Thought Detonation #18 - The going got tough and tough couldn't get going

He threw his hands back in air and they slammed the Monitor top as they came back. “Fu*k you dumb box! I hate it when you do this.” The whole workplace turned at him while they still murmured a number of things in their headphones. So basically you could just hear a hummmm…, apart from the bash his hands just created. He was Sameer, a 24 year old working in a call centre. He wanted to be an air traffic controller, but the job just didn’t want him. So he ended up here. He restarted his PC which had just hung and put back his head phones. His job was simple. People called him from Canada and US, and he trouble-shot their problems like…

 “I cannot hear any volume in my speakers.”

“Maam’ are you sure you have connected the green jack in its port behind the PC?”

“Oh no my son removed it last night, am I supposed to put it back in? Will I get volume then?”

… He couldn’t take it. Actually, nobody in his call centre could. People replied all doors were closed when asked if any ‘window’ was open, and then Bill Gates is also in US. People tore their hair out at this kind of intelligence of their customers. Everyone wanted to just run away from their lives. Sameer didn’t find a single person who wished to work there. Everybody was just stuck because they had nothing else to do. A few people had left to look for better, a few had started their business, a few tried share markets and basically everyone tried something before ending up there, but all of them came back, some on same wages and others on lower. Sameer had moved from his hometown a long time ago. He aspired to be a pilot then, but never cleared PABT of the IAF. He had some problem with his hand angles, so he was always rooted out in medicals. Then he did engineering and tried to become an air traffic controller. He was quiet intelligent and, no doubt, talented. He had made himself a Ham-radio at age of nine. He knew how the technology worked. He had an appreciable GPA in his college. But he never got what he wanted. He wanted to take a drop and try again, but circumstances didn’t want him to. So again he never got what he wanted.

Thought Detonation #17 - Great Expectations

The voltage fluctuated and the refrigerator made sounds. Mrs. Gupta said in an annoying tone, “I am fed up with this now. We urgently need a stabilizer or fridge would just blow up some day and take me with it as well.” Mr. Gupta laughed and nodded in assurance. He had a comfortable job now. He was just back from Qatar after his training and was expecting an appointment letter soon. He was a prematurely retired railway engineer. His work in Railways was tiresome and he was just paid 30,000 for that. All his three children were grown up and both daughters were to be married. Their son wished to do B.Tech. The kind of salary he was getting in railways, frankly speaking, couldn’t meet all of that. Moreover they didn’t have a voltage stabilizer. Mrs. Gupta needed a washing machine, her wrinkled palms did, but she never asked for one. Mr. Mehta had a scooter. When the whole family wanted to go for shopping to Sarojini Market, Mr. and Mrs. Gupta would invite their youngest daughter, who was 18, to accompany them on scooter. To which she would just agree by silence. Their son and other daughter would board the metro train. The special thing about this family was that no one ever complained about all this. They always switched on the old fan when they couldn’t take the silence. Their daughters rarely talked to the colony guys or to each other, its generally rich sisters who gossip and discuss their crush. They just wished to be married off somewhere while still clean. Their son desperately wanted to complete his B.Tech and engage himself in some job. A 2,00,000 rank in AIEEE did assure him of a 15,000 .p.m job after four years. This was a mild family, who preferred yellow light bulbs over CFLs.

Thought Detonation #16 - Water puddle days

It has been a heavy downpour at my place since yesterday and Indian roads are so filled with emotions towards the first shower of the season. They won’t allow a single drop off to the channels. India is so full of love. It’s a lovely land. In this lovely land, and the lovely love between roads and first shower, there is another lovely thing as well, a little boy with plaited hair. He is bright white in colour and is extremely happy for something I don’t know. He is accompanied by his mother who cannot run as fast as he can and he is extremely charged up by evading pursuit. Now how can a celebration of a 4 year old on a rainy day, with roads loving the showered water, and on a beautiful garam pakode wali evening be if I can’t see splashes? And here he goes *splash* *splash* He kept jumping in those water puddles, till he was as wet as the road, and even he was loving the first shower exactly like the road. Everything thing about splashing water from a puddle is so good when you are 4 year old, except one. You actually cannot run while jumping in puddles. So your mom, who can’t run as fast as you can, can always catch you when you keep jumping at one place. Seems that kid didn’t know that. His mom came running with an umbrella in her left hand and slapped him twice with her right. He stood still. No one is loving the rain now. I just watch this happen and I want to say something. Something like, “Please let him play; he is having the time of his life. Once he grows up he may write about jumping in a puddle but never feel it again. He is loving what he is doing, which he rarely will after growing up. Please let him do what he loves.” but I couldn’t. “How many times have I told you not to do this? For whose sake have I brought this Umbrella? Don’t you know what can happen to you if you keep splashing this dirty water?” said she and pulled him by arm and dragged him out of my sight. I wonder if he ever asked his mom to carry that umbrella for him. I saw he was so thrilled getting wet in rain. I wonder if he ever wanted to know what will happen if he splashed dirty water that way. He just wanted to jump in those puddles. It were his ‘water puddle days’. He was allowed to have an umbrella, which he never wanted. He was made to know the potential threats of jumping in dirty puddles, which he never wished to learn. He just wanted to jump in those puddles, which he wasn’t allowed to do. He earned two slaps for following what his heart said.

Thought Detonation #15 – It’s faith

When people read my work like this one or this one, they ask me how I speak so openly about beauty and whether it affects my personal relationships with “people”. To this I reply straight, “I have a girlfriend who trusts me”. When I say this I feel pity for the kind of amazement these folks show me. So in my way, I have a story to show them how blind trust could be.

…It was three in the afternoon when Vinay ringed the door bell of his house and his girlfriend open to him. It had been 6 months since he was on tour and was just back home. Life of a Naval IT Engineer is sort of exhausting. Ankita, his beloved girl, knew he was arriving which made he do funny things like washing her hair, applying lip paint when in her house, spraying over two bottles of air freshener and a million other crazy things. She made sure that the bathroom was at its best and nothing was short there. She had set up the DVD player and had lined nearly 4 movies to watch back to back. But as for now, she just clung to him tight and pushed her nails deep in his back. There was a desperate hug of two hearts wanting to meet. Vinay closed the door behind them as Ankita came to her consciousness. It has been six months since they had seen each other. Both were in a live-in relationship. Their parents didn’t know about that. But they had let them know that they were dating each other. So it was a half clean and half hidden sort of a relationship. Vinay worked as a Marine IT expert while Ankita was perusing her Master’s degree. They made a cute couple, a rare couple in which the girl is duskier than the guy. Both had been loving each other for last 7 years and living together for two. The kind of faith they had in each other was unshakable.

Thought Detonation #14 - Just Stay Happy Fella

…Today I am so messed up. Have been really frustrated and dipped in anger all day. Nah, don’t ask me the reasons. Dipped enough to forget writing the blog as well! So you see I am really preoccupied. When it comes to me, being preoccupied can just mean thinking, and being even more preoccupied, even more thinking. I am a thoughtful fool as many folks consider. Since I was so in filth, the thought was also about being messed up. I guess I have found a new caption for Sallu Bhai. We must replace “Being Human” to “Being Messed Up”. It’s a lot more apt that way. I am so head-cracked and nobody cares, you see that eh? Nobody cares….

…Since the thought on being messed up was a lot messed up itself, and of which, I don’t remember a single point, I will just tell you what I came up with. Even if you are all messed, just stay happy; at least pretend that you are happy. Now come on, how? I don’t know. Just stay happy and wear that smile eh. Just let people keep trying to make out from that smile if you want to bash them or hug them. Keep fooling yourself and pretend to yourself that even if you are robbed off your car or left roofless, god will have better plans for you. You see God? He actually doesn’t have much work and he is so vella that he starts to come up with good plans for everybody in universe! That is roughly 6,775,235,700 people; and he has a better plan for each one of them! WOW, efficient working han? Just if my state’s Police were quarter that efficient, trust me I really wouldn’t have needed your better plans Mr. God.