15 minutes

It struck me while I was tap-tap-tapping my foot waiting for the lift to reach my floor, the other day. There I was, staring at my watch, a little irritated that the bus had reached 15 minutes late. And as the numbers changed slowly in the lift display I kept thinking about all that I had to do, all that would be delayed by the late arrival of the bus. I was getting more and more irritated. And then as the lift and my frustration both reached the peak, something happened, with a ‘ding’. The lift door opened. And it had struck me that I was so irritated, so early, on such a beautiful morning. No wonder things would keep going wrong if I kept this up. I would ruin entirely what would potentially be a good day because of 15 minutes of irritation. Was it really worth it?

It kept me thinking, that thought about how much frustration I picked up from small things. My slow computer. Lifts not arriving on time. Queues at lunch. I really couldn’t help any of these things and yet they’d get me so bothered. And I have read a lot of articles and books, as you have, I’m sure, about the importance of letting go. Why not to get frustrated if there is nothing you can do and so on. But seriously, I have tried deep breathing. I have tried clearing my mind. I have tried a lot of things. And mostly still felt like screaming like a banshee. I wonder how many people can really put all these seemingly excellent theories to practice when the moment really comes. In any case I needed a different solution. Yes I was going to get frustrated. As I sailed through my day I was going to pick up all that flotsam and jetsam of annoyance and botheration. I just had to deal with it.

And so I came up with this plan. 15 minutes. Exactly the same time that it took to get me all wound up in the first place. I decided to take out 15 minutes for myself. When nothing seemed to be going right I would pick up my mug and brew myself some tea and watch the traffic of toy cars on the expressway through my steam fogged glasses. I would listen to a couple of my favorite songs on my iPod. Or read a few pages of the book I always keep on my desk in the hope of reading. Or even just put my head down and just sit and clear my head.

It amazed me. I started to feel so much better. Problems didn’t seem so big anymore. And even if they did I felt like I could handle them. At first I did have a problem. I kept thinking ‘No I cannot take a break I simply cannot. I do not have 15 minutes to spare. This work is simply interminable and I need every minute I can get. I need to work faster. Not take a break’. (But seriously, if it’s so interminable then its really not going to finish in the next 15 minutes is it?)

I suppose we have forgotten what it is to slow down. We actually accelerate through the amber traffic signal. In a world that exhorts speed we have forgotten the importance of taking a little time. And in reality I understand that there is not that much time to take long vacations. To stop. So go on and at least hit the ‘Pause’ button of your life. Take those 15 minutes for yourself…Hopefully you’ll feel the magic too.

Mumbai Trip

A few days ago life had gotten to the point where I put my head in my hands and groaned ‘I need a vacation’. Things seemed to be going wrong faster than I could deal with them. I mean an embarrassment a week is a normal life situation for me. But when I start pinging people their own name in communicator prefixed with the words ‘who is…’ or when I have a clipboard malfunction and send a teammate a part of a friend’s email instead of the error message he was expecting...I put my head in my hands and think ‘Vacation in order’.

You will understand that there is a major difference between wanting a vacation and actually taking one. So I had filed this much needed vacation under the mental folder ‘Wishful Thinking of the Tired Mind’ and was pounding my frustrations away on the hapless keyboard as usual when my friend from college called to say ‘What do you think of visiting Nandita in Mumbai sometime this month?’. I said yes without even asking when, why or how. One thing led to another and I found myself early one freezing Thursday morning staring groggily out of the airplane window at the rising sun and then it hit me. I was on vacation.

So began the great Mumbai trip. I reached Mumbai and was just battling the heat and humidity when my friend waved a neatly printed sheet in my face. It was actually a list of places to visit and things to do that she had printed out. (I also have friends who make and send excel sheets asking which food court we want to have lunch during the week). After jumping into and out of 3 different modes of transport we ended up at Colaba causeway. And hungry and tired that we were we walked into this charming place called Mondegar’s (this was in our list incidentally). As we ate and drank our way through the discussions on what we had been doing in the past 8 months we discovered quite a few things. Like the fact that gay man at the next table was wearing the same t-shirt that my friend. I doubt that shirt is ever coming out of the closet…

Evening found us sitting at Marine Drive listening to music on my phone, eating channa, drinking tea. We remembered our college times. An incident in particular when Nandita and I lay down on our backs in the middle of Ramya’s living room and sang Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. I suppose for some reason reminiscing was not enough and so there we were, on our backs, staring at the night sky, singing ‘If I lie here, If I just lay here….’ It’s amazing the kind of things you do with your friends and not feel stupid about. I mean, would you otherwise feel its ok to sing the song ‘Sheela ki Jawani’ loudly in a taxi? Or pose like an Egyptian painting in the middle of KFC just because you bought Egyptian sandals? I thought not.

One night we went to this lounge called 21 degree Farenheit. It’s all made of ice. The seats, the walls, the tables… And for some reason people (including us) think it’s fun to drink ice cold drinks in this place. As if it’s not enough that we’re freezing from the outside, we want to freeze on the inside. I am coming up with this theory that a temperature of -6 degree centigrade slowly kills brain cells. This is the only explanation I have for the crazy bet that was put by Sushma to Nandita and me. To be fair I’d say Nandita and I had a much higher brain cell death rate because we actually completed the bet. We licked the ice wall. It’s a wonder that our tongue didn’t stick to it. I have recurring nightmares now of being escorted out with my tongue attached to an ice brick.

Other good times include our visit to the comedy store. Standing like ghosts around a man at a table, on the beach and frightening him into finding another table. Eating chat till we would have burst with another mouthful.

What I would not recommend however is jumping into a train that has started moving. I was the last one to get in and I actually got hit in the shoulder by the train as I did this amazing stunt. Yes you’ll tell me that people do that on an everyday basis in Mumbai. But for a Bangalorean it’s still an amazing stunt. It was a while before I got over that shock. And Sushma and Nandita carefully herded me into all other trains following this so I have nothing to complain about. If ever you do this, however, take care to not make the mistake I did. Do not tell your mother. Mothers do not understand the spirit of adventure in such ‘amazing stunts’.

And so on it went till I arrived in Bangalore sleep deprived and almost dead from exhaustion. And in a coffee induced fervor I decided to come to office. I remember that some important things were said to me that day though I simply cannot recall them. What I can recall though is the single thought that was on my mind that day-‘ I need a vacation to recover from this vacation’.

Life's like that...

Its been 6 months that I have been working in Bangalore now. And I remember the first question that all the girls asked me. Over the communicator and on the phone. From the office mails and to the Facebook wall it was the single question on their lips... "So are there any cute guys at work?"

And my invariable answer would be "No". Or rather "No. :( :( :( :( " . (Just so you know the feeling correctly.)

Anyway this went on for months, and because they were questioning me so much I thought let me see. Maybe I was missing something. After all there cant be so many thousand people working in this place and not a single cute guy. Its against every law of probability. And math is the one thing you can trust to be consistent. Right? Wrong. I looked in the food courts, on the streets, in other peoples cubicles and in the buses. No sign of the cute guys. I was beginning to doubt the infallibility of math...

And then there was the day. The evening to be precise. When I was hurrying toward my building in the fading light, when the stars were just beginning to wink on. There I was phone held to the ear,balancing a cup of corn in one hand and a bag in the other, walking fast toward the sliding glass doors. Now at this point I would like to tell you, even before you have that doubt, that I did in fact see the doors. Mirror-like, shiny and...closed. I would also like to point out that these doors are the automatically opening type that swoosh open like magic when you get close enough to them. And so I walked on, not breaking my stride, expecting the magic to work as expected. But no.

I don't know whether I was too fast or the door too slow (I prefer the latter explanation) but the next thing I know is that I have banged my nose and hand hard against the glass. As if that were not insulting enough I look down at my hand to see the paper cup of corn look like...well it looked like it had been banged hard against a glass door. I did the only thing that most normal people would do. I looked around to see how many people had witnessed this embarrassing moment. Just when I was about to heave a sigh of relief, I spotted him. He who I had not seen in all the preceding 6 months of futile searching. There he was, standing with his phone held away from his ear looking like he had just said into the phone "Wait a sec I just saw a girl walk headlong into a glass door". And he said to me"Are you all right?". I was mortified to say the least. I mumbled "I'm fine, thanks" and ran in through the doors (which had by then mercifully opened) all the while hoping that he had not gotten a good enough look at my face...

All the people to whom I have told this story have given me countless and imaginative suggestions on how I should have handled the situations. My most favorite is "But you should have fallen into a dead faint when he said that. Then he'd have had to call the ambulance and take you to the doctor!". But I didn't and so I don't know who he is. I just wish I had seen him in better circumstances so I could have taken a proper look...or sneaked a look at his ID (pathetic but true).

I'm left wondering what I should do to see him again. And a small voice inside says "C'est la vie Sharma...Life's that that".

PS: He restored my faith in math though. :P

Songs..

Its amazing how much a song can bring back. When the first strains of a song you used to love tickles your ears and brings that smile on your face... It all comes rushing back- the people, the places and the feelings... I was sitting in the car on a hot Sunday afternoon feeling not a little low when the radio chose to play Iktara.

"Ore manva tu toh baavra hai....Tu hi jaane tu kya sochta hai"

I remembered waking up at 12.30 in the night, during my Mysore training days and feeling walking. And so I had hopped out of bed and out into the foggy night. I remember seeing the fog highlighted into visibility under the bright street lamps, the smell of the rain in the air...the soft crunch of my sneakers on the concrete, the people all walking in the opposite directions towards their rooms...

"Jo barse sapne boondh boondh...Naino ko moondh moondh"

I remember seeing the rain fall through the glass panel in the door. Listening to the soothing sound of it over the drone of the classroom. I remember going out in the break to sit on the window and watch it make the grass greener and the hear the patter of it on the granite. I can feel the cool spray of it on my skin. I remember the horrible coffee that I drank in a green plastic glass. I remember listening to this song on my iPod and thinking of someone.

"Kaise main chaloon, dekh na sakoon, anjaane raaste"

Memories come back to me of the times I used to get frustrated with the work and run away to the Gazebo and watch the sky slowly darken while blowing the steam off my coffee (Coffee Day. There's only so much yucky coffee one can drink!). I remember missing home and calling mom as I sat there watching the smoke-blurred people in the smoking zone. Hearing about the delicious dinners while I threw the greasy remains of a samosa in the dustbin. I remember wanting more than anything to be at home...

"Goonja sa hai koi Iktara Iktara... Goonja sa hai koi Iktara"

I remember singing this song up on the podium of my empty classroom. I remember my friends smiling indulgently back at me as I near massacred the song. I remember even smiling for a video of it. I remember thinking "Oh Wow, I survived this". I remember listening to it in the car when my family came to take me back from Mysore. I remember the smile that slowly widened as the miles between me and Mysore slowly increased...

And that's how I found myself smiling again. And suddenly it came back to me that I have a lot of things to be happy about. Life has its downs, yes, but its sad how soon we forget the good times. Because there's a fair share of them too if you can just remember them. So play your favorite song and find what you have forgotten. :)

Slaves of Routine?

I have a lot of time these days to think. 3 hours almost. Not much I can do in the bus really when I can't read and am unable to fall asleep. So I just listen to music, or stare out the window and...think.

Here's a thought for you to think about...

I remember wondering, as a kid, about why people sleep on only their side of the bed. And then I observed that my mom or dad did that too when the other was not there. I used to think it's a waste of a nice big bed and if it were me I'd sleep right in the middle with my arms and legs spread out, or just roll in the blankets from this end to the other....

And the thought struck me that I never did do that. Now I too sleep only on my side of the bed. Even when I have the whole bed to roll in. Just to fulfill that childhood fantasy I tried sleeping bang in the middle of it and wondered...why did I ever think this would be fun?

Now that I think of it, we really are creatures of habit. In Mysore when I was in training, we were a classroom full of people. As people left the room started becoming emptier. The spaces between two people grew. People were okay with yelling out their thoughts to the person who was 10 seats away but would not agree to move and sit next to him or her. On asking they'd protest with "No...This is my place. I don't want to move. Ask him/her to move"

What is it with us? Why are we so resistive to the smallest of changes? Why do we not jump headlong into fun?

Maybe that's what they mean by holding on to your childhood. When you can sleep in the middle of your bed with more blankets than you need and roll...and think it's fun.

Ah,those times

Have you ever wondered how it is always moments in your life that you were highly embarrassed or scared witless are the ones you will remember even after many years?The stuff that you'll write in scrapbooks for memory.Those are the things you will talk to your friends about and laugh like loonies.

Remember when we got caught by the cops for the unforgivable sin of having dinner and going back home late?how they wouldn't let us go and wanted to talk to our parents?How we called up our friends to pose as parents which ended up in comic situations like kannadiga parents with malayali children?
Never mind that we were scared witless at the time.Scary almost always turns into funny once you're out of it!

Remember the time I said Thank God in prayer and raised both palms up in His direction as part of the conversation we were having in Field theory class that the teacher saw and asked "what does that mean?Tell me what that expression you were doing with your hands means".
Till date the entire class thinks I showed him the finger.Although if that was the case I'm sure there would've been no doubt as to what that meant!

Remember the time when the Lancer with the blue taillights chased us on that empty road?
That totally tops my list of scary situations.I think it'll take a few more years for that to become slightly funny.

Remember the time we talked so loudly about baboon guy that his friends actually wrote him a testimonial that mentioned what all we'd said? We still cannot look the guy in the eyes and keep a straight face.As for him lets just say he's taken to wearing kurtas and not shirts...

Remember the time I was asked in Power Electronics,"what will happen if i don't give gate pulse to a thyristor?" and I stood there muttering brilliantly a series of ahhhs and ummms when he said "It will go to sleep just like you".
In my defence it was 2pm on a hot summer afternoon with no electricity.oh who cares.I was dreaming happy dreams.I'm not apologetic!

Remember the time you idiots,my so called "friends" introduced me to SG and then proceeded to send him lame texts from my phone which included 'remember me,we met in S's house?'
At best he thinks I have a crush on her.Thats being optimistic.I'd bet he thinks I'm a crazy,desperate,stalker female who has to resort to asking her friends to set her up.
You'll all be lucky if I ever find that funny!

See?I dont remember much the really fun things that happened,though there are a lot of them.Its just these things,that,at the point of them happening you wouldn't mind forgetting.Now you just go ah...those times! :)

Haircut

A few weeks ago I got this new summer haircut because hot summer+long hair=high level irritation, at least for me.So off it went and i'm all comfortable and happy.But whats more fun than the haircut is people's reactions to it.There's this single moment between the time they see it to the time they give fake compliments thats really worth seeing.the italics indicate the stuff that i'm not saying. :P

Reaction #1: (eyes so wide you'd think I'd shaved my head bald)
You cut your hair?
*brilliant,holmes*
It looks...er....different.
(at which point i ask if its good different or bad)
Its...er...different (This always means bad and they're trying to be polite)
(Then they see my rather sad expression and they try to make me feel better)
It suits you though!
(extra bright cheer up smile)

Reaction #2: (sad expression).(forever).
Why'd you cut your hair?
(beautiful mixture of sadness,pain,shock and pity in one single expression ,you'd think I cut off their hair...)

Reaction #3:You look like a fairy doll.
(yes you know who you are who said this...)
*What what what is a fairy doll?Is it a fairy?A doll?A doll who is a fairy?vice versa?what??*

Reaction #4: (These are the ones who should be up there receiving oscars)
You cut your hairrrr!It lookks so goodddd! It totally suits you!!! Even I need a haircut..where'd you cut it?
(roughly about a million questions to which they don't care for answers)

Of course there are the people who genuinely like it,or the ones who frankly say they liked my longer hair better.That second category consists mostly of guys.What it is with guys and their obsession with girls with long hair I will never know.And if I ask,their most clear and informative reply would be "its...its..".So if any of you figure it out,let me know. :)

Meanwhile get a haircut.Its really amusing if nothing else and it'll grow right back so what have you got to lose 9other than a few hundred bucks)? :P