Wide eyed wonder

.. Or why I love doing what I do.

I have been quite the cynic in the last couple of years. And cynicism does not go too well with my image, if you know what I mean :D I have been in the IT city, and the flaws that I had recognized a very long time ago, had resurfaced all over again. The sheer propagation of mediocrity, the whole sham of "offsites" and tech parks that surrounds what is essentially just another job/ degree/ industry, had been laughing in my face, and I had often been questioning my own decisions. But today, at the lunch table, I realised that there are still some people in the industry who see through the sho sha for what bodyshopping is really all about, people who still believe in the sanctity of journalism, people who don't need the veil of jargon to hide their flaws and stupidity and complete lack of anything intelligent to say because they have a point of view and they know how to put it across, people who believe in doing and not just "thinking out of the box", and people who see value where it really belongs. Of course I am talking about more than one person here, and I have come home with a lot more pride in my choices and decisions, and it seems like a blessing after living in cynicism for such a long time.I can now let things be. "The point that needed proving, mostly to myself, has been proved".

And I saw Irrfan Pathan. Aren't Fridays the best?

What I have done this week

It is finally Friday. Somewhere mid week I had lost hope that this day would ever come. Ever! I have been quite the headless chicken all week, and for once I cannot blame anyone else for my "headlessness". Almost. You will know soon what I mean. What have I been up to-

1. Work. Oh work. Learn, apply, and a couple of times, unlearn and reapply. And an almost oversight. A blunt one at that. It has been crazy. Demands Fragile egos. And my obsessive need to finish everything in 8 hours, not more. I cannot begin to explain how exhausting it has been. And boy am I happy! Like I said, I am weird that way. I am also glad that word documents have taken over a lot of my excel files. I did miss the excel madness after a while, and then EOM happened. And then there was no running away from numbers. Just when words threaten to bore you, numbers come along. And words reappear before you start getting nightmares full of jumbled numbers. Perfect balance I say! Finally, finally I think this is what I was looking for. Finally.

2. Dealing with insecurity.

3. Cooking and cleaning. I always thought I did not believe in inertia. Don't ask me to explain that. But I saw an example this week. After a crazy day, I still went around getting laundry done. And how! And making full meals everyday. Folding clothes, even. It was like I was on fire and refused to stop!

4. Watching Frasier.The adorable pompousness of the Crane brothers has completely replaced the madness of Friends. I think it has something to do with age. For the last 11 years, Friends has been the background music of my life - padhai, party, cleaning, doing nothing were all always accompanied by the American canned laughter. Oh wait. It is not the canned laughter that has disappeared. Only the faces on the screen have changed.

5. Waiting. For the man who has been working late everyday. That explains a lot of the inertia and crankiness this week.

6. Watching Arnab Goswami. Every night. As usual, I am not sure why. From 12 to 1 at night, I have seen boring old men and loud old women scream their lungs out. I have seen my Biharis get kidnapped, and it only felt like the times gone by. I saw Pakistanis foolishly screaming foul. Again. This time about cricket, not terrorism. I will have to say this - with Pakistan, it is now a little difficult to see the difference. I saw Siddhu scream at rotting grains. And Nitish Kumar helpless and hapless just when the world was beginning to think that Bihar was a changed place. At least I was. And I felt sorry for myself and all those people mentioned above. And for the way me and mine entertain ourselves after days full of madness.

6. Dealing with red tape. And overcoming it. A bank locker is like a trophy these days. Banks will quote an obscene figure like Rs 3,00,000 deposit for a tiny locker. Know your rights, ladies and gentlemen, banks cannot put a condition like this to give you a locker. The RBI website clearly mentions this. So you need to know the numbers. And you need to know the branch manager's senior. Nepotism, you say? I say "loha/heera hi lohe/heere ko kaat ta hai".

6. Learning a lot about car windshields. Because ours got devastated. Bangalore rains and Bangalore greenery at their best. A big, strong branch fell on the car while R was in it. He is fine, and I don't like Bangalore again. You will know why, if you do not already.

7. Having street brawls. I have spineless creeps for neighbours. Bloody Bangalorean spineless creeps. I have never seen a bunch of creatures that claim to be alpha males in everyday existence duck, while a woman, an outsider, deals with an auto driver pointing his fist at her. Because she first refused to pay extra and did not have change. For one, I have not seen such rowdy auto drivers. And I have not seen cowards that hit or threaten to hit women, and cowards who hide behind the nearest tree in my oh so green neighbourhood when it comes to dealing with something man-to-man. I say man-to-man because apparently they take a lot of pride in their ability to do it, these bloody spineless Bangaloreans. I was angry with the neighbours for being. With the building watchman for going for an evening stroll. With R for being at work. But most of all, I am angry with myself. I have reported rigged meters, but today, when there was an issue much worse, my brain froze and refused to react constructively. So yes, I hate bloody spineless Bangaloreans. I cannot help it. I have met the worst of the lot I guess - my one time project manager, the auto and cab drivers, 3 other burly bastards who would have been better off being auto drivers, and a bunch of relatives that have made Bangalore their home for generations. All of them bloody spineless creeps. Non Bangaloreans, do not rattle on about how bad your city is. Because I want to wallow in my misery in this post, that is why I am writing it. And Bangaloreans, don't try defending. Apologize, if you just have to say something to this. Except you Chinkurli, I have to tell you that you are the only one that makes me think I have probably only been unlucky until now. So I will listen to whatever you have to say :-) (I cannot wait for my Activa. I know already that I am going to love it like one loves their protector.)

I have been operating like this on very few hours of sleep. Judge me all you want, but 6 hours is just not enough for me. I am fine, in case you are wondering. I have had a rough week, yes. But I did buy a lovely jute bag and 2 books - Shashi Tharoor and PG Wodehouse. And it is finally Friday. And there is chilled beer and rajma and Daily Bread cakes to keep me going. And the aftertaste of a session of stupid accusations that at one point threatened to turn into a full blown fight (which is always good, btw). I need this weekend.

Image courtesy: www.edupics.com

You know you are suffering a terrible attack of the Monday blues when you almost send a news clip mentioning HP and Apple to a client thinking it is an industry story, when it is actually about apples in Himachal Pradesh.

It's all a blur

If a couple of years ago, someone would have mentioned 780p or 1080p, I would have told them the exact definition I had mugged for the Multimedia viva back in college. I am no Phunsuk Wangdu, sir. If it is an exam, I need to pass. If it is not an exam, I couldn't care less. That was me, 2 years ago. Or 1, rather. I couldn't tell the difference in video quality between a blu ray and CD. Or the audio quality in a tape as opposed to any other format. I was a happier person then. I could watch Friends on the worst set up, in the worst possible compressed format, all night, all year. And then R happened. And while laughing at how he wants to hear the sound of rainfall in a desert movie or how he wants to see black and white separately when he sees grey, somewhere down the line I picked up what is still OCD in my dictionary.

For the last 2 days, I am trying to figure out the optimum display setting in the new set up in the new office. What looks blurred to me, doesn't look blurred to the IT guy. Or to anyone else for that matter. I got my eyes checked recently. They are still OK. But if the written word continues to look blurred to me, I may not say the same in a month or two.

I think this machine needs a new, improved graphics card. Or I will need more Nice tablets in the medicine pouch.

The one where I ramble on

Life has taken a funny turn. After years of being a Grammar Nazi and still overlooking my typos, I now spend my days learning semantics and trying to avoid typos or killing myself over them. After 3 years of learning the ropes around excel and powerpoint, I am now moving on to word. And no, I don’t generally move backwards. I just worship randomness. Clichéd as it may sound, there really is so much to learn. When some of this learning is aligned with what you should have been doing with your life in the first place, it all makes sense. Even feedback. I am glad.

Speaking of work, I am not sure how I always end up with the more demanding/ engaging/ challenging/ Latin-Greek-from-Day 1-to-Day-7 clients. The ONE time that I had a hopelessly indifferent client and I could get away with months of bare minimum work and still be counted as an “enthusiastic team player” at the end of the year, I ran for dear life. Does this qualify as a disorder?

I am not sure if I am the only person in the world who thinks that professing love/ getting married should at least have a prerequisite EQ test. You don’t clear the EQ test, you don’t get to profess love/ get married. I see so many relationship disasters and marriages going haywire, all because the deed was done in haste and without a qualifying test. Setting a legal age is not enough. And 18 and 21? Who are we kidding?

I can’t wait to have kids. Actually I can. But I think a lot about being a mom and how much life will change and just how amazing it is to bring a new person into the world. Someone with a heart and mind of their own – the latter scares me though. My child will have my DNA after all. So I think a lot of about having a child but what stops me dead in my tracks is how to educate my children without turning them into half Gothic half crazy, weed smoking, precocious 10 year olds. Oh yes, I can understand if a child gets a tad bit troublesome in their teens. Who doesn’t? But when I see how far they are willing to take their rebellion, I can only wonder if I should take them back to our home town for them to get the small town, middle class upbringing we got, where they will get doors to bang, but will get no weed. Not so easily at least. I don’t know if it is about the people I know, or is it really so normal for a 13 year old boy to have weed leaves or a different girl in uncomfortably close quarters in every profile picture on Facebook. What a waste of childhood! The girls/boys will stay, the weed will stay. But it is definitely not wholesome to learn about sex and drugs before you learn how to iron your clothes and tie your shoelaces. Does coming home to a happy, full family life suffice? How else does one make sure in this day and age that their children are "with it" but not overtly so?

Acceptance. Is a magic word. This lady I know by chance (and definitely not by choice. Not anymore) has ruined every relationship she has ever had, because of her unfounded (every single time), unforgivable, and very intense spite, only because she is not willing to accept that there are things that have gone wrong in her life and there are things about herself, people around her, and the world at large that she cannot and should not want to change. That the world has changed a lot and it is OK to not understand social networking but it is not OK to be continuously spiteful on it. Or endlessly foolish. It only makes life very, very difficult for her. Because others care only till they reach their breaking point. But how do you tell someone so much older than you that they need to see a psychiatrist, without offending them? It is not infuriating. In fact she is one of those very, very few spiteful people in the world who evoke pity instead of anger. It is just extremely sad to see someone who had the potential to be an interesting old lady with a treasure chest of stories, turn into a dissatisfied, spiteful, foolish old woman with no scruples whatsoever. Not even at “nearing-70”. Sometimes the worst thing we can do to ourselves is living in denial and trying too hard. Why can’t we uncomplicate?

Disclaimer- I want to make this clear because it may be misconstrued by some forever-hunting-for-gossip folks who Google for me every single day. Like a family blog like this is ever going to be fodder for gossip! The last paragraph is not about my MIL or any "IL". The best grown ups are those who leave social networking for us kids :D And if they don't, they definitely don't become social networking trolls (like blog trolls we don't know personally were not enough) And don't try too hard. And don't think it is their rightful duty to change every person that was born after them. Just because they were born after them. Fortunately for me, my parents and in laws belong to that category.

My two bits

A couple of very chic and intelligent women from my college - Nidhi Varma and Sumana Sethuraman - are on their way to do something interesting for those who never have enough or right clothes and accessories to wear to work. And for that they need insight that only the brilliant women who read this blog can provide. Of course I massaging egos - your and mine :D On a serious note, I have known them for years, and I know these girls mean business when they talk fashion.

Join them on Facebook or on their blog. Go vent your "I don't know what to wear to work" frustration and trust Nidhi and Sumana to come up with the perfect solution for you.

Notes to myself - 1

To dream of a world where nothing ever went wrong, no crises ever occurred, and things happened so smoothly that at least I didn't have to bother about damage control. Is. Stupid.

To get depressed on realising every time that that ideal world does not exist. Is. Fatal.

When will I learn?

They call it self awareness

I am not as smart as I think I am. I took a test a little while ago. Made mistakes, passed though. With flying colours too :P But I had created the test, so the flying colours don't count, the mistakes do. Yes, I made mistakes in a test that I had designed. One day I will get lost in my own house. (Does "my own" deserve a red marker?) I think I have reached my pinnacle of stupidity (or feeling stupid, at least this way I can say that I am a woman and what I feel may or may not be correct).

And with this, I welcome a month of madness at work. Madder than before, if that says anything.

I had been waiting for this day. (Yes, yes. I am really stupid that way. Also.)

Time and Distance...

... Was never my favourite chapter. R finds it funny that I use all kinds of units to measure distance. Time. Auto meter. Everything except meters and kilometers.

How far is the store?
Two minutes from here.

I have some work in Church Street.
Wow that's 80 bucks from here!

You get my point. But today I found a brand new unit for distance. It used to take me 15 songs to reach work when I worked out of the Bannerghatta Road office. Now the office has moved closer.. It's only 5 songs away from home :D :D

Yayyyy! This was long overdue. Finally!

B.O.R.E.D

Got a call from an HR consultant last evening (these calls happen to me ONLY when I am NOT job hunting). For open positions in some Analytics KPO. I said I wasn't exactly looking for a change. And definitely not to a KPO. The consultant was shocked (Bangalore.. Outsourcing.. KPO.. Get?). You ask why? Because an Analytics KPO is for two types - the extremely bright ones and complete fools. Where do I belong? Bang in the middle. Worth it? Totally!

On that note, I also went FB trolling (Errr.. Now that I am back on Facebook and all) after very long today. Oh and the exhibitions continue. So does Facebook PDA. Get a room! Why am I back on FB? Because I missed a few friends and random nonsense conversation with people I share parts of my history with - school mates and college mates and ex colleagues. Some kindred souls. People's travel albums. People's kiddie pictures. My kiddie pictures. Worth it? Totally!

There are so many totally faltu blogs around these days. What are people thinking? It wasn't the same in the good ol' days. Worth it? Not so much! (That's why I used to have a blogroll!)

So. Note to self: Should make better plans for tomorrow so I don't go internet crawling all over again like a loser. On some days, it can get quite annoying.

On a feverish afternoon..

... No matter how much I wish sickness upon myself on most Sundays just to get out of going to work on Mondays, when it actually happens, I absolutely, totally HATE it. I'd rather be feverish at work than at home. Arrrgh!

... Staying home alone is NOT fun. It used to be in a previous life. Now, no way!

... I started blogging when cell phone dictionaries didn't recognise the words "blog" and "weblog" unless you added them to the dictionary manually. Times have changed now. And in a weird sort of way, it makes me extremely proud. This must be The Only Thing I have stuck with in the real sense of the phrase. Or rather, this is the only thing that has stuck with me... Good times or bad.

Here's to blogging! :-)

The small, everyday happiness and why it doesn't come along everyday

I want to rediscover.

The joy of turning around clients that were on the verge of calling off an engagement, having a team of my own in the second year of my first full time job, of having a client tell me (and more importantly, my boss), that they won't change agencies. Ever. Neither will they interact with anyone else. The joy of my first business travel and thinking I had arrived. (LOL!) The joy of more work when I knew it came to me because someone trusted me, although she didn't really show it. The "warm fuzzy feeling" of being a "fire extinguisher". The small happiness of learning filters in excel :-)

My first job was an amazing experience (that did turn a tad bit sour towards the end because as a norm it was possessive about its people.). I will have to accept now that things happened faster there than they do in the "real world". That the kind of free hand I had in my work in that first job is elusive. That the amount of learning I brought back home every evening after work because of the people I worked with, is unparalleled. (That said, I did have to do a lot of unlearning after I quit too)

I want to rediscover the small happiness of small, common, everyday achievements. They are the ones that are the hardest to come by. Unless I start again at the bottom of the food chain. I tried it in my last job, didn't I? Didn't work! And now, I am expected to be what I am. I was hired in my current job because I told them in the interview that I was going to be decent at the work they were going to ask me to do. I wasn't hired because I honestly told them I was running away from the IT job I was about to join in 3 months, like I did in my first job. In that first job, I was fresh out of engineering and didn't know a thing about what I had set out to do. The learning process included taking boss' advice on clothes and hair before client meetings. LOL! I am not surprising people anymore. And nobody is surprising me.

The small happiness of small, everyday achievements is going to remain elusive. I guess. And I might as well deal with it. As long as the work is good and fun. And the people are uber nice. I can't ask for more right now. And this long-rant-later, if you ask me if I want to start off at that old place all over again, I would still say no.

And today is Friday. And I should be thinking about the things that will happen over the next two days, not things that happened 3 years ago. Weekend is here! Yayy!

Heere ki pehchaan...

I have an idea. Remember morning assemblies back in school? All of us stood in impeccable straight lines and listened to speeches as early as 7 am? And then at the end, we sang songs? ABBA, national anthem, school anthem, house anthem, hymns - all that?

Now what say we have a morning assembly in every office? Every company has a company anthem. Everyone stands in one place, impeccable lines or not, and sings songs at 9 am... What a kickstart that would be, just think about it! And all companies that I ever work for should sing this everyday, except Fridays, when we will sing this instead. And then sometimes some S&G (Homeward Bound.. Mondays of course!).. Sometimes Bob Dylan (Everybody Must Get Stoned.. On days of fire.). There's a whole list of classic rock from the 60's to 80's in my mind that can actually be perfect office anthems. Those men and women were way ahead of their times. Most of their songs make more sense in the world as we know it than the one I see on Fox History. Now to start something of my own. Where someone (read me) will respect all my brilliant ideas :P A genius is never respected in his own time I say.

Hmph! Isn't it Friday yet?

Trivenis revisited... And work and the love of it

Geeli chaadar dhak kar soi
Suukhaa paseena aur pani

Kaam hi aaram hain , sukun kise chahiye

Who am I kidding? Had a serious case of the Monday blues, combined with post holiday blues, and didn't get ANY work done all day. I am only conditioning myself for the long week ahead. Isn't it weekend already? :-|

Why I love my job

... Because I interact with educated (sometimes overly so!) clients, colleagues, and freelancers in Indian and American metropolitans... And freelancers in places as small as Siwan and Purnea and even some places down south and Eastern Europe that I can't spell until I have those location files in front of me...

... And it makes me realise, yet again, that people are different and there's a reason, sometimes not so obvious, why they are the way they are. And if they are different from what I have known and seen for most of my life, they're just that - different. Nothing more. Nothing less. As long they are just different, and not plain lazy.

Here's to patience... My rediscovered, unabated patience. How much I missed it! Let's celebrate :)

... Phir Dekhiye

Aankhon Mein Jisaki Koyi Toh Khaab Hai
Khush Hai Wahi Jo Thoda Betaab Hai
Jindagi Mein Koyi Aarju Kijiye, Phir Dekhiye
Honto Pe Jisake Koyi Toh Geet Hai
Woh Haare Bhi Toh Usaki Hi Jeet Hai
Dil Mein Jo Geet Hai Gunguna Lijiye, Phir Dekhiye

...
...
...

Khaab Buniye Jara, Geet Suniye Jara
Phul Chuniye Jara, Phir Dekhiye

People who knew me during my school and college days will find it difficult to believe what I have become now. How MUCH I want from my life? From my career. How desperate I am to create a niche for myself and not get lost in the crowd of mediocrity. And how desperately I want to do it on my own terms. I don't understand complacence. I probably just refuse to. At the cost of losing my peace of my mind ever so often.

This afternoon I suddenly felt all my worries going up in the air. I may have to work harder, fight it out, constanly look for options where none exist because the joy of finding that elusive option is incomparable... And when I go to sleep at night, I can look back and feel like I have done something worthwhile. And when that feeling is missing, I lose sleep and peace and happiness over it.

I may seem like an extremist (and from what I know of myself, I am really not that). But that's me. I know that it's because there are still people who live by the book that make the economy stable enough for mavericks like me to create a niche. Today I have created my niche (more on this later).

I am ecstatic. Because yet again, living life on my own terms has yielded benefits that even those who live by the book will understand. Yayyy!!! :D :D :D

A thankless week

This is so turning out to be a frustrating week. And supremely thankless. People are unbelievable. Unbelievable laziness, unbelievable jealousy, unbelievable complascence.

I want to sit down and cry my heart out.

All work wise. But when did I ever leave work worries at work?

I am counting hours till Friday evening.

God just let this phase pass. Just let it pass.

Life... Tell It Like It Is Part 1

Just realised... Someone to love, a stiff drink, and good ol' metallica crooning Nothing Else Matters and Turn The Page melt all your uncertainties away.

And brand new offer letters with bigger numbers from places I REALLY belong, help too! :D

Here I am... On the road again

P.S. Totally addicted to blogging all over again. Thanks to the amount of time (in spite of work) I have these days. More on this later ;)

Who says you can't love your boss?

Disclaimer: Let me tell you in so many words that I am quite sure that none of my bosses read my blog. And sending links of a post like the one I am going to write today doesn't quite happen in our world ;) For the record, I am not sucking up. If I could, I wouldn't have reached the stage of having to write/ learn the things that I am.

3 years, 2 full time jobs, and 2 woman bosses. As different as chalk and cheese - both the jobs and the bosses. And yet there has been sooooo much to learn from both!

So my ex-boss was a hardcore perfectionist and a typical "agency boss". She would scream bloody murder and get what she wanted. At the same time she gave people the liberty to scream bloody murder, be politically incorrect, and be their own person as long as what they did was "right". She accepted that that are multiple ways to do the right thing, and as long as the end result was good, you can say what you want and fight as much as you need to. Work became an addiction back then, it was essential to my being. Writing, reading, social life - all took a back seat. I constantly added value to what I did. I learnt not to tolerate inefficiency, inconsistency, and most importantly I learnt how to do the right thing, come hell or high water.

And then I moved. To a new city and a new company. My new boss - yes, again a woman. A mother, a wife, a friend, AND a boss... You know what I mean? :) I have never seen angry, frustrated, or any of those negative things one falls victim to at the workplace. I have had two long, controversial discussions with her in the last 4 months, and in both discussions, she had me at hello. LOL! From her you learn that only so much can go wrong in the 8 hours you spend in office to fret over it after you step out. There's only so much you can even do anything about. It's amazing how she, also from the agency culture that I once belonged to, has adapted. She knows there many ways to do the right thing. But that said, it's amazing how I've been learning from her that there's only ONE way to SAY the right thing. The right way. And I am not exaggerating when I say this - there's an aura of eternal happiness and contentment about her that she passes on to you when you talk to her. She's a very positive person. Not in the cliched "be positive, it'll be alright way". It's more like "take it head on, but don't let it get to you" sort of way. She teaches you the perfect work-life balance. If I can adapt to that idea even by 50%, I will be a much happier person!

Didn't I just say that I have loved all (both is more like it) my bosses? Then what is it that I have been cribbing about so much in the last few days? Stupid me :)