What I wanna do

If only anyone would pay me for sitting in the last row, by the window, sleeping half the time, sending text messages to those innumerable friends (whose faces we still book sometimes) the other half without the knowledge of the lecturer, making rockets with paper, life would have been so much cooler. But no sir, nobody shows you the cake AND lets you have it. To be frank, I have never really understood the whole concept behind being in a job. Apparently, you can’t live with your parents’ money forever. And no, it is NOT funny to say, “I can live with their credit cards.” It is not appreciated (experience teaches you an awful lot).

There are many other things that are not appreciated. So I could not be a bicycle rider because I was in India; not in the Netherlands. I could not join the Army because all my friends laughed it off when I said I wanted to do it. I could not become a spiritual Guru thanks to the likes of Swami Premananda/Nithyananda types. I could not be a teacher because according to my mom, I was made to become something better. I could not be a journalist because my cousins were all pursuing their engineering courses. I could not be a news reader because my cousins were all planning to do their M.Tech/PhDs. Oh my God, why did you come up with the whole concept of cousins? They were all my dream jobs at one of time or the other. And they were all brushed aside because I was too young and too naïve to make my own career plans. But nevertheless, they were a very important part of my growing up process.

Currently, if given a choice, I would like to be a writer. It is something that gives me satisfaction, makes me feel as if I have achieved something great. But on the down-side, there is something that we all like to call ‘Writers’ block” that affects me every now and then. I sit in front of my computer, I have some thoughts in my mind, but they just refuse to come out as words. But there are days when the words just pour out like Champagne. Finding a balance between the two AND making a career out of it is no easy task.

Another career I am fascinated about is that of a behavioral skills trainer. I like to teach and from whatever experience I have gained from being a silly IT professional over the last three years, the average Indian IT professional lacks basic manners – from emailing to eating – it shows in everything they do. Since customer facing roles are on the rise, most companies would need their engineers to put on their best behavior while talking or emailing or chatting with their clients, which is where I would come in. I have a flair for making good communication (now, don’t you start rolling your eyes, if there is anything I do well, that is TALK. Don’t take that away from me!) And I like teaching. So what better than to combine the two things I like and make a successful corporate career out of it?

I am also good at organizing events and shows. So event management is an area I could dwell into. But I am not really sure about the roles and responsibilities there and so I cannot comment further on that.

Another career that I find very interesting is in the Advertising field. I like advertising and have always taken part in such events at school and college level, but I am sure that is not how the field works in real life. I would, for sure, love to be a part of an advertising campaign. Also there is some very good money involved in it!

But if there is one job that would supersede all the above and be “the one” dream job, it has to be the one where I am allowed to sit in the last row, by the window, sleep half the time, send text messages to those innumerable friends for the other half without the knowledge of the lecturer, making rockets with paper…

This post is an entry for a contest in Blogadda called MY DREAM JOB. This contest was an initiative by BLOGADDA and Pringoo .

My First Crush...

The day I saw you first, I was amazed by the color of your eyes. They were a clear bottle green. It was then that I remembered that I had not listened to your name correctly. It was so embarrassing. I didn’t want anyone to know that I had a crush on you and I didn’t ask for your name again. I had never been like that before I met you. Though we were classmates, I had to bring up every ounce of courage inside me to even look up to you in the eye. The toughest part of it was to hide it from others; mainly you. I fell for you again when you smiled – although it was not at me. What a kind smile you had! I fell for you totally – from the color of your eyes to the color of the clothes you were wearing. When I came to know that you needed help in understanding a few lessons, I volunteered to share my notes with you. When I knew that you hadn’t completed your laboratory record, I volunteered to write it for you. When I knew that you lacked attendance, I spoke to the professor (being the teachers’ pet) to set this alright for you. But still all this was overlooked by you. I was furious when I saw you chatting up to a pretty girl and exchanged numbers.

After those initial days of adoration where I was bowled over by your personality and your eyes and your smile, I started observing you much more. It was then that I realized that you were human too and not flawless. I noticed that you had a Himesh-like nasal tone to your voice, a little too short to my dream-guy (not that I am tall or anything, but you did not match up to my expectation), your green eyes were in fact fake (you wore contact lenses), lacked the IQ that I wanted my guy to have, a little too slow in grasping things, no knowledge whatsoever of the books I was referring to – all in all hopeless to have a future with. But still my heart wouldn’t listen. Whenever I saw you, there was that familiar drum-roll in the place of the heartbeat, that involuntary smile popping up on my lips, that tiny corner of my heart wanting you to come and talk to me, to hold your hands, the jealousy when you spoke to other girls – all that was still there, only for a moment though. Because the very next moment, when my brain started giving out instructions, it started emphasizing on the flaws in you and I saw you as someone not worth all my attention.

Now all that is gone, it has been a long 5 years since that first day. I don’t think about you every day now. I have grown out of being that silly teen into a busy professional. I simply don’t have the time to reminisce about the past or to feel bad about having missed your company for so long. You are not on my Orkut/FaceBook/Twitter friends’ list. But I still do visit your page and think about how different it would have been if you and I had indeed gotten together. The very reason I am writing this post is with the hope that you would visit my blog just the way I visit your pages and know that I still think about you and even now for a moment my heart beats twice as fast. But as you can see, I am very happy with my life and you are nothing but an occasional, distant, drunk thought. Nevertheless, you are my first crush and will always be special to me.

Oh, how confused I am! One minute I say I still want to be with you and the very next I say you are like one of my pets that I grew when I was younger. I guess that is just me or are all first crushes like this? I would never know. But I am not worried about it. I am happy with what I have and the occasional visit to your pages that remind me that you are alive in some part of the world.

Cheers!

This post has been published for a great contest called My first crush! organized by pringooand blogadda.

I never thought I would pen this down!

I have always been a happy girl. I guess I have had a great childhood and was exposed to a pretty good lifestyle and education and had great parents. I was loved so much and was given so much freedom and knowledge by both my Amma and Appa. Amma insisted that I learn Hindi, while Appa was dead against it. But Amma had her way in this matter and both Gayathri (my sister) and I took to learning Hindi as our second language. So Appa somehow wanted us to learn Tamil and I was given comic books in Tamil to make me recognize letters and improve my reading speed. He also introduced me to the world of books, being an avid reader himself. He was an inspiration. He taught us to play Chess and taught us the rules of Cricket and Tennis and Football and Hockey. In all those school-going years, neither Amma nor Appa ever forced us to ‘sit and study’. Those were the happiest years – no tension, no worries, no idea about the financial situation of the family and in my case, no worries about tests and exams as well – I was a good student, duh… The biggest worry was eating – Amma and Appa and Paati and Athaipaati always forced food down my throat and well, it never stuck to my body. I was always underweight, still am.

Nobody’s life is full of roses. We all have our share of bad days. I have mine too. No, I am not going to start cribbing about kosu again – I guess I have grown used to it and am slowly learning how to tackle this. As my Gurudev Swami Chinmayanandji said, “This too shall pass” and I totally believe in his words. Now more than ever before! My point is, in order to understand where you stand and who your real friends are and who is trustworthy and how tough you are, you have to go through the dark patches of life. I went through a couple of them. Well, right now, I don’t actually remember the first one. But hey, I am sure it was there. I felt bad; maybe I was too young to comprehend it or something. But the second one, I remember quite well.

I was in college. Right now, nobody will believe me if I said I was more of an outcast there. I was popular – hugely popular would be more appropriate – but for the wrong reasons. Now what reasons they were and why they made me popular is beyond the scope of this blog :D (Effect of reading training documents, you see) Well, to be frank, now it makes me laugh and I feel like an idiot for worrying so much about such a non-issue. But yes, back then it made me a bitter person – I went into my own shell and refused to come out of it or allow anyone inside it. Well, to tell you the truth, nobody wanted to come inside, hold my hand and take me out of the darkness and the sadness. Everyone was busy too with their own lives to find out what went wrong with me or to verify the facts and simply stuck to listening to made up stories. There was no one to listen to me. I thought how true these lines were,

"Iruttinile nee nadakkaiyile, un nizhalum unnai vittu odi vidum;

Nee mattum dhaan indha ulagithile, unakku thunai endru vilangi vidum"

(When you walk in darkness, even your shadow deserts you. It is then that you would realize that you are your only companion)

My only strength was my studies. No matter what happened, I never let it affect my studies.

I was all alone inside a dark room for so long and finally when light came, I was afraid of it. I was starting to be afraid of being happy. But slowly, the light grew on me and I started enjoying my day in the sun. It just felt right. I started feeling so light (NOT weight-wise) and slowly started becoming the same girl that I was during school.

I got into Wipro – 2008 was one of the happiest years of my life – my project at Wipro’s Chennai One office, my (rather big) gang of friends, weekend trips to Vandalur and beach resorts with the ‘gang’ – each day was filled with so much laughter that I felt that God was giving me the laughter that was long overdue. 2009, too, was a very happy year. I enjoyed my new project and the early morning shifts – the only time when Chennai’s heat was bearable :)

I still consider my college days to be the most productive years. I went through so much of trauma, but I came out stronger – much stronger than I ever was. I kept on telling myself, “God is putting you through it, because you are one of His favorite children and He wants to make sure you come out strong and tough. And don’t worry; He is doing this to you because He knows you will overcome it successfully. He is just trying to build your confidence.” Now I am happy and strong and know who my TRUE friends are and who is trust-worthy. Behind all that suffering was a learning process. :)

Mokkai...

It was one of those rare days when I had nobody to be with. I am the kind of person that cannot live without being surrounded by friends constantly. Loneliness kills me. I mean, I am a normal girl. I don’t like to be left alone and I love talking and that’s why I need company all the time. Last weekend, Sabal wasn’t here in Bangalore. He had gone to Ernakulam choosing a get-together (read: free beer) with college friends who were going off to Dubai (that is where most Mallus go, right?). It was supposed to be a farewell party kind of thing and off he went without any reserved tickets. How am I supposed to fight with “free beer”? I, in fact, told him I would buy him unlimited free beer in a bid to make him stay back. But he earnestly said, “You know I won’t drink much.” (Oh really?) “I am going because I promised the fellows that I would be there.” (Poda poda, rascala)… At that time I didn’t realize how lonely that would leave me for the whole weekend. It was probably the first time ever that I felt bad that I didn’t have to go to office on a weekend.

I made it a point to catch up with friends. I watched Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya with Vinod. Thank you, Vinod for a pleasant evening. I really enjoyed it a lot. About the movie, what can I say? I felt that Gautam Menon hadn’t clearly made up his mind as to whether the boy and girl live happily ever after or not. Very confused and even more confusing. I really loved the Cinematography and of course Rahman’s music. Oh, and also Trisha’s saris (I am a girl, after all). It has been a long time since I saw a movie without any bloodshed and violence and villains. However, VTV was too mushy and romantic for my taste.

On Sunday, I slept like Kumbhakarna. Semma thookam! By the time I woke up, it was evening and I remembered I had promised Yals I would visit her place. We met up and walked up and down Brigade Road (buying nothing much except two plates of Paani puri and some coffee) and it was like old times again. Talking about mutual friends, careers, relationships… what you would call typical girl-talk – it was about everything and nothing. For a couple of hours, I forgot I didn’t have anyone to go back to. That is why they say, girls should always stay in touch with their girlfriends… Thank you, Yals for being there for me.

Somehow the weekend passed and Sabal is back from his trip and here I am back at office wishing it was weekend again. Namma dhaan thirundha maatome!

Help me escape!

I finally find some free time after so many days of hectic work. Yes, I have work and yes, I am (have become) hard-working and yes, that is what kept me from writing more frequently. Trust me! On top of all these, whenever I am home, I am inundated with aunties asking me when I am going to get married – and by aunties, I mean every woman who is 30+ years of age, ranging from blood relatives to distant relatives to neighbors to I-just-met-you-in-the-bus-but-I-don’t-at-all-feel-it-is-inappropriate-to-ask-you-to-get-married-soon types. Seriously, WTF is their problem? Is it:

1. “Yaam petra inbam, peruga ivvayyagam” (Let the world experience all the happiness I experience; this expression is used generally in sarcastic comments) or
2. I am so bored with my daily mega-serials and I just want to mess up somebody’s life and who better than you or
3. I cannot digest the fact that how you are so carefree and independent or
4. I have a relative whose son is a loser and I just like making his life even more miserable (with a typical mega-serial villain-ish grin) or
5. I just want to while away some time (eating your head) during this insanely boring bus ride.

What is it? And how long do they exactly expect me to reply with a oh-so-fake smile on my face, dismissing all the urges to reply with a killer one-liner, controlling my temper and refrain from shouting out to God to forgive the aunties and take them to heaven (immediately)! And what angers me even more is when my mom finds it alright to the extent of being natural. When are they ever going to understand that when and who I want to marry is my choice and the random-aunty-I-met-five-minutes-ago-in-the-bus does not have a say in it? Just leave me alone, aunties!

Next time onwards, my reply is going to be any one of the following:

1. (With the most innocent look you have ever seen) Aunty, I am not sure who you are. (And run like crazy in the opposite direction)
2. Amma said there is something terribly wrong with my horoscope and I would have to wait for five more years before thinking about marriage.
3. I don’t want to consider marriage before at least one onsite trip (I am sure that ought to shut them up – Iyer aunties are so impressed by such ideas; on the down-side, I may never get married ;-) )
4. I want to take up brahmacharyam (and give them an hour’s lecture on giving up material desires and karma and moksha until it is their turn to escape from me).

Any other ideas are welcome! :-)

Heart at Ettimadai???

Everywhere I find people who are in love with their college life and are desperate to go back in time and live those "carefree, hassle-free, wonderful, colorful" moments. But I don’t seem to understand why they would want to do that. I know most of you who are reading would tell, “Oh, come on Sandy; don’t give us this I-hate-my-college crap again!” I hear you… So I am not here to crib about my college life, which was a disaster to say the least.

Of course, I had my I’ll-never-forget-this moments at my college because I did enjoy it (Yals and Sangu, I hope you are happy now – I still remember the time you bashed me when I told college life was horrible and stuff like that - Yals at AIMS canteen and Sangu at IT block canteen ;-)) But looking back at it, it is the pain and the incidents that caused the pain that flash in my heart. But, as usual I don’t like anyone being sad and I am anyone (of course, I am self-centered… lolz…) Also, I promised I wouldn’t crib about college-life.

So me is smiling now (thinking about the good moments of college). Me is thinking about our first IV (to Ooty for which we boycotted classes); about the innumerable hours we sat and chatted about the “newly formed couples” (I can hear you telling me, “That is called gossiping, you idiot”); of the times we day-scholars just had to open our lunch box only to find them empty within the next minute (Can’t tell you guys, specially Paru, Rithu and Sangu, how happy it made me when you guys finished up the not-so-tasty food saying, “Home food is always great!” It was thayir saadham, dude!!! Anyways, it made me escape from my mom who otherwise would have grounded me for wasting food); about our Somu sir’s gait and the way we sent him out when he came late to a lecture; about the time Narendran told, “Nadandhu varathuku late aayiduchu sir”; about the time when we had no lectures and all hostellers would be sleeping merrily in the hostel and we day-schis roamed around first at IT block canteen, then at AIMS canteen and then at the main canteen; about the hours we spent at Ettimadai railway station platform talking about nothing; about the 4 people-4 parathas-4 minutes….

Wow, there have been so many incidents, so much laughter, so many friends and everything; but still, I feel there were more lessons learnt from while being there than what we learnt from books. I can still hear one of my closest friends telling me, “Unakku eppo, yaarkitta, enna pesanumnu theriyadhu di.” – I still am like that (big sigh). College life taught me the most valuable lesson I have learnt so far – “Don’t believe everyone.” I think I kinda miss it; no no… I’m not missing it. $%@&; Who am I kidding? I miss college life and the few (but real close) friends I made when I was there… I miss you people!!! Love you guys…