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 :)
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 :)
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