Winter Soup

Can you imagine yourself laughing at the most humongous soup that you got into at work? I can. In fact, I AM laughing! It's a point of happy sadness. A point when you know , that you've done what you could, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. I speak, standing right at that point. 

It wasn't too long ago when I used to boast about being the analyst. Now here I stand, having committed the blunder of my life, trying to cope with it . I've just come to realise that it's a very high beta profession. Lives depend on the correctness of data.

Before I ramble any further, let me give you some background. 

I'm not the best this company has in its 'talented' list and I never thought I would feature in that list either. The fact remains that I'm most definitely not the worst. I was put on a critically important project. I slogged for three weeks. I delivered. I did my job and I believed that I did my job well . The work was presented to the right people. The results weren't that good. The clients had to listen to some tough and terse truths. But that wasn't my problem, was it?  I mean, I'm that bloke who swore by the Geeta, saying " I shall speak only the data and nothing but the data."  But data, like the truth, deceives sometimes. I'm at the forefront of one such deception. I made an error, more of an error of judgement. A misjudgement just enough to screw my results. Just enough to render all the effort that I had been putting in to maintain the sanctity of this project, absolutely worthless.  

The analytic world essentially works on the Pareto principle. The correctness of 80 percent of your effort, depends on that 20 percent of right effort, put in the right direction. I think, that's exactly where I faltered. I forgot , what I keep reminding people not to : the importance of 'little' things. 

It was only because of a colleague's persistent insistence , that I feel a desperate need to keep account of this tragedy. I'm just thinking about the pros and cons. It obviously prepares me well for future mistakes. But that said, somewhere my complacent self hints, that if mistakes don't keep happening at regular intervals, I'm bound to make one big one, to compensate for all the rightness. That's exactly what happened this time. I was driving this project, like I was driving my car on a highway, without inquiring if I had an extra tyre. Now, the odds of a flat tyre are less, but they are there aren't they? Smartness is in knowing that the tyres are tubeless and the odds are really really less, responsibility is in knowing that you-never-really-know.  

In retrospect, I think that it's risk management that differentiates smart people from responsible people. And it's not as if responsible people aren't smart , but so could be the case that they might not immediately seem so. Being called smart is obviously cooler, but the point driven here is, that if you're not responsible, smartness won't help. It's like an interview situation, you might be the topper of the class, but if you aren't carrying your own pen, the chances of getting through reduce drastically. It's like when you're asking out a girl, you might be the smartest , most handsome lad in town, but if you can't wear a decent shirt on a date, she might just say no. It's like when  you're with your girlfriend, you may be the most happening couple around, but if you can't let go of your sophistication to have five gol gappas together without worrying about how wide you should open your mouth, so that it looks appropriate, then you're grossly missing the point. 

Life's in the little things. It's in making someone's day just by telling her that she's looking good. It's in humming the song that you're lately in crush with. It's in saying : it's okay, it happens, shit happens. 

Clutter from the Past

It's been a while since I posted something on the blog, that doesn't mean though that I haven't been thinking of posting something. It's just that I haven't been able to encapsulate one complete thought, think about it completely ,and put it into words. They seem like incomplete strands like misled sperms in my head. In an honest effort, to clear them out and start afresh, I'm posting all of these random thoughts together. If anything, it gives me mental hygiene, and my gmail account some extra space.

don't be silly , silly. 

It always takes a little persistence, to come back from office, and put into words something that you've been thinking about the entire day. Isn't that a 'silly' thing to do? Oh, don't be silly.

At the risk of resonating with your inner voice, the one that speaks only the truth, I would want to speak about a feeling which is as intriguing as it is silly. That is , about being silly.

Two months at office, and I've started feeling this hidden discomfort of playing everything with a straight bat. Everything said and done, is done at the minimal risk of sounding silly. Does being a little silly at times really need to that criminal? Does being silly essentially mean a person is left gifted in the top floor accessory? May be the definitions have changed overtime. 

As Darwin put it , life is a race and in everything that one does, one is being judged by somebody, if not everybody. There is a palpable presence around which binds a strand of thought by an even more palpable consciousness, of being judged each and very instant. The leaders, who believe themselves to be caricatures of perfection, forget how 'being silly when required' worked more for them, than 'not being silly when not required'. 

Human beings are complex creatures. There is just so much that we as a species can experience, that others are deprived of. Being silly is a mask that you get wear to hide the 'so much' that you're thinking and experiencing at that moment. It's like a filter between one's interface between the complexity of one's inner thought process, and a simplistic output mechanism, the voice. 

Why ?

At this minute, I should seek the opportunity to sulk out my helplessness.

I think I've already mentioned how silently competitive I have become over time. 

Fate does that to you, it makes you so excited about a particular thing that everything else starts seeming worthless. You could call it, the fragrant future overpowering the odourless present.

The grass is always greener on the other side. Really? Why?

Why it's just so difficult to stay contented with what one already has?

Why the fear of failing takes over more often than not?

Why am I inclined to write this of all things?

Why do I feel that I'm entrapped into something that I'm too weak to break out from.

Why the most important people in one's lives, never know what to say when?

Why , when bad things happen, they happen all at once?

Why I have to live with this world, the way it wants me to?

Why I think, I'm entering into one more dilemma?

Why I think, I'm never going to feel anything permanent for anybody, unless I get everything that I want?

Why the only way fate makes me realise that I don't have something, is by pointing out that others do?

Why everything keeps changing its meaning for me ?

Why introspection is easy and taking action is tough ? 

Chapter 1 : Engineering Love 

I was 97 kilos. I was dark. I was badly dressed. And I was about to become an engineer in four years.

I had taken the brunt of walking two miles from the metro station with an honest intention of losing as much weight as I could before I made my grand appearance at NSIT. 

Turned out it wasn't that grand. I stood amid the hoopla trying to find even one familiar face. For somebody who'd almost been living in hiding for a year , this was an entirely new feeling, A rebirth was the only thing I could compare it with.

Before having gotten this admit, I never thought too highly of NSIT. So seductive is the power of self-deception, that suddenly it started to seem the best this country had to offer. This was obviously, the first time I had ever seen an engineering college up close. 

I was waiting for Sumit. The all-I-knew and the all-I-had for one year. I always believed that losers, no matter what variety, always found solace in the company of other losers. Well, Sumit was the only company I had for the past one year. We were both hard working, both sufficiently intelligent, and both losers in all the other aspects of life , but academics.  We studied together in the much famed Vidya Mandir Classes for JEE, traveled in the same bus, confided in each other our boring lives , and now were studying in the same college. Nevertheless, we were always competitors.

It was the first day. I was wearing the best shirt I had. For somebody who's fat beyond his age allows him to be, a good shirt is the one that hides his paunch. Jeans were usual. I preferred the baggy ones. It was always better to keep people ambivalent on the curvature of one's butt. I felt this inclination to open up and judge people beyond their CEE rank , for once judge them on everything but their rank. 

Before I could come to a relative judgement on myself, I felt as if something had tickled me.     I turned around to find a girl poking at my arm, with a certain inquisitive in her eyes. She wore specs. She was slightly plump. And then she blurted : Uncle, could you guide me to the registration room? Now, that's the kind of catch 22 that you'd rather not be in. There was an equal insult in both correcting her and answering her. 

I chose the latter insult, and pointed her in the right direction. All this while the word 'uncle' kept echoing inside my head in an infinite loop. I read Chetan Bhagat. I had certain expectations from college life. As much as I wasn't expecting girls to give me blow jobs, I wasn't expecting them to call me 'uncle' either. 

Sumit arrived as his cumbersome best. His hair and his tiffin box always had one thing in common- both leaked with oil. I really wanted him to be by my side. He seemed to be the only person who could make me feel slightly more sophisticated. Looking good is relative you see. Losers always look forward to hanging out with bigger losers. I thought of him to be my bigger loser. Sometimes I intuitively felt, that he felt likewise about me. 

how life changes 

So the era of incumbency has begun. I'm strategically moving to a static life, with nothing but one thing to do. The one thing, may fluctuate between doing my work and cribbing about it. 

Now that I'm contemplating as to what to write, I realise the kind of changes, that a routine brings about in you. It's easier said than done, but for people like me, who count more on their idea generating capabilities, than workmanship spirit, job is very much a dampener.  One has to keep reminding oneself,of the bigger purpose that surrounds us. 

The ignominy not having achieved as much as others did, keeps springing up. Not that I mind it. Perhaps, I've come to like it. All that raging competitive adrenaline , arising from the shackles of frustration make it easier to find a purpose in life.

If you ask me, at this moment, I'm just trying to take things one at a time.