Bidding Adieu to an era….and learning to let Go

Its been like the end of an era for me today in more ways than one.
I just walked out of a place i spent nearly 3 years - my workplace and no i did not even look back and walked off as though it was just another day.
I put in my papers a week back and to my utter astonishment I was relieved in a week when i had requested just a month early releiving (well when cost cutting is the mantra such things happen…my only regret being that if i knew they would be so nice I would not have spent almost an hour at the new company interview begging for a 2 months notice and instead bargained for a better package).

When i sit down and look back there is so much to cherish , so much to be thankful that it got over but yet I am not mourning .In fact i was almost tearful when two of my friends in the group left over a year back. I have changed it seems , that girl who used to get sentimental enough to sulk for hours and days when you leave a place/person seems to have finally after thirty years of existence gotten used to leaving things behind.
I have always since childhood had to leave things behind being the the daughter of a government servant transferred around, and every place it took one hell of a time to adjust and then when i finally did , we moved again and i became grief personified as a melancholic child.
Now i guess i finally have learnt to Let Go.
Is it because i have finally grown up , or is it because i have finally given up?
I have been wondering.

I dont know what lies ahead of me , and I being that worst scenario thinking person I do have my fears but i am so calm relatively.Then i came home and looked at my blog. I noticed that in the last 1 year after changing the project i have been relatively less bitter about my workplace esp my managers on the blog .

The reason being that it was relatively a much nicer project and place than my previous one but yet today when i gave my exitinterview i filled in the form in what i remembered bitterly .

After that i realized unfortunately that this might end up being used against my immediate project/manager rather than being taken as a collective feedback for the organization.
I spoke to my manager to let it be known and i guess she's pretty cool on that which made me feel better.
In fact even in my previous project i really appreciate my manager for the support (despite such a sick sr management…against whom i have the real issues) and all except for the damned possesiveness they possesed about letting people go their way and the dramatics that were associated there.

Somewhere it pained when was greeted with a "thank you for your services" line but then what can you expect from someone way up the ladder and had minimal intearction with you.

For a moment i felt guilty about giving any negative feedback of any sort considering the fact that while i have always been criticized for not doing something more, I have always been appreciated here for doing what was expected of me splendidly.
But then I always believe that one needs to do it for a future set of people who would come in and some who stayed behind.

Nevertheless I for one last time met people who would remember me fondly and so would I though the chances of us meeting were less .
I somehow felt fine about leaving . I sort of realize deep within finally that things change in any case, if i dont move on others will and we anyways will end up on different paths.

I will always remember this place for the friends i made here….friends who remind me of the quote
"Love is blind , but friendship closes its eyes".
So many of them did that for me , I 've never realized why ?

People who pulled me out of my quiet moods ,
People who put up with my temper,
People who for all their jokes on all around spared me ,
People who gossiped all around and had so many judgements of everyone but never judged me or at least always put up a not guilty for me.
People who for all the ease with which they speak on all other stuff to me become hesitant when they ask me , when will you marry ? or invite us for your marriage.
People who stood up for me even when I spoke against them.
People who trusted me and took my word instantly.
People who may have thought me miserly but yet adored me despite it and spent a lil bit more on me.
We all have dispersed slowly across companies , cities and continents.
I will miss them . As you go up that damned ladder one is forced to climb i know it will rare to get that same love ,that trust that loyalty,
but then for once i will be positive minded, for i did not expect all the above here too when i left my past organization.(I started my blog with a poem missing people from my past organization)
I know its hard , but yeah for once its not really impossible.

So here's hoping for the best and getting prepared for the worst.

P.S: I have now 2 whole months to fritter but considering i have only one offer in hand , to minimize the risk i am considering to request an early joining .
But yeah for the next fortnight i plan to just be idle and while away time , cause i no longer have a team i can go around with , and most friends are married and
have I have a family which does not travel well.
So i will get some books and enjoy them my greatest loves and traverse a thousand worlds.

Weekends roll by…as i while off time watching stuff

Saw Jodha Akbar sometime before last weekend and what do i say its for me just another movie  only the sets are like of another era. The language put me off ,the dialogues make it actually worse than it is.It feels like todays's chit chat, nothing
royal about it.

When i said its was just the same love story set in a different era , a friend remarked well all love stories are same. True but its how you treat them that makes them different.

The Rasoi dialogues and stuff are simply out of Ekta Kapoor's soaps i felt .And now this reminds me of the timesofindia article " What woment don't want" wherein Ekta Kapoor says "I have always been a very focused person….And my career is my focus now . I see no reason or incentive  to reprioritise and focus on marriage instead"

This is why i love the woman and hate her soaps. She simply doesn't believe in what she puts on her soaps and yet has a nation believing in that bharatiya nari covered in kilos of jewellery thing.She fools scores of people and makes loads of money. I guess it gives her one huge kick out of it.

I must say Ekta Kapoor's key strength is her comedy which she adds in all her soaps but still if Ekta Kapoor had made Jodha Akbar beleive me she'll make it more romantic than Gowarikar did .(He made Swades so realistic which was
awesome esp in terms of what made Shahrukh do).

There was that scene of Hrithik doing sword fight practice showing off, and Jodha impressed by it. Thats ok but then if thats all then why do the film fraternity go to town that the movie was made to showcase Jodha's strength of character and
blah blah.
It was for this scene that  that many girls  and even guys(adds my sis) see the movie its said.His face never matches his abs somehow for Hrithik i always feel.If abs are to to one's taste John Abraham is the original and the better.

Anyway the pair is beautiful enough(guys around say Ashs's old now ho cares …well i think it is now that she's looking pretty , rather than plastic earlier) to watch the movie once as stretched out as it is once but anyone who calls it a classic is just being too much.

Watched "Runaway bride" and "Four weddings and a Funeral" again on the weekend and just keep thinking why by the the time many English movies end you are so impressed by the hero/heroine though at the start you never think much of him/her. I first got this thought a decade ago i guess when i watched Speed. Keanu Reeves looked just nothing on the poster to me but by end i  liked him fine.Therein lies the acting and direction difference i guess.

P.S: Then there was the end of the Australian tour, I was delirious enough to disturb by buzzing on messenger a friend in US working hard towards a release.When in college we were like so thick friends only about cricket, we belonged to different groups and all but it cricket esp that Australian tour in 1998(warne's nightmares being my cherished dream), the world cup in 1996 that our memories really start off and i guess this starts the end of them.
Its wonderful to see all the new ones but nostalgia is a damned thing for the mind as much as it cajoles the heart.

As says my Tooltip for Books in Life tag on the wordpress blog my book reviews are not reviews but the feelings ,thoughts and memories the book puts in my head and heart and occasionally the soul.

After quite some days I started off reading Rusking Bond's Landour days this weekend. He is one author I love (and perhaps envy )for the sheer simplicity of life he has had is able to relate in his books.Except for his book "Strangers in the Night" which is absolutely a male fantasy kind of book different from any other book of his and I did not enjoy rest of his book bring into life an idyllic pleasure that I never have had.

His love for flowers and his description of them makes me so enjoy them . So when I started of on the introduction of this book "Landour days" – a writers journal I found so many of the things echoed and so many memories brought back .

The first line itself reminds me why I started writing this blog anonymously

""The habit of keeping a diary has led me into trouble more than once,""….."People love dipping into other people's diaries and….resulted in … ill-feeling."

It happened to me with someone of my own with just a few lines and no one has the time to read the whole ….just a few words that "I hate her" (Never mind the fact that she is the only one in this world I ever have trouble deciding to hate or love at any given time ) is all that was remembered and it probably caused a crack that though time has hidden has caused irreparable damage.

Then the story of his headmasters wife reminded me of the day in school when I was given some real insult as a child saying I was trying to forge.Funny part was I never understood what I was doing was wrong. On my lazy afternoons I just copied my teacher's signature a few times in my notebook and when it went again to her with the homework I was caught for An attempt to forge in fourth or fifth class I think. I recalled it as I read it.

His introduction itself is what I think I would like to write for my blog….

"I am a compulsive diarist…..In this way I have preserved much that otherwise would have been forgotten. Naturally there were evnts trivial in retrospect which are better forgotten but it is salutary for me to flip through the pages of old diaries…..and see how stupid I was at times or how I coped with difficult situations…..…Not everything that happens goes into the diary. The privacy of friends has to be respected. My own privacy has to be preserved, to a certain extent.But I am a subjective writer and much that I have written …has been from personal experience." I guess that's why being anonymous is best for this journal.

His lines about compulsive walkers –" who will walk all day here and there everywhere not in order to get somewhere, but to escape"……….Those of us who must work for a living and would love to be able to walk…It's a rat race for most people whether they like it or not." is another some surely can relate to.

In his advice to budding writers is a point 3 which convinces me of my limitations whenever I think of my writing in general

"Are you interested in anyone else other than yourself? Writing about oneself has its limitations"

The book and its simple funny incidents which are so believable and the idyllic morning and mountains reminding you you of times when you could dream of it at least .Many love the sea , but I like the mountains a bit more , theres something about them which fascinates me – hillsides covered with flowers may be that's what is my imagination – especially cosmos. As I walk to office I see the orange variety oif them planted in the traffic circle and they are so lovely standing up to the sun. I like the white and pink more but in the dusty crossroads I guess orange is suitable.Today one cant afford houses in hill stations . One cant afford them in these concrete jungles firstly.

Throughout the book he uses quotes like" It isn't life that matters , but the courage you bring to it" which put things into perspective which is something I love to do in my blog , never realized that till now.

I wouldn't write what he wrote of flowers they mean a lot more and so to me but ah the way he puts it.

"To me flowers are the most sensual of living things, or perhaps its just that they appeal to the sensuality in my own nature"

For me flowers are a hope , are a sign of living and blooming for the day and yes they appeal to me in ways nothing else does esp when they are on plants itself.

During my trip to Mumbai I traveled so much but what I remember is the flowers there , they are so cheap compared to here and so fresh and available in bounties. As I got down from Dadar station I saw a little girl with bouquets of red and yellow roses some 10 to 15 bouquets I guess as though they were so unreal all in her arms and that's all I remember. And then the African daisies you see green centered white ones that they pluck and sell at temples.I was so reluctant to give it to the pandit who would just crush and throw them at Siddhi Vinayak.Herein I see houses though where the pink bougainvillea wraps itself all over neem trees in such a pretty manner that I just stand for moments when I walk that path occasionally. I used to love the long walls for kilometers covered by bougainvillea a few years ago on roads which now have glass buildings.

"My faults and limitations are many but I've always accepted that I'm a most imperfect specimen of humanity, which means I've always been on friendly terms with myself"The first part of the above line I can write today but I hope I mean the second part too some day i.e I accept my faults and limitations easily but I can't be friendly with myself for them and none around me let me be.

It was nice to read something so simply joyful its always the reason I love his books, including the humor which does not get cynical and yet leaves you amused The part where he decides silence is the most sweetest sound is what I feel at time and cant bear to listen any music at all.

His stories set in simple people of Mussorie, Dehra and such hills remind me of what one can never have…its not just because of the financial factor but also because of the time that passed by.

The lines he writes for Dehradoon are what I guess one can write for anything or anyone one loves.

"Dear old Dehra : I may stop loving you, but I wont' stop loving the days I loved you"

P.S: The weekend I guess has been idyllic for me this time…Went for an interview which felt too easy except that the interviewer seemed more inrested in my education details or rather pulling out information from there. His wry look when he asked "how come your % dropped from 80% in school to 65% in Engineering- Too much studying eh was quite memorable" ….though I will forgive him rather for putting it humorously rather than the other chap at the Database company who found that some one from my college was supposed to be very active and god knows what.

Sunday was all watching Sachin and as that banner by some one in the match said thanks for all the memories. Not to watch him in live action is a regret I will live with.Then I had pre decided Monday was not right for office as I woke up idyllically at 9:30 am as I slept finishing this idyllic book late at 1:30 am and now write of it.