God's Own Country

When I had to take a few days off from work to go to Kerala to be with my in-laws and visit a few temples and relatives, I jumped at it because I badly needed a break from my work (ok, I hate my work. Any chance to get away from it is like an invitation to a party where your company is paying for the booze). So off I went to God’s own country; amidst nonstop rains which in Bangalore would have caused unimaginable traffic chaos… Wait; that is not something new. So here I was traveling from one village to another by bus, auto or train – marveling at the lush green landscapes, wondering about how many fucking shades there were of green, listening to my favorite songs, getting “is-she-mendal?” looks from co-passengers for mouthing the lyrics to the songs and moving my head as I did it.

Temples in Kerala have poojas at unbelievable hours, which meant not enough sleep for the little baby that I am (stop smirking!), and every now and then I’d fall asleep during the bus journeys, only to be duly woken up by the bus as it went through potholes in between which some road peeped out. But I wasn’t complaining because I always woke up to breathtakingly beautiful sights that, as I mentioned, took my breath away. Lot of puttu-kadala and pazham-puzhungiyadu (Dear Mallus, you could eat bananas even without boiling, you know?) later, I was standing in the Guruvayoor temple beside the elephant there and had this amazingly heartfelt conversation with him. Then there was this little cat that was playing within the temple that purred so nicely when I was petted her, much to the disapproval of the mother-in-law. Mother-in-laws exist. Even in God’s own country!

By the end of my stay at Kerala, I couldn’t wait to get back to work. The place was right out of a post-card, but I had had enough. I needed to be back in a city that is polluted and traf-fucked where I had a manager to bitch about. But ever since I came back to Bangalore (and to work), I have been hating it. And as often, I want to run away to a far off place where I know nobody. I want to live in a new city, explore it, make new friends, work there in a cross-cultural environment, not think about what to cook after reaching home every night, not worry about eating out all the time – spend a few months with not a care about anything. The wild cat inside me threatens to get out.

Somebody find me a job in Spain. Mallorca to be precise.

Home, Work And Everything In Between

Four months away from my beloved blog – what led to it and what kept it there is beyond the scope of this space. Wait, did you just believe that? There is nothing that I wouldn’t write about in this space, except about annoying team mates and ass-holic managers (wait, did you just believe that too?) To say that it has been a very challenging and a busy time at work would be a blatant lie. Let me just get it out in the open – I was suffering from ‘Writer’s Block’ (ok, stop smirking now). Too much of tweeting has taken away my ability to write anything beyond a couple of lines; and the constant butler-English of my teammates doesn’t help either.

I have grown to be much more restrained in expressing my anger and patient in handling, let’s just say, mosquito problems at work. It is amazing how a socially-challenged guy with no personal life whatsoever makes it his advantage simply because he has more time at his disposal as opposed to normal people who have a life outside of work (that it is filled with monotony and cribbing and long crying sessions is a different story).

Under such testing circumstances, one morning, I was on my way to work in the office cab. After picking me up, the driver picked up this Telugu guy (my love for the language is no secret). When someone speaks Telugu, I am automatically all ears – it is such a sweet-sounding language. There were two other people in the cab and they had ear-phones plugged as tight as possible into their ears.

This Telugu guy (TG) receives a call on his cell phone. I am all ears because I was hoping he’d speak in Telugu. Instead, he started off in English. It was probably a call from a survey agency or a matrimonial site or a gym, I don’t know. And I could only hear one side of the conversation, so I had no idea what the topic of discussion was.

TG: Hello.

TG: Yes. I did it for 7 minutes.

I got curious.

TG: I was doing it for the first time.

At this point I was almost giggling.

TG: No, I haven't tried it that way.

I was like, what the hell… Technology has improved very much-ah?

TG: Yes, I'll recommend it to others.

Why is nobody else listening to this? People, take those earphones out of your ears. This man is making history here ;-)

After this, I couldn’t really concentrate on anything he was saying. I was controlling my laughter so much and I wiping away tears from my eyes, my stomach hurt.

That was probably the only happy day I spent at work in the last four months. One day in four months, you say? Well, I at least had one day to boast about in a line of work I not-so-secretly hate. All you people hating your work, in your faces!

But love it or hate it, life goes on. Work is a part of it – probably the worst part of it. But it goes on. You need people to make fun of, people to crib about, people whose head you want to chop off, basically people you hate – but you need people to hate so you can appreciate people who you love more. Too much philosophy is not good for health. So I stop now.

Daydream On!!!

When you are bugged out of your wits sitting alone at home all day while the husband snores off to glory, and the IPL matches don’t evoke the interest the World Cup did (oh, you want to argue with me about that? Nobody I know watches all those mid-numbing IPL matches except maybe Sidhu), and the cooking and the eating of it is over and a couple of coffees have been drunk and with all the caffeine in your system, dozing off is not an option, what would you do? Well, here is what I did. No, I didn’t watch a movie or read a book – that’s what I do every other day. I didn’t want to spend yet another Sunday evening doing just that.

So if you don’t want to do the normal stuff, here is what you could try.