Mixed Day

Got a book gifted to me today. Good.
Had a fight with Boss. Bad.
Good meeting in the morning. Good.
Evening dinner plans cancelled. Bad.
Covered two books nicely. Good.
Lost 5 games in a row at pool. Bad.
An Art Director complimented me on my sketches. Good.
Getting a slight headache now. Bad.
Somebody has taken good advice. Good.
Boring lunch and snacks. Bad.
Good news on one pitch. Good.
Bad news on the other. Bad.
Urge to be left alone. Good.
Urge to connect. Bad.

Tired and irritated

There's nothing worse than a delayed flight on the way back home. You've started your day at an unearthly hour. Been on high alert for a client meeting. And now that the fatigue is setting in, you have nothing to do but wait. The bloody laptop is also a lot heavier now.

The Delhi airport is pretty decent. There are a lot of pretty shops around. There's even a good bookshop. Normally I can while away hours in one, but at such times you just want to curl up and die.

The flight is apparently delayed because of the delay in the incoming flight. Which in turn is because of air traffic congestion in Mumbai. Which is because of the work happening on some secondary runway over there. Bored. Tired. And irritated. All because of the bloody secondary runway and the inefficient idiots who can't finish it in time.

What should I do now?

I'm generally scowling at all humanity around. I even did that to a pretty looking Delhi girl a while ago. That's how irritated I am.

I guess, this too shall pass.

The Cave

It is dark. It is deep. The deeper you go in it, the further away you are from the entrance. You keep walking till it starts looking like just a tiny speck of light.

It is lonely in here. But not too bad. I've carried my music with me. Mark is good when you are out in the sunshine. Here in the darkness, Floyd somehow seems more appropriate.

But it is a cave. Not a tunnel. Which means however deep it goes, you have to retrace to come out. There's no other exit but the one from where you entered. But when you come out, it is at the same place. You can't change that.

Maybe not. But given enough time, things change even at the same place. So probably some time in the cave is needed for some change in life.

Being in the cave is refreshing in a strange way. It helps you get some much needed objectivity back in life. Some pictures to be straightened. Some typos to be corrected. And some cobwebs to be swept.

There could be some rescue teams sent to fish me out. But I will be hiding in the dark. Don't bother. I'm relishing the peace after the mad cacophony of the world outside.

All in a day's work

My friend's dad died yesterday.

I was at a wedding in the morning. When I heard the news I was headed towards office. Why should my life have been affected at all? It was going on normally.

I worked in office till 6 and then went for the funeral. By the time I reached there, they had finished all the last rites. The body was lying in the assembly hall outside the electric cremation chamber. A lot of people were standing around it. My friend was going through the motions. I thought he looked pretty composed but it was probably the alertness of not making a mistake in doing something he was doing for the first time in his life.

They picked up the body and took it inside. All of us trooped in. They placed it on a big iron carriage on rails that went into the furnace. The door of the furnace was open. For a second I remembered the big toasters in hotels at the breakfast spreads. You keep a slice of bread on the moving grill and watch it slowly go into the heat. I am always scared of these contraptions. I feel I will burn my hand every time I gingerly place the slice on the moving grill.

By this time, all was done. The only thing that remained was to push the body into the furnace. They asked my friend to place a hand on the lever and the attendants then pushed it into the fire. All of us watched fascinated. It went inside like the slice of bread. And in the couple of seconds until the door clanged shut, we saw the body catch fire. It sort of exploded into flames. His burning toes was the last that all of us saw of my friend's dad.

The finality of the sight and the gruesome nature of the end broke my friend down. There was the usual crying, hugging, patting. I just stood there and watched it all.

I then went and met his mother and sister at their home. Held their hands. Didn't cry. Hugged them and told them to take care. Then came home. Had a shower. Had dinner. And went back to office.

We are working on an important new business presentation.

Death

I'm at the hospital today. With a friend who has been told that his father is sinking and may have only a few more hours to live. Started with kidney failure and led to organs failing one after the other. He has been on life support for several days now but I guess now is the time to start facing the inevitable.

Faced with death at such close quarters I'm suddenly feeling really small. How casually I wrote about life going on but it stops sooner or later! And about a vegetable on life support who's relatives are wondering when and if to pull the plug. When I wrote those things I felt clever. Now that I'm seeing these things I feel terrible.

I learnt something today. Virtually every vital organ of the body can be kept going by machines. Heart, Lungs, Kidneys. But when the brain starts shutting down, there's no way to support it artificially. The brain. The supreme command of the human body. The only reason he's still alive is because his brain is not yet dead. As the blood pressure keeps dipping and goes below the critical point, the brain will stop functioning and that will be that.

He is in the ICU. He is heavily sedated. He is hovering somewhere between life and death. There are tubes coming out of every existing orifice and some new ones that have been made surgically. There are machines grimly beeping all around him.

I am in the waiting room. I am fully alive. I am hovering somewhere between objectivity and emotion. There are tense expressions, hushed voices, symapthetic pats, moist eyes and lumpy throats. There are humans grimly staring into nothingness around me.

I can see my friend standing at the window now. He's been brave. He has to. But he breaks down once in a while. He's crying right now. Someone is talking to him in hushed tones. I want to go and comfort him. I can't give him false hopes. But I can surely help him prepare for what's to come.

Strangely, life does go on.

A compliment

Somebody called me a narcissistic asshole yesterday. It really wasn't supposed to be an insult but almost a term of endearment. The drift of the conversation was about self-obsession and how I supposedly constantly fish for compliments. A narcissistic asshole. An asshole who loves himself.

I was amused more than affronted by the remark. Maybe because it might be true to some extent. Here are some more things that people say I am.

Quite a lot of people have told me I'm intelligent. That is something I don't find too hard to believe. Probably because the general level of intelligence around is so low that anything can and does stand out.

I write well. Well. That's something I'd like to believe but honestly I think that is debatable. I feel real good writing comes from what one truly feels. It's not a question of using metaphors or choosing the mot juste. That is a function of intelligence more than writing ability.

I have also been termed as arrogant, cocky, thinks too much of himself, etc. Guilty as charged on that count. No justifications for that one.

Some claim I have a wall around me and I keep people out. I believe that everyone does that to some extent or other. Probably it's more noticeable in me considering I don't have a very effusive and ebullient personality.

Others say I'm a cave-dweller. Absolutely true.

Coming back to the narcissistic asshole bit. I still find the remark quite amusing and insightful. Amusing because I like to believe that I'm above such comments. Insightful because it is a succinct encapsulation of my personality and pretty efficiently put.

As always, a sucker for good analysis.

Two sides of a coin

1. People have an auto-correct option. But I can't turn it off.
2. Words are the only means to communicate. But they can hurt and kill.
3. There must be something good in me that some people truly like. But when will I stop denying that?
4. People are irrational. But one can't stop trying to make sense of and to them.
5. Things change. But they stay the same.
6. It's easy to want to ignore someone. But it's so damn difficult to truly do so.
7. Life is linear. But also strangely circular.
8. The pendulum goes left. But also goes right.
9. Life goes on. But stops sooner or later.
10. Everything is OK. But it's not All Correct.

All Correct?

There's a word that we use, overuse, misuse and abuse in the English language. It's a simple enough word. I'm sure anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of English has heard it. In fact it has even been accepted into the regional languages to an extent that it is a brand name of a mass market soap.

The word is OK. Is it even a real word? Just two alphabets, pronounced individually not as 'oak'. Sometimes it tries to become a real word spelt as 'okay'.

We use it when we are fine with the state of affairs. We use it when we find something just ordinary. We use it to agree. We also use it to demonstrate comprehension. There are so many different ways of using it.

This ubiquitous little word has almost become a punctuation mark in the English language. There are whole conversations that can happen with a monologue at one end and a series of OKs from the other. That is the power of OK.

I did some research on how this word came into being. It seems the word first was attested in 1839. It came out of a fad that existed in Boston and New York of abbreviating deliberate misspellings of common phrases. For example, KG was short for Know Go or No Go. Similarly OK was short for All Correct spelt as Oll Korrect.

Over the years, only OK has survived and thrived. It's strange to find the roots of the word in common street slang, that too in a fad. What's most ironical is that it has its birth in a deliberate misspelling. A word that means All Correct is actually born out of typos.

No wonder OK, though handy, sometimes just cannot say everything one wants to. It most often means 'I'm not sure I agree with you but let's get on with life.' OKs are quite often used under duress. They are reluctant acceptances of unpleasant tidings. All Correct? No, Oll Korrect. That's what OK really stands for.

Metaphors

I love metaphors. I even tend to overuse them. But here's something I'd read a long time ago. I don't remember where, but it was impactful enough to stay. Probably because of the power of metaphors. I can't quote exactly but I can try to paraphrase below.

There are three kinds of people in the world. Eggs, Cabbage and Tea leaves.

Boil eggs and they harden. Boil cabbage and it softens. Boil tea and it adds flavour, colour and fragrance to the boiling water itself.

It is up to each of us how we react to misfortune. Are we like eggs? Go through life hard and cynical for ever? Are we like cabbage? Go through life weak and pathetic? Or are we like tea leaves? Making the best out of every hardship we go through.

Worth thinking about, isn't it?

Some Haikus

On Haiku
The first line has five
Seven beats in the second
The third has five too

On a Tear
Suddenly it came
No reason some reason, why?
Brushed ‘way with a smile

On Mark
Effortless Genius
Ray of hope in a bleak world
Ever shining bright

On a certain six-year old
Heart melting smiles g’lore
Always with a mind his own
I love him too much