why am i here??
I am a self acclaimed lucky, young girl living in the fastest city in India-Mumbai. I have the freedom to do anything I want, good parents, good education, friends, ..decent job, money..phones, laptop..and other little things that are supposed to make life easy.
And yet, I feel incomplete, insecure, restless, a peculiar combination of feeling overworked and underworked at the same time..oxford does not have a word for that as of now..or may people call it "confusion". And to add this, sometimes i dont feel anything at all..There is no sense of accomplishment..no pride..nothing that would make you feel top of the world.
everyday i sleep restlessly with the knowledge that the day that has just passed..was just another day of running here and there, completing(or at least pretending to complete) tasks assigned to you, arguments, misunderstandings..
So what am I supposed to do? was i born to do these things day after day and one fine day pass the baton to my offspring and die(peacefully???) what exactly is the purpose?
where is life headed to? better jobs, fatter packages, bigger homes, more and more clothes, eventually marriage and childern..? what is that one thing that can make me feel complete, what is that one thing, which, when i achieve, i will stop complaining..??
where do i let out my energy, my ideas, hear my heart beat and feel the pulse in the air??
why is that i feel i can do so many things at a time and yet i am bound to my chair morning to evening?
Monday, September 29, 2008
Mumbai Meri Jaan
what a week it has been!!
Just the other week, I was feeling restless over having nothing "happening" in my life. To top it I watched the movie "Mumbai Meri Jaan" and ended the week on a rather introspective note.
I was blissfully unaware that up above somebody had scheduled a roller coaster, exhausting week for me and Sharada (my friend and room mate).
It all started nearly a month ago when both of us decided to shift our accomodation to a house of more comfortable size.
we informed our flatmate Anita about the same .I was happy that we finally made our mind to get rid of her. we consulted an estate agent, who showed us a house, and we fixed it immediately.
We paid him the "token" along with PDCs for deposit (dated for 1st of Sept) and
11 months rent. We spent the rest of the days (till 28 Aug) in nondescript activities which ultimately led to the "why am i here" writing the week before.
29 Aug - 1) I contact the estate agent. he assures me that every thing will go smoothly and we will be able to shift on 31st.
2) Anita tells us in the night that we will be required to pay 10 days rent for Sept, since we told her on the 10th of Aug. (Talk about logic!!)
30 Aug - 1) I start to call my agent to enquire about the vacation of the house, whitewash and other things promised to us. But this guy suddenly vanishes. We panic but reassure ourselves that there is time and he must have been busy.
31 Aug - 1) The bomb is dropped. I and sharada get the shock of our lives when the agent (who reappears as smoothly as he disappeared), tells us that the we will get possession of the house not before 3rd Sept. Various unbelievable bolywoodish reasons are supplied to us.
For the first time we come to know that there are 3 agents involved in this fiasco and that our agent is the dumbest of all!! (Talk about luck!!). All three of them were struggling to resolve their misunderstandings and rent the same flat to two (about to be poor) fellows.
2) Enter, an army guy, working with Reliance ( Talk about versatality!!), the tenant staying ( actually oversatying), in our much fought for "new flat". He explains that he has not yet received his deposit. He vows not to leave till the money enters his account. The owner vows not to give him the money till the army guy vacates the house and hands over the keys. ( Well, talk about deadlock!! Databases anybody??)
1 Sept - 1) The bomb is dropped again.Anita tells us in the night that she spoke to the owner of the house and he explained to her his logic of tenancy and that she wants us to pay the entire rent for Sept, whether we stay or not.(Talk about Illogic!!)
2) I and Sharada get abusive(sort of, we actually vowed to learn a few dirty
words and reserve them for the next time!!) with the agents, we get panicky as our cheques get deposited to the owner's a/c.
I mean picture this..We paid the money, we gave our "notice" or whatever it is to Anita, the rent agreement with Police NOC is ready and yet we dont get the house!! ( Talk about helplessness!! )
3) The night is spent explaining to Anita that she is acting mad and that we in the end will be forced act like her ( what ever that means!!)if she insists that we pay the whole rent for the old house. I could not help but remember the witty film Khosla ka Ghosla and that night I spend in making sinister plans to counter ANita's.
2 Sept - 1) We are literally after the lives of our "3" agents and the army man. We start to cook all sorts of stories in desperation and he finally relents. He vacates the flat (ooof!!!).At the end of the day, I am given a worn out key to a flat that is white washed at Guiness record speed.
So yes... we finally moved in on 3rd Sept, but the game is not over( read Anita). A lot has come out of this experience and a lot has been lost too.
1) Estate agents and house owners believe that money grows on the trees for Engineers(especially the unmarried lot).
Sure I and sharada earn handsomely, but does that mean any sum can be demanded from us? All your desparate pleas of not being able to afford does not make a difference to anybody.I dont know how, but there has to be an end to this menace.
2) Even if you have all documents in place, even if you are legally entitled to have a thing, nothing is guarenteed. You can still end up on the footpath.No body is reliable in Real Estate. They simply dont know fair deals.
3)Losing -- I and Sharada spent 2 sleepless nights wondering how could Anita be so rude to us despite the fact that we have never had a single altercation in 2.5 yrs.So we lost a lot of sleep and Anita lost her character and the little bit respect that Sharada had for her.With her act my ex room mate's education, morals, decency, etc has gone right out of the window. Its awful she cannot understand when and where not to apply software logic. I feel awful too because I still have to deal with her.
In the end, I cant help humming the song..zara hatke zara bachke ..yeh hai bambai meri jaan..
Just the other week, I was feeling restless over having nothing "happening" in my life. To top it I watched the movie "Mumbai Meri Jaan" and ended the week on a rather introspective note.
I was blissfully unaware that up above somebody had scheduled a roller coaster, exhausting week for me and Sharada (my friend and room mate).
It all started nearly a month ago when both of us decided to shift our accomodation to a house of more comfortable size.
we informed our flatmate Anita about the same .I was happy that we finally made our mind to get rid of her. we consulted an estate agent, who showed us a house, and we fixed it immediately.
We paid him the "token" along with PDCs for deposit (dated for 1st of Sept) and
11 months rent. We spent the rest of the days (till 28 Aug) in nondescript activities which ultimately led to the "why am i here" writing the week before.
29 Aug - 1) I contact the estate agent. he assures me that every thing will go smoothly and we will be able to shift on 31st.
2) Anita tells us in the night that we will be required to pay 10 days rent for Sept, since we told her on the 10th of Aug. (Talk about logic!!)
30 Aug - 1) I start to call my agent to enquire about the vacation of the house, whitewash and other things promised to us. But this guy suddenly vanishes. We panic but reassure ourselves that there is time and he must have been busy.
31 Aug - 1) The bomb is dropped. I and sharada get the shock of our lives when the agent (who reappears as smoothly as he disappeared), tells us that the we will get possession of the house not before 3rd Sept. Various unbelievable bolywoodish reasons are supplied to us.
For the first time we come to know that there are 3 agents involved in this fiasco and that our agent is the dumbest of all!! (Talk about luck!!). All three of them were struggling to resolve their misunderstandings and rent the same flat to two (about to be poor) fellows.
2) Enter, an army guy, working with Reliance ( Talk about versatality!!), the tenant staying ( actually oversatying), in our much fought for "new flat". He explains that he has not yet received his deposit. He vows not to leave till the money enters his account. The owner vows not to give him the money till the army guy vacates the house and hands over the keys. ( Well, talk about deadlock!! Databases anybody??)
1 Sept - 1) The bomb is dropped again.Anita tells us in the night that she spoke to the owner of the house and he explained to her his logic of tenancy and that she wants us to pay the entire rent for Sept, whether we stay or not.(Talk about Illogic!!)
2) I and Sharada get abusive(sort of, we actually vowed to learn a few dirty
words and reserve them for the next time!!) with the agents, we get panicky as our cheques get deposited to the owner's a/c.
I mean picture this..We paid the money, we gave our "notice" or whatever it is to Anita, the rent agreement with Police NOC is ready and yet we dont get the house!! ( Talk about helplessness!! )
3) The night is spent explaining to Anita that she is acting mad and that we in the end will be forced act like her ( what ever that means!!)if she insists that we pay the whole rent for the old house. I could not help but remember the witty film Khosla ka Ghosla and that night I spend in making sinister plans to counter ANita's.
2 Sept - 1) We are literally after the lives of our "3" agents and the army man. We start to cook all sorts of stories in desperation and he finally relents. He vacates the flat (ooof!!!).At the end of the day, I am given a worn out key to a flat that is white washed at Guiness record speed.
So yes... we finally moved in on 3rd Sept, but the game is not over( read Anita). A lot has come out of this experience and a lot has been lost too.
1) Estate agents and house owners believe that money grows on the trees for Engineers(especially the unmarried lot).
Sure I and sharada earn handsomely, but does that mean any sum can be demanded from us? All your desparate pleas of not being able to afford does not make a difference to anybody.I dont know how, but there has to be an end to this menace.
2) Even if you have all documents in place, even if you are legally entitled to have a thing, nothing is guarenteed. You can still end up on the footpath.No body is reliable in Real Estate. They simply dont know fair deals.
3)Losing -- I and Sharada spent 2 sleepless nights wondering how could Anita be so rude to us despite the fact that we have never had a single altercation in 2.5 yrs.So we lost a lot of sleep and Anita lost her character and the little bit respect that Sharada had for her.With her act my ex room mate's education, morals, decency, etc has gone right out of the window. Its awful she cannot understand when and where not to apply software logic. I feel awful too because I still have to deal with her.
In the end, I cant help humming the song..zara hatke zara bachke ..yeh hai bambai meri jaan..
Soul soup
16-Sep-08
Human mind is biased, pretentious, easily influenced, masked, sometimes alarmingly negative.
The mind works in a routine way. I am saying this because most of the times my mind works that way and also because i hv observed people in this regard.I met this guy when he joined the infamous WebPDM team. I immediately labelled him a dud. My
analysis was pure.Simple.Very convenient. He looked like that!! I never treated him with an ounce of seriousness. He cannot hear well and I cared the least.
But life is strange. It plans well. It changes course when it feels enough is enough, this girl needs some lessons, needs to experience and learn from it. So i and this dud landed in the same sub team. i had to help him out in any technical
problem he faced, which made me cringe. Unfair, i thought, to make me sit with a sweaty, stinking fellow, who needs to be explained everything loudly and mutiple times over.And hence began our association, with me throwing tantrums, I showed hell of an attitude.I really dont know if he remembers this, because he never complained.Thank god he did'nt. I was assigned to deal with him, now when i look back it was pretty much the other way round, emotionally.
Over a period of time, I mellowed down. Listened to him more than before. I started to ask him to help me out in certain issues. Stopped cribbing (big deal!!). Its an amazing transformation. I no longer see his quiteness as a flaw. I find it refreshing sometimes.
I mustered enough courage to tell him that he should change his toothpaste and that he should consider using a deo. His response was "arrey tho pehle bolna tha naa". The readiness to correct one's flaws(physical or otherwise) is a damn tough thing to do and i really admire him for that.
He decided to tell me his story from the time he could remember.
Its a privelege, i would say. If one trusts you to an extent that one volunteers to share his/her innermost thoughts,feelings, difficulties, then you can go treat yourselves because you have been good to one fellow human being. Its a responsibility.
So one fine evening we met up at CCD and it took a good 3 hrs as he gave me his life's best kept secrets, feelings, insecurities, ups and downs. It is an unbelievable tale of sheer grit, determination, goodness, success, of faith in an image of god tht he found on a dusty road.
His life's account made me nervous because i dont know how i would have handled or if at all i could handle a physical disablity, a crunch in financial resources, all at a time.
It made me feel ashamed because the person I labelled a "dud" was actually an immensely responsible man. He has always kept an account of his expenses, to this day, which shows he has a calculative mind with the understanding of where he is required to divert his money.
It made me feel thankful to god, my parents for giving me a life as this.
It taught me to never evaluate a fellow human being solely on the basis of appearance and
tht there is a purpose behind every creation in this universe.
It made me realize tht each human being is born to do different things and their
personalities develop in accordance with tht. So it was unwise of me to expect him to revolt or shout or be aggressive at the drop of a hat.It is unwise of me to think he can behave like me.
It made me think of my perception of the human mind. The mind certainly does not deserve the adjectives i used when i started off. Its the environment around us, the education, the values, that are biased, pretentious, easily influenced, alarmingly negative.Once we tune our mind to break free from these hindrances, once we fight the fear, we will realize that the mind has the greatest power of all.
It made me feel small..he certainly towers over me.
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