A picture of confusion that is me.

I wonder how am I gonna fill up all these days with meaning, something that keeps me going, that sustains me mentally and intellectually. No I am not talking about the work that is my bread and butter but the work that will satisfy that tiny bone in my body. I honestly don’t know what I was meant to do. Most people are born to do something, anything. What was I born to do? What is my true calling in life? What did God envision for me as he brought me into this world? Or am I gonna be happy just trotting along not knowing what was I meant to do? I beg God sometimes to just show me one glimpse on how he sees the future for me. I also know tis in my hands too. This isn’t about the missed buses that were many or being distracted by all the silly frivolous vices that tempt youth. I lived my life the way I wanted to and it has been quite the fun ride but for the occasional bump but somewhere along the line I have honestly lost track on what I set out to do or did I even know what I was getting into 9 years back.

I go through these phases when I sit and question everything that I am doing and why am I doing and why did I end up where I am right now. Hmmmmm…… Am I unhappy? No I am not. Am I dissatisfied with the work? No I am not. Am I doing something cool? Well I don’t know. However the one time in my life when I thought I was doing something I was proud of doing my Boss made my life a living nightmare or at least in office he did and at that period I suffered from immense loss of self esteem like I never have before. I learnt a lot but at the cost of what? The strangest thing being when I came back to this organization I only came so cos I had closed all doors and not a single other job had worked out. I got so many rejects in a span of one month that I was down and out and then my ex-boss got in touch with me asking me if I’d like to work for this Project. I said yes just like that and before I knew it I was here and the rest of course is the way it played out.

I don’t even know what I am looking for. As usal I am the perfect picture of confusion. Gawddd am I ever ever gonna change? There was a time when I was the perfect picture of self inspiration. That me got lost somewhere along the way. I need that reason to feel inspired again. I need that spark, that zing and that enthusiasm. I want to believe that I can plan and plan smartly and do something about this. I want to believe that this isn’t it and I can have something close to what I had dreamt of. I know one has to wait it out and take a different way but there has to be some hidden way somewhere to the place I wanna go even though it is a different place now. I don’t wanna be dreamless cos I have begun to realize that I am not happy this way if all I believe is this is all that can be. That doesn’t mean I live in my make believe world and don’t do my duties over here. No more make believe for me but the dreams have to be there right. I hate this evolved cynical thing I have become as if life defeated me. It was supposed to be the other way around. Wasn’t it?

The hardest part is not comparing myself to others. I am human and I would compare myself to my contemporaries but some of the happiest people I know are so oblivious to the world around. Sometimes I feel this is gonna be one long long wait and I have to make sure that it is a happy wait and not an aimless one. Escapism has been my solace for too long. I have also spent the better part of this decade brooding over all the wrong people. I mean seriously it has been such a grand waste of time. I don’t regret all of them but surely I could have done without some of them. As I am growing older why is life only becoming about nobody loves me? Yuck! I don’t want it to be like that all needy and lonely. It is only human to but even then. Okie so I don’t have it. So just move on. Don’t centre your life around this one fanatical emotion that consumes so many of us. I want an aim in life God, I want that splendid feeling that I achieved something and that this is going somewhere. I don’t wanna be walking along blindly like I am walking along now. Show me some light. I pray to you to show me some light. Come on I know this cannot be it. I know this isn’t it.

I've come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that's as unique as a fingerprint - and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.

Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine, September 2002
US actress & television talk show host (1954 - )

Neither here nor there no I am happy just being me.

Red Head was in town on Monday and I took half a day off as we spent an afternoon cribbing about the heat, survived an auto ride from hell and a so-so lunch at TGIF and shopped a bit at the mall. The best thing about old friends is that they so get you and you needn’t explain yourself. They know where what is coming from and why is it coming so. It is this comfort level that seems to be so hard to find with newer people and if you are lucky once in a billion blue moons you’d meet someone you can share the same camaraderie with. No I wouldn’t exchange Fino, Red Head, Batty, Mona, Economist, Saggy, Meggy and Tinni with any other people I could have wanted to share my life and times with. :-)

Last Saturday a tipsy me bumped into R after years and that too in Morrisson of all the places. Wow life does come to a full circle. I hugged her happily though she didn’t seem too glad to see me. I could see through her strained smile that no she just didn’t feel the same and she never will. I guess I never expected her to. I am so thankful that I don’t give a damn and stopped giving a damn when we stopped associating with each other. To think that once upon a time my whole life centred around her and her every whim and fancy effected me in some way or the other. R my ex-roomie, someone I have probably had some of the best times of the first quarter of my life, someone I have shared endless laughter, giggles, innumerable bottles of wine. Someone I have cried with, consoled, evolved with and finally walked away from when I couldn’t keep up the pace and someone I have mentioned over and over again in older posts, posts dated 3 years back. No I don’t miss her since I am definitely not the same me anymore and I think she still is the same ‘her’ she use to be. I’d thought that maybe someday we would be able to connect again but I was wrong. Both of us were inebriated yet I could feel the cold vibes. Ah well we win some, we lose some and we move on.

Life teaches us some lessons again and again yet we refuse to learn until we reach the end of the road and we realize that hell if I don’t pay heed to it this time then it’ll only spiral down from here. So I am choosing to learn this lesson. Dear God I so get what you have been trying to tell me for almost the last 10 years of my life. One doesn’t try every good thing (or everything that looks good) that comes along. No I am not gonna try no more. Wow to think Batty and I use to be dreaming of joint holidays and where did we eventually land up? The only holidays I am gonna plan now are with friends. No thank you I‘d never wanna be inside your head. It must be maddening up there, churning out all those strange muddled up colourless thoughts, pining for something you ain’t ever gonna get and playing with somebody else’s mind in the process. Neither here nor there. No I am happy being me.

Snippety Snap Snippety Snap

Snippety snap, snippety snap.
A little bit of this, a little bit of that.
A tiny step here and a tiny step there.
I cut it into a million little pieces and throw it all away.
Yet it comes right back together.
Where it belongs to on my cabinet.
Or is it my mind that is its rightful place.
No I can’t seem to get rid of.
That perfect picture.

And I will show you something different

A couple of things that have made me really happy off late and I just had to jot it down.
Last evening while going home with a couple of colleagues we were driving past the brightly lit runway like we do every day and as a plane slowly landed and it flew really low and gradually descended amongst all that fairy light I silently thanked God for everything, for the sight that looked ohhh so pretty, for me having the ability to appreciate the same and stoopid as it sounds but for making me a tiny miniscule part of something so big.

This morning while sitting in the bus stop with my book, trying to read and unknowingly being a silent spectator to all the childish banter around me. Such a comfortable feeling as if all can be good with the world sometimes.

A Sunday lunch on a summer afternoon at Oh Calcutta with a bunch of people I only recently got acquainted with. I ‘d thought I couldn’t be my contented self with friendly strangers but apparently I can and I was in such high spirits eating yummy Bengali food, drinking Sangria and exchanging notes with them as if we’d done this before when in reality we never had.

Oh and the sight of the purple bougainvillea against the blue blue summer sky. Think I can spot beauty even in this soon to be scorching killer of a summer.

“Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.”

T.S Eliot

I made you up inside my head...

I’d never thought that someday you of all the people would make me feel the way you did. Not S, not Fuddy Duddy, not Frankenstein, not Fido Dido, not all those stoopid random/not so random people but you who chose to behave the way you did. You never intended to but right now this is what it is. Indifference has never felt so indifferent. I guess that is what hurts the most. Like you always said that I can be foolishly romantic and every once in a while I need that jolt to be woken up from my reverie and face the harsh reality. Of course life goes on and yada yada yada. You and I both know that. It always has and always will. But sometimes we burn the bridges. I know it doesn’t matter to you right now cos you feel nothing. You never felt anything. And just so you know I don't live in hope anymore. Everytime I hope the world around me crashes down be it hoping for Daddy to live or be it waiting to get that job or longing for you to do something about us.Guess I made it up all in my head, all of it.

"I closed my eyes and the world dropped dead,
I think I made you up inside my head."

Sylvia Plath