Trip

I am back from the annual Skal gang trip to chickmagalur. I am happy about it because I got to speak to the guys and the usual good times was there. I wish NAK and PJ were there. From next year onwards the most important person of my life will also be there :) and that feels nice. And I hope A and A will also be married by then so that P and I will not be the only married couple around. C'magalur is an awesome place in the rains. I do wish though that Bomande and V were not so serious when we could have had so much fun while we could have made such fools of ourselves :)

But the best thing is that I spoke to V like I never have in my life before and it feels nice to know someone more than you ever did before. A good trip, and I hope we can keep the once a year thing. Aint I glad my friends are there! And A should call me more, he simply should!

P.S. I hope we all get our bonuses this year :D

sec 377

I came home today and amma announced that Sec 377 was toned down. I am very happy, this was long due and I do hope apart from decriminalization, which is like the worst thing to do, our society can respect and integrate the sexual minorities.

But the best part was I sat down with appa and amma and discussed this issue. They took it very naturally and though in slight discomfort, they too seemed to welcome the decision. Boy! They are broad-minded for their age!

eye lock

It was a wild disco night. Drunk people were dancing away to the loud peppy music of the DJ. The disco lights were making wild patterns on the floor. They were both at opposite ends of the disco. But they both had the same strong feeling that someone special was across the floor. So they left their respective partners and gravitated towards the centre of the floor. And then it happened. Sometimes you just know that it has happened. As they stared into each other's eyes, there was the brilliant spark of realization that they had waited for this moment forever. This was it. This was the person. Without a single word, they locked hands and walked away... forever!

cafe city centre

He walked in to the coffee shop in the middle of the city. Wow! he thought, this place is so nice. He was grateful that cities have these pockets right in their over crowded centre where either the government decided to own it or the wonderful owner was not lured by the money that real estate was going to fetch him and decided to keep serving good old fashioned coffee in chipped china and with waiters who seemed like they hadn't had a bath in a few years. But the sheer amount of open space made the place seem like heaven amidst all the noise, pollution and congestion. Even people on the road seemed like intruders; there were just so many of them on the roads just like animals, cars and dirt and grime. The beggars made it worse. And at night, the pimps and hookers made it colourful. But the cool shade of the large banyan tree right in the middle of the open air cafe brought a huge smile on his face; he had chosen the rendezvous point right.

He was there for an interview. Interview of a person of some stature. Nothing huge or fancy about her, but she was a winner in her own right. She had, to put it simply, stood the test of time. Her novels never reached the NY bestsellers list, but that did not deter her from pouring out the travails of a woman in India. She wrote novel after novel, highlighting the good and bad things (more bad things) that happened to women in India. And finally the recognition was hers. The local government had recognized at her old age, the contribution she had made to the womens' rights particularly and modern literature in general. And she chose to express herself in English, a language not her native and definitely not the native of the women she highlighted in her work.

Why does she write in English, he wondered? It simply made her inaccessible to a vast audience that would have resonated with the way she felt and what she conveyed in her books. May be she never intended to reach them, may be she never thought of it as women's rights but looked at the whole issue with an indifference and only chose it because there were enough case studies around for her to easily make stories out of them. May be she was not creative at all; as is expected from most writers of books; may be she was just a special kind of reporter. Worse still, may be she never sympathaised with the women she wrote about; they probably meant nothing to her. She could may be write about cockroaches or global warming in the same way that she did about the oppressed women. And because someone who felt about oppression read her novel, they decided to make her a person who stood for all of this; womens' rights and all. May be she is like some of the people who can be branded as "cooling-glass-liberal". This he thought would be the ideal thing to speak about.

the fiction series

I am starting a series of articles that will be labeled "fiction". It is a series of articles depicting various types of people I have met. Incidents I have heard of and discussed. But they are all changed beyond recoginition. So do not bother trying to find out who it is based on

independence

Bitch and I were drunk; not the usual high, but the rare occasion where I am out of my mind. Completely gone :) and we were on an old fashioned swing, sitting cross-legged across each other and asking babu to swing us back and forth, back and forth. The alcohol when you swing, makes you wilder and madder.

And after all the how important we are to each other and how we never find enough time for each other, we spoke about a very serious thing; I wonder how we managed in our drunken stupor. But we did and it was very important a topic. It was that of independence. Not in terms of constitutional rights but independence in a relationship.

Love binds us to the person we love; more so when such love is romantic and it is expected that we depend on the person we love. This is in contradiction to what a lot of people strive for and stand for: the fact that they are strong-willed independent individuals; that they can sort out their own issues, bend their will they way they want to come up with incredible things; to pull themselves up on their own when they are feeling down; to never cry or breakdown and so on and so forth. In some ways, independent people build a fortress around themselves so that internal struggle can never be seen. But is that something that will let you be what your lover wants you to be. Love is often described as two bodies-one soul, of being able to read each other's mind and just know what to do, to let go and trust completely; and sometimes in an obvious way. Independent people can love and can love very deeply; but it does not show always. They have a wall around them, and their character does not let them bare it all, not even to their most loved ones. And that often causes a lot of angst and frustration.

There is no solution to this, no right and wrong; but my take is that there is an immense satisfaction in the fact that you can depend on someone so much that you can let go of something that you have stood for so long; may be that is why they say love makes you so humble. To every independent person; I say let go of it my man and give in.

P.S. This independent tendency is more with men than with women. That is just my observation.

of what is really wrong

I was wondering in office of why I feel like loser these days; loser is a strong word and I do not normally use it for anyone let alone myself; but the whole bloody point is that I have begun to feel like that for sometime now. And it is not even that I am doing loserly things or loserly things are happening but I feel like one just the same!

And then as I thought about what I have become, I realized why. May be the analysis is wrong but I think I have it right. Here goes why:

I have always been an achiever; I did well right through school and college; I was the apple of everyone's eye, especially the grown ups. There was a lot of respect as I stood for something. All this happened because I always wanted to be different from the rest, a cut better, a mile ahead and an hour earlier. And added with the fact that things had to be perfect in all that I did, I think I managed to stand out pretty well. This was till college (read BE).

Then came the MBA days; the days when I craved for anonymity. I wanted to be one in the crowd, an ordinary guy with no great ambition; just doing enough to stay afloat. And because of this I missed a lot of opportunities. But it was not something that I minded so much at that point in time. Nor do I mind it now.

But being one in the crowd is not me; it is so against the kind of person I am, the things I stand for. I have always stood out; by achieving something that others thought or found difficult. And that gave me my kick, the motivation to do good and bold and great things. That is the real me and I miss being that; especially since that I am an under-paid under-utilized business analyst on a loser floor with even more loser colleagues.

And if I need to be happy and true to myself, I will need to get back to doing things that will surely set me apart; make me something that people will be in awe of and that is when I think all the disgruntlement with life will settle down.

Yeah baby, I know what is wrong and I think I now have a solution to the problem that I have faced so often in the past 4 years, what is it that I really want to do! Amen!