From sun to rain, from joy to pain...

It’s been raining a lot since last weekend. And as usual the rain makes me happy, except of course everyday troubles of managing a household – which I hardly knew earlier. Like there was no water – some problem with the bore well (actually the rain came as a boon because we could save up the rainwater in buckets and use that). Today finally the plumber came and mended things. I didn’t go to the university today. Not that I had a lot of supervision to do, in fact I slept off in the afternoon which cured my headache and the pain in my legs. If I come to think of it, it is a pretty cool life. The last project is over, the next project is yet to begin (though I am not 100% sure whether I’d be getting that project, general opinion is that I will get it) – and I am free enough to read Harry Potter every night till my eyes close in slumber. Today, after I woke up – I watched two full matches of IPL after a long time. I get ample time to read the newspaper end to end before I’d leave for work in the morning. In the rare occasions that I don’t manage that, I get back in the evening and make sure I finish the remaining bit of reading. This in addition to the messages my TOI app keeps sending. Back in Bangalore this was unthinkable. If at all I had less work, I’d probably get a little while to browse the net, but sitting back and reading the news in the paper format has its own vintage pleasure – and as you know, it is top priority for me to stay updated on the news. 

Meanwhile, I am enjoying the proposal work and I had two sessions of banking lecture already with my ex colleague (the same lady who once tried to boss me over and I fought with her and didn’t accept her as my manager). Well, given the fact that her banking knowledge can be described as very close to zero, I had a good time bossing her over (we should ask these questions, we should think about these bottlenecks and complicacies). And you know, I have a soft corner for my previous domain of expertise. It is not a very easy domain, and I have learnt it all on the job – so I understand it in a very functional way. Pity that it all will go to a waste only because of the lack of prospects in Kolkata. Really, it is such a dismal job market. Over that the socio political scenario is ever worsening. I quite find our current government to be a mini lady-Hitler governed Nazi in the making – you say one word against it and you are behind the bars and wash your hands off your career, reputation and general peace of life, whether you are a government official, a dignitary, an artist, a professor or a commoner (a mere morning walker or a farmer). I am scared of what would happen if this autocracy is not nipped in the bud. Talk about  একুশে আইন, you really won’t find a better example.

Given the apparently happy life, I was hugely upset yesterday. I finally gathered courage to speak to my colleague whose husband has recently been diagnosed with cancer. And as soon as I approached her desk, first thing she asked me was, “how’s your feet now? Wait, wasn’t it the right leg? It is still swollen…” I was awestruck with the simple fact that she is capable of asking this question despite her present mental condition. We had a long chat, whence she told me about how she has been lying to her husband all the while, whereas she is not a very good liar. She told me how he is suffering, how he is not able to eat despite being hungry, and how this has been going on ever since her husband had the bypass surgery 3 years back. One medical emergency after the other, and she is not exactly rich, she’s just in the support function in the university. She went on to say, may be God is trying to test just how much she could handle. Long after the conversation was over and I had returned home, I kept feeling restless. I just didn’t know how to react to such a heart wrenching manifestation of pain. I call myself an unhappy soul? Look at this lady who’s still fighting with all her might and won’t give in. Kudos to her courage – and a dumb petition to God, do You really need to do this?

This was yesterday. Day before yesterday, I spent a very enjoyable hour with Avik-da. He was passing the university campus, called me up and came over to meet me. It was kinda strange, to meet him 10-11 years down the line in the same setting. And both of us missed the third musketeer like hell. We three used to work together in my first job, and if I come to think of it, maybe it is my longest lasting friendship apart from with Ananya and Pamela, both of whom are school friends. In fact, to some people, I keep introducing Avik-da as my brother, coz it is a proud feeling to tell people that such a talented person is your brother.  Well, he wanted to sit and chat for a while, and I took him to the dilapidated looking canteen where I usually go with my current colleagues. As we ordered cold coffee, it started raining. It rained for a long time, so we ended up having some ঘুঘনী with chopped onions (you may say it is a Bengali equivalent of Chana Masala) followed by a bottle of Slice. We talked mostly about smart phones, I showed him the paintings I had done on my phone, he had a hearty laugh seeing them and also drew a cartoon of himself for me – which he called his self portrait. I happened to ask him why he is getting so negative, and solicited him to return to Kolkata, he called himself selfish and got irritated. After the rain stopped, we came out and he lectured me a bit about the sculptures around us and their various inconsistencies. We finally took leave of each other quite unceremoniously. But later in the night, as I was idling away on my bed, I realized the romanticism that the lunch in the rain generated. Had it been any other man, I’d have had fond romantic memories of that time spent together. Not Avik-da, because I simply can’t think of him in a loverly way. But I did feel all the more, how much I need a man in my life. It is not only because I am sex starved, in fact except the occasional bouts of desire I have, I am not really very inclined on the sex part of it. Problem is, I am pathetically straight not only in my sexual orientation, but also my friendship orientation. I get along well only with guys – except my girl friends who can be counted on my fingers, all my friends have been guys so far. Now suddenly I find myself totally devoid of male company, and the university is a conservative place with all senior and married people (sigh, it’s been so long I have had beer, and I can bet none of my colleagues here, male or female, would ever dare to drink publicly).  Beyond that, I don’t socialize at all, moment I am out of my work place, I catch a bus and get back home. I wonder if there can ever be a solution to my problem, the only way I can stop guys from taking advantage of me is by not indulging them in any possible way, and that leaves this huge void in my life.

Too many stories to tell...

It’s been a long long time,  and there are reasons.

 

The fall I had just a day before elections were set to happen in Kolkata, was pathetic because it was absolutely unnecessary. True that I always had this problem of twisting my ankle whenever I’d be on slightly uneven surface, but usually I hold on to some nearby support and manage to maintain my balance. That day the fall had to happen because there was nothing around me that I could hold on to. On hindsight, it was all very stupid. My brother was all set to leave for Bangalore. It was a scorching afternoon, and anyways we had decided to take a taxi, so, we kept chit chatting and delaying the travel to the airport. Finally, as we decided to step out, my brother just called out to me to take “the other route”.  Now our house has a proper main gate for exit, and the other end is the garage gate, which is over grown with shrubbery as we don’t have a car and that route is not used. I don’t know why we went back to our kid age and wanted some adventure, but as I tried to jump across the bamboo wall that borders that exit, I lost my balance and fell flat on my face. I scraped my knees and elbows, which was nothing much, but there was this huge swelling near my ankle join on my right feet. My brother stood at an arm’s length, still holding on to the umbrella he had planned to hold on my head till we’d get the taxi. You should have seen his face with “I am the culprit, it is all my fault” kinda pleading look. Well, dad helped me back on my feet and I just couldn’t think of dropping the plan of accompanying him to the airport, and instead stay home and take care of my wound. So I limped to the taxi stand, and I am limping still. The pain is substantially gone, but the limp remains, it has been two weeks now. 

 

Things don’t really end there. On our way back we decided to take a bus, and just when I was getting down, I hurt my left foot in something that jutted out from the front seat of the bus. Not sure if it was tin or wood, but there was a deep gash that started bleeding immediately. There was no way I could tell dad about the new wound, he already being worried about what happened earlier in the day. And I was like…would this lead to tetanus? Would I die? Would the vaccinations that I had taken in infancy still work? Finally I just decided to wait and see whether I’d die. As it appears, I am still alive.

Yet nowadays I have this severe falling tendency. Mostly due to the limping, I was about to fall down in the staircase while I was going out to cast my vote. I held on to the railing and saved myself. And I limped around a kilometre because there was not public transport on the voting day. Still, I won’t be deterred – I am so proud of being part of a sovereign democratic republic. Why, even yesterday I was falling of the chair, held on to the table and saved myself.

 

But my body didn’t respond well to the apparent negligence of my health. Within a week I fell severely ill, and had to visit the doctor and be given a course of antibiotics and paracetamol and cough syrup and what not. As a result, I have been long absent – I refrained from any kind of activity except my regular eat-sleep-wake up-go to the university routine.

 

Well that would again be wrong to say. Whenever I’d get some strength, I’d sit up and read the new book by Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath. And what an interesting book it is. Kind of gave me a new strength to live. 

 

For you see, the world around me is not a happy place. May be for the blind and unfeeling, it is. But not for people like me, who have themselves known pain, and who understand pain when they see it. It is such a tough world anyways, and over that, within moments your world might go topsy turvy once a bad news comes. Husband of a colleague in the university has been ill for some time and now he’s been diagnosed with cancer. A long fight ahead of her (i.e. if it lasts long) and moreover the fear factor is there. In other diseases the hope acts as a booster, this kind leaves you nowhere. Poor lady has simply forgotten to smile. Then today in the newspaper I read about this lady, around 50 years old now, who’s a science graduate, and who out of loneliness had attempted suicide 20 years back. The police admitted her to a hospital and ever since then, she’s living there, coz she can at least be in human company there.  I think of these circumstances that life poses before you – I sigh and thank God for giving me the courage to come back here leaving my job. I am at least happier here, but then it is a so far, so good condition. I don’t know what might happen tomorrow. Today, I am more contented than I have ever been in Bangalore.

 

Watched two movies lately.

Apur Panchali couldn’t make me cry. It left me dumb and writhing from within. After so many days, I still can’t handle this topic of death of one’s child. I wanted to say a lot of things aloud, things that came to my mind as I watched the movie – like, how it makes no sense to commit suicide because a child is dead, when you and your husband are young, you still can go for another baby, and then I’d remember my once upon a time colleague, whose life changed after her first child got aborted, she got some medical complication and haven’t been able to conceive ever since, a jovial fun loving girl turned reclusive in front of my eyes…I wanted to speak about all these things – but not a word would come out. It was a steely silence inside me.

On the other hand, cried my heart out during Two States. I could identify so much with the movie. Been through almost all the twists and turns – except alas – the guys in my case were not caring enough. In fact there is no comparison; they were loathsome people who simply played with me and I was stupid enough to trust them. I cried all the more towards the end of the movie, during the marriage. In the joy of the screen couple getting united, in the sorrow that this life will never be mine. Now, I have taken that in my stride, haven’t I?

 

Well, this is turning out to be a long entry, but I still have lots to tell, The Facebook experience, for example. So, after this long while, I finally went to Facebook and put up couple of photos of the inauguration of our website. It was less of boasting and more of a social experiment. For by now, I am totally out of Facebook. I wanted to see who’d be the people who’d like the photo despite my long absence. In this entire period of close to 8 months, I have rarely liked anybody’s photos or status updates. I wanted to see who in my friendlist are – “like me and I will like thee” type, and who genuinely feel good at my achievement. Well, my target was that particular group who have changed drastically after I left my job…e.g. the “SPHS friend” (the lady who wanted proof that I have indeed lost my job) and the guy who said “this is the life of s/w engineers, they have to stay away from home”. Well, none of them ever materialized in the like or comment list. There are people who are so jealous that they get severely impaired by their malice, yet won’t change themselves. They are the most “soda” types as well, they show off the most, but if that fizzes out, there’s nothing much left of them. Then there are the elite types, oh she’s not our category – the rich and blessed ones who are too busy celebrating their achievements to care about mine. And finally there’s the loser x-boyfriend type – who are kind of sad that their ill treatment didn’t kill me finally. On the other hand there are people who wrote things like..."proud of you" and "you are the best"...so you see, there's that selfless kind too. In the end it doesn’t matter to me – it was just an experiment, and I quite enjoyed it.

 

Finally there was this ping from my ex boss last week. He was my self-styled big brother when he said he won’t release me and coaxed me into serving a 5 months’ notice period. But afterwards there was not a single “hi” from him. Neither did I bother to get in touch with him despite the very tough time I had in between. Even when I was planning to go back there, I didn’t ping him but instead talked with another manager I knew there. I have this big fat ego, you see. And I quite like nurturing that. So the ping was of course to ask for help on a banking proposal. And soon after, I was flooded with pings and calls and emails, most of which I couldn’t receive coz I fell sick right then. Anyways, what I gathered is, they don’t really want my help in doing the proposal, they want me to write the proposal instead. Hello…I am no more your employee, remember? It took me a couple of mails and calls to drive this in their head. Afterwards there was one call where they sought some explanation and then again they went off the radar. Uff, how relieved I was to realize I am no more a part of that crazy organization. I wonder why the Indian s/w industry loves this delegate and pressurize rule. Why don’t they plan things in a better way, now that business is all the more difficult?

 

Whatever...hI am not thinking much. Que Sera Sera. I want to read “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” once again…I love Sirius Black.

Ignominy and pride...

Today, finally our university website was launched...by the governor that too...

I was not sure if I'd be allowed in the room, I am not an official employee of the university, I have been given a casual appointment for this particular project. I was a little worried about how shameful it'd look if I'd be asked to leave the premises, so I had quite made up my mind not to go to the conference hall at all, if not asked. But then, to my surprise, nobody stopped me. In fact another colleague, who is a permanent employee of our department, walked in a jeans and t-shirt, and a policeman followed him and walked straight to me and asked, "is he supposed to stay here?" I nodded, made a serious face and said yes, whereas I was going ROTFL in my mind. What could have been a more hilarious irony.

There was one more challenge...I simply didn't know what to wear. Yesterday too, I had a presentation to make for an upcoming project I am going to apply for, the audience involved a number of dignitaries from the university as well as other important organizations. I somehow managed with a formal pin striped shirt and a black trouser which has almost become an uniform for me for the "once in a blue moon" interview calls. Had a momentary blackout in the beginning of the presentation, it flitted before my eyes - how life used to be before, seminars would be a regular event - and how I have been struggling recently for an opportunity to do any work whatsoever - I had spent a sleepless night preparing for the event, and I was not quite in my usual self. But like I said, it was just a blink, and then I bounced back...and after it was over and well appreciated, it was like that heavenly feeling associated with the first taste of success after eternal wait. Whatever...amid everything else, what I noticed is, my corporate attire doesn't go well with the general custom of the university. Saree would be the best choice, but I can't manage that. So after much deliberation, I finally took out and ironed my red বাটিক print salwar suit, and put it on after taking my bath.

What followed was a heart wrenching pain. It was the same salwar suit I had worn when I went out with Boo for the last time, in September 2012. I have never worn it since. The shame associated with it, his outright refusal to accept our relationship, his insults, everything is as if still smeared on the dress. I had told Meenu that evening, with so much pride, when she asked me why I chose this dress for my date, that I wanted to give him a glimpse of what a Bengali bride can look like. I remembered my friendship with Meenu at that time, how she had driven "like Michael Schumacher" to get me there on time - how funny it is, I laughed in my mind and thought, there's no Boo, no Meenu, and Schumi himself is in coma...and I got my driving license and let alone driving like him, don't even have provisions to buy a car. But the pain of the occasion, and the disturbing memories associated with the dress wouldn't go off with the laugh...

Gradually, as I walked past the police cordon, I got accustomed to ignoring for the time being, whatever ill feelings were going on in my mind. And as our team photo was taken with the governor during the launching, I kind of forced myself to bask a little in the hard earned glory of it all. Now what remains more prominent in the long run...what I feel when I wear this dress the next time, ignominy or pride...is yet to be seen...