seafood, butter chicken, lamb chops but alas, I am a vegetarian. I just don’t get what I want. Super frustrating! My patience is withering as it still hasn’t yielded me any useful results. Stupid wise man! Or maybe my patience just ran out the door followed by my sanity, good humour and good mood.

*grumble grumble*

सफ़र

नीन्द की गोद से,
उठा इक जोश से,
आज इक नया सफ़र होगा।


पुरानी बातो का,
और इन हालातो का,
क्या अब कोइ असर होगा?


इक अजनबी अनजान सा,
चेहरा दिखता है आइने मे।


इस अन्जाने को,
फ़िर घर लाने मे,
ज़िन्दगानी का बसर होगा।