Notice Period

So it’s been quite some time since I submitted my notice period to the higher ups but I haven’t heard from them yet. I don’t even know if they have looked at it or even received it.

But while the top brass takes it own sweet time to decide my fate, what am I supposed to do? Twiddle my thumbs? Yes, like a true professional, I am trying my best to continue but my heart is really not into it. That’s the reason why I have put in my papers.

The first hint came a few years ago, but I suppressed it. Nothing good ever comes out of such thoughts. I had a good gig running here, why give it all up for some strange notion which I don’t even understand. There were many more hints and nudges but I calmly ignored them as flights of fancy. I mean…really to give up working which not only made me decent money but also gave me satisfaction? One must be really dumb to give up such things.

The next few times, I attributed to boredom and searched for external pleasures and pursuits which kept me gainfully occupied till the next time. But the frequencies of these nudges have increased since then.

I have since then taken up various pursuits and drilled it into myself that real happiness comes from being in the thick of things and not without. I have become a workaholic, picked up hobbies like classical dancing, travelled, mellowed down my outlook, rationalized my behavior, actually found happiness in loving my niece, been nice to family & friends but the restlessness continues.

These are all distractions to keep me from questioning the higher ups for their lack of acknowledgement of my notice. And the distractions can only help so much. At the end of the day, I know that they are distractions.

Nothing works for me anymore… it’s not just cynicism, but I do catch myself asking ‘What’s the point?’ more often than one should. Yes, there are thousands of books still waiting to be read, lots of movies that I haven’t even heard of, places that need to be experienced, food that needed to be had, sex that needed to linger and people that needed to be understood. But do I care?

So now what… should I take matters into my own hand? Should I wait for them to revert? 

Ode to Cat

I offended a friend’s Puddy Tat (Thanks to American slang, I can never say the word pussy cat without seeing a series of leering men being hyperactive in hyperlapse) and now I have to write 25 words praising said cat.

How can one offend a cat whose very nature is to be disdainful of everything?  Some might argue that they are cute and that the internet is flooded with adorable little kitties trying to do the most adorable thing of rolling on the couch or worse, purring.

These feline creatures have made giants out of a UGC platform called youtube. Misters Hurley, Chen & Karim should change its name to cattube or kittytube or err… pussytube. Great business idea that.

My rolling eye syndrome with a cat lover has dated back to those wonder years when PDA was frowned upon. And it’s not limited to only the feline species; it does extend to canines and Homo sapiens also. I just cannot wrap my head around the fact that if you love something/someone, why do you have to expect everyone else to adore it also? Are we looking at a majority vote to express ourselves?

And have you ever noticed a cat walk by? There is enough space to fill in the ever diminishing Gandhi family but the cat will leave the wide pathway and take a circuitous road to rub against your leg, as you sit sipping your coffee and thinking about how not to offend a cat these days. And then pretend that your leg was in its way! And what is with jumping at a laser light. How dumb can one be? It’s a ray of light, if you can catch it, you will be a GOD. And you ain’t, so stop making a fool of yourself.  And those constant lickings, ugh, get into the shower and stop leaving your saliva all over my things. Even if I wanted to pick you up, I would have to sanitize myself with industrial level substance.

And will you please stop eyeing my food….fish to be precise. I love my fish and I do not want to share it with anyone. So stop eyeing my food and go do something productive like forage for your own food instead of stealing mine.

Your quirkiness negates your basic hedonistic bias for a rhythmic stroking of your fur, to express affection. And pray, why should anyone do that when a fraction of that gesture results in much tail wagging and overall subservience from your much esteemed canine counterpart?

But being human (oh Sallu!) I shall make the bigger gesture and let you coexist in this world and pray that our paths never cross…for both our mutual benefits.

There is a cat somewhere saying “nooeow… lick lick lick… youeow… lick lick lick …wonteow”!

Special Superhero!

I always knew I was special… God must have made me special… what other reason was there for me to exist if I wasn’t God’s favorite child.

I can’t fly airplanes or invent things that need inventing, even though I can doodle I really cant paint or write, create fancy online applications which earn me millions, be a sports star and win medals for the country while endorsing various products, sing or even dance without jabbing my elbow into someone…. How am I helping this world? I guess there is a secret plan by the cosmos (not the magazine dodos but the supreme one with halo and lightning as a weapon) and I am like a sleeper agent who will be activated when the time is ripe.

Of course, half of my life is over waiting for this super secret plan to work out…maybe its so super secret that I am doing it without realizing it…like the other day when I crossed a traffic signal and almost made that speeding car crush me ….saved that driver from being penalized by the traffic cops!

I continue to hone my skills while I wait for my cue to save the world…unlike the other established superheroes I don’t have a revenge drama to take care of while waiting to save the world…nor do I have to win over somebody’s love or sew my own tights… I have to continue with my everyday existence in the same mundane way without letting anyone know that I am a superhero… a special superhero for that matter.

Why am I special? Coz I actually do not have any superpowers…so I guess I have to be!

Labour Pains!

Ever wondered about the mysteries of life and death and how various cultures deal with it. Some cultures celebrate death and give the departed soul the best party ever. Others are thoughtful enough to pack all the essential items with the corpse for their last journey. For the wondrous moment of new life, people donate their fortune to the less fortunate ones, some light up the newborn’s life with Cigars; others do elaborate rituals to please their Gods.
Such various customs and culture specific rituals must have been duly noticed and noted down by some anthropologist for their research/thesis work which the common junta ignores generally ignores… imagine reading about such useless info when the antics of our cricketers, movie stars and wannabe reality stars are much more juicer…but I digress.
If someone is an avid Bollywood fan and has grown up in the eighties where Bollywood followed the tried and tested formula of revenge, then they might have inkling to the ambiguous meandering of my mind. Sample this…
The father has been killed (or confined) by the bad guys and the wife who somehow escapes from the den of the bad guys and runs away not because she can’t bear the torture (or lecherous stares of the extras) but she has to give birth to the hero of the film so that he can avenge the family and have a happy ending. Regular fare…some even went on to become hits …but that one scene…where the hero is actually born….it’s supposed to be a very dramatic one… and is often depicted as dark… with rain and thunderstorm and the wails of the pregnant mother who thrashes about so much that the art director must have a standby set ready just in case. The ‘mother’ is drenched in sweat and tears roll down her eyes and the scene seems so long that you automatically start praying for the baby to come out so that the movie can go on…
But why do our filmmakers depict childbirth in such morbid and melancholy way… why is the beginning of child birth always associated with the mother wishing that she was a monk?
In comparison, American film and TV (which is so cool…not to be ignored) rarely projects child birth in such dejected and macabre way unless the plot requires it. It will then be an exception, not the norm.
Is it something to do with the healthcare policies of both the nations… one is developed where all its citizens have basic rights to medical facilities and do not view the process of childbirth as that big a deal, while the other is still struggling to provide basic facilities for the expectant mother. Girls grow up dreading the process of childbirth and with convoluted theories of sex … Agreed schools nowadays have sex education, but imagine how many years of viewing the agony of childbirth in popular cinema is etched in a girls mind….can a textbook with 100 marks of test marks erase that imagery from the easily impressionable mind?
For a nation with more than a billion headcount…that’s a lot of labour pain.

Ape No More

Darwin has cracked his brains to answer questions about evolution....many have believed in it and equal number of people have rubbished this theory. Many theories, books and movies later, it is still a viable topic of discussion... we all want to know where we come from and where we will go.

But why?? Why is it so important to know about our origins...so that we can right the wrongs or is it just plain curiosity... or is it to live in a delusion of immortality?

According to some civilizations, all matter is made up of energy which vibrates at a certain frequency. Now there is a universal being (I refrain from using the word GOD here) which vibrates at a certain frequency also. This universal being (found across all microspheres and ecosystems) attracts similar frequencies towards itself to gobble it up (some call the process Nirvana). Now it is destiny (fact of life) that each and every matter will wind up being gobbled by this universal being (it’s kind of a food chain in the cosmospiritual sense) and will be reformed as some other matter with some other frequency, since matter can neither be created nor destroyed but changes its form from one to the other.

Our wise old men, didn't want to change...even if they knew that it was the ultimate truth....so they devised all kinds of schemes to keep the human mind occupied...these schemes were mainly the emotions of love, hate, jealousy, pride, etc and their subsequent actions of war, poetry, economics, entertainment. This prevented humans to focus on their vibrations and indeed our vibrations have been so muddled that we ourselves do not know about it.

We have started aping each other in terms of attitude, behavior and style and refuse that there is a certain job that we have to do.

It’s like the story of a toothbrush...with modern technologies, the toothbrush can flip back, come in attractive colours, have a part for cleaning the tongue and even is battery operated...but does it do what its empirical nature tells it to do...albeit brush the teeth? Until and unless a toothbrush doesn't do that, then it is not one.

In our rush to theorize evolution, have we forgotten that the current Darwinian theory of natural selection is keeping us from the bigger picture...maybe evolution means being gobbled into this universal being and reforming into a different matter, not re-engineering our DNA's to keep us immortal.

The Mayas and Incas understood this...and so the whole civilization vanished leaving behind the wonders that is Macchu Picchu...maybe someday I will. But what will I leave behind.....my blog??? ahem....

(Dedicated to Sumit Vaswani for starting this topic)

Not A Complete Loser

That's the only thought which is going through my head right now (thanks to the pep talk by Vatty)...on the day on which my parents, friends, siblings, colleagues and lots of other people, who may have had the misfortune of crossing my path, all come together and brace themselves to make an effort to be nice to me without actually cringing ... coz its that one day which I can totally claim to be my day (so what if I do have to share it with Vishal, Amrish, Hitler, Babita, Mamta Kulkarni to name a few)...its still my day... its the day that the Gods and my parents in their eternal wisdom decided to unleash me on this planet... so that I could spread some cheer (or so they thought) to this world... little did they know that I would completely disregard their plans and have my own agenda... only to realize that my agenda is not really an agenda ...its more of a reaction to this whole thing called "Life".

I cant but help reflecting on the years gone by (always happens when a few drops of old monk passes through my throat) and have come to the conclusion that I haven't done anything worthwhile....don't have a plan ahead... don't have a bank balance to impress anyone... haven't been there for my parents and family or friends... don't know where I am going professionally... love life is non-existent... don't believe in community service/social service... don't have a cause worth dying for... the list is actually endless... but have realized that I have done one thing right and that is, I have somehow managed to have really awesome friends... Friends who believe in me when I have given up all hope... Friends who trust me to always crack a bad joke and make the world a pleasant place... Friends who don't give up on me... Friends who push me to try harder, literally ... Friends who love me... Friends who plan a expected surprise bday bash with chocolate cake ...

I know I am not dying and one should reserve such sentiments for the last breath... but I actually want to thank all my friends for being my friends... coz I realized that I don't say it often... So, Pinky, Mousumi, Anu, Cyril, Shipra, Vatsala, Guddi, Serene, Siddhu, Mayur, Partha, Charu, Reema, Ruhi, Sunil, Shruti, Rachita, Ruchika, Sanga, Ashu, Sam, Ajat, Deepika, Neha, Vineet, Gaurav, Amrish, Amit, Sanju, Vishal, Preeti, Baba, Runa, Utkalika, Wayne, Sumit... thanks sooooooo much guys for being my Friend... Love you always.

Crap, this bday thingy really makes one senti and stuff... must be old age... or must be the Old Monk!

How I got Leh'ed

In a nutshell...It all happened one drunken night...alcohol is one of the greatest stimulants of the creative juices... and coupled with the fact that my project was ending, me and my equally notorious 'out of work' friend decided to make this trip.
So with bags packed for about a month we left our cozy homes and unpaid bills and landed up in Delhi with nothing more than eager anticipation to get Leh'ed, the tickets and bookings be damned.
Apart from the obvious turn-on of the arduous trip through majestic peaks and succulent valleys, capturing the same on camera was a major thrill.... maybe we would get angles that no one has managed so far!
The preparation was not anything to write home about... it was the usual game ... but reaching the first base was the clincher... once you have reached the first base then making a touchdown is not a big deal (I mean how difficult can it get?)
Well the first leg was easy but then it was all uphill (literally) with at least 5 passes to cross…and boy was the ride rough and smooth in bursts…just when you thought that you had conquered one peak, then rose another majestic one… the whole journey was one overwhelming experience… you didn’t know where to look …you were surrounded by such beauty….certainly God was taking his time when he was creating this one!
Before starting on this ride, like a proverbial expert, I had thought I would finish it off in one day with a few hours to spare…but even before halfway through it I was tired… I was tired of the overwhelming feeling …tired of being so inadequate in front of such majestic beauty… tired of anticipating the climax. I was not sure if I wanted to continue… I wanted out… I chickened… I was not sure anymore if I wanted to be Leh’ed ;)
But then once in, you cannot opt out… it’s a one way ticket… so I geared myself and shrunk deep down in my jacket...peeping out once in a while to see if it was really there or I was hallucinating.
As soon as darkness fell, the ride became even bumpier… God’s sense of humour! And to make matters worse, we lost our way in those undulating trails and kept going around in circles. By the time we reached anywhere closer to touchdown, we were battered, bruised, exhausted, looked like something that the cat had dragged but our spirits were high… we were more than excited to get a first glimpse of what we had heard was one of the greatest. The high it gave me on was almost enough to make me breathless on that snowy night… or it could actually be the low oxygen content in that thin mountain air.
Well, what can I say, the first time was not good enough for me … the build-up makes it inaccessible. You would want it to respond to you, but like all first timers, I fumbled my way through it… the pressure just makes it stressfull…that and coupled with a brain freeze, closed road signs and snow all over.
Untill next time, and I will make sure that it is the season of love and not some harebrained wild goose chase up sinewy mountainous track. And yes, will take care of the brain freeze next time. So I will be Leh’ed nice and proper in the old fashioned way, eh…what.

Go Green!

The environmentalists are waking up now, I have been following the green bandwagon even before it was fashionable for the size zeroes to say 'kareena'. Although my love for the colour green had more to do with hormonal changes where in instead of checking out the fuzz on a man's face I preferred to study the designs of his cobbler.

Little did I know that the fad would put in an unusual spot in the future.

So when God with that twisted humour of his decided to spice things up ... few inglourious basterds came into the picture and saved the day.

I was left wondering how and why this whole situation arose... and am left with no answers... its one of those cosmic capers that make life so wonderful and confused at the same time... the confusion is solely the fault of my cynical nature and has nothing to do with the winged creature with the angelic smile.

Many have commented on the strangeness of the choice including yours truly, but strange are the ways of the estrogen and I have learned to live with it by now I guess.

Although the icing of the cake is that the bloke in question has moved from green to blue!

Legally Gay???

First they tell us that we need a certificate to be with the person we love (marriage), then they tell us that the person needs to be from the opposite sex...now they are telling us that it maybe ok if the person is from the same sex... well hang on ...Why do I need a rationing of love... of self-expression?

Detractors (read religious groups) are arguing that it is not natural... it is against God's will... well how the hell do they know what God's will is??

Adam and Eve committed a crime in the garden of Eden... it was a sin... for which humans are still paying... isnt this what we have been taught... well now I realize what the sin was... they made out with the opposite sex... they were meant to wait for the same sex person .... homosexuality was the order of the day!... same sex conjugality was a complete NO NO... thats why we were told that Adam and Eve committed the biggest Sin... but now with evolution, world politics, 6-packs, size zero, global warming, reality shows, Neverland, cloning, nanos, facebooking we have forgotten the original sin and replaced it with being Gay.