Louis Vuitton anyone?
For a change I’m gonna digress a little from my Me, Myself and D posts. For a change I’m gonna try and think global issues. For a change I’m gonna look beyond my life at those who’ve been ravished by the global economic downturn.
Its been sometime since my last post. A lot has happened thence. In the last 6 months, the world has turned around for many. And its hit closer home. Its hit me. A dear friend has been laid off. Not that she didn’t know it it was coming. Nevertheless, no one wants to be unemployed. Another friend had to lay off people. You see, he’s a VP at a stock broking firm. He’s a family guy with an adorable daughter. He’s been building up his family wealth so as to give her a stable future. Alongside he’s been indirectly robbing the stable futures of at least 400 people in his team and his hands are tied. He needs pills to be able to sleep at night, unable to bear the anguish of their faces as they plead for their jobs, agreeing to work for even 25% of the original paychecks.
Whats happening around us is completely unpalatable to our young minds, as we witness the first recession of our professional lives. And to beat it, its the worst since the Great Depression, a recession so bad that even our fathers have not been privy to such a world economic collapse.
This aint the times of Loius Vuitton but rather, the time for Giffen goods!
Blogging – Is it an enterprise?
I am not a fancy blogger. Neither do people know that my blog exists except a couple of friends who are too lazy to read it and even if they do, they couldn’t be bothered to comment on it. Its not that I hunger for comments. I guess I just write my blog for myself, to vent out my frustrations, to express my gratitude, to declare my euphoria for a certain amazing instance in my life, to be generally grateful for any achievement that I may have had. In all, this blog is for myself.
I don’t rate myself a a great writer, don’t ever harbour dreams of writing a book, or even suddenly, magically turn into a Vikram Seth overnight. It just need this medium to express myself, a private place where I can sneak in during my working hours, or my insomniac hours, or my melancholic hours, to just vent out my thoughts. This particular piece of write is just one of those “introspective hours”. I happened to have stumbled upon this blog thecompulsiveconfessor.blogspot.com authored by a certain lady Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, who happened to graduate from writing blogs to publishing a novel. Now I haven’t read that book, nor do I plan to as my genre of the reading game is very different and doesn’t allow me to indulge in books which will submerge me further into confusion (as if I’m in enough quandary regarding my life already!!). I prefer to dwell in the hallowed portals of books penned by mature authors, people who have lived their lives, been past that confusing state of mind, learned their lessons, and brought forth some answers to perennial life questions in their books.
Anyway, this write up isn’t to portray my reading preferences. Going back to what I was originally speaking of; my opinion of “why people maintain their blog”. I have a friend for many years, whose had a blog of her own too. Today that I believe has reached fanatic obsession as a part of her live. Don’t get me wrong here. I do not use the term “fanatic” in negative connotations. Its nice to know someone who can be a fanatic about something in life. Its an alien concept to me, someone who possibly doesn’t allow herself to be “fanatic” about anything in life, fearing the hurt and rejection, in case of a severe malfunction in its success!
Well going back to my original question, I believe that people start off just like I did. Writing a virtual diary, a private place to vent out their feelings, any kind of feelings. And then someday, someone leaves comment as a consequence of a coffee table conversation, “I been writing a blog for 3 months, maybe you should check it out”. And then another one drops another comment, and someone somewhere speaks of your blog (you actually are a good writer, no doubt) and then you start realising that these comments are precious and actually start thinking of an alternate career!! Maybe I am wrong, but I’m taking a wild guess that most well read blogs walking the virtual world started off in a small dingy office, or a corner space in someone’s bedroom. Maybe someday, someone will have the same thing to say about me, maybe not as a blogger, but possibly for some other enterprise. Bottomline, start small, dream big, grab every opportunity which comes your way!
“Captain Corelli’s Mandolin”
“Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two. – Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.
The above lines is the most awesome description of love that I have ever come across. It makes me realise that I have possibly to live 99 years before I am fortunate enough to be a recipient of a bind so strong, that it last forever.
In the 21st century that is today, I possibly belong to that miniscule proportion of women who believe in true love. Love, for a man, who I have loved, not whose loved me. I’v had two previous relationships as I write this post. The last one ended just a year ago. And with the passing of every day, week adn month, I realise what went wrong in both of them. I loved the men since they had loved me. I went along with their dreams, their hopes and aspirations, their likes and dislikes, everything, as they wanted me to. Did I ever have a choice for myself? As I think back, I cannot remember.
Is it because I am a woman? Am I not allowed to have a dream for myself? Am I not allowed to hope for a man, love a man and have him love me back? Will I ever have the answer to that I do not know. What I do know is that I will keep looking for that elusive emotion called love. As my friend rightly says, I still await my knight in shining armour. I refuse to be a realist and just randomly choose a guy to marry and procreate with. I refuse to follow my mom and dad’s frantic requests to settle down in marital harmony with a guy chosen by them. I am aware that I grow no younger, but the wish to see, feel and breathe that one individual drives me on.
Women at the wheel…a mere euphemism?
We, the 21st century women would like to believe that there ain’t anything that we cannot do. We stand with the men in corporate boardrooms, give equally stimulating presentations on why we believe xyz should invest in the oil stock and not in real estate, we are dressed in the most immaculate clothes, power dressing is what we call it, we take care of the home, hearth and workplace with a panache most envied by our parental generation and in all manage to be proud of ourselves. The men in our lives have accepted this new age woman … and jeez, do they have a choice? Without us, they are but little children floundering in the dark!
But it gives them extreme pleasure and sense of complete manliness when it comes to women handling the steering wheel. Its an essential fact that we women are geometrically challenged and the 4 wheelers were not designed keeping the female psyche in mind. So its with utter pleasure that the men deign to “drive” us around in a dire need to feel “needed” at least somewhere in the life of a self-sufficient 21st century woman.
So what invariably happens is that when they meet a woman on the road who drives as well as they do or even better, they generally have a typical disbelieving look on their faces! I can vouch for that as I believe I belong to that minuscule elite group of accomplished women drivers! And the inherent consequence of that look is a pathetic attempt to blow his horn to eternity for the woman to make way for him or just generally be a nuisance and follow doggedly behind till their paths diverge, all the while honking behind to make her aware that she shouldn’t be out in the streets driving a vehicle. God save us women from men who think us to be the weaklings put on this earth for them to protect!
And for the advertising agency who created the SX4 commercial, I just have one thing to say: Change with the world or world will change for you as the Men will “never” be back! Don’t ever categorize all women to be dumb, blonde and incompetent drivers!
Moments of “company”al love!
Its been a long long time since my last blog. Just to educate those who stumble upon my blog, I work for the largest IT conglomerate in the world. Yes, you got it right: its the Big Blue.
Now I’ve been blogging for more than a year now. The reason I’ve chosen to share my organization details is simple. I’m proud to be an IBM-er. Its a company which I loathed in the first month as I was completely at sea, having tasted independence for probably the very first time in my life. This being just my second job, I was still a baby when it came to the professional world as I have been thoroughly pampered in my prior organization where I was a campus recruit. So it was a nasty surprise when I was thrust into a world where the very basic job of getting my reimbursement done took me 2 months vis-a-vis the easy system of having someone do it for me in my prior workplace. The mail box system was too difficult for me to handle where my mail file kept getting capped, the w3 pages were supposedly the powerhouse of information which was nothing better than Latin to me, all IT issues had to be solved by myself rather than having an IT engineer hop over to my desk. In all it was a lousy first 3 months!
It didnt help that I was not performing well, and the work didnt excite me. This wasnt what I signed up for when I joined this company was what I constantly reminded myself and like all professional babies, I took the easy way out. I sounded out my B-school buddies and seniors, landed some interviews which I cracked of course (I ALWAYS crack interviews) and with 2 offer letters I was ready with resignation letter all typed out.
It was Dad who asked me to re-think my decision. I was in Silicon City, all alone and miserable and ready to throw in the trowel. I am daddy’s little girl and I usually listen to is advice. After all I owe my love for the corporate world to his career and my regular sojourns to his workplace while I was a kid. He reminded me that I was a fighter and that I have never allowed myself to give up. Ever! Why would something as mundane as a mailbox system and some bad auto drivers in Bangalore make me run away?
The next day I “trashed” my supposed resignation letter and set out to change my professional life in IBM. This was more than a year ago. It not been a sea-change till now, I’m not complaining. I’m at peace at my workplace and I believe that I probably belong to a elite few who actually love their workplace and have not anything to complain of.
Tracey Gilbert, someone I can identify with, is an IBM-er and an author and has a successful career. And if she can do it, so can I. Wednesday Night Tupperware is on my reading list for this week! And you must have guessed the author by now. Yes, it Tracey.
Its a new world everyday.
Its been a hectic week. A damn good week for the 24/7 news channels in India. Otherwise in which other week in recent memory can they boast of a full workforce across the globe tracking some major national and international stories? When in recent memories have the Pranoy Roys and Rajdeep Sardesais and Arnab Goswamis come out in overdrive condemning the Delhi attacks, laughed at Mamata’s histrionics, and expressed deep anguish for the fate of the global economy after the bloodbath at Wall Street.
Lets leave the rest of the nation in limbo for the time being. For the folks of Calcutta, who don’t hesitate to express their opinion on matters at the drop of a hat, its been a tremendous last few weeks. What with grappling with their very own saviour-turned-monster haggling for a few acres of land and then jamming the network trying to assure themselves of the good fate of their friends and relatives in the Capital and then finally the Wall Street fiasco, its sure been a good few days to jam street corners, tea stalls, food courts, college compounds, office smoking zones, cafeterias, all a reason to discuss and feel important to contribute their intellectual bytes. Lets also not forget the communal disturbances in Orissa, Karnataka and Kerala. Priding themselves on being the intellectual “bhadralok”, folks here in my hometown sure have a decided opinion on how things need to be run in a investment bank, the government security agencies, political party politburos and a major auto manufacturing unit.
Its been a roller coaster ride for folks like me who struggle to read the newspaper in a rush every morning at the expense of missing breakfast and then gobbling a sandwich on my way to work! So in the absence of time, I usually manage to sneak a couple of minutes during work hours to read the various online versions. The Tata-WB Government-Mamata jingbang was surely entertaining as it brought back cliched memories of why I need to quit this state ASAP. But it wasn’t long before the India Mujahideen reared its ugly head to remind me that at least I was safer in Calcutta than the hot bread of the capital city. And Praveen Tagodia, a surgeon nonetheless, with whom I share a hate-at-first-sight relationship, didn’t help to alleviate matters already churning in my head.
And finally Lehman. Guys, I ain’t a brilliant girl. I never aimed to work for Lehman or even a Merill Lynch for that matter. They say good things come with a pinch of salt. The Wall Street crash definitely ain’t something which I am rejoicing at. But it reminds me that my otherwise mundane life, is probably better off than a fat pay package and a glamorous globe trotting career.
Lets hope all those Lehman and Merill Lynch guys bounce back in life! Cheers to them! Life ain’t that bad….its just a roller coaster with its ups and downs!
The woes of approching years
Sometimes I wonder whether I actually was born on this earth to make a difference. Do we all get this feeling that we are different than the rest and will someday do something extraordinary? I have probably deluded myself with this thought so as to overlook my otherwise mundane life.
Otherwise, how else can I explain my desire to break free of the horrible restrictions that I face at home and get up the guts to live by myself in an unknown city, and not run back home writhing away in loneliness? How do i explain how I cut short my 2 consecutive stints in Bangalore in 2004 and 2007, running back home to be with mom and dad just coz i felt lonely? Why cant i cope with loneliness? Why have I always felt the need to have someone around me, some laughter or whispers in the background.
People call me a brave girl. I bought my own apartment when I was just 24 years old. I have seen and faced a lot of “not-so-pleasant” moments in my life. Sometimes, I have even entertained “bad” thoughts and put them down to the Devil which exists in me. My mom inculcated a strong love for the literary medium very early on in my life. Some folks would probably call my taste in books pretty frivolous (I am a huge fan of Jude Devereaux) but I’d want to justify to my detractors that they should put it down to my romantic streak. Since childhood, I have read a lot of books dedicated to the American way of life. True to my romantic nature, I have always wanted to emulate those characters whom I’v grown up with. But somehow life hasnt allowed me to do that. I’d rather say that I havent been given the opportunity and if, by error, the opportunity has come knocking to my door, I have chosen to keep that door shut.
Today, I fear the unknown. I fear not having lived my dreams. I fear not having done all those things which I’d promised myself that no one could stop me from. I fear my very middle-class existence, not having the strength to go against the norms of society and my parents. I fear saying rude stuff to people when I feel that they desreved it, coz of my upbringing which prevents me from saying the same. I fear not being able to express my joy at little things as I used to earlier, as alas, today, little things do not bring me pleasure. I fear my dependence on my parents, my friends, my social system, my well ordered life, my hopelessly forlorn and confused love-life, my boring professional life, every damn thing! If people ask me what is the one thing you’v done in your life that you are proud of, I’d be stumped for an answer! Coz there isnt anything that I feel remotely proud of.
Is this just me or are there those lost souls in this world who fear their very own shadow like I do? I sit and cry while I write this, not knowing my future, not understanding my past and oblivious to my present. Oh yes, I cry. Huge bucketful of tears. For all the things I could have done but havent had the guts to do. Sometimes, I justify my tears by hoping that God listens when I cry. I believe that I have a stange connection with God. My tears are a medium to reach him and make him single me out from the zillions of earthly folk trying to get his attention.
I guess it just one of those days when you feel terribly down and dont know where your life is taking you. I never thought myself to be a boring person, just someone who wasnt decisive enough. If someone has an answer, I’ll be waiting.
Independence Day Blues
Its just of those days at work. Its almost 4 pm and here I am logged onto my blog. Not that I ain’t jobless or possess a lack of stuff to keep me occupied. I have this workshop presentation to complete by the end of this week/Monday officially. That means two more working days and some holidays (I know I will invariably end up working on our 61st Independence day). Its almost as if R.P.D. has connived with the rest of the folks in the GB Pursuit team to keep us young Indians from celebrating our “4th of July”. I seriously wonder whether they’d give up their George Washington Day, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving Day, blah, blah, blah days to possibly provide business strategies (that in a nutshell is what i do) for lets say, Manmohan Singh. Or lets take someone lesser down the ladder…Buddhadev Bhattacharya. I can just ape their reaction…”Buddha-who?”. And here we are, so very much aware of which state Barack Obama is an elected Senator from, how many states the Mississippi flows through, the states comprising the Eastern Seaboard, the American holiday calender (esp the American holiday calender as ours is ruled by theirs), the list can go on and on and on.
Let me not confuse you about my xenophobic status or rather the lack of it. I love all things American. Or even British. I am a big champion of the British Raj without which I loudly tell people who would care to listen, that our country would have gone to the dogs and tigers owned by the Maharajahs. On a serious note, the very language I am writing in, has managed to secure us our position in this world. Imagine a Manmohan Singh or even a Shilpa Shetty sprouting Hindi at the G8 Summit and Big Boss!! Would the world have noticed a bunch of hindi speaking dark skinned Indians? I doubt that very much. The Chinese envy us our English proficiency. They probably wanna turn back the clock and let the Brits enter their land and rule them for 300 years! At least that way, they can boast of being the superior to us in every damn way (their language probably remains their only hurdle).
Anyways, back to the main issue at hand. So I have finally convinced myself that I will be spending a lonely Independence day at home, while family and friends are away celebrating. Or I can choose to get sloshed on the 15th and work away on 16th and 17th. And then again on the 19th, Monday. The choice is mine. Bottom line, I cant even enjoy a good extended weekend. All plans of Rishikesh have already been dumped. My friends have kind of given up on me. We make plans and keep postponing them, courtesy, yours truly, who keeps finding reasons to ditch the plans. Hopefully my grand plan of dragging folks from all over India to Ladakh sometime next summer materialises.
People, have a blast! Happy 61st Independence Day to all of us…
The metamorphosis of the Devil
I used to be FAT. Not that I ever believed any one who pointed out that fact to me. In fact I thought them to be downright cruel! It didn’t help that I loved eating. Especially all kinds of junk that lined the streets of every damn city that i visited. It was a revelation to me when I decided to make the second (permanent?) move to Bangalore. I just couldn’t slink some of my fave outfit over my awfully plump figure! Well, I made a whole new wardrobe to counteract that fact. That was way before i discovered the bliss of letting yourself go at a designer’s private lounge..read my below posts.
Well, nevertheless, armed with an outrageously “large” (pun intended) new collection, I make the transition to the city of rains and depression! God, how I hate that place. It reminds me of a cacophony of unpleasant bird calls! Weird description huh? That is something to be explored in later memoirs! I took up residence in Koramangala, the one place I was familiar with after my previous stint in that city. By then I had kind of reconciled myself to the fact that I needed some drastic measures to cut the flab. Chisel was a high-tech gym in the vicinity. I even took the trouble to visit them and was kind of convinced that they would be my savior angel (I chose to ignore the fact that they were exorbitantly priced). All finances calculated, I was more than ready.
And then a chance visit to the Luthra chain changed my life..or so to speak! Chisel forgotten, I signed up for the new-age weight loss experience. People from all corners of the country and some from around the world provided the sounds of dissonance. “don’t waste your money”, “its a sham”, “you’ll end up with some serious side-effects”…there were unlimited reasonings as why it was all a mistake! The same folks today cant believe what I have become! Day 1 at the Kormanagala center…a whopping 69.9 kgs! After 6 months….56kgs! Today, its close to 52kgs.
Did they manage a miracle? I would like to think so. They changed me as a person…(Guys…Mrs. Luthra hasn’t paid me a dime to sing their praises)
Just to let u guys know some secrets…don’t try to spend all that money (it didn’t come cheap) and expect a miracle. You need an inner conviction that you can lose all that weight. I did it…it hurt initially having to give up all that junk I was addicted to, eat small portions during meal times, and jog 30 minutes, twice a day. But its been worth the fight!
All in a hard day’s work
I cant make up my mind whether I like my company or whether I hate it. There are those horrible days when nothing can go right! My Lotus Notes gets capped (Warning: Mail File has been capped), Sametime doesnt work, or some server (which i incidentally wanna use at that precise moment) is down somewhere, I have loads of admin work to get done (file my IT returns, process my visa papers, uff..loads more), and my US project manager wants me to populate some very very confusing working capital management template!
And then there are those awesome days, when I wake up really really late (12 noon), lazily check my emails, knowing that there will be only some mass mailers, and some team updates, or somebody sending his wedding card or some crap mails which just needs the attention of the “delete” button, catch up on the newspaper, take a lazy bath, have a late lunch, check emails again, and put the status on Sametime to “away”, choose a good film, sit down to watch, keep an eye on my mailbox inbetween (Sametime too), and at 6 pm, shut down my Thinkpad! All in a Wednesday’s work! And it was an officail “working” day for me. I dont wanna make u guys J. I enjoy atleast 4-5 days such as these in a month! Who wants to quit? Nah! Not me. ;o)
