Since 01.12.2003

Today is the sixth anniversary of our togetherness. As I sit here writing this post, she is asleep coping with headache. Well, I never planned to write this. I had planned to be there with her. Time and fate took the better off me. And now I am in deep pain and guilt. I was the one who had planned it. And I had to be the one to call off the trip. It had to be me and it had to be reasons from my life. And it had to be my love.

My Dear God, Love deserves a bit more……

The Walk-ins

Had planned to attend two walk-in events and so I did. I overcame the barrier of getting up early and was there right at the time. The first one was a fluke, as I was turned back with an explanatory note saying sorry regarding a miscommunication in the local daily as to requirement and matching skills. I headed for the second one though reluctantly. I had to put my efforts o some good use. I reached there, was warned that I won’t be getting the expected remuneration and waited for three and half hours and on my turn, I was asked about my career background, why I left my first employer, what issues are there for me with my present employer and my expectations regarding the remuneration. I was assured that I would be getting a call for an interview and I came back home. I had expected that I would be undergoing at least one round of interviews and that it would be a good thing to start with interview questions with minimal preparations. Alas, things were planned differently. Anyways, tomorrow I am headed for a jumbo job fair and I have one employer in there looking for my skills. Hope it works in my favor.

As I was seated at the second event, I saw two typical habits at display which almost always pisses me of. One being, a group, discussing questions and theories and in the process adding on to the pressure of many around them, the second being exactly that particular group of people who are already tensed and sitting there with ample notes and books in hope to give them the knowledge that, according to them, has eluded them so far. Both of these scenarios work pretty fine for me. I find them entertaining and I really hope that I get to video them someday and have it here on display for all of you awesome bloggers. I still remember, anxious faces waiting while praying, with bottles of water, bags of books and Tiffin boxes supposed to contain high energy memory boosters, for their siblings aged twenty plus to come out of exams. It always looked like a war to me. I never felt the dominance of nerves and normalcy. I also do think that those eager experienced souls never understand the image they paint in those tender minds when they do so. I wish, they had been a bit more understanding and normal.

I was really lucky in these regards. I had parents as opposed to the normal masses who cared not for my studies and results but for my health. That is certainly understandable considering that I had a major heart operation at the age of ten but still, when your parents force you to take Arts or Commerce instead of science in the +2 just because the load and pressure would be more, which is news in India. For me, it certainly was. I liked and disliked it. I liked it because it enabled to focus on my actions and understand that it was me who would be solely responsible for my actions and hated it because it was unique and too different from what was all around me. Sometimes, I too wanted that when I call them up, a voice pushes me to study harder and excel.

Well, presently am sad because my love is sitting there, all alone and watching a movie, when her exams has just finished. Wish I would have been there to be with her. That is all from me and below is a pic which I liked a lot(wish we both were there together) and my blog seems to my mortal existence, to be the most deserving place to have it. So below goes that one…..

Finally....its a bit sunny

Oh man….my last post was my 50th one. I never knew that. I had thought once or twice as to how I could make it different. But, I am not creative. Having known that, it was easy to discard the idea. Anyways, my last post was about thanksgiving and hence, it somehow turned out different.

Tomorrow I shall officially start my job search era and I am waiting with trepidation as to what happens. I am not prepared but I always have believed that no one can read it all and go and clear the interview. There are in fact two things which I always hold very highly when it comes to career and interview. Firstly, a career can never be made howsoever you try, it just happens the way it is supposed to be. And secondly, an interview is always simple: if you fuck me, i am out and if I fuck you, I am in. My hopes are neither high nor are they down a drain. But yes, I am happy because it had to begin somewhere. And it has begun. I just pray that if I get thrown out, I take that positively and have the courage to make so good out of it.

And for a difference, tomorrow also marks my first weekend when I no longer need to go to the office. This comes after a six weeks menace which has drawn me the attention and concern of everyone I know. Though I don’t know how it turns up starting the next week, it is really very hard not to feel happy or enjoy when you get two days off after fourty-five days of work.

Nez…all of you….will update you how and where it went……till then, if you happen to read this, just pray for me.

Happy Thanksgiving Day

Since my childhood, I have longed for the Christmas. It certainly had got to do everything with the Santa Clause concept. In India, back then, it was just a concept. Now a day, at places you might see a Santa doing his job during that period of the year, thanks to IT industry and the global connectivity. I always wanted to believe in those stories. I feel good when it’s Christmas and that is one of the reasons I loved watching Polar Express apart from the fact that Tom hanks had his voice in it. I still hold onto a wish that someday I will celebrate this day in the states, where it feels more real, with my love. And as I have grown up, thanks to my movie mania, I have added two more to the list: Halloween’s day and the Thanksgiving Day. But sadly, I don’t share the same passion as my friends (majority of them) share. I never want to go to “onsite” as it is termed in this industry. Last year I narrowly escaped thrice, going to the states on account of not having a passport and there was no one to share my joy with. My manager made me apply for one and the first day of this year, 1st Jan 2009, I received my passport. Thanks again to higher management for shifting me altogether to a new business unit with no immediate scopes of an official states visit, I can stay happily here. I don’t have anything particular against going there except that I don’t know anyone there and that I don’t want to go far off to a land separated by huge figures from my love and parents. And I also don’t have the dollar mania which my friends have. I could never understand the craziness some of them have shown regarding the concept. There are ample here who literally die for going there. And it has become so common in this work culture that one has to admit that it is inevitable. So, I must say, I am lucky here.

Love of seeing places and working in an altogether different environment are understandable but not to the extent that I start looking for a new job just to have a trip to the states. Neither can I see the point in going there and trying to save dollars and wasting a visit which could otherwise have been turned awesome, nor can I get the craziness which drives all of it. To explain a bit more, the day someone lands in there, you can see his albums getting updated not with scenic pictures but with him as an extraordinary achiever posing for god-knows-what. And the society here seems to be kinder to such people too. Personally, on the work front over the last three and a half years time I am yet to see a professional deserving enough of a visit or the benefits. Nez……am tiered. Who cares….!!!

Nothing has changed for me. I still inhabit my workplace for more than twelve hours a day and it is seventh week in a row and am still waiting for a day off. I don’t have clothes left and my stuffs are all over. I don’t have time to wash. I don’t have time to go to the laundry. My present concern is to get my mobile recharged so that somehow I can stay in touch. My internet usage is strictly restricted to mails and job search. I am trying desperately for a job. I guess we fall to rise and the deeper we fall, the higher we rise and I am taking all shit my work life has to offer, believing and reiterating to myself this very same fact. Rest…onto time….

And lastly, very happy thanksgiving day to all my readers….

Accidents

On Saturday when I reached office, I got to know that someone sitting on the second floor has died on the spot when he met with an accident where in a bus ran over him. He was heading for a cricket match which he was about to play regarding a tournament my organization had planned. He was into his second year at work. And the next day, Sunday, I got to know that my project lead who had taken a day off to visit his sick parents, survived a bus accident. The driver was on his cell phone and so was the driver of the approaching truck. The hit each other for a split second and both tried moving it the other way and the bus hit a tree. The glasses shattered and many a faces were smeared with thick instant blood. He had his luck and he survived when four other were rushed to an emergency. And after these tales, I headed for a live event quite unknowingly when at twelve in the night I took a break and planned a coffee. I was sitting there talking to friend overseeing a road curve and as we were engrossed into the minutes of your daily crisis at work, a Skoda speeded by. Into a small distance, it lost control and was about to hit blindly into the wall when it somehow turned back onto the centre and hit a bike and sped off. The biker was thrown away and as it was to be, he didn’t even got a scratch. He was lucky. And whenever I hit upon such things around me, I can never forget the Sunday morning when one of my closest friends had called me up from Kolkata to inform that his elder brother had met with an accident. He and his group were having morning tea after a tiring night at work when, a few meters away a high way heavy vehicle took a turn and slipped sideways and skidded all the way to the shop. Three were able to jump off sideways but the other two were in the front and the overturned vehicle took them all the way to a nearby tree and smashed them. They didn’t die. One got all his shoulder bones broken and the other, my friend’s brother, got his pelvic bones smashed. The guy with the shoulder injury recovered in a year but my friend’s brother has undergone more than twenty critical surgeries and is still critical. Rest aside the fact that his career is lost somewhere in that tea, it is already more than three years and he still struggles to walk.

These always pose a few questions to me and I never could get the better of it. Why do they happen? Is it a predefined fate which one has to encounter or is it someone paying for someone’s negligence and ways which would have happened for the best, as it is supposed to turn out as in near future? What thrill can speed provide at the cost of life and loss? Why do people try multithreaded tasks when they are not synchronized to execute? Can someone ever fight fate? If something predefined really exists, what hope do I have in defining it differently? Why does death differ in forms and content? And lastly, if I am the listener or the viewer, what is it that I am supposed to take from it?

Hopes += Hopes;

One of my closest buddies is here for official training on a product related to his arena of work. And his stay is planned till the end of this month which gives me a good reason to be happy and have some memorable times. And I felt bad thinking about it standing in front of my office at one in the morning of Sunday when my work or Saturday came to an end. I had planned out a mid-night dinner at a famous outlet which specializes in cravings of late night foodies. Sadly it didn’t happen and called him up at twelve to tell him about my state of affairs. Its him to day. Otherwise it would have been my love who longs and waits and asks and texts and finally goes to greet her dreams alone. My life has become humorously pathetic. No weekends and no leaves. Additionally we are supposed to stretch and make things work. I have worked under stringent conditions and in much more demanding projects earlier too but never had I seen such a never ending slog in my way.

Anyways, I am here and I have to do it. Time is running for me. A year and presently it looks like I have a shift to make at work and give my GMAT and apply before August ’10. I leave onto time to make things clearer. And I sincerely pray to god that my anniversary visit to my love doesn’t get hampered. And secondly I hope that am able to get some time to read to brush up my technological skills. And thirdly I hope that I get some time to spend with my friend here as my heart and my cam awaits it eagerly. And fourthly, my exercise sessions on every alternate days doesn’t stop and am able to keep my momentum. So many……that’s my life and me.

The 1st day of...

I never had perseverance. And I am god-like when it comes to procrastination. I have countless tales from the last 26 years to prove them and I have applied them to every corner of my life. And the corner I am presently concerned about is exercising. I wasn’t born fat. I became fat. That was again not my fault. I had undergone a heart operation which pushed my parents beyond any imaginable limits of care. Certain steps were taken to ensure that I didn’t have any physical activities to be done. A maid used to carry my bags to and from the school and my evenings, when every other kid around was busy and lost into sports, were usually spent painting or sleeping. The results were strikingly disastrous by the time when I really started caring about my shapes.

My first take on exercising happened in the college when I used to learn steps from aerobic programs being telecasted in the national television and I would close my room pretending to be reading and would try them out. Somehow I managed drastic changes. With my diet under my constant scrutiny and my secret well kept inside my room with me, I had lost more than twenty kilos in four months. I was good for the world and to me too.

My four years at engineering was marred with habits which included four-five boozing assignments a week and I had developed a love for chicken and eggs by then. A Garfield fan that I was, I was no better than a potato-couch. I was the lazy king of my lot and making me move was beyond the logical capability of any soul around. I have many things which I wanted to do as a kid. Martial Arts used to be one of them. Engineering gave me the freedom and opportunity to have it in my life. I was there, practicing one month and taking a break of two or more. Eventually my teacher over there happened to like me for my reason that I always would go back after a break and though his passion never deterred, my physique surely did. Things worsened in the final year and obesity had taken over me again. I had gained those kilos again.
I got started with my job and within a few months which I took to convince me that I really needed to exercise, I started hitting the GYM. That was the worst thing I could have done. I would go in for two days and something practical like client deliverables or a row with my love over phone or a lazy morning would break it. The make and breaks continued. The longest that I can remember to have stuck at the GYM was around twenty days last winter when I would somehow manage things inside me and get out there. I visited my home place and a gap of seven days was enough for me to be a failure again.

I firmly believe that the things you get are the ones which you want, badly. My people kept on telling me about my positive slope of increments dimensionally and I kept on listening. That was all I could have done. It wasn’t a time to act. But today, starting a few weeks, I have this voice which agrees to what they said. It feels to me like I really want it this time and that I would make miles before I give up. And today I spent my first morning at it. I still don’t know how many I would be able to manage. Only time will tell how badly I wanted it this time……

So Tired...

I feel so tiered. And I feel some new changes in me. It’s nearing three weeks and nothing has changed at my work. The pressure and load is still there. Weekends have been removed from the schedule. Quite often, a single work day comes to an end by the morning of the next day. I am alive deprived of sleep, peace, my laptop, games, and those long calls which I normally have at night with my love. It’s been a long time since I was able to post or read some. I am in a motion and I fear that the day I stop and take a day break, I might never be able to gain this pace. I am working for what I know not. Seeing others taking the credit of what I do seems normal and the right thing to happen. A voice inside me says “go there and get screwed. You deserve it”. I can’t see any options ahead. Sometimes it makes sense to hang on for some more weeks and breathe in hope that things will better and sway on my side of GMAT/MBA plans. And sometimes I feel its time to make a move ahead. I wonder if I should really think of a back up plan. It’s very hard to work without a break or life. And it’s even harder when you work amongst fools. Sadly, Monday’s aren’t tough anymore and neither are Sunday evenings hard on my soul. They just aren’t there.

My favorite reality show (Roadies 7.0) kicks off for this season today. I still remember the last time when I was so eager to participate. I filled up the form and I was the only one I guess who didn’t have a passport and a driving license. Especially the latter one certainly makes me a singular case considering my gender aged 27. Nothing much has changed in that regard inspite of the constant push I get from my love. I still don’t have a license but I do have a passport now. This year I didn’t feel like going for it. Now it feels as if I have grown over these things. They seem childish and stupid and more so when they expect me to ask my friends to vote for me via sms. The way it used to happen, with masses pulling the gates down at the auditions and Mr Raghu Ram banging his head and screaming feels to me as the best way it should happen always. Further, the man himself is missing this season. I don’t think the show would register the same heights it has achieved in the past. The passion might be there, but the content is gone. No Raghu, No Roadies.

My sixth anniversary of proposing her is here if you can ignore the twenty something days in between. It looks to me like we will be together. But I need to improve my chances by not thinking about it much. Plans never work.

Presently I want to enjoy this rusty feeling inside. I want every cell of my body and brain know that I am depressed and tired. It feels great in a way to get submerged in an emotion or a feeling. Someday it will change. The more I get lost in here, the sweeter shall be the day when I come out.

This is my first post from my workplace. I feel elated. Posting always makes me feel that ways. It unarguably is a gifted channel to drain your mind and sometimes….soul. I am in since the last four hours and others are yet to turn up. Still don’t know how long the day is going to be. Hope what I am facing in here, turns out to be of some good someday.