Thursday, April 13, 2006




The world of reality has its limits.....sadly

I was kind of lost.............and did not know what to do as i sat at my PC....to stay away from it means other kind of troubles in this closed up house.So i just sat down staring at it till my screensaver came up a huge slideshow of all my hopeless collection of flowers and trees from the net.There are two pictures of two trees starkly different one with bright white flowers which i adore and one deep orange leaves, both i love and as they looped through i kept imagining standing beneath those trees....and looking up at the......it seemed lovely the illusion.



But in reality i found a tree with yellow flowers(reality is always different hmmmm) hanging down all over the tree near my office.I literally sat below it and looked up and i saw the lovely flowers and those bunch of fleas in there too and i got scared of them getting into my eyes and lenses and got away.Then i started wondering...may be thats the problem with me ....i see more reality than i wish to see.That is why i guess Jean Jacques Rousseau said
"The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless. "


This is one of those Classic poems from Vikram Seth,.....actually its the title poem of that book."All you who sleep Tonight"....It was long since i opened the book...i just enjoy glancing at it and playing my games of randomly opening pages.Since its long since a poem was posted by me and i am in no mood to write anything poetic ...... i'm like more in mood to write some thing caustic but let it be.So i thought of putting t his poem here.Words can be woven so beautifully or is it thoughts can be transformed so wonderfully i think as i read his poems.
--------------------------------------
All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right
And emptiness above -
Know that you aren't alone
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years.

-- Vikram Seth
---------------------------------------

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Objective: Weekend

Sometimes when i think of my objective just before starting work in week i realise its thesame thing since i started working....the weekend.
Earlier i used to think it was a BPO job and the timings are odd so i need my sleep ........but now in one of those IT jobs its the same always the same......
Earlier i thought it was this company may be but slowly i realise it may be the same else where........
There are few days when things are kinda cool and times when you feel some people are really friends and not colleagues and when on weekends you get bored you wish you were at office making fun of clients and management.............but they are oh so rare weekends.

The last week was very hectic......appraisals were out and people were upset or were being upset by others upset and work was made a direct variable of the pay ....... at least every conversation smirked of it.It was a terrible week and never wanted the weekend more.......i deliberately planned to lock myself in esp what with summer in full swing....i even did not read a book i was so tired.............in fact all i did for two days was i guess sleep and post to my blog........the whole infighting had taken good toll on my sleep.

I start every Monday aiming for Friday....
Every Monday morning its always like the Dicor ad which will remain my Fav for very long(I do want to quit every Monday...... )
Its not like i have some great weekend parties or get together or any such happening things.
Its just that i need a respite from hating what i do i guess.....
What if you are good at what you hate and average at what you love?
I'm still wondering..........

Saturday, April 08, 2006

A few of my favs

I dont browse blogs all that much as much as i'd want to these days because whatever time i can find off work im so self absorbed in writing about me ,my work and such nonsense .
Just thought of listing the very few of the blogs that i frequent see again its about me......... of course there are quite some i visit on o3 regularly esp those who leave comments and the stars at o3 like forbidden, taira, anant_rulz, downtoearth, libran girl and so many .
The below are a few out there which are kind of very interesting to me and i enjoy reading them.

http://socialpariah.blogspot.com

My absolute personal favourite when i want to read some touching stuff........pity she's not updating it these days since new year.She writes in an abstract manner and such short phrases and i love em.I mean i wish i could write so much in such few words....i just pile em up i think.Many Many short earlier posts that are almost poetic.

http://amitsmusings.rediffblogs.com/

Like quite some of the cartoons he puts up and the quotes and other stuff....has a great fondness for blonde jokes though.....but well.....let that be.

http://midnightmare.blogspot.com

Came across this blog somehow about a Mother teresa post.I myself am not into charity and dont really like her philosophy.I mean is keeping people alive, just alive the motto, i always wondered.
Anyway he really wrote some tirade against her which i guess was correct .
His posts are mostly anti something but neverthless i enjoy them because i too always feel anti something or the other so much i guess.
Then his thing for and against girls/women is i guess common to all guys.
But while in general most posts have a pompous feel to it and many i dont agree at all and some i agree too much,
i neverthless like the guy's writing...quite individualistic.Most people i thought never think of others who never have it good because this worlds fixed thinking but i really liked the way he wrote "In a Group, I'm Individual..." post.
Then unlike most others who write so much about our country the state of affairs, knowing they themselves cant do anything or dont do he simply confesses what i too proclaim that i just dont have the solution and i m too selfish maybe.

http://www.arz000n.com
Very recently discovered by me and have just read a few of them and they really get you to laugh.Proclaims himself bizzare by default...not sure if he's that bizarre and has a tendency to write pretty lot about guys thing.........but neverthless quite fun.
I generally dont like this tagging and all that but his tags give you a real much needed laugh.But what takes the cake is i finally found someone who cribs as much as me in fact in a much funny way about the IT offices and all the freaky clients and HR and management.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

I hate formatting:

Seems like last whole week i am doing just that be it at office or at blogger....and i am sick of it.

I mean whom to blame microsoft or all else seem nearly same.
What you format in Word once you paste in outlook it messes up and with managers and clients finicky about tabs and spaces its like one hell of a sick thing.
You reply to a mail and the bullets misbehave.....and my patient colleague just sits up up removes all the spaces......while i feel stupid...yeah i know how to remove spaces but its so irritating......backspace a line and color changes....font changes........
Then they call it WYSIWYG.(What you see is what you get)it should be "WHAT YOU GET IS WHAT YOU DONT WANNA SEE"
You feel sick.....ahhhh i love notepad honestly..........
Then you come home and try to edit stuff on blogger the font i have on one of them is too small....i increase the size and the template i preferred gets messed up ...you've to scroll a mile to see the topmost post.....it took an hour to try setting it .....and the power goes off....fed up and left it at the minute font.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Self Hate/Pity/blah blah

I hate it and i hate it big time but i did it cause there was no other way i could think to be done.....just lied about my raise....now i am no absolute truth speaking paragon but i guess in most places speaking truly gets you a good sleep...you neednt worry about the next lie.

Whenever i feel i have some great need to lie i use a "no info or confused kind" of thing rather than outright lie.But to lie about figures is bad.....there no way out damn.What do i say i did not get 5 means 8 huh.Now the real raise is known to two people whom i can call friends in an office scenario and in general to an extent....How much i trust them ....not really and if they blow it well hmm nothing will happen but i'll lose my credibilty with my peers..... all to save a sick piece of management.Its disgusting to live through it....and it affects my sleep .....a sin my life.

It more like a poem i had posted somewhere on my blogfrom "An Irish Airman forsees his death" by Yeats."
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;"

All because i started off on the wrong foot in my career.As i was drowning in self pity and also pepping myself up i mused sometimes people can be really cruel.
A colleague of mine had a break in her career after marriage and hence resumed her career as a fresher.Hence pay is less.Now while introducing her in the team after the general stuff my Sr manager ......prompted her on and on tell tell how you got in here.She was brave enough to report it and he got off with an apology but such people dont change they simply cover up tracks and wear better masks.
All this brought me on to something...there was so much about ethics hiring firing etc in the papers recently which i think is all very good but then that is if its implemented completely and thoroughly which is not the case.Equal opportunity irrespective of without regard to race, gender, age, color, ............which is hardly the truth.

May be the intentions are good but i can say surely that the way they are implemented in this country by our people are hardly close to honorable....more so in our wonderful indian companies which love to use thesame lines but alas they never hire the managers who can implement it.I dont rant about this as a employee but also because i happen to have a HR at home who gives a very pretty inside view of the HR world.
Once what was called as recommendation is now called as reference was the punchline.

Anyway may be later more i am not in a good mood at all.There was more stuff on the weekend but let it be...i am not even in a mood to write anymore.

All this after i dragged myself to the damn office thinking of the quote "Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ''I'm with you kid. Let's go.''
Yeah we went and it sucks where i have been.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

The Hollowness of Applause

This post has nothing to do with cricket or Tendulkar as much as i enjoyed watching them both but yes it came to mind when i heard (its been very long since i watched them with as much passion as it used to be once.......now its just tracked on the web and news) about the booing by the Mumbai crowd.
Did they have the right ....may be yes....they can....everyone has a right to be boorish, to show they are frustrated.....whether they care how it affects others or not is again their own wish just as disliking/ignoring them is my wish.

The moot point is how something like this affects the person in question and why. How many times people love it when we are appreciated in public by their teachers, parents, managers and others but the moment they make a mistake happens and they are made to look like fools again in public. So which is the truth the applause or the booing. May be both because its directed towards an achievement and a blunder...to those who mostly take part in this cheering and booing you as a person has no real meaning.

All this brought to mind is how much most people wish to be applauded by a nameless faceless crowd collectively termed as world but its too late when they realize what they’ll cherish and what will always remain is not that applause that makes you feel for a moment the greatest person on earth.........
What is eternal and lasting is that affection ,the love of those people whom would love us as we are and as we move with life, not those who will cheer us in success and boo us in failure.

Earlier i remember before KBC happened every TV channel and newspaper worth its name was doing spoofs of Amitabh, his age his dances with Shilpa Shetty and Manisha Koirala which agreed was pathetic but the spoofs some of them were really cheap and insulting.
He succeeded again and now he is revered and every damn anchor who made fun of him says he is the greatest inspiration/admirable person in their life...and he again is the greatest actor.
Nothing will last for ever as it is and the collective applause of the public/world is very fickle....Out there
Nothing succeeds like success” but what good is success if all your life is a struggle to go on proving yourself.
Its best to live for oneself or for person/people for whom you are just a person not a success/failure.
Certainly success should have a place in ones life but associating it with applause from the whole world,
or the whole organization or as they say “everyone should be proud of you” is just nonsense. Theres no harm in enjoying applause...its just that beleiving in it is no help and most dangerous is beleiving it will last.

As is rightly said
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." --Bill Cosby

In fact even pleasing a few is hard the fatal mistake is by people who try pleasing everybody and end up pleasing nobody.

Friday, March 24, 2006

I could......
I just was reading my previous post coz i dont feel like doing anything better....i can do hmm well so many things but i just dont feel like any.So here i am at it again and i found the post ecccentric...exactly ...exactly what i feel most of the time.
I could go and pull out some Professional books and read to help me improve my technical knowledge but i start imagining things when with technical and reference books.(they ignite the imaginative and artistic part of my brain rather than the side they are supposed to use which is actually turned off and hence i am lost.).
I could go ahead and read a novel but i feel tired to read esp im in midst of not very easy novel and may miss out on parts which i dont want to.
I could try to dust off some books from the distance education course i enrolled and read rather than complaing during hectic exams that its hard....but then i guess i m never inspired without the exam hall ticket...to read for an exam(Old habits die hard).I actually need to sleep but somehow its lost on me these days which is why i am all the more nonsensical.I could go and arrange the mess i have made of my shelves but it seems too much of a task and anyway from someone who beleived in arranging and cataloging things ive grown to someone who thinks if things are messy you'll ever find something interesting tumble out......ah what does life do to people.I could mail a few people but i am in a very generous mood and dont want to subject people who have better things to do to compulsory reading.I could ask if my mom needs any general help but wont dare coz the list she may reel out will kill me and so i better be the hard hearted hopeless daughter .I could listen to some music but after a day when i had enough of it on headphones at office i prefer Silence.
I could sit down and look back at memories.......yeah smile for 1 hour and then drench myself in saline stuff...there are places in my mind i try not to tresspass deliberately.
I could sit down think what to do with my life but thats like getting into quicksand.......
I could just sit down and relax but i know then id simply be writing this post in my mind .....so i thought i better write it as i can now.... unlike oh so many times when those thoughts kind of evaporate......
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
P.S: this post look just like my life.....
I could have.......
If only...................
but to me it looks just as funny.....
after a point Tragedy seems Comedy

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Random niggles of a day like everyday
I dont know...its not like i mind but sometimes when people repeat it again and againand some times with no apparent reason...it does upset you.But then again its too trifle compared to bigger headaches of life but then a problem is a problem and a niggle is a niggle.They dont go away ...they get to you differently yet surely.And little niggling things with no apparent solution sometimes get to you...............everytime i speak friends or rather colleagues r like shhhhh.....i know i have a loud voice...one reason being i do speak at a lesser volume but somehow then it becomes less audible and non-understandable.I am at my best when i am sharp ...loud and clear but in offices i guess its always shhhhhhh.Sometimes its necessary esp after that terrible incident in the lift described in previous post but using it as an excuse to say dont speak loud when i am not speaking loudly also kind of puts you off.....because its ingrained in their mind that i speak loudly .
Sometimes its amazing how hurt kind of spirals in a way.Ive seen it so many times and today it was yet again.Its at the moot no one's fault yet we both kind of felt bad.I was working on something at which V is very good.Actually she's pretty good at whatever technical she takes up...i am someone who likes to appreciate and she's really bright and helping too though a bit short tempered(a trait we share).
Ive been working on it too for some time but as i had once written a poetry my virtual memory is too low and when i am surrounded by someone who has such a sharp memory i take advantage and dont hesitate to keep asking......."whats that command"," what steps to connect to this.." .she sometimes will get angry...that i had said it nah and while she gets irritated and i know its my fault to never memorize it (so i try to make a note of it but i miss out somestuff or other...and if i remember also i doubt myself a very bad trait...i just like 2 opinions and then doing my own thing)...but in the end it never lasted the feeling of my by being scorned or her being irritated.
Today when i asked her something she was replying and then saying " If you still have a doubt...then go to the properties file.......and check there"Now when she said this our PL who passed by heard it and V being someone who joined as a young talkative fresher last year and they like to say a word or two to them just for fun(which i dont understand) said laughing as ever whats that..."if you have a doubt....only then ..... why cant you just go and show it to her it will take a minute".
I knew it instantly her thought would have been "i always help everyone here........yet he says like that".In fact she left for training in the next few minutes and then smsd me (which she rarely does) if i had given in the correct inputs for some stuff which i usually give but now she probably felt it was her responsibility so she cross checked.Hmm they are people who have so much respect for authority and position and then some who have none....and we co-exist.
It might have been nothing but i knew it at that moment she took it to heart and what she did and how she spoke the rest of the day made me feel upset whole day as much as i could see the pattern.It kind of was no one's fault and we'll get over it as ever but it makes you mull about life and and its twisted ways.
All this after a day when me n V slipped off from office(possible now as manager off to the greener shores else it'd be like impossible at our place ) to catch "Pride and Prejudice" just coz fed up of having no real work....just for three days....wonder how do benchers at some of the illustrious companies manage with months of no work???

Sunday, March 19, 2006

A book and an obsession and me

There are books and oh so many books.Some are special to everyone....not because they are classics or good books....some unread books too can be special........ The reason being they touch you somewhere ...or trigger a special memory......or just leave you perplexed......and then there are people who cite how one book changed their life.
I guess that one thing i am safe from.
But this week as i looked back at a book i had bought some four years ago at a very dark time of life.......it was bought as i buy things mostly by intuition.
I particularly recall a joke by friends on this habit...it was a tease but it was executed so well that i still smile when i think of it....We had gone shopping the three of us and R was the only one who was sure of buying something. the two of us were like if we like something. So as we shopped and went in and out of shops and i just was like in 5 minutes out saying lets go nothing here...they were like ok what do you want....what kind of dress are you looking for sequins....embroidery and all i could say is something i will like.....and they teased me endlessly yeah she shook look at it and love it....that’s how she will shop and strangely thats true thats how i shop. There’s no reason to my madness.I am amazed at how quickly in one glance my sister can judge the cut the flow and fit color and all that.I am like hooked onto something say the colour or duppatta and and i ignore everything else.
I was thinking how all i do is by default.I never can be clear about what i want...because i always am clarifying what i dont want.....probably thats my problem.

Neverthless getting back to the book.....I had read the First Impressions on it in The Hindu and thats all but one day i just saw it at the store (i too am like many book lovers with a fetish for covers) and as i just held it and flipped through i bought it.Its called “A Himalayan Love Story “ by Namita Gokhale. I will not review it or anything there’s enough such stuff if one googles.I just interpret my reaction and memories with it.....and i have a very strong one actually associated.This book somehow brought together two things i kind of get passionate about Books and Flowers.

Today as i look and think i guess the book is kinda ok.......good if you are someone who reads Indian fiction and such stuff else many people may be bored by it.
Like everyone has their crazy thing i always have a thing about finding out names of flowers...even though i did not study Botany and know no one who does....people still say come on...did you study engineering or Botany.

But before this book mine was limited to only some general flowers not poinsettias and such.The book is set in a hilly setting of Kumaon and Nainital and hence the author beautifully talks all along of flowers....and uses the Hindi names of some .This kind of made me want to find out the English names of all the flower names i knew in hindi and vice versa.
It kind of became an obsession that time.It was a time when internet was very expensive and i was jobless and yet i somehow saved some bucks from the little i had left after spending money buying such books though......i was really a bit strange...actually am.
There was a reference to magnolia flower and tree w.r.t heroine’s house throughout the book and while i seemed to have heard and known it i could not place it.....and did i spend time and effort on just finding it out heck.
I loved flowers always though i never make huge issue about it but my obsession with finding out their names kind of grew a lot after this book.I had enrolled for a part time course in Communication Engg which i never finished or rather attempted (just blew up the bucks) but i had some wonderful time in the University library looking at books on Flowers and reading Rushdie and Vikram Seth.

Then there’s the opening passage of the book.


“I have always recognized that i carry an emptiness inside me, although i did not first understand it.When i was a child i would look at other faces, at their ordinary expressions of laughter and sadness and tears, and wonder at the ease with which they juggled these masks about. All i ever felt was a constant festering sense of anger and unease. I felt trapped inside my skin and bone and circumstance, and for this reason i began at a very early age to avoid people.”

I felt it was what i could write of myself then and strangely do even now....though i do have to learnt with huge difficulty to carry at least a few masks....it leaves me uneasy and angry and so i guess i blog.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Life's KALEIDOSCOPE and my Varied reading

My initial reading pattern actually was not the normal one...most people graduate from comics to nancy drew and famous five to Agatha Christie,mushy novels, Mills and Boon...popular fiction like Grisham, Archer , Sheldon.....Ayn Rand, Richard Bach etc and on to better stuff.

I started off differently....Readers Digest....Russian Childrens Novels, Nancy Drew(Oh i owe Carolyn Keene and i will write a post on this), and then went on to Jeffrey Archer and Ayn Rand and Grisham.Then i read Sheldon a bit...and then Richard Bach and then mushy of the likes of novels Danielle Steel and finally sick of life went on to Mills and Boon(Esp the blue covered Modern Romances....others are extremes they bore too much....they make no sense anyway but what the heck they are so stress releiving you just dont think....and a story just glides through and you fall asleep).
But that was then.....now i am stable at literary stuff mostly Indian Fiction or Literary stuff.

I read Danielle Steel books when in college....till i outgrew her or may be got fed up
Have a few novels of hers unfortunately not my favorites
I mean we friends thought she had a sadism the way she almost always kills the hero in the novel and the second one's characterisation never matches up the way she starts off about the original hero.
Its this thing that irritated the most but also over a time reading the same stuff bores you...i of course intersped reading her with Archer so i got through till i was saturated.
Anyway i read a lot of her books and some of them i think are extremely beautiful......
My favorites are The Ranch, Ghost, Granny Dan, The Promise, ........ and somei cant get the names and many others which i do like .... like say Zoya ,at least as i remember them as liking them a decade ago.......can't remember the finer details.though there is one book i think one should strictly stay off if you dont want to slip into depression.
Its too dark .... its about abuse...its called 'Malice' and its real mood turn off and depressive.

Anyway it is here i was thinking women have a distinct advantage over men with respect to books.Women can happily enjoy detective stories, Science fiction(only genre that i keep off but i know girls who love it), legal thrillers and all the genres by any author and of course sappy stories, romances, sentimental stuff ....unlike men (exceptions are the norm ) who just cannot enjoy most novels by women or women centric books.

I have a few of them still, as most of them were from library..neverthless i was arranging my stuff and things tumbled out.
I had written so beautifully in cursive handwriting a poem from one of her books called Kaledioscope...
I remember the storyline very lightly or rather hardly ...its about 3 sisters or so...what i remember is one of them unfortunately has an unhappy ending and an unhappy life throughout.

KALEIDOSCOPE means a constantly changing set of colors produced by an instrument.

the poem is beautiful and i always remember it esp the last five lines .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To deepest dusk,
from morning sun
to twilight dreams
fantastic schemes
and lives that go awry
such shining hopes
such sudden twists from
bright to dark
from grim to grand
from joy to sorrow
always waiting for tommorow
and a twist of fate
a ray of hope
with the faintest sleight of hand
the alteration of all of life's schemes
and all its scope..
all with one tiny turn
of life's KALEIDOSCOPE.

Danielle Steel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Thursday, March 09, 2006

A hopeless feel of life

Nothings worse than self doubt.It sometimes though creeps in and destroys you.And then in such times when you see darkness around in life it simply adds on to the worst .Its very hard ....its not as much about anything....its simply when you feel for a time that you are worthless and the world can do without you.I guess the world can do without anyone actually even the so called best people but still there are timeswhen you just feel if only you could avoid this mess called life and its everyday duties....of living.

I dont know ...there are people i dont like much but it seems bad when you see how one can be the victim of circumstances even in those people. There was an analysis on and someone had asked me ok you read the document i mailed you tell us what was in there and i just spoke what i remembered first....I said the problem to be analysed had to be specified in a positive way. Now a manager there she immediately spoke out instinctively" its a problem and what positive is there".......then she clammed up and said "ok yeah so what shall we phrase it as to be positive?."I sensed it immediately only some one who can understand the negative side of life could see it ...even i think the same why do we have to put it that positive way if its that bad.

With time i got it...thats the way the world likes it............ rose colored glasses......else we wont be able to go on.
Sometimes even nice things and nice people hurt...Its kind of like that....I have friends who speak condemning things, life of others but simply turn a blind eye when i am doing the same thing or at the same position...I dont know how to take it.Do they really dont see it or do they make an exception for me....is it sympathy.....or what. sometimes its just as that song goes. Everybody hurts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on
Don't let yourself go, 'cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes
Sometimes everything is wrong.
Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go, (hold on)
When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on
'Cause everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts. Don't throw your hand.
Oh, no. Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone
If you're on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on
Well, everybody hurts sometimes,Everybody cries.
And everybody hurts sometimes And everybody hurts sometimes.
So, hold on, hold onHold on, hold on, hold on,
hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts. You are not alone .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Impetuous Me
I seem to have lost my senses .....if i had any i mean i guess i should become more serious and what they say responsible behavior or mature but i do myself no favor on any counts these days and it really happened bad this day...i feel so very stupid....though it seemed quite funny to all.
Well in my group of four in team who hang out together all the 3 others are freshers i.e. 2004 passouts ....i dont hang out much with the senior group whose greatest interest i.e domestic problems are too much for me to be of any use to make conversation.
So they being quite younger than me i tease them well and they take it quite well but i guess i should be more restricted and not impetuous and outspoken (i tend to become that after i stay at any place for 1 year scaring people who have seen me at the begining of the year as the quietest person around).....at least if i want to move up this damned corporate ladder (Do I is a question i often ask).
I was teasing V about a Tool called Silk she was attending training for...teased the daylights out of her calling her “Silk Silk” since morning.
So three of us were moving down by lift in the evening and i was talking about some issue with the manager and a chap got into the lift.V called my name in a way (she meant me to shut up completely...she said later)and i thought we had to switch topic and i started teasing her immediately again “Silk Silk” and that too with a accent and raised eyebrows.
The guy simply walked out with a smile saying “you wanna learn come......”
I was left perplexed....V was like “o god u r impossible....He ‘s a Sr Manager and the only chap here who has any knowledge of Silk Tool”.
I really wanted to leave for the day......i hate coincidences...i was sure.....feeling sick of myself.

Respect i think comes hard to me... u’ve to earn it.. I mean i cant just respect someone because he has a designation or because he’s a few years older.... neither do i expect people to respect me just coz i am older or have..... some position.
Its a old problem with me ...quite old.
Actually i got a dressing down in school class VIII with respect to this...My English teacher asked me to stand up one day and told me in front of the whole class....
” you should learn manners ...you should say good morning to your teachers when you see them outside the class”...i knew she wanted that but was stunned to be told that in class.
I have this problem will not say hi and good morning for formality sake....I do try to get over it esp in this corporate world but it does not come naturally to me....have to remember and have eye contact then i say it.....just saying hi with not even a glance is not my cuppa tea.
Its the same here at office in our small coffee room with a platform on which we perch i just keep sitting whoever walks in while all my respectful company will stand up to attention....when the PL walks in....never any Good mornings or Goodbyes unless its a direct communication or eye contact.
I sometimes dont even acknowledge the presence of some people(currently my PL after my awful pay discussion) ............sometimes because i am uncomfortable ....sometimes because i prefer it that way and sometimes because I am at a loss of any sane look, word or expression.I have that block...whatever such a block is called.

So all day i was pondering .......
As it is i am left behind in this race..As it is i am not suited to this corporate hypocrisy but.....if....and all that
“i should be more serious ....always look like at work even i have none.
Take serious trainings.....not discussions as i call them.............Give lectures about the importance of this that........beleive in it or not”

and all that senior person fundas....but then i guess with time i’ll get over it......
back to square one “ Who the heck cares ”.....thats my natural instinct i think.
I realise i just am not into it......i am a mess and no solution i could find....till now at least..................if it was not for money and if i could get some help and luck on it i’d be happy with a flower or a book shop..........i think.

(I so want to put these quotes at my desk but then thats all i will need to be told why my pay packet is light.....so i put them on my blog)

“Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.”.....

Absolutely Absolutely i say.......but what is the excuse for my stupidity i wonder...................
its becoming terrible now ....so are my posts.

Monday, February 27, 2006

A chain of thoughts
Saw Rang de basanti finally..Dont want to write a review of it..enough movie critics to do it.Its a Good MOVIE...I think i highlighted what i mean...MOVIE.

The post though is a disjointed chain of thoughts.
Its a very good movie...thats it....one of those rare ones in indian cinema where there is hardly any melodrama.

But is the movie so pathbreaking ...awakening to the new generation i am not sure...its a movie.If someone wants to make it a beacon to reality it kind of is hard.Probably the one truest line of the movie is when Aamirs character says
"par bahar ki life me na jaane kitne DJ haar gaye" or something to that effect...my dialogue memory is poor.
I see this in the shadow of reading about S.Manjunath a IIM graduate killed by the corrupted oil mafia.I have all strange thoughts about this jingoism of patriotism so may be i dont get inspired too much.Dont know....

But i look back and think has India ever been defeated in by any kind of army or armed conflict.They have always been defeated by some traitor for greed, internal hatred,other differences.....(take the case of british sneaking in or prithviraj , Tipu sultan, Azad all betrayed by one of their own).Then why so much a bugle of "We the great indians"...i dont get it.

First they start with patriotism which they link with culture and culture is then imposedby honor and the whole brunt of this is borne by women.To protect the culture its always women who have to do this ,that, not be like this, follow this......and all the patriotism, inspiration, culture all ends up rotting....being the perfect families in ekta kapoor serials.
People suddenly become relegious after their forties a bit too much and think the young have degenerated.

Why do we always look to history...what was good then is it necessary it will be good now.We all hate it ...including me but isn't life in the end .......adaptability.

If we had remained in prehistoric time saying this is our culture...would there be any progress in any way at all.History somehow is a bane for a country in todays times as History culture and relegion are the foremost things usedto organize a mob....a mob can be manipulated because a mob cannot think....... its led in the way the manipulator wants shrewdly.......

If history was only used to learn from past mistakes it'd be some good else its simply a potent tool....which is the reason the manipulation of history texts is a big issue.
Yeah i think of mobs of how individuals get lost...mobs consist of the greatest individual cowards in general which actually are the majority of this world.One of the classic examples of mob is from history.....Julius caesar(yeah i know ive posted on it earlier)
A mob within hours starts thinking in two diametrically different directions(baying for the blood of the same person they put up on a pedestal) ..... all manipulated by the power of speech.........and what a speech it is.....Classic Absolutely.


A conversation i heard....Walking back home i hear two old grandmas speaking.

A1: My blood was boiling...i packed my bags ...after all for that little food do i have too hear all that
A2: Yeah true
A1: (some desciption i dont hear) Then she said sorry, apologised.... it was her mistake only .... huh who cares for sorry
A2: yeah do what you wish then say sorry...They will suffer the same from their children one day.
A1: What one day ...They are doing it now only.Our upbringing only was different ...we used to beat them and they listened ....Now they get asked upfront by their children"Why are you beating me".....We are being questioned now at this age...they are being questioned now only..huh huh ha....our culture only was different, special..they dare not speak out then.

Its amusing or something to wonder i dont exactly know............


An afterthought in general
This may seem horrible but its just a pattern of thinking so i am keeping a note....
The movie began with "if your blood still does not boil then your blood is water"
Ahem i just think may be water is better...you can see things clearer......blood clots.....blood differs, divides........ water doesn't.(well till it becomes a river i guess and if its Kaveri...o my God)This chain of thoughts better end here.

All the while i am lost in another story that i guess better be the next post.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

A few thoughts , and the book

Its been such a busy past few months that i feel so tired .Its good i kept a day off with no work and no one at home.I feel so much better.I tried to write down all those strange things troubled me.None of them i can do or would do anything i guess.but as much as id love to write all my thoughts its hard.These are actually a memory of those thoughts.
Well what was i doing on the Republic day ...hmm well what else shopping.Did i feel guilty no not at all....i worked hard enough to earn that money but the sick part is this marketing....I dont get why they do this but it helps no one i feel and it sucks.You walk into a big store offering end of season discounts all decked up for the republic day welll upto thats its ok.Why do they play the music from the patriotic songs inside.I mean its sick when you are checking out earring and dresses and all they plan ...all that set of our standard hindi patriotic songs.I find it sickening.Worst was when they played Ae mere watan ke logon......its too sweet a song and too touching to be played like this and it will make no shopper feel any good....so why play it like that.I almost felt like grabbing the idiot who was playing it and smacking some sense.....but i guess my understanding of marketing is bad.
Then there was a day when while going to office in a an auto there was some drainage problem and the whole road was filed withh drainage.It was sickening. i litterally shrunk inside the auto and even the autowallah was dead careful that he not be stained by a drop of that filth.But then i think i saw something so very sickening.There were officials gathered to clear it out and it was being cleared by a tall man neck deep in this drainage.I really felt sick.There simply are no solutions .I know its useless because my thoughts are nothing ...I really admire peoplewho do something about it...but honestly i think ....this world is in such a sick state....beyond repair.One of my very fav songs for such thoughts is always....i mean i think god has messed it up completely ...and he has moved on to some other project.....unable to bear his failure.


"Aasman pe hai khuda ur zameen pe hum
Aaj kal vo is taraf dekhta hai kam"

In this horrible mood with my office making me feel miserable at heart.......even with my tight schedule i am trying to read ......(Stories have a way of taking care of you).The only trouble is the book i have started reading is borrowed from a library to be returned and its a voluminous book and it is not making you feel any better but only more hopeless about this world.This is not to say its a bad book.
Its a very classic book and i think the writer has done an excellent job.I did write about it earlier..."Maximum City" by Suketu Mehta is said to be non fiction.He actually met all those underworld gangsters, hitmen, police its said.I ve only managed to finish half of it.His writing is brilliant but the whole descriptions leave you with a deja vu feeling.
Not that we all dont know it ...its just that we walk around in suspended animation as though its not us.The whole descriptions of common people as gangsters...(no its not the movies...a movie is 3 hours ...it seems fine...bearable.... but when you read such a voluminous book on it)...their decsriptions and thoughts about god and killing.He tells how in his knowledge he says the cheapest rate of life was 50 rs when a rag picker chopped a man he helped kill to buy a plastic sheet.
One part in the book goes like this.He speaks with shakeel on phone and then he gets a favor

"Any trouble you have in bombay.One work free.Bhai said so"
"later when i repeat this story to close friends in bombay, in new york a wistful look comes into their eyes, they start making lists of people they would eliminate if granted such favor.They are half joking...and i am genuinely shocked by the list of names they give--ex-lovers, colleagues................Most of the names they have in mind are those of people they once loved greatly and now hate with equal pasion.Each one of us , I am begining to discover, has a circle of people close to us whose deaths we fantasize about"
Among many other lines as you read and identify is

" The notion of what is luxury and what is a basic need is upended in Bombay.Every slum in jogeshwari has a TV...The real luxuxries are running water, clean bathrooms, transport and housing fit for humans............""The greatest luxury of all is solitude."----This line even when i dont think of bombay i feel in general.......its such a good feeling to have your room....to just be.Somehow its so hard to get it ...people crowd in so much.

The book would be very special to any bombayite i guess but even for a non-bombayite the book is classic...because somewhere bombay is really the amalgam of india...Its just that in Bombay everything is in extremes.there is no judgement of rights, wrongs...its just the truth of life and the inevitable truth that there is no real escape.You hate so much in this country and so run away abroad and then those abroad will tell how they cannot escape the charm of this hated country and start loving it even more once they go abroad.
I have managed to finish Part-I Power and hopefully Part II -Pleasure would be better....but i have to make time to read it.I have to make time....for everything these days it seems.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Ive never haggled as such in my life and its felt a bit sick doing it.I'm not comfortable asking. I like to get what i deserve without asking but that doesn't happen in this world and with my discomfort in asking for things even from my own parents has not helped me much. But life takes you down every lane and hence what happened this week was too much for me.


I hate this whole concepts propagated in organizations taken from abroad and never tailored to our own people here.


They start doing appraisals, individual growth plans and all such things which are quite good on paper but in reality we all know how they are followed up in India by managers.Firstly they dont understand it...its for a person not an organization but they do the reverse.



Neverthless a gist of what i think was a sick conversation called negotiation



TL:I understand you are doing pretty well but feel paid less so i will ask for a raise for you


Me: ok (my thoughts: good you yourself brought it up ...but then that means i’m obliged to continue in this organization if i have a conscience which i sadly do)


I enter for the general review


PL to Tl :Lets finish hers first...i dont think this lady is critical(whatever he meant by that surely ended up differently)


Pl: you understand this is a general review not a pay review


Me : yeah


We hash out some nonsense about short term ...growth plans and long term goals this that...prove it , grab oppportunity


PL:Ok any concerns


Me: yeah I think you must consider a raise, I started off on a less scale due to my lack of experience in this domain but its time i get my due


TL:yeah i agree she needs one


PL: But you have to wait for six months for your yearly appraisal.Thats policy.

What do you do you think is special deserving a raise?


Me: blah blah some stuff


PL: So there are 7 ppl in a team of 25 doing the same how do you ADD Value(my thoughts:this is a fav word round our place with managers, the work we do seems to have no value i guess).


Me: again some stuff .....

Pl:Ok agreed you have performed well now but do we decrease your pay when you do not perform as well they how can you say increase it

Me: Speeechless( Kya negotiation hai...This is what you gain by 15 yrs exp in industry)

Me yeah but you see i got less last time too and 6 months more wait for a raise is not fair.I as it is started at less

PL: why do you think you are underpaid.There are people who work for less(Yeah Yeah Yeah aur overpaid ka kya)

TL: OK see i think she has done well and she's not getting her due and is underpaid a bit.

Pl:what do you mean by that ..you cannot think individually like that

TL Well i have to think individually for my team (Thoughts:Learning from past mistakes is good..with attrition they try to learn a bit, but i also remeber this support comes with a price...i.e:.stop thinking of a move...grow here....well what doesnt)


PL: then its 25 for you and for me a 100 and for the company a 1000 .How do we go about it

Me: (Feeeling like a watching those tennis matches head turning left to right.)

PL: See you tell me whats outstanding that i forward this raise as policy is 1 yr.

All big companies follow the same .

You tell me a growth plan...make sure you match upto it and take a good raise when your appraisal comes in next six months.


Me:If such was the case why was it not done previous time itself

PL: We did not have a growth plan policy for employees then

Me:Then whats the guarantee it will not be removed next time


PL: Policies are never removed.They are added on but never removed

Me: (Kya baat hai)Well i guess the correct word is changed

PL: yeah right they may (Quick change of topic)


See the thing is think of a Goal..pen your goals try to acheive them dont always think of money.Think of growth in Role.

Me(Superb ab yehi baaki hai sunne ko) see goals are there but on the way you need money

PL: yes just wait for 6 months more.Do something beyond your work and then get it.


Me: there should be an opportunity and scope too

PL:(This is a fav pure managerial jargon)Opportunities dont come you have to take them..Dont always think of the brighter things ..there's work everywhere back office to technical stuff ...all have their place...Go learn a foreign language ..come and tell me and as soon i get a onsite chance overseas i'll pick you.You have to come to me.

(Another chap had got a lecture when he asked about something similar that" am i your counselor why should i tell you what to do"...you do it and show it to me..moot point ---- humility does not pay here)

(My instant thought oh yeah oppportunities hmm so i have to find them)

PL:(he too knows its a common instant thought)By that i dont mean stand out and scream i available for hire.....i mean within the organization prove yourself.


and there was more...i just cant type an hour of sick conversation


Pl: In the end i cant promise anything but i will try to make ppl look at it but remember this means no more appraisal for next 1 yr.


Me:well if its not upto my expectation

Pl:thats why i say take it when its due after 6 months

Me:Well if its not what i asked for then better nothing now as i cant live for a year on

some minimum you will raise.


PL:K lets see


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


releived to be out of the place....Really wishing iIdont get a raise....I want to somehow leave this place.The moment that thought came i knew i woudl get it and be trapped ..................thats the pattern of my life.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Me to my friend outside the team....all this story the ask what do i do if they give me less


She: So what take it and if you get a better offer later leave...your pay slip will show higher amount so a better hike at a newer place


Me: but when someone make a exception for you you have to give them, their trust some due


She: oho come on dont think like that...think when you go shopping at the mall what will pay the bill for that lovely top you got dear.Be practical.


Me:yeah but i dont know i dont feel good ...it'll be better if he rejects it.I can hate him and i can move on.

She: arrre yaar tu bhi na


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two days of calm and the you realise more terrible stuffs waiting.


Tl: ok what did you feel about the conversation that day

Me: i dont think he was keen about it

TL: yeah thats the impression you mightve got it its not right (dont know whether PL was playing out the part or TL was covering up for PL..the themselves have no love lost between them we all know)... but ive spoken to him and while what youve asked is not feasible at all as that needs outstanding explanation which will make it hard but a trifle less i can manage but thats what it will be for a year.

So tell me what you prefer wait 6 months or take this now


Me: (i know once i take this special favor i have to stick on for a year unless i sudddenly lose my conscience its a very bad thing to have here in this industry) Ah well see (this was difficult)...i will not ask but a year is too long for a individual may be not for an organisation at least consider depending on performance.


TL: I cant promise ...I may not be around as your Tl then isnt it.

Me:(News.... this is news)hmmm

Tl: Think about it by End of day

Me: Ok i agree

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


Well the worst has yet to come


Tl:Ah i spoke to him ..its good you agreed he feels for a trifle less.

But see the thing is did you speak about this to ppl(knows jolly well i'll do it with friends in team)

Me: well yeah i told them i asked for it

TL:You see this will cause trouble....there are others who'd ask for review now because of this and a crowd will be to much.

Me:(Hell this is sick...this they think now)Well what you expect of me

TL: Can you not let anyone know...i know one likes to tell that they are appreciated by a raise but you should understand.

Me:(Good ness me i hate myself...that PL set this up) See i cant say blunt lies....and people will anyway find out and we both will lose credibility. This is why i said no to a big raise in next 6 months also as what would you then justify my 100% raise

compared to a 50% hike for others without making them feel bad.(it is their problem and they put that too on my head)


TL: with whom have you discussed this...have you specified the amount

Me; Well they know what i asked for.Anyway tell me what you want

TL:a morose face(i can see face reflecting ...hopeless girl ... too many friends around) See i know you deserve this its a special case but i might cause trouble.Ok is it possible you can say less tha what you get.

Me: Ok i will do that(I know its hard in a place where pay slips lie about all over the HR and to lie to friends also bcoz i know friends have good friends and so on)


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I feel sick about it.I know by the time its formalised and things slowly come out people will swarm over with questions and repeatedly i have to lie lie and lose my credibilty as such lies never stick.Then there will be that slow emergence of a general opposition and non cooperation....ah organization politics.


What you end up as all over money.....

If only there was no conscience....id have fulfilled what was that my TL said was my potential.

I should have shut up at the start i think and just left the company whenever i got a better chance but how to say no when i knew i should get it and when my TL started it i didnt know(that was a master stroke on the TL's part).

It all leaves such a bad taste....and may be a bad post.






Saturday, February 18, 2006

I the hopeless, Me the stubborn, My Time the precious

Isnt time the most precious thing in today's world.
Its the most valuable thing you have and should be given to what we love or we care for and not what we are supposed to care for and love.How rarely we manage to do it in reality.
I've always thought the same but now i am feeling the pinch of it a bit too much.

People try to take so much of it...
in the name of responsibilty
in the name of dutyin the name of work
and you fail to give it to what you love
what deserves the time of your life does not get it.
From birth to death you are given roles to play....
you may say you are irresponsible and
try to escape them...live for yourself but no one leaves you....
and the whole process of evading those responsibilities thrust on you
takes up the same time.
Why we cannot own our own time....
Why cant i use it for what i love
Why do people claim my time as theirs
by blood by money by coercion by fortune.
I feel so horrible...sometimes i feel i am so evil

so self centered....but i try to be just the same as i guess
i better be that than the nice one i once was whom everyone thought is doing a favor by acknowledging...i have come a long way since those days.
What a nice Obedient(nothing ever pleases people be it home or office more) girl i was known as those days and what a hopeless self-centered uncaring girl i have become as per people who've seen me through life.

Everyone from the TV i watched ,to books i read, to friends i have had have been blamed for my transformation though it was i who chose each one of the above.No one ever thinks may be i was the same .... just tried to live upto them but now am fed up and dont care.
where i am supposed to belong i am a thorn

where id like to belong i am a stranger
its some other world "my world"
again the same I ...My
I do wish i was such large hearted as some pretend to be and some may be really
why do i always think of My
My books...My friends..My flowers...My garden..
My room My world....My Time....My Life
All people have a flaw
A flaw which takes them to great heights or their Doom
No i dont think perfect people matter or are visible as anything... success or failure
Its the flaw in your mind..soul that you try to correct ....perfect

that makes people become what they end up as.
Mine is this My....I beleive in nothing worldly as much as i appear in harmony with this worlds ways.
Whatever good i do i relate to some My I think i'll be of any good in this world only when i think"My world"...As long as i think this is God's world..what a hell he has created......i will be the same.

(All this i thought up because after a miserable tiring week my mom lays a claim to my weekend and i protest and i am considered the most hopeless useless hard hearted person.I guess i am really terrible )

"What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960"

Sunday, February 12, 2006

too tired to read anything new...
too off mood to think anything good
too worried to fall asleep as much as i 'd love to
but needed a break and hence pulled out my collections notebook
and reread this poem by Vikram Seth and thought of just posting it.
---------------------------------------------------------
I saw him turn
With worried haste
And the world's fear
From me.

I shallThrough
month and year
will unlearn
The evident way.

The pain-dense tracks
Dark in the mist
Will see snow fall.

I will retaste
The tang of day,

The ceased belief
That paths exist
Outside this grief.

Vikram Seth
-----------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Oh when a book triggers memories.....

"My one particular ex-boss.My life when i worked for him was living hell and was probably the worst phase of my life.I used to wonder why this was happening to me.Now i know without that experience i could not have done this book.Thank you mr ex-bos for making me suffer"
even before i could read the book i was kind of rolling in laughter and enjoying it ..yes i knew one day i am going to use these exact lines somewhere if i ever write any kinda book.
Yeah Mr Chetan Bhagat has created a wonderful Mr Bakshi in One Night at The Call Center and while many people may think this is just a case of excessiveness in Fiction it is not so..for if Mr Bakshi ever competed with my Ex Boss he would come out in Flying Colors.He was not a manager in my view anyway, with his Horrendous insecurity, Self Centeredness and pathetic acting ability which he continually used to show his sincerity when it was absolutely visible he was his immediate boss’s stooge a perfect YES Boss kind .In fact that was his Punchline “Yes Boss.”

But yeah like Mr Bhagat i too owe him..all my team mates do...the fun we had the friendships we made were partly because of the adversity because of him.
Truly it is in adversity that you make the best friends.

I though owe him a little more.Before working under him i never knew someone could be so scared of me, that i had such a power to influence people.
He had a kind of phobia with me that i was trouble for him and hence created trouble for me.....which well took too long for him to work out and fine tune and by the time it did he himself landed flat on his face....i was out for good by then.

In fact he had the verve to tell a new recruit in our team who was quite friendly with me to keep off certain negative people..but then again as ever he misjudged the person he said that too...not one to back down he got a stern lashing from the girl...”it is you who are being negative by such talk” was what she flung in his face.

He certainly made life hell for quite a whole bunch of us....... but fortunately we were a bunch of quite spirited people and since it was never a career we rebelled and life had its worst and best moments there.I too wondered why me...why have i to be here..... but yeah after that experience i learnt a lot about how not to handle people.I wish i had started my blog then instead of being lazy...it was a more interesting phase of life even though it was horrible...you had something or some one to fight.
Whenever we chat up ...us old friends we can never end a conversation without referrring to him...he was such a focal point then and among us unconsciously he is i guess. He ensured that everyone in the team hated him...only difference was some were brave enough to be open and some too tepid to say it out.
I remember how he sulked to his friend why the heck does my team have the maximum no of engineers and not just normal graduates.
He had once asked me define creativity...i was hardly in any mood to talk to him leave alone define ...i just said its something new ....he explained it to me...it means the “same things done in a different new way”....wow i thought ...how well he learnt the definition by heart.(That was the day i decided for sure i was resigning (though that was the aim since the day i joined but that was different) asap ---- enough money or not for job search......learning creativity from him...God save me)
That guy had some crack...even when i gave him my resignation letter he asked me to sit and was trying to explain what was not fine(it was a near copy of the exact letter i wrote most part of for my friend and he had no problems with when he signed it for my friend) in it...It was way too much and i remember the last line i spoke to him

“ What difference does it make now. Get to the Point” and he said ok and dissapeared into HR and that was last i saw his sordid face.

Nevertheless getting back to the book it shows what is the difference between a story teller and a writer. My friend asked which was better “Five Point Someone” or “One Night at The call Center” and while i tried to explain stuff about how Five Point was racy and hilarious but the end choice for me was “One Night...” because i felt it explore human nature , emotions and was more realistic even with the most unrealistic unending (perfect filmi) than Five Point which was very well written esp by someone who’s not an author...lots of great humor.May be i also liked it because i could imagine it better than people who have never been in a BPO...though again here i think its too unrealistic because in real time there is no chance of having that much time as is portrayed in the story(he conveniently puts them in section for special calls and bypasses the issue).

I neither think he gave a very true acccount neither was he way off the mark. It was good but it left so much more out you feel.How well a good writer could have written you feel.But Neverthless he’s the one who dared to tell the story and great credit for that unlike writers who still write ancient stories which are hard to relate.The book’s good and a damn easy read even the slowest readers should finish it in 5 hrs maximum.
The book though had me laughing....so much....it served as a reminder to many many jokes that are a part of life there.

That Microsoft word funda in it seems so stupid to us but i can bet that 70% of the Americans will fall for it.
And there a line in it where the character Shyam says something like “yeah Americans are clever say like 1 in 10 is brilliant and the rest of them call us here at night”....How many time i ve said it heard it its unbeleivable.

I also started off on Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City sometime ago and just 50 pages in that voluminous book and you feel What a writer is. Taking a simple situation and putting such life into it.
Here the describes his feeling when he came back to Bombay which he left when in school and now has come back with his family from New York with happy nostalgia for his city but finds the hardships of life and frustration.
“This fucking city.The sea should rush in over these islands in one great tidal wave and obliterate it, cover it under water.It should be bomber from the air.
Every morning i get angry.It is the only way to get anything done;people here respond to anger, are afraid of it. In the absence of money or connections, anger will do.I begin to understand the uses of anger as theatre – with taxi drivers, doormen , plumbers, government bureaucrats. Even my CD player in India responds to anger , physical violence; when a gentle press of PLAY buton fails to arouse it from slumber, a hard smack across the side propels it into sound.”

That CD player thing had me ...i mean how many times i ve smacked my television and got it straight only i know. i especially related so much to that frustration and anger feeling.
Its a fortnight since i started the book and have had no time to continue it sadly.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

I am the sorrow in everyone's world
all who are unfortunate to be named as mine without their choice
I am the pain in everyone's lifethe pain that ruins their happiness
I never did belongI never could belongto you O World
There's this deep flaw in me which sees through your flaws
So i can never belong to you or to your own
Those who live by you blindly--- the ways of you O mighty world.
You who denied me Happiness i never complained
but you who want to rob me of my right to live by myself in my pain
and not belong to your farce
the right to be me and not you....
You may win , you may win despite my fight
because you go onbecause you have the numbers
and i am a human unlike you which consists of a collective humanity
a sea where the an individual means nothing
you may win because you conspire with fate
you may win because i fight with handicaps
but you'll never win in my mind
this life and any other life ever
I may lose one day may be pretty soon in your sphere
but that day is the day you fear O world
For i will destroy all who conspired with my fate
being just that the sorrow the hurt
I who will have nothing to lose
I who will be the pain in all your own
I who will be the hated in all labelled my own
Will make you lose O world...
will live on to make you and your ilk lose.