My Life ... and it will remain mine.

I caught myself again with the same question being asked on my face. Every time I ping or get pinged by a log-time-no-see buddy, the second or the third “Q” that gets flung at me would be “Hey!... what happened to ur blog? … get that lazy ass of yours moving and get writing more regularly.” That’s when I stop … when some invisible hand comes out of the blue to hit me smack on my forehead … helping me realize that I am getting carried away in the torrid currents of my wayward life.

Here I am far away from home, waking up late in the morning and draging myself to office, dying for those darn coffee and lunch breaks and getting back to home late in the evening to gape into the magical idiot box …. eat some trash and fall asleep dreaming of a better tommorrow. I do all this and ask myself what is wrong with me and my life, that it is almost dead as my brains! There seem to be no fun in it … no purpose to it … nothing to motivate me, keep me up and going. I go through all this like a zombie.

Normally I would have squatted squarely on these big questions of life and let them slip away. But this time it was very different. I wanted to feel good, I wanted to know that I was steering my life (Oh!... not that I turned an atheist … Holy God forbid ….). So the next day I woke up early. Put on my tracks and slipped into my running shoes. After a brief and brisk workout, had a refreshing breakfast of fruits and delightful cornflakes. Dicing and chopping lettuce, soy sprouts and bell pepper, packed myself a light meal of sandwich. Already feeling better, I remembered a quote I read on Men’s Health, “Dress for the job you want and not for the one you have.” So I pulled out the best pair I had, pressed it neat and set it aside. Showered clean, perfumed crisp and rightly dressed I left for work, telling myself that I was going to make my day interesting, exciting and perfect.

Believe it or not, it was one of the best day I had at work. Everything went beautiful. I was able to complete all the task that I took up. I made a dashing impression. I could almost feel that people were looking up to take note of the difference. I felt like a vortex of power and magnetism walking on two legs. It was amazing. The whole week went this way. I feel so much better.

Everything looks a shade brighter now. Though the deeper questions of life still remain unanswered, I find the subtle gloom now gone!!! A good shake up is always defining enough to make that extra needed difference in our daily lives.

My Bloody Ego

No more would I be apologizing to the huge mad crowd of die hard fans that I keep imagining are out there reading my blog, for not having written regularly. But then again … my dastardly bloody ego, makes me put on airs as I turn up my collars in swelling pride over a few paltry, friendly (and deeply understanding) praises that I receive from long time acquaintances. Hmmm…. Ego, what a damnable thing it is. For long I had no idea as to what it is, though I was categorically branded as tending towards the limits of egomaniacal exhibitions of outward behavior. God!...just see me … I have this dirty habit of writing twisted, extra compounded, highly sophisticated sounding sentences to convey a dumb idea .. That I am dumb!!! Phew!

As a school kid, we were often coaxed to build and exude self confidence. But as things would have it, the line between self-confidence and ego (and many other scary things) is simply too thin. Brought up amidst a bunch of spoilt brats in an affluent society; bragging was an indispensable mark of identification of the neighborhood. It was reasoned out thus – “It is true talent that comes with head weight.” (Kill the dog who said that.) Of course they were all talented … of course kids need encouragement to excel … but this is taking things a bit too far. Thank God! My parents were not of the same breed as those snobby, petulant, stiff necked aunts and uncles. They kept repeating a proverb in Tamil – “Nerai Kudam Thalzhumbadhu” – which, in essence, meant “Empty vessels made the most noise”…. Oh well … ok … here it is … the proverb literally meant that – “A pot that is filled to the brim doesn’t spill!!!” …. Hmmm…. Now I am scratching my head trying to make sense out of this for all my western readers! Well it goes like this. Women in the villages of India carry water from the river to home. And they often found that when the pots they carried were half filled, they spilt more than when the pots they carried were full. (God!.. it beats me ..trying to put it in scientifically, gravitationally, kinematically …. Bless all those dead physics teachers of mine …explanatory terms.)

Parents repeating good things on and off to get them into their kids’ muddy heads is one thing, and the extended incessant exposure to higher-than-normal-self-esteem attitude of your playmates is another. And unfortunately try as much as they may, my sis and myself didn’t escape the infection. With our noses thrown up and heads thrown back we walked from primary to secondary to higher school. I turned lucky when I walked this way into college.

There in college, I had in waiting a most needed rude shock. There were batch mates and seniors far more talented and gifted in ways more than one, a million times more humble and unassuming. They mutely shown like bight torch lights, highlighting my own faults to me. They would do this … they would do that … and yet when praised they would brush it all aside with a simple smile and go back to their normal routines like normal people. (uhh!... I mean like the rest of us …) God! … They had so much to teach by just being themselves. Slowly but steadily the culture of the place (my college) crept into my psyche. Somewhere down the line I learnt to learn the good things from people I come across. Woooo … boy! I sound like some weirdo. But it all paid me well.

I try sharing the same with my sis, but I guess we’re from different species altogether. We simply don’t understand the language we speak in, let alone more complicated concepts on humility. It all makes me wonder, why people want to SHOW their confidence to the outside world. Is it that we are incomplete all by ourselves without the reactions of the world around us, to what we are and what we do? What would it be like to stay absolutely unconcerned, unaffected and untouched by the world around us? Would that be a challenge? Would that be abnormal? Hmmm…. I think its worth a try. If it turns out to be disquieting and paranormal to the extent that I am branded as an unacceptable outcast amidst my own roost …I might have to turn around.

The 27th Of May

It was a very hectic day for all of us at home. It was the 27^th of May, a day for which, each year, as kids all three of us bro, sis and myself would stash away all our pocket money.

Back when we were kids, on the evening of 26^th we would pull out all those crumpled notes that had been so carefully tucked away into all unthinkable corners of our house and make a secret expedition to the local supermarket. (Oh! We would simply whistle and tell mom that we were going for a walk … and of course she would know well, but would choose to act appropriately ignorant.) Once there within the air-conditioned, well lit, polished floors of the supermarket, we would go about walking up and down the aisle stopping at every shelf, debating, estimating, recalculating and driving every sales girl crazy, scratching up the wall with our stupid questions. The store owner, a neatly powdered lady in starch stiff sari, in her late 40s would come snooping behind up, just to ensure that we were not there for shop lifting. Three little kids running all around the place inspecting almost every product she had displayed, would drive the old lady nuts. She would conspire and place all her worn out, half dead sales girls at strategic points in the shop to have a birds’ view (naa …. an eagle’s view) over us. But we cared nothing. The whole fiasco would last for about 3 to 4 hours. Well that’s about the time the three of us could be patient in one place on one task, before we get down to blows over small differences in opinions.

Within those few hours we would have “a” task in hand; to buy for mom and dad the most fitting anniversary gift that could be bagged for the all the pocket money we had been collecting all through the year. What we had in our minds never matched what we had in our hands; damn those flashy advertisements that interrupted all those cartoon shows! Finally, when we find ourselves well exhausted we would lay on the counter, all the prospective gift we could buy. Then there would be another round of intense heated discussion to reach a unanimous consensus on the right gifts. With decisions made we would proceed to have the gifts billed. Smirking at the old lady and growling at all the other zombie-like sales girls we would walk out of the store with the gifts in neat plastic bags.

We would then head to the florist’s. With the remaining paltry sum we would go about picking dewy, dainty, delicate flowers and soft colored leaves to make a bouquet back at home. After pulling and plucking at almost every organic stem the florist had in his little red buckets, we would stumble back home all too excited.

Once back, we would go into the master bed room and lock ourselves up, shooing out our highly irritable but sadly ineffective granny from the room. Bustling about gathering small pieces of assorted decoration material and anything of interest and attention we would finally settle down to make a huge anniversary greeting card and a big flower bouquet. Right from leaves, dried up petals, flashy stickers, color pencils, crayons, scissors, glue, etc … everything would conjure up from nowhere. After an eventful span of one hour twenty eight minutes and forty seven seconds we would crawl out of the room shouting out to mom (who would be making dinner by then) to stay away from the fridge … hmmm … to stay put in the kitchen long enough till we tell her that the coast is clear. We would run over to the fridge, make a large clearing in one of the shelves and carefully place the custom made bouquet. (That was our perception of keeping the flowers fresh and beautiful.) With that we would stick a note on the door of the fridge threatening anyone who moves anywhere within a few feet from the fridge. Sometimes we stood guard … till the night’s most important TV show started.

Then when the BIG day arrived, we would wake up nudging each other and roll over on our tummies to plants sleepy kisses on mom’s and dad’s cheeks, wishing them a happy anniversary. After all the initial hugging and thanking we would walk out to the fridge and pull out the bouquet and the greeting card, from the bottom most shelf of the cupboard. Both mom and dad would be amply pleased, with glistening eyes there would be another round of warm hugs and loving kisses.

And these days, when we’re all grown up like buffaloes, we still storm into shops on the 26^th of May and go about busying ourselves driving every pathetic store owner creepy mad. The only difference, instead of stashed away pocket money, it is the mindless swishing and swashing of shiny pieces of plastic, our bloody credit cads. Oh!... but the joy still remains the same. Ooooppppssss…. There’s my mom screaming at the top of her voice. I think she’s finally spotted the bill for the cake we ordered for her anniversary. God! I’ve now got to sit through another round of wont-you-ever-grow-up talk show!

My trip to the ...

Innocent and studious, I sit at my comp browsing at harmless sites when all of a sudden there is that nefarious ring of a cow-bell…. a long live, die hard buddy who has this sweetest of thoughts to catch up with matters of greater importance on that devilish thing called Google talk. “bum…. Where are the US pics? Why the bloody hell haven’t you uploaded your holiday snaps yet?” …. “HOLIDAY” … just imagine, the company’s most sincere employee was sent to the parent org in the US to WORK … mind you to work…. And here are these people asking for pics of my US holiday …. Atrocious. Well…. Of course there were those Saturdays and Sundays.

Oh!... ok here it is …. a) I was lazy and b) Some how I wanted to break away from the usual stupid and dumb habits of a nerd who goes abroad …. To list a few:

- take a few pics wearing the thickest and heaviest of overcoats, sunglasses and standing by the snow and grinning like a jackass. Upload the same pic on ur orkut profile and update ur status to “Now in US” …. Can’t believe that there are so many out there who do this.

- Keep mailing all close friends news items of better interest in the US, as if these ever mattered to anyone anywhere.

- Call up every number on your contacts and ask a stupid question – “Hi, its been a long time. How are u and WHERE ARE U?” and keep your fingers crossed for them to ask you the same question in return so that you could beam and tell them with puffed up chest that your abroad.

- Ask friends, relatives and country men how the weather is back at home; and fuzz about saying how cold it is in US and how well you adapted to the climate change. As if you were an African penguin relocated to the South pole!!!

- Wait till the entire world begs on bent knees for snaps you have so languidly clicked away on lazy afternoons of well maintained US. (God! .. and you bloody feel off as if NASA is asking their Mars probe machine for those prized pictures for the surface snaps.)

And now … here I am forced to do all those that I have listed above as things I detest most ;-). Anyway …. If my fan clubs all across India would find joy herein … I see no harm in giving in ….

The Dimple on God's Cheeks

Often I’ve come across people whose very existence is beautiful. They are not people of importance, they are not people of influence… they are not even perfectionists. But they are those, who are a universe onto themselves. They do what they do because they believe strongly in it. They are like wild flowers that bloom by the way side, in all their beauty and color. They don’t bloom for someone to stop and smell their fragrance. I don’t know why, but these people appear like the best fitting creations in God’s world. I guess what appeals to me is … no part of their life or being is affected by what someone else would think of them. They don’t look for fame; they aren’t bogged down by cold sniggers. Surprisingly, everything … almost everything we do in our lives revolves primarily around how we believe the world we live in will judge us. Our dreams, our ambitions, our wants … and last but not the least even our bloody needs are centered around what our neighbor/colleague/friend or whoever it is, will think of us …It is saddening to realize that most of our lives are a farce.

On the other hand these people, the dimple on God’s smiling cheeks, like children they believe in a perfect and beautiful world, where everyone loves everyone and there is nothing bad ... (Oh... now and then they do get to see the nasty things … but … they choose to brush it off and act as if they saw nothing.) They are like the smooth perfectly shaped pebbles that sit snuggly on the sea shore while the whole world twists, twirls and lashes all around them like mad waves. And when the sea recedes and the sun smiles down warmly on them … they silently offer the sapling whose seed they have been holding for long, the truth of their simple but perfect lives.

God!... Oooopppsss, I was about to make a prayer to God asking for strength to shape myself like these people I admire, when I stopped myself. God has bestowed each one of us with all the powers to make anything out of our lives. He just chooses to sit by the side and watch what we do with it all.