‘Bright college days, oh, carefree days that fly,
To thee we sing with our glasses raised on high
Let’s drink a toast as each of us recalls…’
-Lehrer Tom
Pass out at the stroke of daylight and snooze on till the noon, wake up to grab some thing and pass out again and do it again and do it again and again till you are thrown into a rosy-dosy world. Report to work sharp at 9, in a neat and trimmed look. Slog your ass off round the clock and return back drop-dead only to hit the sack.
Time changes but it has bloody jumped the gun, this time round. It sucks when you see those pounds growing in your belly and gives you that uncle-wala look. It sucks when you party at the best of the places in town with your tie loosened a bit and the sleeves rolled upto two wraps. You feel like hitting your balls hard every time you flip out your Blackberry with those business messages even as you sip your Scotch. And it sucks awfully when your wardrobe has cornered all your UCBs, NIKEs and the PUMAs with all the formal shirts and trousers.
Once upon a time I dreamt to be this. But now as I have lived my dream, I no more want to be in dribs and drabs again.
Why did I graduate? It shucks to be a naukri-wala-uncle.
It sucks, No, seriously, it does.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
SOMETHING MISSING!!!
There are seldom crystal clear beginnings in our lives, those days and moments we can go back to find when everything started. And also there are those moments when fate crashes with our lives setting in tandem a sequence of events whose outcome we could have never foreknown.
It’s already past midnight and I am wide awake. Earlier after creeping into bed I tossed and turned for quite long before I finally gave up. So, now I am sitting with a pen in hand wondering about my own intersection with fate. Lately, it seems that is all I can think about.
Apart from the usual steady ticking of the clock that sits beside the bed, there is pindrop silence. And as I stare at the blank sheet of paper, I realize that I don’t know where to start. It’s not because I am ambivalent of my story but I am not sure why I feel compelled to share it. What can one achieve by digging into the past? Afterall the events have unfolded since the past twelve years.
My memories for this period is aided by a diary that I have treasured since I was a boy and the wonderful moments etched in my memory, though a handful.
Who am I? And how I wonder will this story end?
The first rays of the sun seems to be making its way through the window but my innerself still seems to be foggy with the breath of my life gone by. I am actually a sight this morning, my legs tightly wrapped with something in white to repair the fractures and many more bandages here and there, unkept hair with traces kissing my eyelids at times. The tunes of “Show me the feeling of being lonely…” has been humming a hundred times in my ears in the last few hours.
Let’s now come back to my life. What a life it has been. It isn’t easy to explain. It has not been a rip-roaring salient journey as I fancied it to be, but neither did I give up except maybe, at this instance.
I am an ordinary boy with ordinary thoughts leading an ordinary life. I have no complaints about the path I have chosen and the way it has taken me places but unfortunately, time does not make it easy to stay on course. Though the path is still the same but now it is strewn with rocks. Few years back, maybe it would have been possible to tread a different path but it’s impossible now. There is sickness rolling through my body; I am neither strong nor healthy and suddenly my days have turned into an old party balloon, growing softer over time.
With the onset of the day, the nurses see me and we exchange a smile. Now they are my friends and I talk mostly to them these days. They too observe me daily and whisper amongst themselves about me . Maybe they want to give me the mental healer.
I realize the odds are against me and this, I have learned in my lifetime. And just as I do everyday, I write my diary and read it aloud in my heart so that she can hear it, in the hope that the miracle that has dominated my life will once again prevail.
And maybe, just maybe it will…
Dated:5th May 2010
Posted late for being handicapped.
It’s already past midnight and I am wide awake. Earlier after creeping into bed I tossed and turned for quite long before I finally gave up. So, now I am sitting with a pen in hand wondering about my own intersection with fate. Lately, it seems that is all I can think about.
Apart from the usual steady ticking of the clock that sits beside the bed, there is pindrop silence. And as I stare at the blank sheet of paper, I realize that I don’t know where to start. It’s not because I am ambivalent of my story but I am not sure why I feel compelled to share it. What can one achieve by digging into the past? Afterall the events have unfolded since the past twelve years.
My memories for this period is aided by a diary that I have treasured since I was a boy and the wonderful moments etched in my memory, though a handful.
Who am I? And how I wonder will this story end?
The first rays of the sun seems to be making its way through the window but my innerself still seems to be foggy with the breath of my life gone by. I am actually a sight this morning, my legs tightly wrapped with something in white to repair the fractures and many more bandages here and there, unkept hair with traces kissing my eyelids at times. The tunes of “Show me the feeling of being lonely…” has been humming a hundred times in my ears in the last few hours.
Let’s now come back to my life. What a life it has been. It isn’t easy to explain. It has not been a rip-roaring salient journey as I fancied it to be, but neither did I give up except maybe, at this instance.
I am an ordinary boy with ordinary thoughts leading an ordinary life. I have no complaints about the path I have chosen and the way it has taken me places but unfortunately, time does not make it easy to stay on course. Though the path is still the same but now it is strewn with rocks. Few years back, maybe it would have been possible to tread a different path but it’s impossible now. There is sickness rolling through my body; I am neither strong nor healthy and suddenly my days have turned into an old party balloon, growing softer over time.
With the onset of the day, the nurses see me and we exchange a smile. Now they are my friends and I talk mostly to them these days. They too observe me daily and whisper amongst themselves about me . Maybe they want to give me the mental healer.
I realize the odds are against me and this, I have learned in my lifetime. And just as I do everyday, I write my diary and read it aloud in my heart so that she can hear it, in the hope that the miracle that has dominated my life will once again prevail.
And maybe, just maybe it will…
Dated:5th May 2010
Posted late for being handicapped.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Brand India crawls to adulthood
In 1991, who could predict India to be one of the economic superpowers of the world. Even if someone did, he would have been dismissed as the harangue of a delusional optimist. Brand India then was rassling with too many problems and doubt to harbor any such ambitions about the future. India did not see itself as a player of significance on the international stage, but this was a view that was shared by virtually no one else. Brand India was seen through the lens of poverty, bureaucracy and still, a land of snake charmers.
It was a brand that bubbled with complexity and solicited the perpetual tag of a victim, a problem too intractable for anyone to seriously resolve while at the same time being in some unnamed arcane way. One visited India, not to find India but to find oneself. India was eternal, startlingly diverse, steeped in pessimism and contentment, seemingly ignorant to the entanglement it found itself embedded in. During the late eighties, some efforts at reform had begun, but that seemed to be grounded quite quickly. Overall Brand India evolved as a very coherent form of stagnation, where it had an opinion on everything but a plan for nothing.
There was a sea of change in 1991.The liberalization agenda dismantled a significant part of the complex network of barriers that kept India in the same place in spite of all its exertions. It opened the wings of the entrepreneurial energies of the private sector. But most importantly, it created for the first time a urge to look into the future with hope instead of apprehension and spawned the first generation to believe in India’s future. The earlier generation had grown up on endless hollow-sounding odes to India’s glorious past and its undying heritage and longed to regain a semblance of that past glory. Brand India believed in the future and most importantly the way to shape it. The change in mindset where one was always at the receiving end of circumstances to one where it was possible to mould circumstances to ones will is a critical shift that has taken place during the last two decades.
The growth of the economy has created headroom and a sense of agility among a large part of India. The fear surrounding the future has been taken over by a firm belief that one can substantially better one’s lot during one’s lifetime, and this has had a liberating effect on the Indian psyche. We can see this vertiginous new optimism in all walks of life- the sense of clothing, the experimentation with food, the buying behavior, the psychedelic ceremonies we enjoy– all of them speak volumes of an unshackling that has taken place. Brand India has found its voice, and re-discovered its spirit, this time not as a faded photocopy of the past but as a pulsating template for the future. And for the first time, India is getting the recognition, particularly from the West that it so obviously longs for.
Brand India may have turned 18, but is it quite ready to embrace adulthood? In its need for constant authentication from the West, where every pat on the back is met with swooning delectation in its trenchant trumpeting of Indian achievements, in its frenzied dissection of current events and its obsession with fantasies and celebrities, Brand India exhibits an adolescent infatuation with itself.
But adulthood is not far away. The global economic meltdown, the spiraling terrorist problem are the clouds that will darken the Indian horizon. At a more fundamental level, the composition of Brand India is likely to become more pressing as we move forward. Brand India is an insidious formulation, in which it gathers everything that is marketable about India under its banner, throwing out from its fold, those who do not form part of the India’s dream run. It conflates national interest with the singular task of appearing appealing to the world and in doing so, potentially skews our priorities. Also it is important to recognize the thin line between Brand India and Market India. Brand India in its current avatar is 19 years old, but the civilization called India is just a little bit older. The Indian story cannot concentrate on the economic growth for a section, but needs to be accountable to the colossal idea represented by Brand India.
Here lies the most important question. Why humankind needs Brand India? The world doesn’t need India because of its large market potential or the intellectual infrastructure. India is an idea that helps provide unique resolutions to the complex problems of today’s world. Eventually that must be Brand India’s calling. But now, even if it has turned 19 in its current avatar, it is still a teenager.
Such was the state nineteen years back that it was difficult to imagine reality but now in 2010, it is difficult not to dream.
It was a brand that bubbled with complexity and solicited the perpetual tag of a victim, a problem too intractable for anyone to seriously resolve while at the same time being in some unnamed arcane way. One visited India, not to find India but to find oneself. India was eternal, startlingly diverse, steeped in pessimism and contentment, seemingly ignorant to the entanglement it found itself embedded in. During the late eighties, some efforts at reform had begun, but that seemed to be grounded quite quickly. Overall Brand India evolved as a very coherent form of stagnation, where it had an opinion on everything but a plan for nothing.
There was a sea of change in 1991.The liberalization agenda dismantled a significant part of the complex network of barriers that kept India in the same place in spite of all its exertions. It opened the wings of the entrepreneurial energies of the private sector. But most importantly, it created for the first time a urge to look into the future with hope instead of apprehension and spawned the first generation to believe in India’s future. The earlier generation had grown up on endless hollow-sounding odes to India’s glorious past and its undying heritage and longed to regain a semblance of that past glory. Brand India believed in the future and most importantly the way to shape it. The change in mindset where one was always at the receiving end of circumstances to one where it was possible to mould circumstances to ones will is a critical shift that has taken place during the last two decades.
The growth of the economy has created headroom and a sense of agility among a large part of India. The fear surrounding the future has been taken over by a firm belief that one can substantially better one’s lot during one’s lifetime, and this has had a liberating effect on the Indian psyche. We can see this vertiginous new optimism in all walks of life- the sense of clothing, the experimentation with food, the buying behavior, the psychedelic ceremonies we enjoy– all of them speak volumes of an unshackling that has taken place. Brand India has found its voice, and re-discovered its spirit, this time not as a faded photocopy of the past but as a pulsating template for the future. And for the first time, India is getting the recognition, particularly from the West that it so obviously longs for.
Brand India may have turned 18, but is it quite ready to embrace adulthood? In its need for constant authentication from the West, where every pat on the back is met with swooning delectation in its trenchant trumpeting of Indian achievements, in its frenzied dissection of current events and its obsession with fantasies and celebrities, Brand India exhibits an adolescent infatuation with itself.
But adulthood is not far away. The global economic meltdown, the spiraling terrorist problem are the clouds that will darken the Indian horizon. At a more fundamental level, the composition of Brand India is likely to become more pressing as we move forward. Brand India is an insidious formulation, in which it gathers everything that is marketable about India under its banner, throwing out from its fold, those who do not form part of the India’s dream run. It conflates national interest with the singular task of appearing appealing to the world and in doing so, potentially skews our priorities. Also it is important to recognize the thin line between Brand India and Market India. Brand India in its current avatar is 19 years old, but the civilization called India is just a little bit older. The Indian story cannot concentrate on the economic growth for a section, but needs to be accountable to the colossal idea represented by Brand India.
Here lies the most important question. Why humankind needs Brand India? The world doesn’t need India because of its large market potential or the intellectual infrastructure. India is an idea that helps provide unique resolutions to the complex problems of today’s world. Eventually that must be Brand India’s calling. But now, even if it has turned 19 in its current avatar, it is still a teenager.
Such was the state nineteen years back that it was difficult to imagine reality but now in 2010, it is difficult not to dream.
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