Deathly Promise

The last two years of my life have been a lot of fun and equally a lot of pain. A lot of gain and an equal amount of loss. Loss as in, God took away four really dear people of mine. My paati (grandma), Vimala Medicals uncle, Srilakhsmi’s Amma (mother) and Krishna (my tall producer-boy in Bloomberg). And there were these other people who vanished from Earth and their vanishing acts (I really don’t want to use the D word here, please) is something I am still not able to come to terms with. And now as I am writing this blog, there’s one more that’s just happened right outside my house. My neighbour. The guy whom I never liked much. I always found him appalling, you know that leachy types. And I had to pass by the moron’s house every single day, until this morning. Since hate is an extreme word, I always disliked him. Maybe even now I don’t like him.

So why is it tough for me to come to terms with his end, you may ask. Well, despite him being leachy and all, he was like that guard for me and my sister in our colony. Yes, his stares were creepy, and he did look leachy, I always knew he was safe and my sister and I will be safe as long as we were under his radar. He was some sort of protection. That’s one reason why I can’t come to terms with that fact that the guy is not going be outside my house this morning.

But there is more to it. I hear the ambulance that is bringing him back to his house and I also hear his wife cry. Amma just told me that the guy got married to this girl whom he was seeing for eight long years a few weeks ago. And he told my Appa that he looks forward to a new life with his wife, that he is mending his ways. I hear his wife scream again. I stopped punching my keyboard for a minute. Why on Earth should God take him away now? Especially when there’s this new woman in his life; a woman to whom her husband matters more than her father or mother or any other relationship. Especially when the guy has taken a vow to live a new life?

Yes, he’s going to have a new life in heaven (/hell, because on a few occasions even I have told him that his place in hell is reserved and what if God took me serious this time) tomorrow. God should have just let him life on Earth, with his wife, as my protective leachy neighbour.

I am really upset, and I don’t think I will come to terms with this soon.  But most importantly, that old question surfaces in my head again, and this time I feel extremely guilty. Why do we have to fight at all? Life; it’s the shortest thing that any living being has to be cognisant of. It is the most unpredictable thing as well. So when life is this short and only God knows what will happen the next minute, why must I pick a fight and spoil relationships and fight and end up hating the person. Why can I not just let things be the way they are and live a peaceful moment. These fights over whatsapp, facebook, phone calls, coffee shops, dinner table etc. Really why?

When Amma got to know about our neighbour, she hugged me tightly and said “sorry, I won’t fight with you anymore”. Same pinch Ma, I won’t fight with you too. I am going to give up fighting with you and Appa and Harinyi and all my friends. I know you all care for me and I must not fight with you. And even with those who don’t quite care for me, as there’s no reason to fight at all. Thank you, neighbour. But for you I won’t have taken this promise. After all, life is this short.

I hope to find love.  I hear his wife scream once again. Can’t write anymore. And since God only knows what will happen the next minute, I hope to see you all this morning. Good night. Lots of love, little H. 

Let the young ones be let to live

(Please note: I love the human race in general. I do not have favoritism towards one clan or hatred towards another) 

Even before I could get out of my bed today, I decided to spend the entire morning with a cup of hot chai and The Hindu. Wish I had followed this order. Instead I picked up The Hindu first only to spot this very cute little kid.

I love his eyes, could not take my eyes off him. Very sweet kid, but what is he doing in an army camp and what is he doing on the front page of The Hindu. My eyes moved to the next photograph.

This one was intense. It is obvious that the kid was in some deep thoughts. I love his innocence and then as I continued reading I was confused. Should I empathise with this child or shut the paper and say he got what he deserved? After all, there was not an iota of sympathy in me when Afzal Guru and Ajmal Kasab were hanged to death. I still fail to understand why this nation is making such a hue and cry that Afzal Guru’s family was not given a chance to be with him at the time of his execution. Well, families of the nine people who died in the Parliament attack were not given a chance to see the faces of their loved ones before they could die. Their wives did not know that 13 December 2001 was the last time they were going to see their husbands. Anyway, TV channels and their ways of working; we shall deal with this later. Coming back, there was not an iota of sympathy in me even when this small boy’s father was shot down by the Sri Lankan army. But why shoot down this boy and that too in a very wicked way, exactly like how a butcher chops off a goat’s head. Give the child biscuits and water and also five bullets down his chest.

I gulped down the chai more like a matter of habit. I was quite numb from inside, so it didn't matter if that liquid had the right sugar or it was hot. I sort of broke down, couldn't concentrate much on work and the boy’s face was haunting me, over and over again. He would have grown up to be a sweepingly handsome young man. But the Sri Lankan army thought he would grow up to become a handsome and angry young man capable of revenging his father’s death. Fair enough and that is after all what we see in movies, and it happens in real life and it can happen with this little boy too. I do not doubt that. But he was just twelve years old; just that old enough to be moulded into a good human being.

The army could have put in rehabilitation centre, even somewhere outside of Sri Lanka, if that country did not have one. But instead they choose to kill him. Is this world in dearth of people of who can spread love, who can teach love? We don’t have the courage and the confidence and the willingness to change a small boy, to teach him how to love people, and who can love him enough so that he doesn’t grow up with a sense of revenge. But we have all the people who can celebrate Valentine’s Day with pomp and show. And hey, this Valentine’s, I got several moral science lectures about how V-Day is not just about celebrating the love between a man and a woman and that it is about love in every form of the word. Depressing.

Let us do something about it. We can’t bring back the dead child. But let us bring back the real love. And in the world  we live in today even if we can ensure and teach the little ones around us not to harm another human being (for a starter, and other living creature as things progress), is as good as spreading love.

Michael Jackson is dead, but we can still heal the world, for you and for me and the entire human race.

Om Shanti Shantihi.

So what went wrong after all?

Nisha came over home with a face full of gloom and sadness. Such a sad face that I was forced to ask her if everything was okay at home and office and she replied in almost a mute tone, “all good at home”. So that gave away the reason for her sadness; like in the case of a few of us, it had to be something that happened in office. I thought it was good to stop at that note, since all of us have some or the other office issues on a hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis depending upon the generosity of our bosses (I am presuming that we won’t be having issues only on a yearly basis since we are good at flagging them off from time to time). I tried hard to make her smile by bitching about a few common friends, doing the usual movie and music talk, and then the who’s-breaking-up and who’s-getting-married talk and then in a soft voice, she politely asked me to shut up. That was so not her, and it immediately signalled that something went terribly wrong at her work place. Maybe she lost her job or something. And I exactly knew how to start. “So you got another stinker from your boss”? She didn't respond for a while, which made me think it must have the God of stinkers she got so far. “No he’s quitting”. Now, I didn't know how to respond to that! So I asked her if she wanted to party tonight. And then she curly replied “ didn't you hear, I said he’s quitting and now I am wondering what to do next”.

I didn’t expect this from her. And I didn’t know how to react to that. She had sent me several whatsapp messages cursing her boss, calling him by names that even go beyond the words in any dictionary, and oh, he’s even been the butt of all bitch sessions. I was wondering if she was seriously feeling sad for this boss quitting his job. Funny, how people think. I didn't want to talk more about this and I went back to my blackberry and whatsapp. After half-an-hour of mourning, she opened up and said, “it’s true I disliked him a lot, but I won’t be what I am today without him. He has shouted at me, used harsh words, but yet ensured that there was a lot of learning on that job. I can’t work with anyone else in that office”. Wow! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but the respect I had for Nisha just went up by leaps and bounds. 

It’s wonderful to feel that way about your boss despite having to put up with nonstop battering. But then, how wise is it to quit your job for a boss- I mean quit for a bad boss or quit because a good boss is quitting. It’s a good boss and a good work atmosphere that keeps you going at work, and of course I see quality work to be the bottom line that should keep me glued to work in the first place.  There are people who think otherwise, people who think it is the love for work that makes them going, no matter who the boss is, how people are and the other people related things. Sometimes I think that is how work should be treated. I am not able to decide if the first approach (which is my approach) is correct or the other one is wise. Let’s try and reason it.

Let’s start with the perceived wiser approach first. We decide our careers based on what we want to do. The people around us should not matter in such things. Fair enough an argument. But what about someone for who is sorted about their career and for someone who is working only for the love of their careers, the last thing that can disturb their peace in a workplace is the people around them. If the people around them are painful, I don’t see how it is possible to just ignore them and keep working. At least not when it starts eating into your work itself! That brings us to my approach. If you are in the company of good managers and peers at a work place, there is absolutely no reason why you must not like your place. But if that goes sore to the point of influencing your work and career, then it becomes prerogative to safeguard your career. 

This is exactly what Nisha is going through. She loves her job, and her manager and she loves her job so much because of her manager. If he’s gone, she thinks her current organisation and any other organisation is one and the same. And if that be so, why not explore better options outside. She’s learnt the nuances of her job so finely and maybe it’s time to flaunt them around. 

So finally I told Nisha, that if she thinks she should quit, I endorse that view. She was happy she found some solution, hugged me and we drove back home. The happiness was just short-lived. It was almost midnight and she messaged me on whatsapp saying she’s confused again! Cause of confusion- her boyfriend. “Men may come, but work is work. If you like what you are doing and your organisation is a good place to work in, it doesn’t matter who the manager is”.

It seemed more than logical to accept this view. Nisha was right and so is her boyfriend. But there’s one major difference between the two of them. Money means a lot to Nisha’s boyfriend. But for Nisha, she works only to satisfy her personal ego that takes the shape of a career. She works because she wants to work and not because she has to work. And so do I. Which is why, I think if I were her, I would do exactly the same thing as she has resorted to.

To sum it up, there no right or wrong in any approach. It’s just the perception (a word which another friend of mine uses without any restraint, and he loves it!). Or, it’s just the woman perception and the male perception of approaching a workplace and its people. Let’s rest the case. 

Sorry and thanks!

It was just a few years ago, three or so perhaps, this friend of mine gave me a three page sermon on how everything happening around me need not be about me always. The one hour when he spoke to me in that raised voice, I hated him, completely and thoroughly. And he knew that too but yet didn't stop delivering his sermon. He just went on and on till he got done with his three pages.  The sixtieth minute when he got done, I just walked off. Didn’t want to talk to him; sat right next to him in the lunch table all through the week and completely avoided him. But you see- he was still a very important friend to me. So we found ways to patch up, I started talking to him once again. Nevertheless, I kept myself a little away from him after that sermon session. He being his usual self didn’t make it a big deal. He treated me like that little child as he always did- he continued to pamper me with food, chocolates, tease me with those jokes, take me out in his hi-fi cars for a test drive, scold me when I did something stupid and so on and so forth.

And then came a day, when I just moved completely away from him. Saying goodbye even ordinarily is an ordeal for me and to say goodbye to him, I should have may be rehearsed it for a week. Tears flowing down my cheeks didn’t let me say goodbye to him at all. But that little devil that grew in me, thanks to the rigorous sermon session, made me withdraw my tears, at least to some extent. And I just ran down the staircase. We were gone. There were a few instances when we connected over internet chat, I don’t even remember those conversations now. I got more mad at him.  We did meet a few times after I left the city, and I was still behaving cold with him. He observed that.

We moved far away, though whenever I needed help on work, he was first one I would reach out to and he never hesitated to help me.  The relationship that should have been purely professional finally became a professional relationship. Friend-like talks were kept at a bay; they were very minimal if we had any such thing at all. And then after about a year we met. I bunked work to meet him. His muse for the day was a royal blue BMW convertible and we had a great time. That day again, I was a bit stiff and I thought it was okay. “So looks like you meet a lot of people these days”, he asked me and before I could answer, he said, “That’s good, I’m happy”. I didn’t know what that meant, neither did I care to. I was just happy to relive some of those old moments, and took all precautions to keep the sermons away. I came home and crashed with a beautiful feeling in my head. Old friend after all!

And then we met again. It was a BMW X3 but I was his muse. Oh, what a day we had, totally reliving those past moments. That was indescribable joy. I enjoyed that day thoroughly and so much that the little devil in me, just disappeared. So I was totally myself. After the drive and dinner, when we had to call it a day, I had that familiar choke in my throat. Words won’t come and tears won’t stop flowing down. I was once again that little child in front of him and I could see it in his eyes that even he didn’t want to say bye-bye. We were just standing facing one another and very quietly he said to me “today I am very proud of you. This is exactly what I wanted you to be”. Me being my usual self, I had no clue what he was talking about. I came home, pulled my blanket and tried to sleep. That was when I knew what he meant. In the 18 months that I was away from him, I transformed into a confident, mature, independent, brave, daring, beautiful young woman. The woman that people would fall in love with and most importantly, the woman who loves herself and loves being a woman.

We met again and I wanted to say sorry and thanks. But we were just too busy in our own stories and sources, we couldn’t do much. I forgot about the sorry and thanks. A few days back, when I passed though our very own walk spot, I could see images of me and him in that black morning sky jogging in the park. I wanted to stop by the park, but we drove past it. I wanted to say sorry and thanks, but I couldn’t and I still haven’t. So I thought, let me just write it out. Sorry and thanks. You were correct. Everything that’s happening around me need not be about me always. Everything that people think and talk around me need not be about me always. Me and I are demons. Go past the I to find a much better world; a happier world. I am seeing that now. Once again, and maybe for the last time- sorry and thanks!

- Your little H