“Some days even my lucky rocketship underpants won't help.” - Calvin

Ever had your computer hang when you try to open too many browsers or tabs? That obviously has been due to too much of an overload for the poor machine. [Ok geeks - do not get technical on me and explain how a computer actually hangs]. 

The human mind [at least mine] acts in a much similar fashion. Too many emotions sends it into a temporary numb state and one either needs to sleep it off or shake it like crazy to shut-off and re-start.

This week me and my people went through the shock and grief a colleague-friend's sudden death. The experience was traumatic for many of us. But personally, nothing was more mind-numbing than watching my friend's funeral [the traditional Hindu way]. Yes, I stood there...by her pyre. Watched her cold body go to flames. It felt unreal. Like a movie scene. Yet very raw. In the face. Standing less than10 feet away. The priest chanting the shlokas, the old uncle shaking from head to toe crying his guts out and the cousin holding onto to the uncle from collapsing. And as surreal as it may seem the person who laid down on the pyre was the same person you had your lunch with and went to gym together the earlier day! 

Never before did the fragility of this life seem more blatant. It was in my face. Like a 'Take That!' moment. I know several colleagues who revisited their insurance plans in the past 2 days. After all the friend we lost was supposed to have her new car delivered the same morning she had the fateful accident! Take that! Like death seemed to say to us optimists. Uncertain? Yes. Cruel? Oh yes.

And yet, like the sickening proverbial 'Show must go on.." we were back in our office formals the next day. Meetings lined up, sales figures drawn, excel sheets opened and made love with. The days were tactfully spent pushing back the thoughts of the lost one so as to have a productive working day. But its really hard to gulp down the lunch with an empty chair at the table.

Push away a thought. Pull back a memory. Linger on. Revisit good old times. Feel like a punch in the tummy. Shun that thought. Open a blank ppt. Forget what to type. Suddenly remember the last joke we cracked. Smile to self. Oh, will you concentrate on the ppt here? Just a thought. Now whom will I go to the gym with? Wonder a little. Scold self for the selfishness. All tugging of thoughts...and the mind seriously calling it a day.

You wish to cry but crying becomes an action/ function of a well identified emotion like grief or sadness and when numbness takes over, all emotions get jumbled into a big fuzz ball that the mind is better off not dealing with for the time being.

And then some time later, much later, after you have slept over the numbness a couple of times and the pain becomes more jaded and less sharper and you are just having a random conversation on a very different topic, something in you tells you it's time. To shed those tears that have been waiting for too long.You find yourself weeping mid-sentence and getting it out of your system. And indeed, good cry later you feel emotionally lighter.

You call an old friend you have been meaning to call for ages but hadn't. You talk to mom and dad (actually making 2 separate calls on their individual mobile phones.) Look up the calendar and plan a trip home. Hug someone. Eat an icecream. Cook some pasta. Sing aloud while doing so. Read some funny blogs and visit, re-visit and keep visiting here & here. And then you blog a little on this tiny blog of yours, post a post with Calvin & Hobbes title. Not because you want people to read you right away. But if you aren't there anymore some day...you don't want them to forget you.

Rest In Peace Dear Friend

20^th Feb, 2012 began like any other Monday morning. The reluctance to get out of the bed followed by getting ready while making a mental check-list of things to be done at work.

Little did we know it wasn’t just a regular every-day morning.

The news was told as soon as one stepped into the office. And that was it. Sealed with a grim confirmation. No space for doubts. Or even hope. She was gone. Just like that.

How do you say goodbye to a friend who leaves you suddenly?

How do you express that sharp sudden stab of shock, pain, horror and then grief and sadness? How do you deal with the sudden vacuum left behind?

The brain is a wonderful thing I tell you…the minute I heard the news, it went on a blank mode. I didn’t feel any pain or sadness. I even went thinking – What a lousy prank is this! She would come marching up to my seat any moment now and laugh out loud at this sick prank. The brain still thinks that’s precisely what’s going to happen.

The first time we met – she told me she hated MICAns. Can you believe her guts? And yet, she went on to become a good friend of mine. There must be something about her.

The first time I went to her place…she made me clean her house and do chores!!  [Of course, this is my version of the story! She claimed much khatirdaari!] and yet, I waited to be invited over again. There must be something about her.

She was more absent than present in the office. A hands-on field-work pro, was she; passionate about her brands and a fighter/striver to no end. We didn’t see each other for months at end. But whenever she was back, we made sure to grab our cups of coffee and warm that black couch for hours together.

We sailed the same boat. Our brand woes brought us together. We cribbed in unison. We laughed, we gossiped together. When one complained of a useless agency work, the other nodded with understanding. The lunches that extended up to an hour and the gym sessions that never quite managed to make it to one hour mark. Time spent together was time well cherished.   

There was a distinct streak of good spirit in her. I wish I could tell you what a fighter she was, in her personal and professional life. Stood by what she believed to be right. Firm and strong. And yet, she wasn’t all grown up with grown-up issues. She was a kid at heart. A devil, if you ask me. (Probably the reason why we got along so well!) She was naughty, dramatic and a certified ‘laugh out loud’-er.

How I wish I could tell myself and everyone else around that you are in a better place now. But I refuse to accept that!  You were happy here and would have never ever wanted to leave this place for a really long, long time!!  Can’t stop wondering why this had to happen.

To all those coffees that would never happen

To the black couch that would never heard your booming laughter again

To office gossips that would never be the same again

To lunches that will never stretch too long

To the office gym where I won’t see you again

To all those moments where we will now sigh and say, wish you were here now…

Will miss you my dear friend.

2011: You were a darling!

The thing about naming your last post as 'Not the Year-end Post' is that it comes and bites you in the rear when only 25 minutes just before the Year End you are actually compelled to write one.

2011:
The Year of Challenges. Welcoming Change. Embracing it.Infact, embracing it so tightly and refusing to let go that change became me.

From Mumbai to Hyderbad
From Account Manager to Brand Manager
From Online Marketing to Pharma Marketing

From holding-on-for-too-long to letting-go
From 'mom-wheres-my-blue-shirt' to drawing and doing my own laundry lists
From lazy interdependence to embarrassing self-reliance

From Queen's necklace in Mumbai to Queen's Crown in London

Cheers to you 2011 for the AWESOMENESS that you have been.
And you, 2012, better match up!!

Wishing for a healthy, happy and divine New Year!
PEACE.

Not the Year-end Post.

Lots of questions on my mind. 

Batch-mates getting married, some buying their own houses. Some having babies. Babies!!

Much collective growing up seems to have happened rather very quickly in last few months.

The parents seem to be asking - when do you want to take the leap? A leap without someone I trust, believe in, depend on for life? ...seems a bit too silly to me, right now.

Work still involves learning. Studying. Applying. So it's still fun. At least for now.

And predictably enough, personal life is non-existent. One does spend on mall visits and multiplexes religiously but no new books/hobbies/personal projects lately.

Staying by oneself in a new city has been a big growing up experience.

Learned the big 'A' word. Adjustments. Add to that Responsibility. Planning. Blame-self-not-mom-when-things-go-wrong.

Lessons 101:

• Vegetables do not miraculously appear in the refrigerator every week
• There is a reason people cook at home. Simple Maths. Aloo = Rs. 12/kg; Aloo ki sabzi at local reastaurant = Rs.120/250 gms.
• Electricity gets cut off when bill stays unpaid for 3 months. More importantly, it isn't actually cut off but switched off from the meter-box downstairs. Can be re-started by pleading to watchman uncle. Gets really cut off if said bill stays unpaid for one more week.
• Maggi shall always be Celebratory food, Comfort food and Survival food.
• Be nice to neighbors. Especially those who make chicken curries on sundays.

 Experience is indeed a great teacher. But others experience is a smarter teacher. So do share tips/learnings/crash-courses on staying alone, staying alive.

Till then...

While waiting for bum ke neeche aag lagna...

Post start time: 1:40 am

I have never quite talked much about my every day life here, those mundane days when things follow their boring well-set patterns and nothing is overtly emotional or outburst-y. For me, somehow this blog has always been a place to pour out emotions and sadly normalcy never found a place here. But you know what? Mundane is good. Coz mundane is what makes 99.5% of our lives and we better learn to make peace with it. 

There is a lot happening currently in terms of lifestyle changes in one's life....the kind that sounds an alarm bell once one reaches the quarter-life. In simple terms, the gym happened. A best friend from schooldays and a MICAn senior on the very same day (eerie na!) extolled the virtues of "weight-loss = looking awesome + feeling awesome + getting attention from boyz" so much that one was convinced beyond doubt that thou shalt live without having a life, but thou shalt not miss gymming.

And so has begun 'The 40 Day Challenge'. 40 days and nights of healthy living. 40 days of working out in the gym, having healthy breakfast every morning, eating fruits everyday and only home/self-cooked food for dinner. (Oh God! Please don't let this jinx it...now that I have gone and  announced to the entire world readership of 22.) "Now why 40 days?" you would ask, dear reader..so here it is. The challenge will end with a celebration of much awesomeness (since weight-loss = looking awesome + feeling awesome + getting attention from boyz) along with one's birthday!!

So every day, these days, I walk down my lane for like 40 seconds, proudly carrying 2 bags - one chugging along the laptop and the other -  the gym wear, cross the road and enter the office building (Ok. This statement was sheepishly added to tell the world that I stay 1 min away from office. Which. Is. A. Big. Deal. Ask any Mumbaikar). 

Now office gym gets limited "hunk footfalls". (Actually Hunks: Non-female ratio is pretty bleak in my office - but one tries to work around the situation). But then it was identified that hunk footfalls is a critical success factor in the successful execution of 'The 40 Day Challenge'. One needs this for  constant motiovation and more so in the case when the one's body shows the tendency of shedding not more than 5 gms/day and hence any self-motivation is a goner. So, after a few days of careful data analysis, it was derived that hunk footfalls are highest in the evening hours coupled with excellent timing of good TV shows (one shamefully does not own a TV and has to do by watching cricket matches of critical importance - including the World Cup Final at neighbour's place). After much calculations of the day's work-loads, work hours and gym timings of the said hunks, one tries to strategically coincide one's timings (while appearing to be highly casual about it) just so one can blissfully huff-puff-sweat on the very next treadmill while the said hunks can throw deplorable sighs at ones measly running speeds. Such is life and all that!

Oh btw, 2 new mckinsey guys, consulting a team whose performance was going down the drain (and more so after paying hourly charges to the said guys) are seen frolicking around in my office these days with an air of well - "consultants". Difficult to probably define. But yeah, once you see it..you get it. And what is with their diet coke consumption? As if they have signed a bond while taking up the job - 'Thou shalt replace all body fluids with Diet Coke with immediate effect'.

Any way, on the work front November was Sweet! :D

My brands (my babies actually) did much better than before (2 of them, with all modesty, did brilliantly!) and my team did fabulous. And so here I am staying up late in the night, pretending to work on a ppt for a v. v. imp meeting tomorrow while munching on Kellogg's Special K cornflakes like a chivda (and an expensive one at that!) 

And that is all that has been happening in my life for the past few days. 

Hoping to keep up with 'The 40 Day Challenge' - shall keep updating about it.

And now I shall return to my ppt that's been shouting out for attention since some time as the proverbial 'bum ke neeche aag' finally lag gayi hai.

Post end time: 2:30 am

Difficult to Digest...

Reader's Digest. It was the ultimate reading delight while I was growing up. Like the Holy Grail of grown-up-ism that one wanted to achieve in their teens. A monthly magazine subscription with MY name on it!! And one that arrives in a very 'official' looking envelope - that was possibly the only mail I received in that age.

An RD issue - coming at a princely price of 38 rupees (subscription price, 42 rupees - stall price) was indeed a luxury for middle class families when I was in school. Silly how time changes quickly and one doesn't even bat an eyelid while ordering a veg burger in college canteen at a price twice that. 

But RD was good education and every good education comes at a heavy price - and so my parents spent hundreds on year-on-year subscriptions on what they thought was a wise investment for their bibliophile daughter. Little wonder, to this date, I have never thrown away any issue of RD (firsthand or other-wise) that I ever laid my hands on. It is a treasured possession in my book-shelf sitting proudly next to other literary classics.

RD opened up a whole new world and culture that was quite alien initially but welcoming nevertheless. If Enid Blyton took me to English countrysides with picnic baskets in hand and having tea and scones on lazy summer holidays...RD brought along a pragmatic outlook of the out-spoken American lifestyle. 

It was quite dizzying initially - there was crime, suspense, love stories, life crises and day-to-day humour. What made RD different, was the fact that all was very REAL! Nothing was left to imagination - those were stories that had happened to real people just like me - only sitting on the other side of the world. Also the fact that RD wasn't a children's magazine but one for a mature audience meant that it wasn't a watered down, over-simplified version of life stories.

To say that I wasn't up for a lot of rude shocks while reading RD would be an understatement. Especially the medical crises section - there was always this one story on a victim of a grave medical problem and his/her battle to stay alive. I still remember so many of them and especially unforgettable is Lee's Story. I still remember crying myself to bed that night on reading the story was a boy named Lee who was suffering from cystic fibrosis. His battle for a normal life against the fatal congenital condition gave me the glimpse of real life heroes at a very early age. What made it all the more poignant was the fact that the story was written by his mother. I guess I was in 7th std then and spent a sleepless week accepting the fragility of life.

I don't really remember when and how, but I stopped reading RD's. In a hurry to grow up I somehow forgot the one thing that really made me grow up. Today after all these years, I found the October issue of RD in a colleague's hand. Even without me asking for it, he offered me the copy. I guess the joy of meeting an old friend showed a bit too much on my face. But it felt like the friend had changed....45 advertisements in 180 pages!! Infact I stopped counting after 45 and there were still more to go. With dwindling readership, one can imagine the kind of firefighting that even a good content needs to put up to survive in print media these days...the media management major in me understands that. But a little girl whose first ever glimpses of real world around her were through the windows of Reader's Digest feels like shedding a tear.

I don't think one can quite put into words the relationship one shares with a good book. Great memories. Amazing life lessons. Learnings that go a long way into shaping the very you. How do ever say 'thank you' to a teacher like that? How do we share this feeling of gratitude towards perhaps one the best teachers in the world - a humble book? May be the answer lies in treasuring those lessons all your life and revisiting that old teacher that sits snugly on the book shelf, time and again. After all every teacher loves a student dropping by, once in a while, for a visit...

Goa...of Mical Bar & Mario Miranda

I have been trying ways to put this across gently. Without much damage to my reputation, you see. What the hell...I'll take the risk..label me crazy but I went to Goa and did NOT step on a single beach and yet came back having a fantastic experience of an altogether different side of this tiny, green, crazily warm place called Goa!!

I was in Goa for work-related stuff and the frenzied schedule did not spare much time for respite. May be that was an excuse and I could have really spared some time had I wanted to. But Goa in a hurry? Sounds like a stale fish curry! Not my thing...I preferred not visiting any beach rather than rushing through them without appreciating..simply to tick them off my list. You see...appreciating Goa needs to be a leisurely, slowly intensifying experience...like gentle love.. 

The hotel where I stayed had a small store dedicated to this guy. Mario Miranda.  

The Mario Miranda
- the man behind those popular TOI cartoons...
- the man behind those quirky Bombay portraits... 

- and most famously, the man behind the popular walls of equally popular Cafe Mondegar in Mumbai. 

Needless to say I stole time from work, sometimes even wee hours in the mornings to go through the immense treasure-hold of books by Mario Miranda in that tiny little souvenir-cum-bookshop in my hotel lobby. Reading and understanding Goa from the seasoned eyes of a local...his portrayal of the life in Goa gives a rustic and all-new perspective quite different from the touristy stereotypes..

Mario's Goa

Goa..of the Portuguese and the Konkanis...

Goa...of the Sunday Churches and Kunbi marriages...

Goa...of those lively and colorful markets and colorful lives of the simplest of humankind...

Mario Miranda makes one realize that there is so much more to it than the sun, sand and beach-shacks...

Oh...and I HAD to buy this. (2 copies!!) 

Finally, I have come to believe that everyone has a favourite in Goa...the beaches, cheap booze, flea markets, relaxed-afternoon-naps-under-the-beach shacks-with-chilled-beer-in-hand, Zante's cashewnuts (:P)! Do you have a not-so-obvious Goa favourite? Come on...share along. We can always do with one more reason to love Goa, can't we?