The great Indian appearing act

The welcome in to my office parking lot every morning would be very warm. As I park my car a familiar hand would wave from far “Good morning Madam”. Smiling at him and also acknowledging my good luck I would think “What a nice cleaner guy, every morning without fail greeting me inspite of me not availing his service”.

After several months I decided to employ him to clean our car. Needless to say he was elated to hear my decision. “Sure Madam, I will clean your car every day except weekends”. Happy that I finally had someone to clean it regularly unlike the previous one at home who appeared at his will, I agreed to the “no cleaning on weekend” condition. “Madam, I will start from Monday but I need advance”, was his next statement. It was like a thunderbolt for me, paying advance for something which had not even started. “Yes, people here leave jobs and go off without paying me so I have started taking full advance”. Wow! I thought this is planning, risk mitigation at it’s best. Wondered how many project managers parking their cars there analyzed so deeply even for their projects. I too agreed to give him the advance, being convinced by his rationale, but paid him only 90% of the agreed amount.

Imagine my state when the following days I never saw this guy for couple of weeks. The wiper would be in standing position announcing that the cleaning was done but not once I could spot this guy. Finally I had to send a word looking for him & asking him to clean from inside. This was also an agreed condition “Inside cleaning once in a week”. The friendly good morning was no where to be seen once his role changed from probable candidate to employee. Again after some days he started appearing again “Madam, balance”.

I have started believing that these characteristics are inherent in the Indian genre. When you see familiar promises being doled out by the politicians before elections one cannot but think “Are we really so stupid to believe all the promises”. But do we have a choice in electing some party that is intelligent? The next time around they will be back reminding me of the cleaner saying “Madam ,balance”, unless of course I take the responsibility of cleaning my car. So the big question is will we ever be ready to take responsibility for our country?

Look at my Gold cup

It is time where we are hearing about medals and accolades coming in for India in more than one way. Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupati winning a grand slam, Yuvi Bhambri for his junior title in tennis, A. R Rehman ofcourse getting all the praise for his music in Slumdog millionaire. Proud moments . I feel proud of them despite of all the possible obstacles that we see in India they have made a mark for themselves in the world. Fabulous and I can feel the smile in Mother India’s heart- for a change her children are getting the right type of attention!

Though I am no where close to even holding a tennis racket or a baton to wave; the feeling is similar when my parents proudly show off the little achievements I have in my account to all and sundry. A tad embarrassed nevertheless happy it is so amusing to hear talk like “My daughter went abroad on work and got me these shoes”, “She took me for my medical check in her whirl wind tour”, “She sent me tickets for coming over”

After years of staying away even a little walk down the familiar roads are enough to speak volumes on how proud they are of their prized possessions – their children. There is a different sparkle in their eyes and an extra confidence in the otherwise careful step. Right from the watch man to the familiar grocery fellow, there is only one thing conveyed – Look my child is home! It almost feels like they are carrying their hard earned gold cup of life in their hand.

Yet I don’t think I deserve all the praise & attention. Finally it is with outsiders that I leave the responsibility of taking care of the ones who treat me like gold. Just like my neighbour’s tell me “Take care of my old mother she is all alone” I say the same words to people who are total strangers to me. Personal achievements, career progression, expensive holidays, really have no meaning at that point when you leave them for whom you are the world. At that moment I feel worse than bronze internally.

Being in the invisible mode

A new feature on Orkut of being able to chat with all your contacts has been driving me to take cover under the “being invisible” mode. Much to my dislike, I am still being invisible as the thought of being available to the 200 odd contacts on the site sends me shudders. What will I chat with people I have hardly met? It is ok to share an occasional not with each other but talk to unknown people everyday? Oops! not my piece of cake, surely. For once I am happy to let the cake go!

Getting in to the mould of being unseen has its own share of excitement and disappointments too. It is interesting to see a lot of contacts coming on line, who cannot see that I am also present. Some kind of ego-booster I must say. It fuels a supreme pleasure of giving me the power of talking to them at my will. I just need to ping them and a conversation can happen. Unless I initiate it, they cannot reach out.

At the same time it is also a little sad that no one reaches out to me with a friendly “Hi” no matter what the time of the day is. I could display my mood for the day with a fitting status message. No need to call anyone and tell I am feeling under the weather. The status message did it all. Conversations were triggered by the status message alone and some of the most interesting talk would ensue.

Amidst all this new experience of being unseen, I also ponder what does God experiences all the time. The one always in invisible mode. He is of course visible to me in the form I trust is God. Yet for the millions who just believe that “HE is up there and is watching it all”, I wonder what HE undergoes!

Just like I am hoping some of my regular contacts will look for me and say “Hi”, will the creator not be yearning for HIS creations to look inside and say “Hi”. "I am here for you always", HE thinks but are we aware? All HE sees is his little children mindlessly fighting over “mine” & “thine”. Religion which was just created so that man gets closer to God has itself become a battle ground taking God out of religion entirely and leaving just a bitter after taste.

Through the various mediums, channels (not TV channels please), guru’s masters HE is trying to convey to all “Please look inside; there is none outside for whom you are fighting”. Yet we turn a blind eye to all of this and are busy looking elsewhere.

All I can urge to HIM is to please come out of the Invisible mode and take charge. Teach everyone that we have come here to learn to love and not loathe. Shout aloud that all religions are creation of Man himself, there is not one higher or lower. Stop the mindless actions and reactions. We your children have failed terribly in the test you have given. Please come and take us on the right path and help us pass at the next chance.

Long time no see..

It is really so wonderful to be seeing you after such a long time! Aah I know feels good to be looking eye to eye, heart to heart after a long time. What to do? These everyday hassles of life hardly leave any time for the things that really matter to “us”. The worldly commitments, rate race is really killing, first for earning and then running to spending all the money to show that life is very “happening” and a host of other things leave hardly or no time for meeting you.

I do think often how far apart we are going. I yearn for that quality time with you where no one exists but you and me. It is only in these silences that I feel deeply connected to you. I don’t have any words to talk to you, yet there is so much that is conveyed in these silences. The sheer joy of existence, the celebration of “being” in life, that silent acknowledgement that we exist for the same purpose and so many unsaid things. I miss all that dearly.

Sometimes I do wonder how much I have grown up in life. Those dreams we had as children are now coming true. None of this would have been possible but for your stoic support. Trust me! Deep within it was you who gave me the conviction that with patience and faith we would achieve a lot in life. I know I should have acknowledged this long back but I was so busy “looking good” for the other people in my life that I always took you for granted.

I could see in your eyes the hurt you have undergone whenever I underwent pain in any relationships, disappointment with life or anything at all that made me sad. Like a fool, I made sure I quickly looked away to avoid acknowledging my pain. I was afraid that you would know my deepest feelings / fears. If only I took you as my friend I would have been so comforted by your presence rather than being threatened.

I am really thankful for this day and time which forced me to stay indoors and meet you. In the normal course I would have been busy staring at the monitor, but I am glad for the rains which are pouring their heart out. I could stare at the mirror and pour my heart out to you! I am indeed meeting myself after a long time…

To be childish or childlike?

The joyous face of a child I saw from the car window remains afresh after days. The face of a little girl asking for alms albeit with the twinkle in her eyes.. The fact that she was out there on the roads day in and day out doing the same thing, did not take away the shine in her eyes. No matter 9 out 10 people did not bother to look at her, not even rolled their windows down. She was at the “job” with equal enthusiasm for the next vehicle that stopped. Unforgettable. Unmatched renewal of faith.

May be that is what people mean when they say we all have a inner child and it is up to us to keep it alive. The quality of being joyous for no reason. It is our basic nature to be in a state of happiness, WITHOUT a rationale. Unfortunately we have surrendered to such a morose life that we need a reason to even smile!

On the other hand we have no qualms of adapting to childish behaviour like refusing to talk to someone after a fight, crying over someone else taking our toys (read materialistic possessions) , insecure if someone gets close to “my” people and ofcourse my favourite observation “since we are not talking now, return my toys” :) type of a thing.

A friend of mine often says that if we have an argument with someone it is just as good as someone showing us a mirror. We may be initially upset over how we look in the mirror but as an adult it is prudent that we accept the fact and move ahead on a corrective path. More and more we do behave like a child screaming on seeing his own face in the mirror and refusing to look at it anymore. Funny eh?

I do hope I am more in touch with my inner child and be childlike but be an adult where required and not adhere to childish patterns. On the lighter side I need this self-encouragement to get myself to call my inner circle of people who never bother to find if I am still alive nor return my umpteen calls. The renewed enthusiasm of the girl on the road is my motivation on not giving up!

The moment it all changed

History is created, stories are written, dependencies change statistics; all based on what happened at “that moment” If you look at the major turning point in your life or any new occurrences in the world most of them are an effect of one instant.

It is that one moment which changes adoring to abhorring, love to lust, winning to losing, respect to dishonour, trust to betrayal. I suppose most of the transitions I have mentioned are not a very pleasant change. Think about it; don’t these changes affect us most? The way you look at life and what it has to offer to us changes when we are negatively impacted most. Positive changes though more than welcome seldom leave any learning for us. We are too busy basking in its glory! Like I read in a book “There is no bigger failure than success”, precisely so, because success fails to teach us anything.

That said; let me confess that I too yearn to win just like you probably. Yet it is inspiring to see how much that one moment of negativity impacts us. How we resolve to achieve what we set out to. At this moment I recall the face of a child left behind in a race. Wiping the flowing nose and overflowing tears, taking on with a fresh resolve and not giving up till the race is won. Fighting to finish and to win!

It is my failure to win over my fat that keeps me going on the war again & again. Thanks to this by now I have the best kept secrets of losing weight and changed my life style inside out. Not that I have yet won the war but every time I fail, there is a resolve to fight harder which keeps me going. The resolve gets stronger based on the feeling of “that moment” of failing up to your goal

While I was writing this blog a friend of mine passed me the speech of J. K Rowling’s address to the passing students of Harvard As luck may have it the topic was “The Fringe benefits of failing” (is it co-incidence?). I would love to quote a line from her impacting talk which goes “You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something,unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.”

The sweetness of parting

It is a common scene in the various social or official circles. Someone is leaving your office, locality, home for better prospects (or otherwise!) and there is this sudden demand for that person. Words of praise flow in which have been absent for so many years of togetherness. Gifts are exchanged or given; contact addresses are exchanged (no matter the next moment it is not to be found) and invariably there is an unknown, unheard of sentiment which chokes many a throat and in some overflowing–with-emotion cases wets many a shoulder.

I always wonder where all these are hidden when the person is physically present in our life. Why do we mask our feelings or worse why display something which is not exactly what we feel? If it is the second case it is a total hypocritical display and less said the better but what really intrigues me is the first case.

Is it that we expect people to be always available at our beck and call and hence think they have a permanent availability for us? It is like the chair or sofa in our houses which is always available for you to sit once you enter the room. We never realize the importance of the same till it is not available one day or someone else is occupying it. I am not saying that we need to garland the seat but yes acknowledge and be thankful for it being available to you is something which we can do on a regular basis. We do not need to wait for it’s disappearance to know the importance. Ditto for the people in our lives J

It was not until I moved from Mumbai (still Bombay for me) that I realized the importance of a regular sweeper, maid, and person taking clothes for ironing (dhobi). I took their presence so much for granted and believed they would be there for eternity till I landed at Chennai. Of course the absence (or periodical presence) of all these facilities has made me more self reliant but I do think I could have shown more gratitude to my folks (when you are in a nuclear family these people really become “your folks”) back home.

When dear ones leave this world, there is a sea change of feeling than when they were alive. Sometimes it takes the death of a wife to make the husband realize the importance of a clean house and round-the-clock kitchen service. I wonder what is the point in holding yearly ceremonies or death anniversaries for the husband when there was no loving word spoken by the wife except “Food is ready” types of cold statements while he was alive. Many people argue that “true feeling is inside the heart” but can someone peek in to your heart and see your feeling. “It’s only words and words are all I have ...” goes the song and it is so true I think.

So I shall not wait for clogged networks to do us apart. I am telling each one of you reading this. I love and respect your presence in my life and the difference you have made to my being.