Always Good ... Never Good enough

Everyday is like an rendezvous with life. More like an interview.

Its 8. I lazily rub my hair off my eyes as I hear the door locks click shut. I hardly remember ever being on time for the interview. Only my roomies rushing out of the house can possibly wake me up. I lazily folded my sheets with the brush sticking in my mouth. Eyes hardly open. Brain numb though some self-righteous part still praying it not the day when I have to wash the crazy curly locks which I wear on head everyday. Being a boy with a soldier cut would have been so awesome.

In the semi-zonked state , I get done with all the getting ready part. Mind you it is like time bound sequence which takes a total of an hour to push me out the door... And then as I walk to the bus stop , I tell myself how I could be better this time around. Hoping the night long effort is going to turn its magic on. All that I hide in those hideous wrinkles of the cerebrum will help me shine on. And suddenly the biker right behind me honks the horn into my ears, looks at me as if I striped him off the FOOTPATH for racing past the other frustrated car-horn honkers. I give him I-swear-to-God-I-will-kill-you. He gets it and slips by.

I am too preoccupied by how am I going to face this new day. New questions. New faces throwing it at me , new voices going round in my head. How will I do today? Will things go well? If not how bad? Will it be a reject again? Will all the practice over the toilet seat, in the balcony, in the middle of the night when all were fast asleep really work? Or will I make myself look like a rotund big mouth who does not make sense ever?

As I take my seat in the bus, my mind is abuzz with thoughts. I listen to some hymns and aartis from my phone to just stay calm enough to reach my destination. On my way downtown , I am busy reading off my cellphone what I think might just prepare me better for the day. A hope I never give up. Maybe I wont be as bad today! Maybe I wont see a disapproving smirk on my listener's face today. Maybe today they will just give me an appreciating nod.

As I barge into the office , I have the headphones on full volume plugged in my ears so that I could possibly be sound-proofed from all the techies peeping over the hedge of their cubes , giving me you-aint-sort-of-our-types look. But I try best to keep to myself. Not that I do not like mingling with people, but somehow I fear people dont like me much around here . Sometimes I simply miss having someone like Pooja, Monika or Dipti around. But somehow I have too many thoughts on my mind to just sit and retrospect.

The rendezvous is on and so is on, the heat on me. I pop some gum and try to face it . And he turns back and asks, "are you nervous?" The pen in my hand fumbles. The gum seems to have sucked in all the juices in my mouth and my throat parched. I feel the blood leaving my hands and feet and rushing to my face, making them weak enough to shake slightly. Pulling my self together, I mentally go through the whole exercise I had done for this very moment and with some confidence I muster, I put the first ball in the hoop.

And that was it. I could feel my feet suddenly. My fingers had jumped to life. I was reborn with some sort of un-understandable confidence for which I was longing all this while. And suddenly the rendezvous had gone from being a slow, part-broken down car drive to a lift by Schumi in the German Grand prix. Rejuvenated and unhindered , I proceeded no the path which said never back down. I had played my part well. He said an occasional good once a while. Now was the time to judge for them . Time to judge me.

My heart was pumping fast. The rendezvous had lasted long but I had done much better. Things finally had started to look up. I was far more positive than ever before. Will this be it? Anticipation ! Drama ! Climax ! Action!

" Sneha! "

" Yes "

" Sorry but maybe you were not good enough "

ERROR ERROR ERROR

Bored!

At times , just staring at the computer screen , looking at colourful waveforms, "grep"-ping for errors, filing bugs , attending meetings just seems so meaningless and futile.

Why am I doing this? Yes I find it interesting. But still do I have a right to get bored? I dont know why but I am just bored.

Listening to the same songs, sitting on the same chair , in the same cubicle. Filling the same blue bottle of water, staring at the bottle of hand sanitizer on the desk and thinking why did I even buy it.

I open all possible mailboxes to see if something less boring comes by [I dont hope for anything interesting, I am not so much into "Positive thinking"]

Then I open my sad blog, scribble some nonsense, discard it three to four times. Then I get bored of that too and so I just "PUBLISH POST" :P

Every Teardrop is a waterfall...

I miss home a lot these days. More than evident from my blogs. But I reason myself and calm my nerves. At times I am so unbelievably practical that I surprise myself. Always a voice inside my head kept telling me,

Sar phool woh chadha jo chaman se nikla ,

Kamyabi usse mili jo watan se nikla.

My uncle told me this when I first told him that I will have to move to Bangalore for my job. We, in my family, take immense pride in being practical and independent. And those words just were oil to an ambitious pyre burning inside me. Yesterday night, for some reason, as I cooked my dinner. I again heard those words ring in my head. I smiled softly to myself and went on.

Today as I sat in office, I called my father. Generally I call to discuss if the market is down or if we are playing some real good cricket or some investment plan . But his voice was disturbing composed today.

"Your uncle is no more"

"Why dint you inform me?"

"I thought I will break it to you slowly"

"Ok will call you back later"

One moment of complete void. As if everything around me just froze. Couldn't feel nothing. Lost every sense of expression. I walked to my seat so disturbed that before I knew I was out of office again.

Dint know which way to walk. Dint know whom to call. Dint know what to say . Dint know how to say. As if I were shot in the head by a mind numbing bullet.

I closed my eyes. He is right there. His thick silvery white hair falling over those dark rimmed, big glasses. Him flashing the patent dimpled smile. Sitting on the easy chair in our hall, one hand raised in air quoting his Shaayari, occasionally peeping into the small pocket diary in which he had noted it . His voice as crisp and as cheerful as ever. Those eyes look straight at me. "Show me your Marathi notebook" The most dreaded part of all his visits. Him going through our pathetic Marathi essays. Marathi was always a school-time nightmare. Telling me all the corrections. "Next time when I come, it should be better"

Suddenly, the tears push open my eyelids. And they just keep flowing with no end. I haven't cried so much for years. I wore my specs whole day just to avoid everyone's gazes as I walked the passage. Tried to listen to some romantic , funny , pop numbers . But nothing could lift my spirits up. Absolutely nothing. I have always believed I am emotionally very strong , to an extent of being cold. But it was as if some part of me just died.

I wish he could come back on his old Bajaj just like old times. Sit with all this brothers, chatting over tea, discussing his philosophy of life. Singing aarti with all of us for Ganpati like Chanda kaka. One last chance to tell him, how much I love P.G. Wodehouse just like him. A chance to say my final goodbye.

As for my essays , they will always wait for him ...