Like the photo says, off the mark!

Yes its 98.51. and this, even before I took out money for the trip. Ofcourse I have another account but that has just enough to travel, get back, wait-patiently-till-the-30th kinds. I am your brilliant example of young and broke India. It helps when people call you smart and pretty though, as that gives you hope that maybe sometime in the future, my smartness will equate to dollars or pounds.

So this hotshot media house rejected me recently. They called me saying I am custom made for the job and while interviewing me, they realised I hold a similar designation in a different vertical. I had said yes and gone with a lot of hope, thinking they knew I was opting for their said vertical. I really wanted to change my profile and was amazed when this opportunity offered me exactly that. the change.

But as soon as he realised the difference (which was comparable but all in the name of media) in the two verticals, he shelled in completely going to the point of saying 'you know we cant afford to take someone from a different vertical, we have too much responsibility riding on this post.'
I told him how I would be great at it (and knew it was a goner as soon as I said it), I had been taught all that in college for pete's sake!
But protocol. norm. the works.


He let me write an article for 'protocol' sake and once I was done, he asked me if I was active in social sites, esp twitter. Fact is, I hate twitter, it ughs me at how much people can discuss their mundane lives in a line after every hour. So I said, 'yea, on fb, but thats it.'

I dont know how it helped him judge me or if at all, it served any purpose. Its been five days and ofcourse, the job isnt mine. While I cross out this media house for the next couple of years to come, I cant fathom how some news giant that talks of giving unbiased news and being the voice of the public can be so rigid. So stiff, that they cant see over my current profile to my actual skills. Cant see the potential from the article I wrote just because I belonged to a different vertical. How are they the best if they dont even give change a chance?

On with my hunt...ofcourse, with some more salt to taste :P

Photo courtesy: Mark Parisi

Your average IPL night...

Him-Why did you switch off your phone?
Her-Umm, just like that. I was getting a lot of messages, got bugged.
Him-What messages?
Her-Kolkata lost, so all my ‘good’ friends didn’t miss the chance to flaunt that.
Him-So you switch off the phone? You know I call around this time..
Her-You are obsessed with Mumbai Indians. What makes you think talking to you will make me feel any better right now?
Him-Yaar, I support Mumbai for Sachin. Tendulkar is God. You know if I had to be a fan, I would only be Sachin’s. And I am.
Her-Half the world is. What so cool about that?
Him-Excuse me? Are you telling me being a Sachin fan is a bad thing?
Her-Am just saying being a Sachin fan is a safe thing. I mean everybody on planet earth knows he is demigod, he is a legend. Being his fan is herd mentality.
Him-And being a Dada fan makes you what? Unique?
Her-No, but he is one hell of a fighter. You cant put him down. He just keeps getting knocked out and he just comes back better. Falls again, rises again. Killer guy.
Him-He is old. He should just quit. He falls too bloody often.
Her-He has been the most successful Indian captain of all times, Sachin can never be a good captain. He can never instill the killer attitude Ganguly put in the kids like Bhajji, Yuvraj, Zaheer. Why don’t you except the fact that certain people are meant to do certain things? Ganguly is meant to lead a team, teach us about rising from the ashes. Sachin is meant to be an extremely successful, extremely boring cricketer to watch.
Him-Woah! You are on fire! Its okay, chill. Kolkata has lost again. Probably you should choose a different team. Will get to hear your laughter a little more often then.
Her-*Sigh* Lets just go to sleep. Am tired.
Him-Darn it! Cricket does this everytime! You end up fighting with me because of your stupid Dada!
Her-Hey! Am not fighting! And if you have noticed how these conversations go, then why not be careful next time on?
Him-You know what? Talking tomorrow is a good idea. You take care.
Her-Goodnight.

There are some places in your being where only you are allowed to be. Nobody, not even your beloved, can make an entry there. And because of the same reason, its better to go quiet sometimes. Because you cant explain. Because you cant reason. Because, you feel you are not being understood and you never will be. Because, on the other side of the fence, the other person is just as zapped. He is trying to figure you out just as much as you are trying to sort out that place in your system. And mostly, the ends don’t meet. Because mostly, the causes are not really worth fighting for.

But then, that is madness. What is great to you is silly to me. What is the world to me, is maybe a speck in the sand for you. Cant beat you, cant blame you.

That’s how life swings.

never mind

am terribly blah. cant beat my blahness. feel like havent slept in ages. and people at work are so lame, not all, not the ones who are my friends, but mostly. i am tired.

my close buddies who called off their wedding are now gettin married. and am not going. yes, i feel so burnt out and used that my heart is just not in it. so while everyone else will be going and be remembered as true friends for decades and decades to go, i, the only one who patiently heard them both out, even let myself be used in the process, have been left out and will always be scarred for not attending the wedding. it sucks totally.

but i cant attend it still. my heart is really not in it. even the reception, well, let me think. i have two days to go for that one.actually, wish i could just be socially immune for a while.planet earth sucks.except for dogs.

Chaos

She kept chanting to herself that day in the bathroom and washed her clothes vigorously. Yes, she could see it coming back but couldn't let it. It was not supposed to effect her that way again. She could fight it this time.

Too lame life had become, a job with a profile that made no sense, money that whooshed past every bloody month, a future that was chaotic, and relationships that threatened to become full fledged messy affairs if she didn’t pay notice. It was all too much..

A pack of noodles could help. Dressing up in her warm loose clothes that made her sing 'aal izz well' inside her heart, she went and put some water in a pan. Then she looked for a pen and a sheet of paper and started to scribble impatiently. Like if she stopped, the thoughts would jumble up and the words would come all together and become a line of unreadable gibberish that was becoming her life.

She put in the packet of spices into the boiling water and then retrieved it, half burning her fingers. This would be alright. Everything would be. She just needed work, some work, any work. She cracked the egg and poured it into the pan and randomly stirred it with a spoon. Not the kind of noodles her mom would approve of. But the kind she would have anyway.

The aroma brought back some sanity. She knew what was to be done. She just didn’t know how long it would take till some support came by. A signal, that yes, she was going the right way. She was walking a path that had a single broken, faded milestone and she had to bend down on both knees and scratch the surface to know how much more she had to walk to reach where she was headed.

Ten years back, she had dreams. When she would hit this age, she would be 'here'. And now, that 'here' seemed nowhere in sight. What was there, was a lot of things she hadn't foreseen.

Putting the noodles in a plate, she took a mouthful and burnt her tongue immediately. Like a sign from someone powerful up there, a sign that read 'take it slow or you'll burn down'.

Slow.Easy.Gradual. Things that never came naturally to her. A character attribute she had to build and was nowhere close to have achieved. And till she attained those virtues, everything about life was about lessons, it seemed.

To learn what love is, have a heartbreak first.
To know money, don’t have it at first.
To know what character is, lose it on your way to true love first.
To know sacred friendship of those few dear ones, fail a hundred times first.
To know what success is, slug it out first.
Lessons.
Life is a bitch.

She felt full after all the noodle eating and felt calmer.

Maybe food was the answer to everything.

Also love?

She went into the shower the first thing. A hot, hot bath would do her good, yes. As soon as the slightly steaming water touched her tense shoulders, she relaxed. Almost loosened up. It couldn’t be that bad, she started to tell herself. So he was being unreasonable. He wasn’t liking her hanging out with so many of her guy friends, especially one of them, and that made her angry. It was fine really, weren’t they engaged? Was he really supposed to be upset?

No, he wasn’t upset, he was just being very monosyllablic about it. Yes, okay, you could do that, or you could just laze at home…were his exact words..

Why? Why should she laze at home? She had a tough week, fighting it out with mad bosses, shitty deadlines and work, well, never mind the work. Out of all this, which part was entertainment? And why couldn’t it be the way she wanted it to be..a stroll, a drive, a smoke, a movie, thoughtful conversations with a friend, all this was fine…should have been fine..to him as well..why was he being difficult?

The water made her sleepy, her bones were definitely tired. She wondered how undone would she be by her forties…sigh..

Drying herself and wearing her sweats and a jacket, she decided to call him up and ask anyway. But the phone beeped before she could reach it. The message read, ‘shona je t’aime’


And she was undone again. It wasn’t fair. Suddenly she forgot her resolve. Maybe she was being unreasonable as well. He lived far away and the fact that she was making new friends obviously unsettled him. So she could take it easy. Atleast for him.
Sigh. Of all things in the world, it was love that startled her the most. And beckoned to her the most.

She curled up in her blanket and began a long and warm conversation with him...

Sab chalta hai!

Since morning, I was low as both he and baba had trains to catch. While his train was on schedule, baba’s kept getting late and soon, the delay got hilarious. It became 1am at night. Anyway, first Anjali came and we spent a lovely hour making fun of weird facebook albums of even weirder people. Soon she left and Mr.Forever came. He knew both my people were gone and hence decided to drop in for some ‘adda’. I had nothing to share so asked him to watch ‘How I met your mother’ with me. Gave him a little background ( though he would even watch astha tv with me) first.

Unfortunately for me, we watched the episode where all the characters discuss how they lost their virginities. So here I was, stunned into silence, watching all these American people doing it with enthu on a computer screen with my biggest admirer next to me. Sigh.

Soon, another friend dropped by. This friend recently called off her wedding with her boyfriend of ten years. It is a sad situation since then and we friends don’t know who to blame, it just gets nastier, the name calling etc. I was quiet and realized she had something to say and so smsed Mr.Forever ‘she has come to talk about the split. Wont say it with u around. Would u leave?’ the guy read it and yet stayed for tea and then left. I swear I could kill him.

Later, my girlfriend began with asking me how her ex was doing. I told her that his family was now looking for a girl to get him married asap, as they had been ruffled enough. She said she would probably die if that happened. (Funny, as she had called it off in the first place.) Then she went on to tell me how very unfair he had gotten in the end, and a little tear trickled from one of her eyes. I was a little taken by surprise as I associate the single-trickling-tear a sign of art cinema. I was impressed.

Then she went on to say how she would always hate him for making such a mess of the whole thing. I wondered if the poor guy going to a shrink to recover from the crisis wasn’t sad enough.

Another friend joined in. This smart ass is always copying his cooler friends. Being invited by two of his girlfriends to get suttas was an honor for him. So he got us some suttas and together, we stood in the super chilly verandah discussing life. He is soon going to New Zealand to study, and he urged our friend to also join him if she wanted to get out of the whole circuit for a couple of years. She said she was already in talks with a visa agency and was wondering about the course, when he said, ‘sab chalta hai! In new Zealand, you can go to study anything.’ I was shocked. This is what education had come to. One was using it to just go abroad and hit on poor firangi girls who didn’t know what they were going to be hit by, while the other simply wanted to escape. It saddened me a bit.

My girlfriend also kept talking to someone on the phone in a very soft voice that made us joke that after the whole fiasco, she should just become a serial dater. She laughed and joined in. I couldn’t understand how could someone be so okay with all that had happened just a little while back?

Were people taking things for granted or was I going too deep into the heart of things? One discussed education like it was a bloody tool to get to other things, while the other’s reaction towards her ten year old relationship moved from regret to excitement about the coming future with just a cigarette and a single tear.

Human beings confuse me.

Birthday Blues!

It was his birthday and I decided to go a little out of my way. Only a little. There are reasons to that. Mainly because its long distance and there is a big chance things might lose their way in between. And secondly, he is a guy, and only these many things appeal to him, my options were less. So I did what I did best. I wrote him a letter. A brilliant hand written one. I told him he is perfect (overdid that part) and how things are totally different from what you expect them to be mostly. Like when I found him. Never had thought a vegetarian Jain boy with a very religious family fit into my scheme of things. And they somehow do, and very happily so. I astonish myself when I catch myself thinking fondly of the trip to his place, with all the love from his family, all the movie watching, greeting relatives, even wearing sarees! Phew! And it just fits. Wow!

I also took out a very old card I had bought from Hallmark, almost a decade back. Those were the days when I was a loner, mostly growing up and getting to know the world on my own. Had seen a card with a wrinkled newspaper with a crossword on its front that said ‘A friend is someone who is with you in your ups, downs and across!’ had absolutely loved the old charm it had and ever since, kept waiting to give it to someone. No one really fit the bill. But then he did and I wrote his name on the card and put it with the letter.

Next I went looking for a gift, in the more conventional way. Shirts, perfumes and I was done. I am trying really hard but I just cant get to like shopping. It bugs me and there are too many expectations! Why is silk in and khadi out? Why are baggy clothes never in? what is wrong with a big dial watch for me? I will never have the wisdom fashionable girls have, I guess.

Anyway, coming back to the gift hunting, I headed to Om book shop like it was my second nature and looked over books. Got my final Twilight book and then rummaged some more. I know he likes biographies, especially of really successful people, he read the speech of the Apple guy like a few fifty times and looked as inspired as a fresh orange does. And at the biography section, I saw a smiling Obama from the book called ‘Dreams of My Father’. Bingo!
Now that was my story.



He got the gift three days late, thanks to the fog and the sleet and ofcourse the distance. And once he opened it, he rejoiced. And umm, that’s all. On the phone he went, ‘Wow! Thanks so much, it was a beautiful thing to do. I promise I will read it. It reached today though…hehehe..really, I had no idea…you are too cute, you know I don’t read much and I think you will make sure I become a reader like you! Thanks!!’

Now, I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. I mean some of it, I wanted to hear, but I am kind of unsure. I thought he will be surprised, and he was. But it was like he was very happy only, like it was a sort of a thing that was obvious to him, almost expected from me. Surprise wasn’t it. Since when did I get so predictable?

I hate waiting another year.