Random day nostalgia

Today is one of those random days - I got up in the morning and decided to take off from work. No special reason - I had ended up working the weekend and among other things I felt I needed a break to just not think about office, email, code-reviews. Well that's not happening very well - even though I have firmly shut the office laptop - I am not managing to keep work out of my head all the time and can't keep my thoughts from wandering in the direction of "what's next at work" list or how to go about doing it.
I started off with gardening - isn't that supposed to be relaxing and soothing. But I had changed the faster growing plants to bigger pots and watered them and finished with it under an hour. So I decided to watch a movie - atleast it would give me that parallel reality to escape into. My choice was No one killed Jessica. It's a very well made movie - very realistically told - and the more reaction causing because it is based on a true story.

The year was 2006 - my second year at Grad school. I remember hearing about it and reading about it - and that was all. Today while watching the movie - I feel I have not been fighting India's wars - not been a part of the revolutions which have swept across the country since 2005. The few days of visit - the hellos and sumptuous breakfast-lunch-dinner invitations and back to a I wouldn't call it boring but mundane existence where the biggest wars we fight everyday are probably the fire-fights and deadlines at work - at least till the point that our family grows. :)

From what I get to hear from my mother - every day at home in India starts with a struggle - the innumerable dependencies in the chain and the havoc that results when one of the links decides to go missing - which of course is the normal everyday routine - the going missing. I miss India a lot (I guess more in the aftermath of movies you could say :)) - I miss the life the vibrancy - the part of me which will forever be there. You would say I am romanticizing it, me and my very Bengali idealism - when I live the life I won't cry for it so much anymore. I probably won't - I will probably complain/groan and throw up my hands in despair but I will also probably live.

Everything is fine here - on the surface of it - when I don't think. Work is great and challenging (now - infact I had to take off today because I have been too interested and too bogged down and almost working or thinking about work 24x7) . Work culture has always been good but the team right now is pretty neat. I know what or where I want to be - have a clear direction - all you need to do is close your eyes and follow the path. But as far as everything else is concerned - life seems so insipid. And the romantic, adventurous, so-far-timid-but-wanting-to-be-courageous in me is revolting. Every human being wants that much more -  and I guess what I want is to be back in India. :)

A fool's journey - but that's what I have been doing all my life. I left my school when I was in class V and then went back after a month. I left the org in my company I had the most fun working in and came back after one and a half years. Now maybe it is time to return to my country after 7 years. 

I keep coming back to the same things throughout my blog and I guess scaring all my readers away because of it - you fall in love with a place for the place or for the people ! I am sure the answer differs from each to the next. I fall in love with a place - because I am not/have never been the social guru. I think I have done most of what I wanted to do in life - see some places - travel the world a bit - and be able to show my family those places. I have seen some heavens on earth and luckily been able to share them with the most important people in my life. I am happy and now I can feel the stupor of becoming old - and wanting to cling on to my roots and settle. :) Scoff as much as you like - it could also be the afternoon depression just setting in.  So much for random thoughts and nostalgia - well at least it got me writing again.

Conversations on friendship

Yesterday, after 7 eons - I met up with a friend from college who was passing through town. From the first wave across the roads to the last goodbyes - it seemed as if the conversation had never stopped. I was surprised by the number of "me too's" being said and exactly the topics of conversation being started which I would have wanted to talk about or had forgotten but now heard the same sentiments being echoed back - but I guess I shouldn't have been.

I am not sure if I would have left the same impression of friendship on my age-old friend as she did on me - but then everybody reacts differently - and similar things touch different people differently. Even when I call up somebody I was close to in under-grad, I feel as if we are just picking up the thread from where we had left off yesterday - it doesn't matter that since then we have walked different paths and aged differently and been through different life experiences or been moulded to different lives - it seems the bond of those four years during which we shared everything - joys, pains, sorrows - and grew from teenage hood to the next stage of hood (:)) through a brief four years - something cemented us together so strong - that years apart can't create cracks in it. I am not saying that I could just stop and pickup a conversation with each and every one of my under-grad classmates - but thinking back - it is funny how people with similar outlooks and perspectives just find each other in hostels - and there my friend, starts a bond for life.

The last few days I have been feeling alone in a crowd - since I felt connected and yet not connected - and hence maybe in a better position to observe and sometimes that is a lot of fun but also very lonesome.  I have been craving for friends the last few days - and yet through the week, I had the chance of meeting up with old friends and new - and for some aspect of my life have them say to me what I would have repeated to them about what I was feeling in the current situation or about the future or about careers or about life.

I was surprised at myself - at how dumb and without ideas I would go at one lunch conversation - to how dominating and non-stop talking I would go at the next. And it just seemed I reacted differently to when people seemed ready to accept me to when they showed that they didn't really care I existed - and the latter case just kept driving me nuts. There are no few instances of the latter actually, especially since I am in a foreign country - but I guess the trick is to just not care and "be yourself" (courtesy genie of the lamp to Aladdin :)). But I am digressing - I was talking about picking up lost threads of friendship and I strayed to wanting to recreate those connections again in my present life.

I was talking to Sarah, a friend I made at work here - and we were remembering when we really enjoyed our work and team and looked forward to what we were doing and contributing. Both experiences were when we were back in our home countries. :) I still recall hanging out with my colleagues (who were less colleagues and more friends) outside of work and having the most fun - connecting and bonding even though we were no longer in school,  from a closely scattered age group and experience. Our lunch conversations would be dominated by riddles, problems, mind-teasers, news discussions and we never ran out of topics to talk about. We never stopped picking on each other either. I wonder if that didn't inspire us to be our creative and productive best at work as well.

Sadly enough, I still wish for friends at work - knowing I will never get that back.  In this coutnry - people are so up in arms to give everybody else their work front - people feel work and friend life should be kept separate (even writing about work-friends actually makes me utter a critical laugh - it seems an oxymoron now - whoever heard of that - friends at your workplace). Not only that, I find the current culture is to be competitive and selfish at the cost of putting others down and stepping on others. Lack of security, willingness to succeed at any cost, be on the fast-track - I could probably name a number of factors behind this attitude but all it really does is foster a bad team-spirit, destroy trust, question abilities, drop the creativity meter to zero. I have heard people complain and berate the abilities of others behind their backs or subtly in front of them - but all it really speaks off is their inability to correctly tap into the potential of the person. And I myself have been a culprit to this a number of times. And yet, the people I most respect and admire in life - are those that are secure enough about themselves and those that I have seen try to bring out the best in others and in the effort bring out the best in themselves. But again I digress :) - this is becoming a habit of mine.

I don't expect things to change - but it saddens me that I can never again expect to make connections in life like I did in college - and start up a new thread. I miss friendly conversations which occur not as if we just met but as if we had known each other all our lives - I miss making friends I can just connect with and have them feel the same. I guess the trick is the connection - being lucky enough to bump into someone who is not your echo but it seems as if is trying to create the same echo that you are - albeit using a different word - if that makes any sense.
Even if I never run into such people again in life - at least I can still pick up my phone and call up my old friends and pick up that conversation thread we had lost 7 eons ago.


 

I believe I can fly :)

Believe me, this is not becoming a habit of mine to link to youtube videos on every post - but this is exactly what I feel like today -

This goes back to my post on people in my life and those who have passed through my life - but had to put this down - sometimes inspiration comes when you expect it the least - let's say I have found people and things to be thankful for even in my deepest darkest despair :). By just being themselves they made an example of how I could be better..... so how do I thank you !!


Given the current social media taking over the world and me being a total introvert - I sometimes feel I don't fit in - or rather is there anyone else like me - or rather where are all the people like me ? I wish there could be an app - search for people like you. :) But I guess that's what makes meeting new people or even seeing the old people in your life in a new light - so interesting. Because people change and even if you think you have them figured out - you really don't.

Though the next lines are not a logical sequence of whatever I was saying previously and because I am all over the place today - I might as well the thousands of thoughts running through my head as it is. I was reading my old posts and I really miss that me - rant rant rant :).

So anyways, till I have thoughts that are too big to fit into twitter, not really facebookii, too small for a book, I think blog is where I'll be.

A Tribute

As a little girl I always dreamed of making a stage appearance - bowing in front of thunderous applause and shining in the limelight. (no, don't call me attention crazy yet :P)
Anyway so I think I always mentally have had this speech ready and whether you like it or not - you get to be my practice audience. :P

Well what better day to say this than the eve of my 30th birthday - as all speeches go I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart everybody who has touched my life in some way or the other. I realize today that people like you are so rare - I wish, when I had the opportunity that I had treasured those fleeting moments more - of your companionship or your kindness or your love or your friendship or your smile. Everybody including those strangers or even chance acquaintances, who went out of their way to not snub or look down upon or show their contempt, but instead to lift another, to make another life better, to share and to grow and to make another welcome - your thoughts and acts are remembered and cherished.

At a juncture when I have suffered meanness, discrimination and injustice, it is easier for me to fall back on all those memories. By no means do I consider myself poorer for having gone through these experiences, but I wish I could be given the chance to recreate the happier memories in my life. As for Joy, and my family who continue to support me and bear with my unrelenting rants - I promise and hope that I can treasure you forever. My greatest and best birthday gift will always be just that - your love.

In the past few days of countdown to my 30th birthday, I didn't know whether to be happy or sad. Whether when I woke up on my birthday - I would have another broken tooth, another gray hair or another wrinkle appearing from nowhere (not that any of these exist in reality :)).But even though nothing earth shattering is going to happen tomorrow, except perhaps the doom day prophecy coming true - yes tomorrow is supposed to be the day - I wanted to end on this note - with a tribute to all of you.

 

A little piece of heaven

Mood meter on the high today - so you can expect a little out of the blue cheerful post from me maybe ..... or maybe not :).

Joy and I went off on one of our random weekend impulses today - Seattle weather wasn't supposed to cooperate but Aladdin's gyros were beckoning and those are calls you can't ignore. (For the uninitiated, Aladdin's is a great little middle eastern food place - and serves an amazing gyro if you want to ever try it out.)

Surprisingly enough, Seattle changed it's mood as well and decided to turn its sunny side out. What happened as a result was we crossed over the 520 bridge with placid calm blue waters on one side and rocky gray waves of Lake Washington on the other. Joy of course had to keep his eyes fixed on the road and the speedometer.

If he could have sneaked a peek, this is what he would have seen: an expanse of gray water marked by white crests spread out under blue skies - over the blue heavens hurried past wisps and cotton rolls of white and gray cumulus clouds in all their glory - all this provided the backdrop for  a line of verdant trees, signifying all the different shades of green and spring (yes spring not summer). Imagine this in a U-shape if you will, with the bridge we were on cutting across the top of it. Towards the far south, where Mt.Rainier is visible on an exceptionally clear day, the clouds had gathered together and yet were letting shimmers of light pass - and it looked nothing if not like a piece of heaven had parted to show its jealousy of earth's beauty. It was so breath-takingly beautiful - I wish if I could, to have forever captured the scene in my minds camera.

There have been so many such realizations for both Joy and me - that we have lost count now. Seattle just makes up its mind to make you fall in love with it and it does.  Mountains bordering on water and blue skies - and not on either north or south or east or west but all around, whichever way you look. Mt.Rainier looms up over the city in the south. From there all along the east boundary stretch the Cascades - peak against peak against peak. They end with Mt.Baker looming in the north. A little blue sky from there and then rear up the Olympics - if you look closely, you can perhaps see the snow filled crater of Mt.Olympus. And all I have to do to see this is step out of my house.

Yesterday was akhay tritiya - the day is regarded as one where what you do stays akhato or undestroyed forever.  Yesterday also happened to be the day I took a long awaited first step of making my life better. It felt like the world had been waiting for me to take that step, and now that I had it would do what it had to to set the ball rolling. It wasn't until a little later, that I realized I felt lighter - lighter than I have felt in the whole of last year. Sometimes somethings are just not meant to work for you, you are just not meant to be there or not meant to fit in and try as you might - things only go from bad to worse. When I had moved to my current position, don't believe me if you don't want to but every bone in my body had been shouting "no". I had chosen to ignore that voice - lesson learnt - never ever and I mean never ever don't listen to your gut instinct - it's what is the uncanny sixth sense, the unconscious mind eye that is your own protection - it won't lie ever - and it sees more than you with your two open eyes ever will.

For the last few days, I have been trying to retrospect and I have been finding it harder than what I thought - more so because it seems in the last year I have put layer over layer over layer over my heart and so to listen to it, I am having to literally dig and peel at the same time :) .......... if you know what I mean.

I am proud of myself for having stuck it out longer than I thought I could have or would have. But it's time I stared my mistake in its face and moved on. I know I am meant for other things (note: the lack of the word "better" :P) just as those other things are meant for me. It was a good stay, I learnt the most about myself and more so about people, but its time to move on. It will still take some time for things to actually change - but in my heart of hearts (which is what it seems I think with), I know it is the right decision. 

Something's gotta give

Sometime ago I had this vision of shattering glass - all I saw (yes, with my eyes open :)) was glass shattering all around me. Needless to say that scared my husband and mom quite a bit. :) I felt I was going off my rocker too but I guess that has to wait.

Right now, I feel I am caught in the middle of two worlds. I have my work on the one hand (even though I feel I have let myself stagnate a lot since I joined) and on the other hand I have my family and friends. I hear the same thing from my friends in the professional sphere - we feel trapped - in the environment, in the drudgery, in feeling this was not what we had imagined for ourselves, in believing this to not be our destiny ............... and yet each of us, powerless in our own way to face ourselves and take the step that would really end all this, all we have to do is actually look into ourselves, just plunge into our own depths and introspect but naahh................ each of us are poised at the precipice hovering between compromises and life and a plunge into the unknown .......... why, you ask - fear of the unknown, insecurity, money (which sadly enough is not the least of our worries) - I have written lesser here than what I have left unsaid - but I am sure people in the same boat will get me.

Coming back to my professional sphere where things are thriving around me - so much so - jumping ship at this point would be classified as 'A' degree tomfoolery. All around me - people or developers or code-monkeys as we prefer to call ourselves reveling in doing what they love - really !! I can't believe I am saying that. I don't believe each and every smiling face is not hiding a level of frustration underneath - peers, managers, deadlines, compromises, coding but then again not coding.


Ahhhh - am I even writing this - seriously !! I don't know whom to feel more sorry for.

Something's gotta give.


Given that you now know my current level of frustration, it shouldn't be difficult for you to guess the songs which have taken over me.

Goodbye by Air Supply - (I think I am hitting a million rewinds on this one)

All about us by T.A.T.U. - (close second)

The Reason by Hoobastbank 


When you are in a particularly bad mood or just feeling sorry for yourself - I am sure the songs above will help. Even though they are just incense to depression but each one boasts of a unique musical prowess which you can only appreciate on hearing and getting hooked to it.

To Russia With Love :)

It is difficult for a movie-buff like me not to discover old forgotten movies - that too in different languages. I won't write a long post today - I am in the post-movie delirium which I'd rather not escape for a while. To get to the point - I happened upon Moscow does not believe in tears. It is a movie older than me and therefore depicts an age which should be difficult to identify with - but to my surprise wasn't so difficult either.

It is about three young girls who turn up in Moscow with their dreams and ambitions and their lives ahead of them and then fast-forwards to twenty years later to find out what happened to them and their dreams. There are some age-old never to be forgotten lessons in it of course, but they are particularly relevant since I believe I am getting to find some of it out for myself:

• how you never know what the next turn in life will bring you 
• it depends on how you face what life throws at you (yes even the kitchen sink) what effect - and this is important - you will allow it to have on the rest of your life
• you learn the most when you are at the bottom
• sometimes life's way of sending some hardship your way is to do exactly that - harden you up

The movie soundtrack has a hauntingly captivating melody - here's the youtube snippet and the lyrics for the closing which I got from the dvd subtitles.

Not everything worked out right away

And Moscow was not built in a day

It never took your word for it

Moscow only believes in love

Whether covered with softest snow

Or glistening in the autumn glow

It will warm a lonely soul

And nurture a tree in a grove

Aleksandra Aleksandra

And here's a translation I got from another site:

Everything had not turned out all right not at one stroke,

Moscow wasn't built in a moment.

It burned so many times,

And grew from the ashes.

A tree stretched to the sky,

And believed only the sky,

And besides the sky,

It believed the overworked ground.

Refrain:

Alexandra, Alexandra,

What is flattering there, in front of us? –

An ash-tree scatters seeds,

And they’re waltzing round on the pavement.

[Literally: an ash-tree is waltzing round by the seeds on the pavement ]

An ash-tree, with its rustic look,

Has accommodated itself to Viennese waltzes;

It’ll push through, Alexandra,

It’ll breathe in Moscow air to its heart’s content.

[Literally: it’ll breath in Moscow]

Moscow was decorated with rowans,

And oaks stood like princes,

But they weren’t those ones which grew without permission –

They were ash-trees.

It’s not in vain that Moscow hopes

To dress in leaves –

Moscow will find at least a plot of land

For a little tree.