What is love?

"Love isn't about succumbing to every wish of the other person, fearing the outcome if you dont - break up..

Love shouldn't be something that comes to you at gunpoint, the things that you do for love should be done cause it brings you joy, cause it means something to you!

Love should be something that you do for yourself just as much as you do for the other person!!"

via An Irony Called Life (facebook)

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The (Only One?) True Love Predicament

“This is not a goodbye, my darling, this is a thank you. Thank you for coming into my life and giving me joy, thank you for loving me and receiving my love in return. Thank you for the memories I will cherish forever. I love you, T.”

- Nicholas Sparks,

  'Message in a Bottle'

  

As the title obviously suggests this post is going to be a very soppy self-indulgent one, well at any rate more than my usual ones are anyway. So you very well should know what you are getting into.

Actually, sometimes I think life would be so much simpler if everything came with such a warning.

Right at the beginning of some important chapter in your life there comes a disclaimer - like those before the movies or on the cigarette cases.

("smoking is injurious to health" - really? I had no idea!)

These warnings seems to crop up everywhere. At the violent movies, that most impressionable children are inevitably going to watch; and at the boxes of cigarettes, that most smokers are going to puff out no matter what!

But then I think, just as futile as these disclaimers are in either scenarios; they might prove just as pointless if they were to be placed at some really landmark turning points of our life. Would we change our paths if there were anything that warns us of the dangers or the hurt and pain ahead of you? Would we dare not to have known/had those wonderful experiences that most of these moments bring into our lives?

Suppose at the precise moment that you get out of college and sit for your very first job interview, just before you answer their first question a pop up video blurb appears (like the one in that show in MTV) saying:

"Fun Fact: The moment you answer this question the interviewer would be impressed and immediately decide to hire you. You will agree to work here for considerably lower pay that what they would have easily agreed to pay had you negotiated a little more. They will squeeze your brain and blood for the next four years, robbing you off of all the zeal and innovative ideas you've ever had throughout your college life turning you into just like the pompous vegetable they themselves have turned into!"

Now after seeing that, would you in your right senses ever accept such a job offer?

Obviously no.

But since there wasn't any such pop up prediction available for you at that time, you take up that job and end up being miserable for the next four years of your life just as it had said. You sell your soul to the devil in return for four years of work experience in something that you never had any real interest in. And with people that you don't care lived or evaporated.

That's obviously disheartening, isn't it? But still, this office was the place you discovered your affinity to Beatles and Zappa. This is the place where you will meet a senior manager who will become one of your favorite mentor and stay so even after you leave the company. Also, this could also be the place where you make acquaintance with a girl with whose roommate you fall head over heels in love. Would you dare miss out on all that??

Now, imagine if there were to be such a disclaimer when it came to matters of the heart. But for obvious reasons it should be different from the one above.

After all matters of the heart supersedes in importance over anything else in one’s life, right?

I suppose it must be like the one in the music video of Savin' Me by Nickelback. Just like in the video, here there is a countdown on top every prospective mate in your vicinity, stating the amount of time they are going to stay in your life.

But that’s not enough now is it? There are many other equally crucial and decisive criteria that you will tick off when it comes to choosing someone to fall in love with.

Most often I have heard people, men and women alike, bring up this make-or-break requirement that their prospects just have gotta to fulfill: ”He/she has got to be my soul mate."

Perdóname, senor. What does soul mate mean exactly?

Oxford says, "Soul mate : a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner."

Now, tell me what/when/how has any man/woman/others in all of the history of mankind on this planet ever, been able to find anything that has been remotely deemed fit to be described as 'ideal'?

There has always been a compromise. At some level or the other no matter good or desirable that object might be, you always have to adjust with something. Some might argue that this specific defect/quirk is probably what that makes this person all the more dear to them, their One True Love.

When you had imagined your ideal partner in the first place, did you imagine them with all these elfin eccentricities?

Probably not. By definition, these quirks and fancy traits that they have are for the most part their own creations. Unique and very hard to imagine on any person before you happen to come across somebody actually having them. How could one possibly envision them any earlier?

 Another thing that has always baffled me:

Suppose you are married to wonderful person, you love him and soon have a couple of amazing children with this person that you love very dearly. Then many years down the line you come by another guy/gal who seems to be that perfect mate you have always dreamed of. You acquaint with this person and you start a terrific rapport just to find that you and he/she have more in common with you than you and your spouse has ever had in all of your time together.

Let's just assume that you go crazy in love/infatuation/lust/emotion/whatever and leave behind the house that you have built with your spouse of so many years to go live with this person.

Do you imagine a happily-ever-after ending to this tale in every situation ahead?

Might work, might not. This person that you are riding off into the sunset with, could turn out to be the sweetest of souls ever to be born, or just another Axe Murderer or the next Josef Fritzl.

In any case. Could you help me understand what was the fault of your child or of the husband/wife you leave behind?

See where this baffles me?

Somebody and Mr. Nice Guy

  

Somebody asks Mr. Nice Guy: 'I hear that nice guys always finish last, and mostly end up alone.. This is the age of jerks and pricks.. Is this true??'

Mr. Nice Guy: 'You heard right, so?'

Somebody: 'Don't you get tired of it??'

Mr. Nice Guy: 'Well, it really depends on how you look at it.. Nice guys are winners before the race even starts, we don't let the game destroy who we are.. We stay true, honest, loyal..o conditions applied anywhere.. We don't SELL OUT, to SCORE MORE!!'

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First Anniversary, at First Job!

“A true balance between work and life comes with knowing that your life and activities are integrated, not separated.”
- Michael Sunnarborg

July the 23^rd, 2013 - exactly a year since I’ve started at the first real grown-up job of my life.

And as stereotyped as it seems to be when it comes to Indians, I actually do work in IT. Still it hasn’t really turned out to be as torturous as they make it out to be.

Maybe that comes later. I don’t know ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

Anyway. This past one year has been a helluva roller coaster ride; loads of twist and turns, sudden ups and drastic downs. But nonetheless a very exciting time indeed.

Met a lot of wonderful people (AG, KR, PV, RG, TS etc.)

Learnt a lot about the Lone Wolf guidelines (the importance of having a healthy supply of paper soap with you at all times, how to go from full-wallet-rich-as-shit to puny-arse-broke-as-hell in less than a week!)

Had some really great experiences (nomadic solo trips all around the city, rediscovering friendships, and shedding off a few way-past-expiry-date ones...)

As for the things that go on within the office walls. Man, each day is a revelation!

Things seem so different this side of college.

My workplace is in the IT compound of a Special Economic Zone. The best thing about working in SEZs and Tech Parks, where almost always half a dozen big companies set up shop in the same neighborhood, is that you get to meet people from many other IT companies and interact with them. So I kind of have observed some peculiarities and similarities in almost every big MNC I have come across. We are not all that different, you and I. Everybody is just as stuck/fortunate as everybody else.

Yes, I agree I have been away from home since college. So you could say I already know the basics of shacking it out on your own. But college was different. In school you know you are going to have to spend the rest of your time there with the people around you. So you find the most compatible ones and choose to have them around you at all times.

In a corporate, you don’t have that option. You don’t get to choose. You have to make do with what you get because you will have at some point or the other get something done by or for them. Most people won't be so hard to handle or like. As always it depends on your luck, and how much they know the good parts of you (if at all there exists one) and how much you get to know them.

I’ve seen the sense of putting in an effort or time to actually get to know someone is absent here, may be that used to be there a couple of decades earlier in our father/grandfather’s offices; when people that you work with, somehow ended up becoming your best of mates and your child’s god parents. It sure isn’t happening these days!

Ma's Appointment with the Surgeon

“There's a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begin.”
- Mitch Albom

  'For One More Day'

The hospital was huge!

Its large pillars and domes on the four corners made it seem more like a Mughal palace than a place where people come to when they are sick (or to die). There was lush green lawn outside with a smallish angel fountain in the center of it, around which the IN and OUT routes for vehicles were mapped out so that people may navigate themselves within the premises. It was quaint on the outside. Beautiful flowers were beginning to bloom on the decorative plants around the park benches in the lawn. This place reeked of rich monies. There was probably had a rich trustee or a patron, who had donated generously!

But on the inside, inevitably, the environment was gloomy. The whole place stinked, the usual stench of hospitals anywhere around the planet. The smells of medicines, anti-septics, alcohol swabs, maybe a bit of urine here and there. This hospital was just as big inside as it was outside. But the sheer number of people inside it made it seem tiny and crowded, especially around the reception's desk. That was where Vik was standing right now hands on hips and exasperation evident on his face.

Vik had just told the lady at the desk for the hunderedth time that he was here for an appointment with the surgeon for fixing his mother's leg. To which the receptionist has just informed him for the ninety-ninth time that his appointment was for 6PM and he has come in at 6:45PM he will have to wait now. She can only get him to see the surgeon once a gap shows up in the his schedule which was packed for another couple of hours, or he could take a seat and hope that someone else was just as punctual as him had an appointment today and shows up late so that she could get him into their slot.

Vik was always a kind-hearted guy but also had considerable amount of temper under his hood which he always kept in check. It inevitably showed up from time to time, especially when he has had a rough day in office like today.

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He had had an argument with his manager at work just an hour ago,

Their Balls Against His Bat!

“The bowler approached the wicket at a lope, a trot, and then a run. He suddenly exploded in a flurry of arms and legs, out of which flew a ball.”

- Douglas Adams
  'Life, the Universe and Everything'

 Another curve ball comes his way, a googly, a yorker, a killer bouncer right to his head.

What is going on inside the head of the guy with the bat, is it about how or why or what slieght of hand the bowler did to put this challenge in front of him?

Where are the spectators watching right now, is it at the bowler who is standing right the huffing and panting close to the umpire sweating like a pig and out of breath?

Who is the bowler and the fielders gawking at wide-eyed, expecting some action next? Is it at each other, in their shifty restless glorious squinted faces that has been standing there under the sun since God-knows-how-long?

Why is the time standing still?

Why are they all looking at him like that? What are they expecting of him?

4 more runs with 1 ball to go.

The odds are against him, yes. But do they think that all this pressure they are crushing him with, is going to help his case in any way at all?

Don't they understand the import of this fraction of second in his life?

A Long Time Coming

"I am using the truth, Master Wayne. Maybe it's time we all stop trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day. I'm sorry."

- Alfred Pennyworth

  'The Dark Knight Rises'

Truth.

Such a fearsome idea, isn't it. A gigantic magnificent elephant in the room; that we all know about but never come out in the open and acknowledge. We see it, sense it, register it inside our brains, and even decipher the outcome of it all. But we never really seem capable to accept it as a fact of life and take in the guts, by sheer sportsmanship.

Not all men are born sporty. Not all men can live with their true faces out in the open for everyone to see.

We all are born capable of knowing and analyzing things that happen in our lives. If anyone says that they didn't see it coming. Pal, they are lying blatantly. Maybe they themselves not realizing that they are.

The Depressing One

“So in the end you try to think of someone else you're mad at, and the unavoidable answer pops into your little warped brain: everyone.”

- Ellen Hopkins

I used to have this friend (you will soon realize why the 'used to' usage here) who thought ill of almost everyone.

 

Except himself that is, obviously. He was always put himself in high regard and always thought he was right in doing so.

 

He was the most cynical, pessimistic, illogical soul probably in all of the worlds that all of the faiths that mankind has been yet been able to invent. You show him the picture of that firefighter who leapt into a burning building and saved a 10 year old girl, and he will point out how and where the guy's hands are in the poor semi-unconscious child's body and call him a pervert. You show him the story of a rich billionaire who has just started out another multi-million dollar campaign to eradicate polio in Africa; he will show you another article where this same techie billionaire had syphoned off billions from unsuspecting customers by forcing them to buy his products. You tell him about the 10th standard girl next door whose study room light was on all night, he will tell you about the time that he saw her riding on the backseat of a bike with some guy who looked to be of her own age.

 

You tell him just about anything that had for some extend a flimsy bit of positivity in it. This prick could come up with something to bring you back down and rub something completely different onto your sunny-eyed face proving to you that the world is simply not worth a single sliver of silver lining no matter what.

 

Well. That was until he happened to fall in love.

Learning To Love My Troubles

“I don't go looking for trouble. Trouble usually finds me.”

- J.K. Rowling

  ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’

 

In life, there always comes a time when it seems the only thing that we seem to be doing lately is whine and crib about how life is being a bitch. How everything is going wrong for you. How everyone around us is having a ball and we are stuck with that dead end job, or a relationship that seems to be going nowhere except dragging us deeper into depression.

Now pal, no matter how much you try to reject the idea you do have random burst of happiness and good times in life. Yes, it might come very rarely, at long intervals and for seemingly very short time. Might seem like sometimes you do not get your fair share of it, but trust me pal you do get enough of it. We got to be honest to ourselves here; we do have a blessed life in some way or the other. There is probably some poor soul out there in the crowd of eight-billion odd people on this planet who is probably dreaming of having your life, with and parcel of all your worries. For him, your's is the "good life".

 

Well, shit happens. It’s not your fault that it does. It is a normal course of things when you look at it, refer to own food consumption-excrement paradigm.

You live a good day, there is probably a bad one just around the corner.

Granted, that is a depressing way to look at life. But that is the truth. You can NEVER avoid the bad things in life. It is high time we take that for granted.

There is no possible way for you to live life carefree. It is a myth. If someone comes to you trying to sell this myth, slam the door on their face. Better yet, shower some very creative (well deserved) profanity at them too, might give you a hell lot satisfaction. I surely would love to.

New Year.. Is it really?

“The future is no place to place your better days.”

- Dave Matthews, ‘Cry Freedom’

I thought first of writing something about the recent mishaps occuring all around the and with me personally, you know the usual sentimental whining about this and that and everything else. How the year was a lot many things, and not all of them especially endearing. How I hope this coming year might bring something new into our lives, some long overdue good news into mine! (frankly thats what I thought of when I started this post, so the contemplative title)

But then I thought, isnt that exactly the same that we do each new year? Write about how things havent turned out like we hoped it would. Make resolutions that we never seem to end up keeping. Dreaming huge dreams that seldom become reality. Expecting things that clearly come under the Unexpectables in your life for the time being.

So this year, no expectation. Zero cribbing. 100% fighting.

I am not gonna just sit back and see what life is gonna throw at me, bear it all silently. I am going to pick it all up, burden it more with my genius and shove it right back!

Only way to change anything in life is to do it by yourself and not wait for things to fall into place by itself. It rarely does!

This year has already started with some really good indications of long overdue changes happening. Lets see what happens.

Regardless of what might happen or might not happen, this one surely promises to be a helluva ride!

So all I can say now to you dearest 2013.. Bring it on!! ;-D

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