What was it?

One of the poorest jokes that somehow manages to bring out some laugh runs like this - "There was this really absent-minded person who suddenly dies. After some investigation, it was found that he forgot to inhale after exhaling." Though this might be the unattainable height of forgetfulness, what we still manage to do is also no easy task.

Imagine this - I called a friend who was about to leave for the airport and was in a hurry. After talking for sometime, she started sounding very tense and restless. It went on increasing when I was forced to ask if something was wrong. Her reply had me - and when she understood, her as well - in splits. What she had told me was, "I am not getting my mobile phone. Where did I keep it?" No wonder that whoever is out with her keeps gathering her mobile, wallet and other things from a gamut of unimaginable places. (Ever imagined that the door-key had to retrieved - just because she came home carrying some eggs - from the refrigerator?)

I also remember my father looking for his glasses - it's in him not to tell what he is not getting unless asked repeatedly - all around the house in vain. We could not fault him much - how could he find them if he was looking through them?

Like any other human behaviour, I am sure much research and studies have gone into tracing absent-mindedness to its roots. But what is the point? We will still keep forgetting. For example, when I started this post I had something interesting in my mind which is totally out of mind at present. I do not want to keep this draft for later since I am sure I am not going to recall what I was thinking. So pasting this anyways, however incomplete and incoherent it might read.


P.S. - I tried recollecting what I had actually intended to write for 10 minutes before publishing this post. But the only thing that I vaguely remember is that I thought of writing this post this morning as soon as I put the brush on the side-table and started stroking my shoe with my mobile phone.

The Tangent off the Spiral

It's that time again - and I have never spared much of a thought when it came to changing jobs. Not this time though.

One of the reasons for this can be that I have spent most of my career at this job (2.5 out of 4 years) and it has grown on me. Another reason could be that there is nothing really new or exciting in my next profile (which was not the case in each of my earlier shifts) that would keep me hooked on to the prospects ahead. And so, when now I know that the days are among the last few here, I am back doing something I love to hate - looking back.

When I came to Hyderabad in May 2005, it was as much of a change of place as it was a change of profile. All my colleagues in Chennai, where I was before this, who were from this city concurred that Hyderabad is the most happening place in India. And they brought out before me the experiences of their lifetimes in the city (which ranged from 'the roads are fully covered with pamphlets in Ameerpet' to 'the biggest Cafe Coffee Day outlet is out there'). "Not quite" - I thought, as I walked in a feverish daze (105 degrees) under a blazing sun (45 degrees) the next weekend looking for an accommodation.

"Quite alright" - I say now after knowing the city well enough to help settle any newcomer. And why not? I have made friends here who are as good as the ones I made anywhere else. When you have friends (and not colleagues and acquaintances) in and outside office, it does not really matter whether you are working in Manhattan or Mangalore. If I were to give an account of our escapades here, it would surely need a series of posts. I am not even trying to summarise them here - let it be for some other time.

At the end of it all, the reason why it evokes the mixed feelings is the fact that the association has imitated life to a great extent. It could well have been the story of someone in a rich and famous family - living with your siblings and cousins and reared by loving parents and scheming relatives. There is love as much as there is hatred, but then no one owes anything to anyone. And the feelings are always mutual. No big news when a gamut of emotions silently co-exist. No big news when someone walks out of the house one day. The attention gets more than divided among the new members of the ever-expanding family. And for the one who is making the new beginning, adjustment is just another extra life-process like breathing.

Nothing changes and nothing clutters your mind. Unless you sit down to think.

"I opened my eyes to glamour and sheen
Then closed; and wiped them clean."

View of Kolkata from the Landing Plane on Durga Astami Night

Heavenly!

I Think, Therefore I Don't Say

Someone told me the other day - "You are incredible. Do you ever have a problem with anything?" This rather curious observation actually stemmed from the fact that I do not voice or show my dislike towards things that I do not like. Whenever someone makes any plan and asks me for option, the only answer I give is 'anything is fine'. When people go berserk with the bad food served at the cafeteria, I am busy relishing my meal. Even when I am utterly put off by thoroughly irritating behaviour, I do not find it necessary to say anything - I just switch off from the situation to think something good or intense. Sometimes people mistake this detachment to be indifference. But for me, never ever responding to anything you do not like is same as shouting your heart out each time. People would anyways understand, and those who would not, would not in either case.

So for the reference of all who have not yet heard what I do not like, I thought of putting seven of my random hates here - listed on a first-thought-first-written basis. There are many, but am just keeping in sync with my earlier lists with seven entries.

• I do not like people fussing too much about anything. I mean statements starting with something like 'I do not like...' (The first sentences in the most of the points in this list also start with the same words, but these are out of scope :D )
  
• I do not like people who have no control on the language they speak. It is in no way cool to talk vile.
  
• You need not give respect, just remember everyone already has it. I hate it when someone violates that. So next time you call that waiter and talk rude when I am with you, expect some silence.
  
• Silly it sounds, but I do not like people opening glass doors pushing anywhere but the handle. You may not be a criminal, but that does not mean you can leave your handprints everywhere. Some person - who works ten times more and earns lesser than tenth of what you do - would have it a bit easy if you use the handles from now on.
  
• I do not like it when people try hard to show that they are smart, superior or knowledgable. If you have it, it shows - so why bother? And if you take it easy, it makes life easy for you, you do not have to act like your own media manager.
  
• I do not like remixed songs and videos. Hope there is no need to expand on this point. (In a similar vein, I do not like any artist with an ego. Humility and submission to the art makes you an artist, else how is art different from say, mechanics?)
  
• I do not like when people try to take undue advantage of their age or experience. After all, age is something that you could not defeat, and your experience is as proportional to your defeats as it is to your successes.

BRB

Taking a break from this for sometime...

Automagic!

Inspirations can come from all corners - so be at your absorbent best.

No one said the line above. I realised over a period of time that you can be inspired from the obvious highest peaks of success and the unsuspected lowest strata of struggle. I take an auto to office daily, and have been often amazed with the occasional conversations. I was going to office yesterday when a brand new Nissan Teana (see a review here) passed by. The young man in front was spellbound to see the car, and tried his best to keep speed with it till he could. He asked me what car it was and then said - "Where do people get so much money?" Very difficult question to answer - so I kept quiet and smiled at his reflection in the mirror.

"How much does it cost?" - he asked. I said I was not aware but it looked about 15-20 lakhs to me (it is indeed 20, I checked later). His smile became broader as he said - "If I had 1 lakh, I could have changed my life. I know I will save and I will change my life." I smiled again as he manoeuvured through the traffic in one of the whackiest signals in Hyderabad.

Nineteen Seven

Two years ago, someone told me - "Mate, I tell you - you are 25 today, and life from now is all downhill." (25 seemed too less for such a statement to me, but he got the concession since he was an American, and did not have a cocooned upbringing like us.) And like all descents down the hill, I am indeed coming down faster than the trudge upwards - the last 2 years, indeed, went quicker than any other. And with at least one tangle in every possible corner in life, these words kept coming back with each stroke of the knife through the second cake I cut at the stroke of midnight. I was back after a foot-deep dinner with my friends, to be treated to this visual delight at home. (See picture below) The yummy chocolate cake against the backdrop of the candles was too good to resist.



Even 1 year back, the cake would have surely been over in minutes. But this year, it is lying almost unaltered in the fridge. Sure sign of age. And even when the snaps were taken, half of the mind was busy coordinating the alternate actions of breathing and holding the tummy inside lest the bulge showed up in the snaps. These two indications, surely justify the two steps downhill I have taken since that holy man decided to share his realisation and discoveries in life with me on a day he should have cheered me up. Whatever happened to people wishing 'Tu jeeye hazaron saal...'

Here's wishing for all the good things that I have been wishing for since so long! May today's feeling of senility and the words of Mr. Jim be buried under the bundles of joy and the brightness of smiles all through the year.