Chaos

This one is for the rush of thoughts within me. I am thinking too many things in too short a span of time. I want to say and write far more than I have words for. But I have neither the ability nor the heart to write even a word at this time. This is the first time in my life that I am experiencing utter chaos, and surprisingly so, I want the chaos to continue, rather than anything coming to an end. I hate ends, closures, lasts, farewells. They all have one thing in common, the promise to continue, which I now know rarely holds. The truth is that beyond one day, near enough, we will all move out in different directions only to know that we have something in common, and too many things too diverse. Our ambitions, reasons, routes, companions all too distinct. While each one of us moves out, we must remember, or at least I will remember, that we shared a lot in common, the two best years of our lives. The two years that have taught each one of us a lot more than any other time could possibly have. So, with the hope that we excel and reach higher highs in life, a strongly heartfelt goodbye!!

My dream is to fly, over a rainbow so high!!

To me a rainbow means perfection. The perfect seven shades arched over a bright blue sky can be nothing but bliss. My dream is to attain bliss, to attain perfection. I know it is difficult or maybe the toughest thing to achieve, coz as they say, nothing’s perfect. But yes, striving for perfection is also an end in itself, something to be proud of.

In the life of a girl, especially an Indian girl, this rainbow of perfection gets a new name. This standard of perfection is called ‘Sarva Guna Sampanna’. Relax! My readers don’t faint for what you just read. It is Garry writing. To not make you feel uncomfortable by referring to this super loaded expression too many times, I will refer to it in the future as ‘SGS’. How much ever we may blabber about the modernization of the world, the new age thinking process, the ideas of Gen Y, what can never be challenged is that we are ultimately traditional Indians, who are way too much in love with the Indian ways and pay respect to everything Indian in all sanctity. This applies to religion, rituals, traditions, social norms and the like. Though certain things have been tweaked to varying levels in this modern society, it essentially remains what it used to be even half a century ago. And if I were to plot myself on a traditional-modern continuum, I would be 70 traditional, 30 modern. Yes this result is after significant level of analysis of me. The fact that I am an MBA, I am bound to analyze everything that exists, so pardon me the overly done analysis of every damn thing. That’s me.

What probably has undergone a sea change in this time is the definition of SGS. While some 30 years ago, a beautiful, homely girl got the status of SGS, a few years later, the criteria were beautiful, homely and convent educated. Now, when women have undergone a treatment called “empowerment” the standard still remains, it’s just that it gets a new, more exacting definition. In today’s times an SGS is a girl who is beautiful, homely, well educated, and working. She should have the skill to earn a fat pay packet as well as mange the home, the parents the kids and live up to all social expectations. The only thing this translates to be is that life becomes a battle, a walk on the tightrope, the most difficult balance to strike.

I feel that not too far away in time, I will be subjected to such scanning and analysis and I will have to relent. So like most Indian girls, even after going to the best schools and being exposed to the big bad world out there, and believing all my life that I have a highly liberated existence, I will yet be exposed to the inspection and evaluation of the world, will I make it to the famed lot of SGS. Will my avaguna (ill traits), I think I have just one, overpower and be the hindrance in me getting there.

Time will tell how much of the positives and the negatives remain, and which side wins the battle. Whether I will manage to fly over the rainbow, so very high!!

I'm Booked

Today evening I was doing something very usual, in fact in the last two years of my life I have been doing this activity every now and then. It’s called packing. I packed my luggage, which majorly consisted of books to be transferred from here to Bangalore, my next station. While I was doing this greatly boring and tiresome task, a thought happened to cross my mind. This thought was about something that I liked being associated with at one point in time, in fact I still am. But all this association goes berserk, when you add the word 'text' before it. Yes, books are what I am associated with, and I am miles away from the specific kind called ‘text books’.
Text books. I hardly have anything to do with them, except that I paid a hefty fee for them (believe me I wouldn’t have, if I had any choice) stood in queues in the library to procure them and sign against my name. I even lugged them from the library to my hostel room and then from one hostel to another over the last two years. I know that some of those books do have a lot of sense written in them, sense that should have actually been in my head by now, given that I am nearing the end of my MBA, but I have failed to acquire any of it.
Today was the day to ascertain their fate. I had three options. First, leaving most of them back here, and forget about them. Second, sending them home, all the way to Delhi and expect that my 4 yr old nephew would grow up one day and read his aunt’s books, or a more plausible thing, my mom refusing to waste any storage space in the house on these books. The third option was the one that I also eventually exercised, sending them to Bangalore and store them at my residence to be, and continue to hope that someday, at least some odd day I would use even one of them.
In this hope, I decided to spend some more money in parcel, the one paid as fees not being enough. Tagging them along for at least another two years, when I never did bother to use them in the last two.
Optimism and positivity is the way to go!!

An evening to remember!!

It’s been an evening worth remembering, to say the least!!

It started out with me first having a question, to which I always knew the answer was yes, but the question was there. Am I going?? After deciding that I wasn’t really going to “dress up” to the evening, I’d rather be comfortable, I decided to go. A place just some ten minutes away from where I live, called Westind country Club. The place has a history. I somehow never enjoy my parties there, except one. I think the place is sad, but whatever the place may be, it was my farewell party that my juniors were hosting for my batch and me, and I had to be there. No ill health, nothing whatsoever could stop me. And true to myself, my attitude and my style, I went to the party, with one thing in mind, “Aaj rapat jaayein to hamein na uthaiyo!!!” Precisely that was the mood, but I never needed that kind of drinking to get me high. It was a day of being high on emotions, being high on thoughts, being high on what I’ve done for the last two years. Unusual of me, I hardly danced, or drank. I just loved being there, present, and party to it.

Again, it is all about what ran through my mind, while I spent some two hours there, meeting a host of people. I had spoken at least once before to all the people I spoke to tonight. But let me be candid in accepting that I was surprised, or maybe even shocked. I did not know, before tonight, that I had secret admirers ( I am not offering any explanation on that), or that people who are obvious about it, are actually thinking about things. I never even gave such stuff thought. After surprising myself well enough, I am happy that I spent an evening in which I did not divulge any significant info about me, acquired a lot of information about people, and maybe I should say was introduced to a completely new set of people as well.

This day, which ended with some nonsense singing at TAPMI greens, some candid conversations, lots of hugs, and feeling happy about a day I was sure I was going to be sad about, is certainly a day to remember. My farewell party night at TAPMI, it rocked!!

Keep the Spark!

While I am almost set to graduate from B-school and more likely than not this is the last time I can call myself a student, I have a few promises to make. All to myself. Maybe they can be called resolutions.

My recent illness gave me an opportunity, lots and lots of time with me, just me. Normally, in the excitement of things happening around me, the work, the deadlines, the people, I probably ignore myself. And while I spent a couple of days doing absolutely nothing (like I had any choice!!) I thought, and thought hard at that. I have often felt that I am different than most people. In fact I believe that each person born on earth is as different from the other as her fingerprints. What followed this thought was a question. What precisely makes me different?

I could describe a few unique characteristics of mine to myself, to some I could not give words but I know they exist within me, and I am sure there are some things characteristic of me, of which I am absolutely unaware. After this great brainwave, I also thought that I generally like myself as a person, except times when I get down to doing some stuff, that even shocks me, but that’s rare. So, given that I like myself as I am, and am also willing to work on the present “needs improvement” list, the bigger question is how can I retain myself, as I am today. I fear that once I get down to doing what everybody does in life, “work for a living”, I might just forget being myself. So like a good student of knowledge management, I decided to put down in words, as far as I could, what makes me.

My enthusiasm: I am generally very excited about most things in life. Be it a simple joke being shared with friends, work, activities, books, movies, parties, plans, anything. I think this is one thing which certainly makes me different. In fact, at times people have even asked me, how can I be so upbeat about things..but that’s how it is. My funda, “most things in life are such that you have to do them, have to as in, HAVE TO. So, given that you have to do them, you have two choices, either you can do them willingly or cribbing. It’s just that I choose the former. And once that’s done, the enthusiasm and the excitement just follow.

My smile: this one’s my personal favourite. It is the best strategy at times, the best tool at some other times and a savior at some more. I think a smile can ease out tense situations, save you from embarrassments, it has the power to divert the attention of people. It is certainly the handiest tool when you know you have landed yourself in a soup. And like they say a smile does brighten up the day.

My “experimenting” nature: I have a weakness for trying out new things, participating in new activities. This also translates into me putting myself into too many things I have no idea about. This is probably to do with the risk loving side of me. I would categorize myself as an innovator in terms of kinds of buyers as we study in marketing. I am the one waiting to see what’s new. I think not too many things should remain the same for too long, so I like change at the speed I can manage. Infact I keep challenging myself on this one. So while the world resists change, I embrace it. This is a significant part of my being different.

These three put together, I call it my spark. The spark that makes me, defines me, differentiates me. I feel that if it were to go missing, the spirit in me would die out, and I will not remain myself. It’s all in the spark. So here I make a promise to myself that I will forever strive to keep the spark!!

My First

After being told by too many people too many times, and also rejecting the idea far too many times, I have taken to it. Yes, I have my blog. Like most things in life, I do not have any idea as to what I will be doing here, but I think this is a much needed thing.
My Motivation??
Soon I am graduating from a B-school, and in the last two years I have got used to the idea of me talking and people listening. I have to accept that I completely love the phenomenon of talking and the fact that someone is listening to it. Given, that I am not a person of any order of intelligence, forget high, I generally talk random stuff, the less euphemistic might even decide to call it crap. In the campus lingo it can be called gas. A term most B-school students are aware of, and an idea most swear by. It is something that most people hate, but most people end up resorting to. After having being called the gas champ by many, and I have no qualms in accepting that I do gas at times, I feel that in my life post MBA there will be few takers for it. So to vent my gas, and to expose to the world, the gaseous side of me, I set out with the blog, Gas by Garry.