Naukri Blues...

Hmmm..... finally feels like I'm working, getting a feel of the real world, away from the protected and cozy life of yesteryears. I still remember the very first day of this quest that I call 'Job' - I woke up at around 9 in the morning in an exorbitantly priced hotel room in Kolkata feeling tired and with a feeling that I was in Pune doing my internship - so much so that I could feel the presence of Satyam, Tau, Mishra, Chaube and particularly Kammo..... anyway - the point is the first few months were a mere cake walk - much like the internship. But of late things have changed drastically with 'big responsibilities' being handed down to me in the absence of senior members (I still can't believe I'm directly responsible for the outcome of a project worth 5 Crores hehehe..... God help STPI n PwC!). I used to hate staying back till late in the nights at Bangalore but here I am with only one thing in my head - I have to finish the project ASAP. Its been 15 days of continous work now with mere 9 hour breaks for dinner, sleep n gym for me..... worked on weekends n on holidays :-(( - I only pity the poor driver who looks at us with pleading eyes and says "Saab aaj toh mere baaki doston ki bhi chuuti hai - koi gaadi leker nahi gaya", "Saab kal toh Sunday hai..." :-))))

A Mysterious Hole

Doesn’t it happen so often that all of a sudden you get a feeling that time has zipped through – like time travel, one moment you are here and the next you are gone – hurled way in to the future amongst people you don’t know, in an alien place with ‘memories’ of the ‘present’ so clear in your mind? I’ve been getting this feeling for the past several days. But more than that I’m worried about the hole in time which this ‘time-travel’ has left, ever increasing with the passage of time, unchecked – engulfing each and every minute since that fateful moment of September 15th when I had left Bangalore. Within it lies my agony of missing out on my Convocation. It has enveloped memories of the good times that I had with the family which provided me shelter when I no place to go (if I rule out Tikoo – which btw is a big ‘if’ given his size :-)) ), of the quite and peaceful life in the Saket office, of the excoriating pain of 764 and 711, of the peace of 717 and 801, of the 5 hour journeys to a place about 60 km. from home daily, of being left stranded at Connaught Place and making it home at 11:40 in the night after taking lift in a truck and hitting back the next day by reporting over 3 hrs. late to work, of the pain caused by the resuscitated ulcer in my stomach and the consequent treatment when Sir Gangaram cut a hole in my pocket, of the pejoratives of people who wanted me out, of bounced cheques, bounced promises and bounced egos of insignificant people, of whiskey and white lies, of more whiskey and whiter lies, of finding Eden after infi. fight… and there are so many more memories which ought to be chronicled but this hole has blacked them out of my memory.

On September 18th when I was shifting to my apartment at 11:00 in the night I saw glimpses of this hole in the sky – only this time it was completely white, inverted in color and in character – completely round reminding me of a time gone by instead of blacking things out – reviving memories of the long walk that I had in Bangalore when I had decided that I had to leave for Delhi – I remembered that that was a full moon night too. In the past few days things have been changing so dramatically that I’m forced to frown at this hole in the sky. Moreover it has thrown at me this nasty feeling that the past month was actually a dream and that I’ve woken up now albeit in a different place away from snoring Shiva and Nimit – but still threads from this dream arise and mingle with the fabric of my present…