The Rime of a Professional Goof-ball...

“Ah! Well, a day! What sickly mess,

In my own face, I flung..

Instead of the Cross,

the Albatross,

Around my neck was hung..” - Shruti F.

I’m calm, inside. Well, in a way. Despite the Tempest, which I donot believe will die down, for a long time to come. It’s one of those rare moments when you are stared in the face by an ugly Monster, just as you had anticipated all along. You keep going back in time, and keep wondering as to what you could have done differently… Coz, you were forewarned yourself (by virtue of simple logic), and you had sounded the tocsin aloud well in time.

So, you keep wondering, (frustration spiraling with each passing second) as to what you would do, if you had to back in time, and do it all over again. And for a long time… you helplessly think .. NOTHING, I could have done NOTHING !

How do you change things to avoid a certain outcome, having been perfectly aware of its causes the last time it occurred, well in advance, and having done everything to avoid it?

What do you do, when some things look beyond your control, but must be reined in for good?

After hours and hours of restless deliberation and a puke-y feeling welling up inside me, there is only solution that has I could come up with: Tying up all loose ends NO MATTER WHAT. I don’t care How I do it. But I must.

It is when you get stuck on the HOWs of things, that the task seems unachievable.

The mantra should be: What do I need to do? .. any which way…

And, finally, If I had to go back in time, could I do things differently? Yes, Probably.

Although it’s easier said than done, it’s certainly not impossible!

And now, looking at the bright side of this recent experience (though I would have rather seen this bright side in some more congruous circumstance!), I saw sanity/ rationality incarnated! Glimpses of the rare-to-come-across phenomenon of rationality, faced me, though unfortunately, in such inopportune circumstance! … But, maybe, the circumstances had to be such, for one to appreciate the cherished quality.

All this while, I was grappling with issues: While I did not doubt the functionality of certain fundamental operating principles in nature that I believe make most sense, it had become a struggle to keep faith, while finding evidences of apparent contradictions day after day. It was like engaging in monologues with dead walls- Ten feet high. Cold. Impenetrable.

Even when it was not a monologue, it was a gross distortion of a dialogue. For, a dialogue is supposed to leave you feeling more enlightened, better informed, maybe with a difference of opinion, but with a good understanding and appreciation of the difference.

In fact, it has recently come to my notice, that most people fear/ avoid a dialogue of any kind. Things must not be said, facts must not be stated, most of the times.. rather, one would prefer to vent their emotions/feelings/opinions in a snide manner, behind closed doors, behind turned backs – does this mode of communication provide some sort of sickly pleasure or satisfaction, that it has become the preferred mode of communication for most people? And, perhaps, even shield one from the brutal nature of reality, which would inevitably be revealed in any communication which calls for a fair exchange of unbiased facts?

Which brings me back to some thoughts I had noted months ago, and shared with Arps immediately :D …. In a similar context… let me compile all of this together, and put down those here in this post…

We are strange, aren’t we..

How many of us have NOT had those moments of

“Nobody understands me “… orr an even more amusingly interesting one,

“nobody knows ME- the real me!!” with a hint of smug pride and satisfaction, a non-verbal smirk at The World Outside that sees me as it wants to see me, and not as What I Actually Am (plss donot miss the pun-ification in this piece!!)

Kindly Note: The Real Me is invariably the “all knowing, wise, a higher Me! :P ” (*rolls up eyes, in the sorry-ness of this universally clichéd thinking *)

On the other hand, We want the same “ignorant” people to vouch for us!!

We want the world that knows us, to tell the rest of the world -that does not know us, that we are good people to know. Okay, that’s fairly simple logic. But waitamniit!!... by our own conceived logic n conviction, isn’t it, that the world that does claim to have figured us out, does not in fact, know us at all!!

So what do we want them to tell the Others , if they have got their facts wrong?

And Oh yes, we do!! … Boy, do we!! ……

And this kind of behavior is just so beautifully highlighted by this concept of Orkut Testimonials… and testi-trading too….

Apart from the obvious purpose of serving as an ego/morale –booster … enhancing ur orkut social status a bit, taking u for a well earned ego trip while the 1024 characters last (particularly well earned if u got it ‘in return ‘for one written by you :D ) , one can argue that it serves as a potential tool for feedback – from people you know- except , it’s just the kisses n hugs n thank-you-for-being you’ s that are conveyed – the “Do u know how you hurt me when u do such n such thing” or “I wish you were a little less of a back-stabber” are completely omitted (I mean of course, a TESTIMONY is not supposed to carry such info- that wud defeat its very purpose!)

So I guess at some point, it is reduced to this superficial, cosmetic exercise-

A reproduction of our equally superficial n cosmetic ‘real’ lives…

Where people smile meaninglessly (outwardly, well-meaningly), pointlessly (outwardly, pointedly) as they pass each other in the corridors, mouthing inane “Watsups” …as if they care a fig—ironically, often widout pausing to wait for an answer… and raise brows in disapproval, disgust or with simple uninterested contempt, that seems to be the sole fuel driving human existence these days….this eye-brow raising is done behind turned backs, behind shut doors .. where come out the “Do u know how you hurt me when u do such n such thing” or “I wish you were a little less of a back-stabber” – n this assumes the shape of intro/retrospection or (n this is bad!) ,.. Gossip is the easy substitute for dialogue, but far less effective and efficient!

Although, the other day, I remember having this discussion with the-other-DA (hehe.. yeah, not the original DA Sir .. :D).. and was posed this question : Are testimonials not just THAT? – testimonials?? .. So, what is the problem with this ..?

Well, My issue is not with the fact that people vouch/testify for each others’ credentials .. but that doing it in an extremely random and arbit manner (one that translates into you scratch my back, I scratch your back) just demeans the whole purpose of testimonials, and dilutes the authenticity/potential utility of this tool!

Anyhow, coming back to the original thread of this post…

It has been a breath of fresh air for me! ..I have almost gotten a new lease of life …

And here I’m talking about my recent encounter with some of the most rational, sensible beings of my age. It’s funny, how, with some of us, the most normal, routine, non-issues become bones of ugly contention, thriving on the irrational egotism/ second-rater-ism . While, with some (very few) others, the most difficult of impasses seem like a cake walk. And the facilitating principle, always, is a rational straightforward dialogue.

It amazed me, how a situation which had the potential of snowballing into something extremely ugly and unpleasant, leaving a bad taste in the mouth for everyone involved, resolved itself beautifully, simply and logically. Not to say that it was an easy job for any of the parties, but the sincere determination to strike at the root cause, instead of anybody’s dignity, respect or intelligence, did the trick.

What would have been an uphill task, turned out to be a great learning experience, and not a bitter one at that!

And it was just another strong evidence of how great minds are not bred/ architected in great buildings/under great banners… they are bred by and within their own selves, by their own nature, choices, and perhaps circumstances.

I would like to use this space to offer a word of thanks, and a small prayer to these strangers, whom I may never see again, but will never manage to forget either.

I’m not talking about saintly souls, angels, or good Samaritans. This post is a toast to the simple, rational, First raters of this world (a rare species by all standards). And, to the indomitable, honest spirit of awe-inspiring excellence, that they epitomize.

Cheers ! ….

** I began writing this post on Jan 29, but left it mid-way and finished it today.

This post does not contain the next chapter of “The Cold War”.

I shall continue the story, though maybe intermittently.

I wanted to write about something else today.

Arps, it’s an allegory again :P – you are perhaps the only one from whom I can expect appreciation and understanding of this post. ( knowing you very well, in case the word “allegory” has just rung a distant bell in your head, and you are trying to figure out as to where exactly you have heard that word before.. *hehe.. did I hit the bullseye?*, let me give you a clue .. “The other side of the Hedge” ?? aaah… did it click now? Yeah… I can almost visualize that silly broad grin on your face (complete with the “oooohhh yesss..that ..)” ;) ..

Anyhow, just to leave no room for doubt and for the benefit of the readers of this blog who are not Arpita et al (if such a breed does exist at all) let me explain.

An allegory is a symbolical narrative; an expression of abstract or such other ideas through the use of characters, events etc representing or conveying the same.

This verse is based on a recent experience. I don’t feel like elaborating here.

As usual, God bless the concept of Blogging for its cathartic effects.

Morality on Lease

You’ve heard of Adam, You’ve heard of Eve,

And their Sin and the Fall, today we grieve.

But apart from the lad and the fallen maiden

There was someone else who’d lived in Eden.

It was a Flower, all pure white,

They called it the ‘flower of Divine Light’

‘twas purest of the pure they said

And Never one to be swayed or led.

The flower- flushed with pride would say,

I’m all white, not a hint of gray.

I’m all white, it would sing,

peace and light, I’m meant to bring.

Lord made me so, Lord made me so,

The rose, the lotus are far below!

And Lord liked him, above them all

Bright it bloomed, slender and tall;

“It’s the white flower- sacred and pure

Straight and steady-above any lure!”

And one fine day, when the evil snake,

Cornered Eve, and the monster spake:

You must eat the fruit that’s deemed forbidden

And win all power with which it’s ridden!

And Eve- the Fall woman, true to her clan

Slarred the conscience of her ‘innocent’ man,

And they ate the fruit, breaking their oath,

At once, The White Flower, before God he quoth,

“I saw it Father, and heard them say!

They traded your love, for power today!”

And The Lord, enraged, ousted the pair,

With a heart wrenched with hurt and despair.

The White Flower, shone still more bright,

Soundly Smug with sheer delight,

And the serpent watched from a tree nearby,

Smirk on his face, and contempt in his eye.

Now, there were also rules for the flowers laid,

For every bee they fed, every pollen they made.

Such was the rule, that they could not allow,

Black bumble bees, near them anyhow!..

For they were evil and sinful all

and yet all the flowers would give ‘em a call!

For all felt, being ‘good’ was just no measure,

For the joy offered by this “guilty-pleasure”..

Among them was another flower- white,

And though it shone much less bright,

For The White Flower, it posed a threat,

What If its standards, one day that one met?!

So, it always fished for an upper hand,

Over its rival, in God’s blessed land.

How often he would grieve aloud before Him

About how all the others mingled at their whim!

Black bees were bad, black bees were sin,

And one day, the evil snake used ‘em as a gin.

It plotted with one, a clever design,

To lure the White flower into crossing the line:

And watched from a distance, eyes wide shut,

As It went ‘astray’ from its morality strut..

The bee had hovered over it some while,

Just that, it did not even take much guile...

And a small whisper, that “God’s away for now…

You can break your word, it’s not even a VOW!"

And The Flower, the White Flower,

The Flower Oh-I’m-So-in-the-right

With such ease, and brazen shrug,

Tripped over, for an indulgence trite…

.....

But did it ‘trip’? I wonder so,

Or did it ‘choose’ to let it go,

Not ‘trip’, as a one-off-accident,

But a conscious move, a moral-dent?

The Rose, the poppy- they all exclaimed,

“O White Flower, aren’t you ashamed!

You who trumpet your white-ness so,

And condemn our shades as sinfully low,

You sinned, you did what is not upright!

Does that befit a Flower of Divine Light?"

And the guilty flower,

So, ideally you’d think;

Would blush to repent, or at least blink,

But no, here’s the catch: (and yes, reality bites!)

It snapped back with a loud-“I- know-my-Rights.”

‘Period’. Period, indeed, I say..

And in this ‘period’, the catch lay!

There was no Eden, there can be none,

Utopias are just that- they can’t be done.

What good was an Eden that bred evil within?

What good is a ‘good’ that fears a sin?

How could just an apple ruin all that was pure?

Oh! How pure is a soul, that easy to lure..?

In such an Eden, so They define,

Morals and ethics, each line by line..

When simple logic’s blown out of size,

And adorned and sanctified in words all wise,

Then you get these apples, and, snakes and bees,

And You get White Flowers- Morality on lease.

(I'm not sure the right message is conveyed to a third person thru these lines, still....gluck Arps! :D)

The Cold War

I had promised some stuff from our good old’ BRILLS days to Arps and Ritz.

Well, I have a particularly interesting episode to relate. And this one is very close to my heart (err..before you raise your eye-brows or clear your throats, I was referring to the semblance-of-a-heart that I do have :D ).

The story itself is not funny or really amusing. But of course, there is subtle humour in many places. Things that still manage to make me smile in wonder: Sometimes I cringe to think that I could have been that immature almost five years ago.

Note: no reference to my current ‘maturity’ levels, but back then, it seemed to have taken a record dip!

I dedicate this post to Arps, Ritz and Ankita C (I know she wouldn’t be reading this though) and yes Mudrika (the one who’s ‘born to party and forced to study’ :P ) – roughly, the inner gang at BRILLS, our tuition center for Science subjects in class XI (which eventually kinda dramatically shuttered down- but that’s another story altogether, maybe later..)

Let me introduce the first protagonist of my story by borrowing a few lines I can recall, from the amateurish ‘farewell’ verse I had written for her (among many others) before leaving Jodhpur nearly four years ago.

(I HOPE you guyz have it preserved – You just better had!! )

Arpita Lakhotia.

Four years ago, we met, we smiled …. Courteously.

Three years ago, we met, we smiled…. Genuinely.

Two years ago, we couldn’t stop talking to think about smiling!

And then, the saga began…

This silly ego problem we had.

And things changed to worse from bad.

[I donot recall the lines that follow..]

But thank heavens, we smiled again,

Coz when we didn’t, ‘twas such a pain!

[cant recall]

Every time I’d slam the phone down,

You’d call back and reason, n would never frown.

Every time I’d make a fuss,

You’d talk about Rachel, Ross or (Russ!!)

[sorry, cant recall again!]

And now the thought of drifting apart,

Believe me, tears a hole in my heart,

I really hope, and I truly pray,

May you get success, and failure- nay!

Whichever field you may walk,

Of course, preferably, as a doc ;)

I really hope to see you rise and shine,

And to tell the world, “that’s a friend of mine” :D

[some more lines]

And anytime you’re feelin’ low..

Or things just out-of-proportion blow,

To share your sorrow,

Or in times of fun,

Go four-six-eight-

Six-eight-five-one**D

I promise…

“I’ll be there for you ….”

** that was my then phone no. and has been changed for obvious reasons.

The other protagonist was me of course.

So… I’ll sincerely try not to get diverted too much to the sub-threads in the story and stick to the central, MAIN one.

Let’s call it : The Cold War @ RKK/BRILLS

Let’s begin at the beginning.

Act I

Scene I

[ Informatics Practices Class in the Computer Lab. Decibel levels as high as was comfortably wont to be in Moonface sir’s class. He had just distributed the test papers for a test he had taken in the previous week.]

Arps had not taken the test- was on leave perhaps. The test papers were met with varying responses : religious indifference from Priyanka- one of the likeable outlaws of the class :D, who did not bother to budge from her ‘head-down nap’ despite moonface sir’s humbly loud and enthusiastic pleas( “wake up betey, and apply your logic”), literally thrusting her test paper in her face, and eventually, perhaps giving up as usual. Most probably, she had responded with her characteristic “Sir please, bore mat karo” *shocked?? .. cant blame you..*

(boy!.. he had the tolerance levels of a saint, didn’t he Arps?!)

On other side of the table, the Airy Fairies sat comparing test papers and scores. For the uninitiated, “Airy Fairy” is a term in Shruti-lexicon .. and refers to that breed of female species who epitomize the stereotypically giirrly girls. (rem. Poo and her sidekicks in K3G ? Airy Fairies approximate a realistic, less-exaggerated version of them. )

In the centre of the semi –elliptical seating arrangement sat Arps and I. And Khushboo, but she was totally engrossed in her own paper, hunting for points to present her case for “more marks” before our good ol’ Moonface.

I had err.. scored 18.5 on 20, to be precise :D … that was the highest.

I repeat though, Arps hadn’t written the test :D

Soo,, arps was scrutinizing my test paper, and she concluded that the 1.5 marks that I had lost had not been fairly deducted. There was no problem with my solution.

Personally, I agreed with her. But I did not care much.

“Go, ask sir why he has done this.”, she prodded me.

“Naah..forget it.” I shrugged lazily.

“But why?!You should ask him and find out!” She repeated with her characteristically annoying rolling eyes.

“But I don’t wish to. What’s the big deal! Doesn’t matter to me.” I repeated defensively.

And followed a brief argument on the rights and wrongs of this question.

Arps was arguing for the principle (‘You always tend to have this attitude. I don’t like it’). I was ..well, not bothered about the principle at that point in time (‘I couldn’t care less, as long as I do know the right solution’.). Though, I knew back then and even now, that she had a point. She was not in the wrong. But then, nor was I. Just that I did not attach much weightage to the issue.

Errrm… I dunno how to analyze this, except, we are all attuned to think, behave in certain ways. It all boils down to different natures and propensities I guess. Not right or wrong.

Just different.

I’m not too sure, Arpita, perhaps you have your own take on this?

Comments welcome :)

Clearly, we were both miffed for our own reasons. But to my credit (ahem .. YEAH! .. I had actually taken the high moral ground initially) after a while, I casually enquired about the F.R.I.E.N.D.S CDs we were both desperately waiting for.

No Response. Rather: Pointedly Pressed lips with a look that screamed *I’m not speaking until you break this silly tradition of yours today*

oops! Attitude huh!! ..

Nonetheless, I took another shot at it. *calming down self*

In fact, the persuasion went on for about 2 whole minutes.

But she wouldn’t relent!

Ouch! .. The Ego had been hurt. Pricked and mocked at.

:D noo, actually, jokes apart.

I was indignant. I’ll be honest: Here was someone dictating to me as to what to do with my life. And not suggesting, but DICTATING!

I usually don’t take very kindly to that. (hey, no one really does!!)

I would do what I wished to. Not coz A, B or C had asked me to.

(:( I realize that I A,B, C-ed you ! )

So basically, that was my mental math at that moment.

Newton’s Third Law: To every action, there is equal and opposite reaction.

Of course, the folding of arms and rudely pursed lips will be met with equally folded arms and pursed lips. (hehe.. silly as this sounds, the spoilt-brattishnes is not being exaggerated at all!)

Class over.

Chemistry with our beloved Professor Snape followed. No Pun intended with the ‘beloved’ bit.

Our love and respect for Praveen Sir (or PRP Sir to be precise) magically grew by leaps and bounds in those two years. Even though our batch and sir had started with daggers pointed at each other.

We rushed to the second floor as fast as we could, as usual, only to be unfairly and sarcastically ridiculed for being LATE. (‘Arreyyy betaaaa… itni jaldi kyun aa gaye. There is still some time for my class to get over ’ ;) .. one of the PRP-isms )

Well anyway, getting back to the story…

Even this strongly passionate we-hate-PRP moment did not unite us this time around.

Both of us walked icily to our individual seats.

I don’t think we got time to dwell too much on what had transpired a while ago,

Break followed.

As we walked down the stairs to line up for breakfast in the Great Dining Hall (*wink wink, our school was no less than Hogwarts, people*), the junta merrily chatting away, Arpita walked up to me (apparently, she was over that fit) excitedly, with some bit of news. (was it the same F.R.I.E.N.D.S CDs? I don’t quite recall..)

And heh heh… What did I do? I was still mad, remember? – The Ego?? :D

As she began to relate her tale, I pointedly turned away (after a verry brief initial period of BLANK look. )

Bam!!

*Drumrolllllllllllllllll*

*bugles/ Trumpeting*

At that historic moment , the Cold War had been formally announced and declared.

The War that had no specific, substantial reason/ cause/ grounds.

The War that was so abrupt, so little understood and intriguing and annoying (and amusing ?? ) for everyone else. And finally, The War that was to last for almost two months! **

** I notice that I AM good at spicing things up :D

Note: The only good thing that came out of this was perhaps that my phone bill that month dramatically plummeted down to an extremely reasonable figure :D

This was the introductory chapter of the story. To be continued later …

Feeback welcome.

PS. I hope The Healer’s Helpmate too will read this soon.

Until we meet next, cheers and JLU :)