Monday, August 26, 2013

Culmination...

It is worsening with every passing day. They do say that the hours before dawn are the darkest. Don't know if that's the best way to describe this situation. For you see, I am really not sure if what is approaching can really be treated as dawn. Haven't been without a job in the last 10 years. Really don't know if retirement is gonna be that good an idea.

Having said that, what other option do I have? I absolutely despise this life. This life of waking up in the morning, somehow making myself presentable enough to step out in the outside world, then the usual routine of coaxing the autowallahs, reaching office and finding some work, spending the day, coming back dog tired in the evening and then having something to eat and sleeping off. If I at all enjoy anything amid this, it'd be the little bit of reading I do before I doze of (I am reading 'And The Mountains Echoed' by Khaled Hosseini now, just finished 'To Kill A Mockingbird') and of course this Big Boss Bangla show is another stress buster (what a race, the Bengalis - you put any other race together, the bitching, quarrel, backbiting would be common - but the only special thing about my community is that along with all these, they will essentially sing and dance and paint and if encouraged and given the means, will happily take part in other forms of art as well - e.g. pens and pencils are not allowed inside the Big Boss house so they can't write).

So what actually is worsening? My condition. See depression is not something new to me. I have been depressed for ages. But I have so far been able to treat that depression well. I never let it command me. But now, it seems I have become a puppet in its hand.

The first symptom would be my uncontrollable restlessness. Knowing very well that time and tide waits for none, I am always watching time. Every half an hour in office, I'd look at the clock on my desktop. Once in a while I'd look at the calender and count days, and split them up into working and non working days that are left, split the working days further into onsite and offshore days. It'd be an understatement to say that I hate office. The last face off with my once upon a time dear friend and now barely an acquaintance (soon to be an ex-colleague - a big sigh of relief) was literally the last nail in the coffin. As much as I was exhausted and stifled compromising with her whims, I am equally listless now that after the showdown our friendship died an instantaneous death.

At times I feel, the city of Bangalore is to be blamed. It never gave me back anything except perhaps some money in the bank. These 8.5 years of life in the city (excluding the onsite stint it comes down to around 7 years) - has made me hollow. I hate this place so much that I don't attend scheduled interviews, I am scared to pick up a call from an unknown number, lest it'd be from a job consultant. I know I am earning a bad name for myself, but I cannot survive anymore in this city, period.

Still there are small pricks of pain. The mastermind that I proudly think of myself, being totally lazy and without work is as unthinkable as the fact that there will not be a sunrise tomorrow. But then, the pangs of failure, the multiple instances of being taken taken for granted is an worse ordeal, trust me. Why put up with a dismal salary and lack of respect in the workplace, with my extent of talent? I give my 100% to a work and then either no credit is given for the success or somebody else takes away all the credit. Why compromise with such a situation? Yes, it scares the hell out of me to think that I might not be getting a job ever again, the spendthrift that I am, I don't know how long I can carry on a decent living with my savings, what with the inflation and the state country economy and finance is currently in. But then, how long can one keep on compromising, thinking about these things?

At times though, I am overpowered with memories of my achievements. The praise, the pride, the success, the dedication (I am a person of slightly above average intelligence and good logical sense, but what makes the difference is my doggedness - once I take up a work I don't leave it) and the travel, mostly the travel. Prague is the place that haunts me most of all. Insignificant things from the Bageterie Boulevard counter boy who'd remember my fondness for ice cream, to that lady expressing her awe in Prague Zoo, to see me clad in a sleeveless dress in 9 degree Celsius temperature, to my friendship with Vladimir, the beer, the cooking which transformed from a hobby to a skill, the shopping in Interspar, and that one phone call from Boo early in the morning (can't help describing it like - সাত সমুদ্র তেরো নদীর পার থেকে ) - I just keep on remembering, and thinking, will they come back ever?

The next thing would be the lack of friends. In such situations usually people get their friends and family to support them. Unfortunately I find none. My family was never a de-stressing element in my life. They listen but they never help. They have their own problems. In fact, having listened to my problem, they don't offer any solution, instead they offer their problems instead, which just amounts to adding up to my burden. You see, for a long time now, it has been my family that is dependent on me, instead of me being dependent on my family. I was never dependent on anybody in the first place, I have always tried to be self reliant girl, given my immense pride and ego.

And alas, given my immense pride and ego, it seems to me it'd amount to begging if I weaken down and tell my condition to a friend. Anyways, I scan my entire friend list in gtalk, my entire contact list in the mobile and  don't find a single person whom I might chose to burden with my present state of mind. "Pity" is a gift I have no worth for, and "understanding" is not something any of them can provide. They need to suffer to my extent, be through a decade full of void to even start to know what has brought me to this state. It is not so easy to step in my shoes, and I don't find anyone fit enough to be allowed in there.

This time I took my synthesizer home. Played a little bit, revised all the tunes I had learnt. Even after coming back to Bangalore, it keeps beckoning to me. I discovered an online piano (you have only one octave), but as of now I practice on that only. Learnt to play a Rabindrasangeet (alo aamar alo)...looks like child's play, but keeps me engrossed for a while. I wonder if this is going to be my life - reading a bit, writing something, playing a tune once in a while. No boardroom arguments, no sleepless night spent on some complex design, no time bound self training on some new technology, and worst of all no interaction with the young minds, guiding them up the steep and challenging corporate ladder.

At times I do candidly ask myself. Why am I going? The biggest threat, the monster won't be there. In fact I have been shedding tears despite being disgusted about them at the same time. This weekend and my (not my) Boo is gone forever from my life. I will never be able to see his face. All the love that seemed to be God's boon in my life has been long lost anyways, now the last bit of decaying thread is also about to snap. But then if so, the threat that is the other side of our love-hate relationship is also gone. I have free reign in this office? Or do I? Do I really want to be kicked about once again by the egotists this place seems to be full of? And then, how long can I keep denying the comfort of home? No, I really need to go, because the alternate thing is impossible, I won't be able to get my due respect in this place.

It is wrong to say I am not impacted. I am sad that he's going. The once in a while hide and seek game that I play just to take a look at him will be over for good. Last week I didn't see him for a couple of days. Is he already out? I wondered, and checked the intranet and breathed a sigh of relief. I keep telling myself not to do it - he doesn't deserve my love and care. But what to do if God has created womenfolks to be like this only? I remember that wife of Michael Corleone, prompted by her mother in law, going to the church every day to seek forgiveness for her husband's sins. I laugh and tell my mother - "I can sense that even he is not very happy. You won't realize it, I do. To you it'd seem it is humanly impossible for his face to look darker than it already is. But I can make out his mood from variations of the color on his face." I say such crazy things and laugh, and then after mom has kept the phone, I cry a bit. Have always been so eager to get away from him, to protect myself. Now that he's done all conceivable harm a human being can do to another, still I am not ok about letting him go from my life altogether. Just that thought keeps coming back about how he had loved me, how much he had loved me, or may be he didn't, but still I had felt that surge of love all the same. It seems as if the ocean has dried up - going ahead there'd be no sign that it ever existed.

With a dizzy mind, sneezes and lack of appetite, and other minor ailments bothering all the while, I feel I just cannot drag it on. Not even six weeks left, I tell myself. I cannot bear to wait for these six weeks to get over, and I dread what will happen once they get over. Most of all, I wish I could stop time and not let it move on to Friday. But then everything I want cannot happen at the same time. And given a choice, I just want to die peacefully. I don't expect anything from life anyways. So it is best to call it quits. Call me a coward, I am ok. It is not that I didn't give it a fight. I just can't fight anymore. There is nothing to be achieved by fighting a lost game.

It had been a colorless life after the parlor lady had removed my nail polish while doing pedicure. Don't know what got me that I put on red paint both on hands and feet last night. You know when ladies die with their husbands still alive, there is a custom in my place to paint their feet with a red dye called altaa and smear vermillion in their hair parting. You'd feel they are being made up for their marriage for a second time in life. Apparently they are thought to be extremely virtuous to die like this. So I look at my red nails and think, so much of me has already died, one more part will die this Friday. Yet another will die on 5th of October. How on earth does it matter?

Make a wish? A car I could drive to office (without the exhaustion caused by the Bangalore traffic), a sunny and well ventilated flat with bookshelves for my books and enough space in it so that my whole family can stay with me, a good enough salary and designation in office so that I don't feel cheated, home food - I might think of living in this city. Yes every nook and corner would remind me of things I have lost, but I'd be able to tell myself that I have a decent life all the same. An impossibility because my finances won't support such cost intensive plans and then, my parents will not agree to come to Bangalore, even if they agree for my sake, they'd feel so uprooted. So...that's that...now waiting for it to end - in better words, to culminate :)

Saturday, August 10, 2013

The festival called homecoming... :)

Oh homecoming is such a glorious feeling! The first thing to welcome and soothe my much tortured existence is the huge amount of greenery that takes your attention even from the flight window. Concrete jungle that Bangalore has become these days, even from within the clouds it looks a dull brownish grey. But as the terrain of Kolkata gets more and more vivid during the landing, my eyes feast on the wonderfully lush green panorama that unfurls. Love the new Kolkata airport as well. Makes me really really proud that even my city has a world class airport now (in fact I feel it is much larger and more gorgeous than BIA). Yes the weather is a big let down - the 29 degree Celsius would have been quite bearable had it not been for the humidity. Roads are not in a very good shape, there's too much water logging, but then at the same time there's too much construction going on as well.  If we are to take the benefits of a better infrastructure, little inconvenience has to be put up with. So finally fought with the traffic situation and the sweaty climate and reached home. And the joy of giving my parents and granny the gifts I had been accumulating for them even since my last visit to Bahrain (which was sometimes in May, and I didn't get an opportunity to visit them since then) - and the immense pleasure of having home made food (I simply can't stand outside food in Bangalore anymore, and I  simply can't think of cooking in the disheveled dirty kitchen of my flat - I just wanna flee) - you know what...such is my growing apathy towards the place - last night my bro prepared some khichdi at home (we had an early flight next morning, so were planning to keep dinner simple and retire sooner than usual) - and I puked it all out even before I had finished eating - kept puking till there was nothing else to come out - I just can't stay in that God forsaken place anymore - here I have this palatial place in Kolkata all for myself, and just for a little bit of money I have to keep slaving there and stay away from home and hearth - is not my definition of how to live life.

I need a lot of freshness to bring my life back on track. Bangalore personifies staleness these days - that is probably the primary reason of me being so pukish there. It is an ok thing for me to not be financially empowered for a while, dammit all, I have enough money stacked up in my bank to let me live lavishly for at least the next 5 years. If I maintain certain restraint and God is helpful, I can live my whole life on this money itself. I can't go to that sickly place every morning just to be paid some crappy salary at the end of the month. What about the people who stifle me? What about the atmosphere that numbs me down? Why on earth do I have to put up with such things? See, not that I have not tried, I never give up without trying. But now I feel and know that I don't need to force myself to keep trying all the while.

How rejuvenated I feel. I remembered to get my synthesizer home this time. In Bangalore, I hardly got an opportunity to play it ever. At home I happily learn tunes and play them again and again and swell with pride, what if they are mere nursery rhymes I am playing. Yes I do remember those hopeless days when I walked about the huge hall till 3 in the night and was almost mad with desperation - you see that suffering is hard to forget. But somehow it doesn't harm much, rather tells me that I have been immensely brave in combating this selfish world - and now I can afford to relax. Oh how I look forward to 5th of October - it is going to be my own sweet independence day.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Do anniversaries exist for broken relationships?

There was a hope against hope you know - a feeble, almost dying hope, that you just might happen to remember today's date. And then, seeing your attitude today, I accepted the truth and just let that hope die. Yes, you don't have any feeling whatsoever left for me. But then, there being place for this truth to exist, isn't there in this wide world, a little bit of space to accommodate my truth as well? The truth that I did happen to remember today's date, did dress up in a very subdued kind of special way and left for office, was heartbroken and abused and wondered numbly if this is actually our 2nd anniversary and we were actually that much close just two years back - or it has been 20 years or may be even more, still I happened to have some golgappa on my way home, laughed and joked with the kid who served (he prefers to serve his golgappas tikha and khatta, and I prefer them with meetha paani, but to keep his wish I had to accept one with khatta paani as well) - and as I walked back, despite whatever way you behave with me, or act as if I am someone non existent in your world, or someone whose shadow even is highly infectious and must be avoided at all costs, I still love you - I love you and I close my eyes, embrace you with my left hand round your neck and right hand around your waist, and my left cheek lighly brushing against your right one, I whisper once again in your ears, my Boo Boo...

Highly scandalizing, na sweetheart? Yes, I agree, but you see, it is indeed a very liberal world, it allows your truth of cheating me and using me and throwing me away to coexist with perfect poise along with my truth of trusting you, believing you and unconditionally loving you. I don't need to explain myself beyond this - I have earned the liberty to live like this - it takes a very brave heart to win this kind of freedom :)

I actually looked up the calendar in my desktop to check if I remember the date correctly. Yes, 7th August 2011 was a Sunday, you did come to meet me soaked in the rain, did change into my blue jeans and we spent the entire afternoon and the evening together - together in a way soul mates do. How can I forget the sanctity of that day darling? If I ever do, that day I shall also stop loving you. And if God is there somewhere, He will take care that a day will come, when you will also long for me, not for any stupid electric shock, but to know that someone can love you despite knowing the kind of person you actually are. Everyone seeks reassurance at some point in time, you will also need it sometime. Till then, feel free to act away.