This Hangover called Life

Okay, so I haven’t blogged in a very, very long time, I realize this as I cast a furtive glance at the calendar on my official Outlook mail box at work. Oh no, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I haven’t had much to say, there have been plenty of instances that have occurred in the course of the last two months or so on which I would like to put in my so called poignant cent or two. But then there are months and well then there are January’s that occupy every spare second of your waking hours and leave you with very little time to peruse and participate in things that actually hold some sort of interest to you.

There is no particular, glaring reason why I am writing this on ‘Valentines Day’. Yes, I am single, no I do not exhibit any symptoms of bitterness, cynicism or any other colorful adjective used to described under-sexed and unloved women in their mid-20’s without a significant counterpart, whose close friends are already basking in the glory of holy matrimony or well on their way towards hitting the alter in the near future. This post is definitely not geared towards belittling ‘V Day’ either, I am sure there are plenty of other folks in the blogging world that might be already doing that, instead this is going to be an unnecessarily long, detailed account of what’s rattling my universe, written today purely for the reason that my dear boss will be back to the office on Monday from a ten day long work expedition abroad and who know when next I will find some free time to write at work.

Goa
After wasting away a good ten months being completely wretched, disagreeable and utterly pathetic and miserable, during which I drank myself stupid intermittently, I finally swore on all that was holy and important to me (well that would be me) that I would stop being so goddamn pathetic and melancholy,at least a respectable amount of time.
A vacation is a good a place as any other to make a brand new beginning, and did I make a fantastic start or what!
My dearest friend Em, my traveling companion on this Thelma and Louisesque adventure of self discovery was pleasantly surprised and delighted to see a whole new naughty, carefree, flirtatious side of me. Okay, so it really wasn’t so much of a journey of self discovery as it was letting your hair down and acting like an irresponsible eighteen year old that snogs every alternate guy at the bar. I probably wouldn’t have done half the things I did if Em and D (both in loving, committed relationships) hadn’t put the proverbial gun to my head and extracted a promise out of me that I would have enough fun for the three of us and do all the things they were missing out on. (Have at least three evenly spaced out flings, make out with at least five different boys and consume enough adult beverages to get seven portly men extremely intoxicated.)

I think I may have fallen in love, with the holiday me that is. The holiday me is relaxed, carefree, cheerful and fun! (Gasp!) Her days are filled with lazing on the beach or relaxing by the pool reading a book until all odd hours of the day and diving into the clear blue water and disappearing in-between the waves for unaccounted amounts of time. She knows not what anxiety is, at least for that brief expanse of time. It’s a wonderful feeling when the world seems a whole lot more pleasant and tolerable and the copious amount of giddiness that follows after is truly intoxicating.

January (Still Extremely Hung-over from my vacation Revelry)

Like I said before, there are months and then there are MONTHS that turn your routine upside down. I shamelessly admit that the great, dizzying euphoria from my near perfect vacation accompanied me back to Bombay as I once again embarked upon everyday life. Sure the sights and sounds of smog filled Dadar station crowded with honking cabs and loud, rambunctious cab drivers that tried to swindle the few extra pennies out of you, darkened my mood a tad bit, but even they could only do so much damage.

For the longest time I had the worlds silliest, goofiest, most hugely content smile plastered upon my face that made me look vastly more attractive that I already did, that and I had a fabulous, honey dipped, syrupy, golden hue to my skin.
The world was my oyster and no man too unattainable, I even enjoyed the act for a brief period, until reality finally set in. Some twelve odd formative years in a catholic school embeds you with enough guilt to make you feel culpable for the wrong doings of an entire army of libertines. Every time I steeped out of my door to enjoy a boisterous evening with the buddies, images of the receipt confirming my two hundred dollar payment and my exam date swam before my eyes. What followed was a series of terrifying nightmares, being stuck all alone in an examination room, suddenly forgetting how to comprehend the English language, failing my driving test, it was really awful.

That’s when I realized that my guilt was ultimately too much to grapple with and I must, must dedicate a good chunk of time towards my academic goals. Plus, it’s absolutely no consolation when you realize that your memorization skills aren’t as strong as they previously were, or that you have gotten a tad bit stupid over the years from the lack of adequate, constructive brain activity.

When your paycheck partially comes from your writing abilities, it becomes extremely difficult to find the time or the enthusiasm to peruse any sort of leisure writing, especially when every single coherent brain wave is dedicated towards writing countless press releases, devise “creative” marketing strategies that never see the light of the day and come up with story ideas that ultimately end up in the trash can as just another rejected, useless document. Whenever I feel inspired to write, I am too tired to type, whenever I have enough muscle power to sustain an hour or two of hammering away at the keyboard my mind draws a blank, life is a bitch.

Just when things were trudging along at their usual humdrum pace, I quit my job. Well, almost. I love my job, I truly do, I would shoot myself in the head if I did this for the rest of my life, but for now it works. I have been broke all my life, okay well not exactly broke, but I have never had enough money to over indulgent. So when after more than twelve months my boss refused to discuss my raise I put in my papers. The thought of not being able to afford a trip to Thailand in the summer or pay for my subsequent graduate school applications is enough to make want to pack up and seek my fortune elsewhere.

I won’t get into the messy details. Today, I still hold my job, work for the same money and have probably destroyed all chances of getting a substantial raise in April. But I do have ten days off for my exam!



February (The month of love, but none for me)

I went to a friend’s birthday party last weekend. I won’t lie to you; I looked good, actually I looked great. There was the usually drunkenness and joviality around the house. Of course what seemed like a million pictures at that time were captured as testimony. I am not the most photogenic person in the world, actually that’s a lie, I photograph horribly. For most people the camera adds ten pounds, for me it is nothing short of forty. Instead of looking cute, snazzy and vivacious on my best dressed days; I vaguely resemble the Pillsbury dough boy, soft, round and pudgy, but with boobs.

On the rare instance that I manage to get captured in a decent photograph, which doesn’t make me look like the bloated fortuneteller at the roadside carnival, I save it on all available computers (because you never know which one might crash) and paste it on all my public profiles.
As I was saving the picture on my home computer, my mother who has a rather active, somewhat annoying interest in my social life happened to spy on it and made me display it for her viewing pleasure.
“You look so lovely in it!”
“Thanks mom.”
“It doesn’t make you look fat at all!”
“Yeah I know.” I rolled my eyes in annoyance.
“Look at you, you look pretty! How can guys not fall for you after looking at this?!”
“Ahhh…” I mumbled.
“It’s got to be you. I am sure they are ALL interested. You probably scare them away with your aloofness and unreasonably high expectations.”
“Yeah, that’s probably it, why don't I bring one home next time and you can directly quiz him about his lack of interest in me.” I replied with a chuckle.
“Nothing to laugh about!” Huffed mom in frustration, as she went back to the kitchen.


Today (Self love is the Best Love, no?)
Single and dateless, but I think I will have a good time tonight, probably because I want to. I don’t have to worry about having the perfect hair and makeup and dress or getting rid of the zit on my chin that shows no sign of leaving. I can let my hair down, get sloshed with good friends have a fantastic evening and still have enough time tomorrow to put in a few good quality hours of studying as I have no boyfriend to rush off to and spend “quality” time with.
Life is perfect!

At the brink...

A lot can happen over a short period of time, the clock ticks at its own leisurely pace, making you ache with untold agony for a moment far better than today and yet the cruel hands of the chiming time-piece work at its own accord. You spend each day in humdrum monotony and yet before you know it a long span has passed before you, unknown to your conscious mind. You are somehow in the same place where you first started your frustrated contemplation, yet so much has changed, something’s more subtle than the rest, others enter your life like a force to reckon with.
I have been insanely busy with work, for the first time in a long time; I am actually satisfied in more ways than one. One of my life long dreams may just shape into a lucid reality and I am absolutely stunned and awed at my good fortune. I know that people actively work long and hard to get to a place that I am at. Every conscious moment and effort single handedly focused on his or her dreams and aspirations. I am not strong enough to possess that fierce determination, in fact I am rather frightened to exhibit or even contemplate such fervor. I float in an out of my dreams and nightmares, often lost in thought, spinning tales of a glorious satisfied existence, yet too weak to make it a stark reality. Yet here I am, at this very moment, at brink of a fantastic break that other would kill for. It almost seems unfair to those poor bastards that have tried so hard and yet struggle incessantly. I almost feel like I am unworthy of it, that the success and satisfaction that may come my way at the end of it all seems undeserved. I want to run away from it all, give up mid-way for a continued existence of mediocrity, believing that I don’t deserve better, yet every cell of my being throbs for it.
Although the opportunity was unexpected, I have struggled with it, spending every waking moment shaping a tale that may metamorphoses into a spectacle that may bring unfathomable joy or great shame. Right now I almost disregard the consequences of my actions, they almost seem irrelevant, the process excites it, it gives me the confidence that I have lacked for a while. I know for sure, that I am capable nurturing my desire for story telling, whether it is something that the whole world may marvel some day, or a few indistinct scrawls that may remain hidden in an aging note book away from prying eyes of the world is secondary. I have the capacity to write, that’s good enough for me, at least for now.
Maybe one of the reasons I am so afraid is somewhere deep down within I feel like I don’t really deserve to be happy. Be it love, life or career. I have enough skeletons hidden in my closet that make me shudder in my quietest moments. Acts of intolerable cruelty exhibited on my part under a façade of goodness. For all my lack of faith in God and the universe, I am a firm believer in Karma. Whatever I do be it good or bad is going to affect my existence, in this life. I fear that I have cashed out on my karmic balance and all that remains ahead is great darkness. Every time I close my eyes I can almost imagine being alone forever, it’s frightening and yet somehow comfortable, it’s as if I have almost accepted its inevitability. It’s my punishment for abandoning dad when he got sick, instead of sitting by his bedside and comforting him in his moments of excruciating pain, I selfishly ran away in the arms of “H” to seek my own solace and peace, unsuccessfully. At the end of it all, I managed to ruin two relationships, one that mattered the most and the other that mattered significantly. I was so caught up in my own grief and misery that I failed to notice the misery that I had caused to those around me. Mom was at her bravest, never giving up hope, doing the best that she could to keep him alive, I did not contribute one bit to ease her suffering. I don’t even know what “Mits” was going through, I never bothered to ask, I always thought she was too young to fully comprehend that her father was slowly dying. After all she was only 12, do children really understand these things at such a tender age? I wouldn’t know, I honestly can’t remember what it were like to be 12 once. I was so glad when he moved in with grandma; it was a relief not to have him around all the time, always so angry and melancholy. I was guilty at my relief but glad he was out of sight, yet he always lingered in my mind, still does, after all these years.
I wasn’t there when he died, college has whisked me away to America, I remember walking into my dorm after my uncle gave me the news, I forced a few tears out of me, it seemed like the right thing to do. I felt hollow and empty; my roommate “L” gazed at my ashen face and immediately knew something was wrong; I shed a few more tears as I told her the news. We went to Joe’s room to seek distraction; I stayed for a while but couldn’t sit around for long. I stumbled to the swing outside Adam tower and sat there for a long time, slightly swinging back and forth, my mind completely numb. I walked to the library around midnight, the campus was deserted, I stood in front of the giant gothic entrance admiring the magnificence of its structure in the hue of the tungsten lights. I crawled into bed fifteen minutes later, after setting my alarm clock for my seven thirty class. It was the longest walk that I have ever taken in my life.
I don’t think I ever properly grieved for my father, yet I grieve for him every single day. When I sit across a cute guy at the café, I turn the other way because I don’t feel like I deserve to be attractive to someone else, when I fail to peruse the men that show interest because I don’t think I deserve to ever be loved, when I occasionally kiss my best friend who does not love me, I feel like unrequited love is all I should ever get, when I loose a job or an assignment and meet with failure professionally I almost see it as divine justice. Sometimes I wish so desperately to have just a few more moments with him, just so that I could tell him how much I love him and how incredibly sorry I am.
When I occasionally hear stories of how miserable he was with grandma how she slowly but surely zapped his morale and will to live, I simmer with anger, yet back then I didn’t so much as bat an eyelash in question or protest when he left, relieved that he was out of here.
I am so damn close to almost getting what I want; I am scared that things will fuck up because of my past mistakes, I will once again be punished for my cruelty.
I wish so desperately to know that I am forgiven, that he still loves me, that I deserve all the happiness and success in spite of the errors of my ways, a few answers that I will never get.

On days like this....I wish I was an accountant

If at this very moment I could really kill someone and not have to deal with the repercussion of my violent actions, I certainly would. All moral qualms and reservations that I possess against inflicting mind boggling pain to another human being just got tossed out of the window about a minute and a half ago.
There are generally two kinds of people that ultimately affect the destiny of all humanity, the good and bad bosses. In all my years of indentured servitude that almost always border on slavery these two categories of the human race have severely affected my existence in more ways than one.
I work for a horrid, horrid man. He is inconsiderate, judgmental and all assuming. The mighty messiah of this wretched organization knows it all even though he might know absolutely nothing at all. To be honest I haven’t been miss perfect either, I have made my fair share of mistakes to say the least, but I am no fool, when I know I’ve done something wrong, I always make it a point to note it down and never repeat it twice if I can.
You meet all kinds of people in life; S was quiet and stern and talked only when it was absolutely needed. She walked around the office in her no-nonsense style and conducted meetings with great efficiency and diligence. I loved S, she was the model boss; she is among the few people that inspired me to put in my utmost effort in whatever I did and do it with sincerity. I do aspire to be like her someday. One of the saddest things about leaving New York and Oxford was that I would never get to work with S again. People don’t really change jobs they change bosses.
My winning streak at work ended about six months ago. Here I am in Bombay finally doing the work that I love for a wretched, wretched man that absolutely hates everything I do. I have entirely forgotten what it is like to be appreciated and acknowledged for my efforts. It has all simply come down to counting how many times I don’t fuck up and get yelled at each day. I’m almost convinced each day, precisely by mid-afternoon that I’m completely useless, a sad waste of breathing space and matter, I kick my self in the shin by three pm and try to convince myself otherwise.
Calling someone horrid and disparaging is rather hypocritical on part; I have been guilty of that time and again. But to let ones pre-conceived notions affect every opinion that they form about another human being is so totally unfair!
You know, there is no way of pleasing certain people. This other S falls in that bloody annoying category. I know with great certainty that I am not always right, shit I am the queen of mess-ups, but I know for a fact that I am not always wrong! How can I possibly remotely please someone that thinks I’m a tad bit weird and maybe a little insane?
Am I really all these things? Yeah sure in a way, but really now who isn’t? Our eccentricities are what make us tick as individuals. Sure I have been lost in my own little sad, personal, convoluted universe for the past two months, but ever since I was made to realize the errors of my ways, well at least in the work place, I have been careful enough to stay focused, alert and on the top of my game.
How does one go about fighting the impressions of the past? As the only creatures in existence to be concerned with the consequences of our past deeds, I am in a terrible place. I wish I could just go back, rewind time and convenience S that I’m not crazy, weird or insane. I have a million things to do each day, things that require my utmost attention, things that might slip through the cracks and cause everyone a lot of grief. I make my notes and I re-read them time and again. But alas, I’m no mind-reader, when things do go wrong, which in my life they invariably do, I can’t magically guess it.
If I was blessed with that kind of divinity and intuition I would definitely not choose to be at this place in my life, really who would? So really, when I do ask about a certain thing, it is not my heartfelt intention to nag, pester or annoy, it is merely to remain informed. Will somebody just please tell him that. If and when I do get fired lack of communication will most definitely not be an issue this time around!
When my legacy is discussed long after I have gone, it shall be said time and again that her long, hard walk to disaster was paved with the most excellent of intentions. Everything I do or say turns to shit, when I am hanging between two worlds after my inevitable end I shall ask, no beg St. Peter or whoever it is that is in charge of reincarnation to please make me the slimy moss that grows on the rock at the bottom of the ocean. I can’t stand to be born human, not again. If the gift of humanity entails being unceremoniously tossed time and again, they I’m far better off living a stationary existence.
PS: I'll try to write about happy things next time.

When biology takes over...

Hello, my non-existent readership and fans in the making. Since I have vowed to make more of an effort to write, here I am, two days after my extremely depressing post. Luck for me, I have been blessed with an steely sense of determination by the Almighty. If I ever run into him some day, by some freak accident, I will make sure to thank him for this one. With new found inspiration and divine intervention I have dived into work with renewed energy and wisdom. Personally, I don’t think I ever really lacked it, but now I make it super obvious to those around me.
My attitude went from quietly working and intermettiantly day-dreaming at my desk to-Look, look I am super excited about making a million budgets! Weeding through countless invoices and technical jargon is my new found passion! My personal favorite is going through ALL my old emails and reading them at least three times so that I absolutely capture every single, subtle nuance of it in my mind. I'm so dedicated about what I do that I have even started to contemplate everything including my life as an excel sheet. They wanted questions, consider their wish granted, I have way too many of them floating in my mind anyways, now everyone will know what kind of query is bothering me then and there and it won't be pleasant!
Figuring out things on your own is so overrated anyways!
Seriously though, I have been pretty busy with mountains of work and have been putting in the extra time and effort to smooth things over. This hasn’t stopped me from making some pretty stupid mistakes, but everyone is allowed some slack right? I just hope my boss notices my change of “attitude” and doesn’t fire me for my lack “enthusiasm” or “communication”. I could go on and on, but my fingers are worked to the bone and typing this is taking some serious effort. I just hope that my medical insurance covers Corporal Tunnel (sp?).
I have been rather cheerful since yesterday, for no particular reason. Considering the state of mind that I was in the previous day, this is simply wonderful. Nothing pleasantly out of the ordinary or remotely thrilling has happened that would make me go “yippee” on the inside. Life is chugging along in its routine fashion. There’s work, followed by the gym, followed by some quiet reading time, on the nights that I am home, or a drink or several drinks at Zenzi. There have been no wild, unpredictable, exciting, encounters. Kisses stolen in the dark alley have not tintilated my senses. Mind blowing sex with someone delicious hasn't occured either. In spite of the lack of obvious, visible excitement, I am pleasantly numb. Maybe I have finally learnt to let the simple pleasures in life intoxicate my senses and supply a healthy sense of emotional well-being.
I’m in a superb state of mind after my rigorous workout. Those pheromones or endorphins or whatever it is that is released from exercising does weird shit to the chemical composition of my brain and generally puts in a wonderful, wonderful place! For those few pleasant hours, gone are the feelings of grumpiness, isolation, trouble and melancholy. It’s most definitely better than sex. The only person that needs to be satisfied here is I and I am plenty capable of doing that. The second runner-up would most definitely be masturbation, which is in a league of its own. Sometimes I really wonder why women even bother with men? Practically speaking they serve very little purpose, which really when considered can be satisfied by other means with far greater satisfaction and competence. Maybe I can train myself to not ever need a man while still maintaining my heterosexuality. I would possibly be the only woman in the world to achieve this. Oh the glory and accolades that I would be showered with! The praise and adulation thrust upon me by all of womankind would be simply spectacular.

Restoring the Culture of Faith

Today was a terrible day. I have been utterly and truly upset since about I pm this afternoon. In the grand scheme of things, my problems might seem oh so miniscule and it truly might be a possibility that I’m completely and utterly overreacting but then again, when have I claimed otherwise? You know I’m always somewhat okay about that fact that I have very little love and little money in my shallow coffers, but all this seemed somewhat unimportant because I always have one thing to fall back on. My work. It has always been a wonderful consolation to know that even though everything seemed wrong and utterly unfair at the moment, I always had my job that made life meaningful.
I still remember the day when I fell in love with the movies, how could I possibly ever forget? The unexplainable surge of pure job that filled my heart when I saw the mesmerizing visual poetry manifest before my eyes gave my life a whole new meaning. It was at that moment that I for the first time discovered the purpose of my life. I had to be a part of this magnificent process, in what capacity was irrelevant. All I knew was that I must some how be a part it, for the happiest I have been is when I have been watching a film.
Here I am five years later, working in the movie industry, truly utterly enjoying every moment of. My job very much defines who I am, it’s not work, and it’s my life. At the end of a terrible or for that matter even a great day, what I look forward to most is loosing myself for just those precious few hours in someone else’s life. Their joys thrill me to no end and their heartbreak and sorrow make me weep in empathy. I embark upon fantastic adventures through the magic of the silver screen and fall in love time and again through epic everlasting romances manifested in the movies. Everything that I have always wanted to do or see I have, though the movies. Imagine my pleasure when I finally got my dream job, which allowed me to be a part of this fantastic machine.
Imagine my complete heartbreak today when my boss calls me in his cabin today and tells me that he feels like I’m not making a valuable contribution to the organization. The last thing that I’ve ever wanted to do was work a nine to five; if this were to be the course of my destiny then I would have been a clerk or an accountant. I would have been my mother whose work has always been a means to an end and not her passion or her purpose in life. I was horrified, I was traumatized, and I was devastated. My boss felt that I have had a communication gap with the rest of my team members, which has affected my productivity. This isn’t entirely wrong-hey at least I have the guts to admit when I’m at fault, well somewhat anyways. I have been truly and utterly self-absorbed in the intricate workings of my life; I was depressed for weeks, maybe months. I have been completely lost within myself, reflecting, thinking, internalizing, brooding, being disconnected from the outside world, conversing very little with those around. Unfortunately I spend a good chunk of my day and work, since most of my thinking and internalizing happens at work, yes I know I have come off as somewhat hostile and un-approachable. But for fuck say to say that I’m not passionate about films and what I do especially when I love it so is sheer blasphemy. The cheery on this shit cake would be my boss saying that I need to express my passion for my work more say like hmmm T is absolutely irritating.
In order to show that I love what I do I need to jump around like an idiot, scream yell, criticize everyone else, spout out random ideas that may or may materialize, loudly complain that no one really gets me and generally act like a five year old. Ah, yeah not really my style, but I’ll give being visibly passionate a chance instead of internalizing it like everything else.
I know I’m wrong, I should have been careful enough to not come off as hostile, spent more time asking questions and not assuming that everyone works independently and autonomously like I do. But by no way or means have I ignored my responsibilities or treated my job as an unnecessary chore. On the contrary I have been working really hard, hence the utter disappointment, shock and internal flood of tears when A told me that he has very little faith in me.
I’m a novice to the Indian working environment, all my adult working years, until now of course, I have worked overseas. I’m not used to the Indian working model which comprises of pretty much kissing everyone’s ass, asking your seniors unnecessary questions to make the feel knowledgeable and ultimately consulting them even before I feel like farting to make them feel superior. I’ll keep this in mind next time I head to work to prevent another disaster like today; after all I have another “review” in a month. I need to restore their faith, whatever that means…