Brilliantly Moonstruck

"..hung up... its all in your mind...."

They say, the mind is the most powerful of all creations... I cannot forget that dialogue from "Om Shanti Om"...

"agar tum sacche dil se kuch chaaho, to sarri kayanaat tumhe us se milane me jut jaati hain"

You are the moon in my universe
Brightest and steady among the many specks of sparkling light
One really has to go around you to realize there is more than the heart melting charm
There is another façade; withered because the sun failed to make it warm
As real as the shiny & pleasant visage, and its mesmerizing calm

Your aura transcends great distances, it is magical
To call you a mere light in darkness would be farcical
As I comprehend you little by little, I do feel
The darkness that surrounds you will never shroud your appeal

To possess the real but elusive you for even a fleeting moment I clamor
It is your inner beauty that struck me deep
I admit though, that I couldn’t get over your glamour
I tried to bask in the reflections you cast on placid waters
Clasped you in my palms, but you danced your way out on the ripples
Those moments have passed but I still remember the smiles and the sniffles

You are around at times bright and a sometimes a little less so
There are eclipses and days when you are a no show
Those are but little episodes, nevertheless, you are out there, that I know

Your brilliance belongs to you, not to any sun
If the sun shone all the time, there would be no darkness
But that was not to be for a good reasonIt is your shine that illuminates my heart, to me that is the foremost one

The Windmills of the Gods!!

As an American reading the story of Vayu’s (the Indian God of wind) anger would express it “the wind was broken”. Vayu stopped all the breeze and wind on the earth. Eventually, and after the biding of the several of his peers, He forgave Lord Indra for assaulting Hanuman with the thunderbolt. When he finally restored the winds, in the process, the fart was born.

This adaptation from a mythological series raised several questions in my mind. I wonder what debates and controversies this can fuel from a la Rama Sene supremo

1. If mythology is to be believed, is the fart holy to the Hindus?
2. If the fart is indeed holy, is it blasphemy for non Hindus to indulge in farting?
3. Does a non-Hindu’s voluntary fart signal an allegiance to the Hindu religion. Should we exclude the involuntary squeaks from any religious connotations?

More pragmatic stuff, I could not help but ponder the fact that I have like several others, swallowed many a chewing gum accidentally. So, why does chewing gum behave differently when subjected to air pressure in the oral versus the rectal cavity? Does it have anything to do with the sun never shining there? I think if they designed new ones to behave consistently in either cavity, it would give a whole new meaning to the phrase “bubble butt”. And, make chewing gum loyalists the next hottest sex symbols.

It can be quite engaging to think and analyze if the God-given whistle has anything to do with the corporate term “whistleblower”. Is a whistleblower in reality a glorified victim of irritable bowel syndrome?

Here is a thought about a few random phrases like “gag order” and “airing opinion”. Airing opinions from a certain tongueless orifice can several times put a gag order on people in proximity. The intensity and duration of the “opinion” sometimes chokes and then drains the color from the cheeks. At this point, I was slowly but surely sensing my fellow traveler’s urge to shift his body weight on to one butt cheek. Suddenly, I recalled the Sanskrit proverb “nishabdam prana sankatam.” It was probably coined by an ancient diplomat who either endured from or subjected others to such gag orders or aired opinions as the case may be. It is said that history has a way of repeating itself. He was no Lord Indra, but I was sure the thunderbolt he was about to discharge was sure to again break the wind so it was time for me to scoot.

Gag-tch me if you can!!! And if not, then Gag-tch you later!!!

Betty Cooper... I miss you.. :)

It wasn’t until much later after we had crossed over into Himachal that I realized I was seated very comfortably. The dawn of this ergonomic fact was partly because I had travelled several miles in the confines of similar mini buses, but this time around something was surely very different.

On earlier occasions, my discomforts were owing to competition that could easily lay claim to an equal or more share of square inches on the 2 seat benches we generally occupied together, with me usually sitting on the aisle side. This in addition to always and invariably having the disadvantage of the competitions unfair claim being reinforced by the inner side walls of the vehicle for obvious reasons. As the cold and jolting began wearing me down, I realized “Wriggly” was besides me all along, and that was probably why I could park my now more than ample butt on that seat so comfortably. Wriggly’s rear fortunately was endowed to take up the entire depth of the seat instead of the width.

Things have changed since. Destiny and human effort conspired, and in the resulting arrangement, it was only appropriate that our comfort in discomfort came to an end. It seems like the poor and inconsequential bench, there are several other things that won’t be so obviously shared anymore.

I sat comfortably but missing a certain something through the tour. I questioned myself why did I not want to realize you weren’t one of the guys. I don’t know the answers, but now I can only on several say occasions “Betty Cooper.. I miss you.”

Memories of Park Lane

There was the distinct sound of city traffic streaming through the connection. The one word responses from the other end did not lose their purpose, to which, I promptly asked if I was being a ‘bore’ factor. A monosyllabic “hmmm” resonated into my ears through the handset. This “non word” will probably be etched in my memory as the longest and deepest anti response to a gesture that I seek the most, companionship. With reference to the context, long paragraphs could be written up to dissect the contents of the “hmmm’. The reluctance to acknowledge it as a response was probably why the utterance made its impact a few minutes after the call had been disconnected.

In attempting to trace a precedent, I could only think of a very recent overnight sleepless train ride. What that had achieved, was of course a few hours where we met and spoke, amongst several others. The hurried trip to the Van Heusen outlet at the up market Park Lane gratified my overpowering desire to do the best for the central character of the occasion (or maybe for the central character and for the occasion). I say “central character”, because no other factor justifies my presence in another city about 500 Kms from home that day.

We engaged 4 natural pairs of eyes, (not counting the plastic/glass prosthetics that were on two of those pairs) in addition to mobile camera technology. There was no excuse for faltering on this project. There was satisfaction while exiting the store that the purchase will live up to its purpose. After dropping off the happy package where it belonged the rest of the day was spent in relative oblivion.

It was late evening when we arrived at the venue. On first glance I realized what had seemed like a consensus in the afternoon was probably disguised compromise. The absence of the “common choice” apparel did not diminish the wearers appeal. Nevertheless, I dug deeper into myself and wanted to know, whether it was our lack of fashion sense, versus my singular and overpowering emotions about always wanting the best for a certain someone that had ironically made an alternate choice of apparel more appealing?

Our enquiring glances did get something of an honest-modest, though technically a non-response. At that point unwilling to process any more thoughts, my mind went into a standby mode. When I logged back in there sometime later during that long day, I found myself attempting to build a new relationship model. The dialog box that had opened up read:

“Your attempt to gratify a loved one has been fatally aborted. The system has identified that there can be two possible causes to this: 1) Your affection knows no bounds and so you don’t know where to stop 2) You try too hard
If you want to erase this and all related files from the registry permanently please click Cancel. If you wish to continue, please shed a few tears and then click OK. You will be prompted to add a few *.inhibition files. Please choose the “install” option when the dialog box appears”

No prizes for guessing what option I chose. The most loathsome of the inhibitions I have added is the one that has made me disenchanted of initiating a conversation or participating in it. I fear that another “hmmm” will irretrievably damage the sense of belonging I so cherish now. While I wallow in my miseries, my logical being is reprimanding me for being too emotional. What tears me apart is the irony of the matter, in that, my emotional side is questioning the logic of the monosyllabic “hmmm”.

I now consciously fear the expressions and manifestations of the ever growing affection I have for this individual. I feel sorry that the choice of the clothes did not keep up the pride with which they were selected.. and sorrier still that I am being a bore. It feels like I have inflicted myself on your persona, and I only now have realized you deserve better.. much better. As far as I can help it, you will surely get it.

The musical called life

A predicament? or was it simply life running its normal course? A situational analysis led to more questions that I did not want to handle. While I was seeking answers I could hear the old grandmother clock strike twice. It was either the chime or the wetness of my tears streaming down my face and moistening the pillow that was the external force altering my state of inertia. It was neither a reverie nor a trance, just deep moving thoughts that refused to leave my bedside now for days on end. They were stuck there because I did not want to answer them. Answering them meant acknowledging uncomfortable incidents. Those incidents which brought up heart wrenching questions.

Dear life, it is not that I am upset with you .. but you have me perplexed though
I find myself in a dilemma, and it is the innocence of your questions that make it so

तुझ से नाराज़ नहीं जिंदगी, हैरान हूँ मै

तेरे मासूम सवालों से परेशान हूँ मैं

It never occurred to me that life will also have its share of sorrow
Every smile that escapes the lips extracts a price, like a loan that has to be repaid morrow
Each time I smile now, my lips carry the burden of the happiness that life lets me to occasionally borrow

जीने के लिए, सोचा ही नहीं दर्द संभालने होंगे

मुस्कुराए तो, मुस्कुरानेके दर्द संभालने होंगे

मुस्कुराऊँ कभी, तो लगता हैं, जैसे होठों पे क़र्ज़ रखा हैं

A lesson about relationships was learnt when life’s miseries did not seem to cease
When I eventually found it, it was in the scorching heat that I found, the serenity of a cool breeze

जिंदगी तेरे, गम ने हमें रिश्ते नए समझाएं

मिले जो हमें, धुप में मिले छाओं के ठंडे साए

The tears that have welled up in my eyes today will shed away as droplets eventually
Their welling up at another tomorrow remains a mystery. A mystery because the one little droplet that I had stowed away safely, is somewhere and somehow lost, and has vanished eternally

आज अगर, भर आई हैं, बूँदें बरस जायेंगी

कल क्या पता, इन के लिए, आँखें तरस जायेंगी

जाने कब गुम्म हुआ, कहाँ खोया, एक आंसू छुपा के रखा था

This post has a few sequels... I did not do one consolidate post for the fear that it would read like the script of a Bengali movie..

An awesome foursome for the holy bean counter

Ammu’s life had seen the dawn of its 26th year at Cinderella hour. The conventional best wishes were pouring in now as the sun shone brightly on the horizon. The ritual of wishing her happy birthday was in actuality a solemn reminiscent of the fact that she was older than most others that she hung out with. It was an event that had elements of surprise and happiness or so it seemed, judging from the generous amounts of verbal and some not so verbal expressions that punctuated the entire conversation. The topic moved on and settled on B who eventually turned out to be Ammu’s beau. The discovery of B’s true identity was quite like the climax of a thriller movie. All this because through most of the conversation, it seemed from B’s antics that were being quoted with reference to a few contexts that I was not privy to, that he was Ammu’s newly acquired puppy.. happy, slobbery, and frolicking.

We moved on at the conventional pace that allows one to transcend from a mundane cab ride to experience what back seat driving in a F1 race could feel like. The manual transmission that propelled the cab to the whims and craziness of the driver of the day seemed to be in total collusion to the mood of the conversation. It seemed conspiratorial because each time the gears shifted, the discussion wafted from one person to another.

At one point, we were positioned at the start of about 400 meters of straight wide road, which culminated in a traffic light. The stretch was as usual cluttered with slow moving traffic in all lanes, and at occasional spots even in the anti-lanes. I instinctively knew we were approaching the “holy speed” moments. I term it so, because when you hear the gears change and the engine rev for a F1 dash, I gasp OH GOD!! And, this happens unfailingly everyday. I know consciously that this is not a reflexive response, because no body I have met or heard about so far have been able to go so far as having a conditioned response to near-death experiences.. lesser so on every single work day. It also usually happens that when we stop at the light or occasionally pass it, I mostly manage to squeak a “thank you God” between my winded breathing.

While I was going through the trauma, the gears had shifted several times. Sometime at the end of this out-of-body like experience, cognizance returned to me when the topic had moved to Ramesh’s relative incompetency in his job, and how he (his attitude) had changed since his marriage. The gears of “the groups” relationship with Ramesh rested at neutral, but there was this uneasy feeling that it was switching to the reverse. After Sandhya, it was Dhruv’s turn to get analyzed in all elements of their persona and by then there wasn’t enough time left to dissect another mortal into his/her elements.

We were signaled into the fortified campus with a jerk of the head that hovered somewhere between a nod and a bob. KK was rendering his high pitched Khuda Jaane.. for the second time since the radio stationed had changed gears and moved from playing the top hits to a request show. Neither a slide show memory recall of the beautiful locales that the Khuda Jaane song was shot in.. nor the unwillingness of my senses to participate could drown or shut off the mobile conversations (where I had neither dialed nor received the call) that were inflicted on my senses in the cab each day from getting recorded in some far recesses of my mind.

I was privy to the conversation not by choice.. but simply limited by the fact that our cab had only two rows of seats. The front row had two seats one for the driver and the other for the navigator. I personally prefer not to sit in the navigator’s seat for the fear of having permanently dilated pupils (which result from the shock of routinely getting wedged in the rear side of a truck and then pulling out the last minute). That leaves the second row and only row… and since we are usually only two individuals in that row (my co-passenger belongs to the fairer sex), there isn’t anyone in between to serve as a barrier or absorb any of the sound waves within the cab.

At the end of the awesome foursome (don’t get weird ideas, I am simply referring to the the cabbie (1), my co-passenger (2), I (3), and of course the mechanical but alive and humming cab(4)) it was that moment of the day again where I found myself helplessly uttering “Thank you Manju, we (I and my co passenger who happens to be a team mate) will see you again at 8 PM” to the cabbie. I think I had resigned to the fact that this was God’s way of making me shift gears from a “holy speed” moment to a “holy hour” package??!!

When I walked in and flashed my card and the door allowed itself to be opened after the customary beep another thought crossed my mind. Our work place is moving further away from where it is now… God, did you destine for me to be a “holy bean counter”?

Quarterly Menses

The setting was one of those voluntary struggles that I put myself through at regular and unforgiving 3-month intervals. The saga started just as the weekend was threatening to end. Late Saturday evening I felt the adrenaline rush which led me to scavenge through the tons of study material. Luckily enough, I had a 4-point task list worked out before embarking on that depressing effort

Task 1. Figure out where the study material was
That didn’t take very long.. I could locate what I have fondly christened as the “Foundation Stones” of my academic pursuit in management in less than 20 minutes. That included a brief ponderous state, where I toyed with the idea of being able to use these foundation stones in any real time construction (you got to see them to believe this). I thought that would be utmost justice keeping in mind how they are physically manifested
Task 2. Figure out what I am supposed to pore over
I was one up on myself on this one. Although I had forgotten to take a printout of the timetable or the admit card, I had committed this vital piece of information to memory. I could quickly sort the stuff into two piles.. one which I did not care for and the other which I couldn’t care for
Task 3. Try and anesthetize
Refinements and shortcuts were necessary.. quick thinking and judgment reduced the pile I had mentally labeled as “couldn’t care for” to just two books. They were of decent thickness. At least enough to get the reaction from mom that they were bonafide MBA study material. My criteria had cleverly baked in a feature where the act of studying them would be relatively painless
Task 4. Study!!!!
The questions were insufferable. The phonetically and alphabetically different multiple choice answers had a dubious knack of presenting themselves as quintuplets to the untrained mind. They were virtually indistinguishable from each other as responses when I attempted to choose one over the other as the suitor for the hitherto banal questions

I attempted to continue my quest for the right choice. I found myself tempted to choose watching “Gabbeh” (Iranian for Colorful Rug) on the World Movies channel versus trying to seduce my virgin mind to bed management concepts like organizational behavior and human resource management that night. My eyes wandered to the television, and I saw Shiloh fall to her death from a cliff. She was holding the baby lamb that lead her up that treacherous trail. My mind automatically raced back to N.. who had led me on this treacherous trail. I hadn’t fallen yet like poor Shiloh.. but was tempted enough to jump off a cliff to avoid the perfectly mundane and predictable day that was yet to dawn.

Here it was.. Sunday morning, I had already committed the near blasphemous act of waking up at 7 AM. Going through the needless-to-detail chores of the morning, I finally found myself at the gates of one of north Bangalore’s prestigious ladies college. The only welcoming sign, I found on the notice board. The university folks actually anticipated my arrival, and to substantiate that, they had my name on a list with a few other numbers coded in there. After a quick restroom break, I eventually found my seat. I could not help but wonder if someone went through an elaborate plan effort like Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathway) and Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) did in the Devil Wears Prada, or was it simply an unsophisticated but trained peons job??

After fifteen minutes perfectly legible, grammatically correct, and seemingly logical, but totally incomprehensible questions later I chanced upon a bright plan. I stopped at each question, and if my mind failed comprehending it in the first reading I conditioned my mind to an auto response to replay the childhood rhyme
“Eena.. Meena.. Mynah…Moe..
Catch the bad boy by his toe
If he cries let him go
Eena Meena Mynah Moe”
The multi-tasker that I am, I allowed my hands that held the sharpened-to-a-needlepoint HB pencil to randomly touch all the available choices of responses…. The one where the graphite tip rested once the rhyme ran a full length and stopped was my answer!!! I thought it was simply brilliant because it seemed better than trying to think, and as a bonus, it also kept me from dozing off. For all the life in me, I couldn’t think of why the Hawthorne Relay Assembly Room or Illumination studies were conducted, and if they did at all, how they benefited mankind, womankind or any kind anyways. Answering correctly the pointed, and obnoxiously detailed questions about the experiments was definitely not the first thing on my mind.

I could feel a few envious and several snobbish ‘he is dunking this one’ looks almost sear me as I stood facing the invigilator with my back to the classroom. This overly detail oriented and queerish guy ran his pen through the instructions and rules manual. He quickly underlined one rule, which said that no one is allowed to leave the examination hall until one hour after the exam commences. I flashed my Guess to him.. they were there dazzling on the pure white dial the little hand on 11, and the big hand on 12. I had endured the mandated exact 60 minutes to get out and enjoy the three-and-half hours of freedom that lay ahead. It was an anticlimax, but I was thinking of N in a nice way when I did this. He was the cause that I was enduring this one way trip to be a management professional. Nevertheless, I couldn’t bypass the fact that he had lovingly gifted me the Guess that was instrumental in getting me out of this muck for now.

For cosmetic reasons and to boost the competitive environment around, I whipped the second book out of my messenger bag, and pretended to be deeply engrossed in studies. The signature Bangalore weather was just not helping that effort.. very soon I chose to put the book to rest and took a leisurely stroll down one of the very few remaining boulevards. That sojourn ended at Adigas’s where the haughty cashier refused to let me have food if I did not tender him exact change. After digging through my wallet and carefully examining to see that I hadn’t pulled out the momentous Cambodian currency or the hard earned per diem US Dollars, I managed to find two crisp Rs. 10 notes. A few toe stamps and several intense salivating moments later, I finally laid my hand on the open butter dosa. I gorged into it while looking out on the street below.. nothing eventful there either. As I walked back to the examination center, I promised to treat myself to some fresh cane juice (a few forgotten pleasures that come back to you when you are by yourself and more so when ones sense of right and wrong is uninhibited by judgmental people)

The second part of the day was slightly more engaging. I settled onto the concrete wall that also served as the seating arrangement for the playground opposite the examination center. There was a brief spell of time that lay between the cane juice treat, and when it would be time to get back and undergo examination about stuff like cognitive dissonance, cognitive resonance or such several other things which I cannot even remember. As I sat there and watched, it seemed like I was in a magic show. There were a multitude of teams, all playing cricket with the felt covered ‘tennis ball’. One influential group was running a tournament and took up more than half the ground. There were easily about 10 different groups that by some rule or order had wedged between one another and were enjoying their game. It was never apparent to me about who was from which group because it seemed like everyone was batting, everyone was bowling and everyone was fielding. At any point there were at least 4 balls in different trajectories about 10 to 15 feet off the ground. It was amazing how this was all working seamlessly and conflict free.

I could not help but recall the amazement and incredulity a few US-based colleagues had expressed about India when they had visited. Until now, I haven’t been able to put my finger on whether it is the chaos here that drives a system.. or if it is the system here that drives the chaos. Whatever it is, I think it surely is more worthwhile studying and realizing, simply because it works!!! And for all the other students like me that are slogging it off to figure out how to manage large corporations make it more interesting and relevant. It would also be a bonus if we could purge them out of our syllabi, and leave the long departed Hawthorne experiment subjects and several such to rest in peace at least now!!! Amen!!