My Life, A Cocktail

The fact that the New Year’s almost here, the fact that it is the last day of the year, always makes me so nostalgic. Just like what you feel when you leave a home, or sell your car. I lived through the bygone year, and it makes me feel sad to leave that time and move on to a newer one. But I guess, just how it is with homes and cars, we move on, we learn to like the new life, reminiscing the old ones now and then. The 31st of December. In India, it was always exciting. For one, it would in all probability be a holiday, if not, you could at least manage to get off early. But the more exciting thing would be the TV programmes lined up in the night. You wouldn’t know what channel to watch, some would be hosting award ceremonies, some others interviews with the best of stars, some other cultural shows. You would spend the night flipping through, so you get a glimpse of everything, lest your friend calls up tomorrow to wish you and tell you the very program you missed was the best on earth...

Sitting here in my BIG cube, I wonder. If it hadn’t been for all this technology, for all the knowledge I have of these technologies, for all the work these machines do for me, I wouldn’t have been here. I am like a controller, and these machines are what I control. I wonder if sometime way in the future, someone would invent an idea generator. It would generate ideas like humans, and there would be no idea on earth that it cannot generate. Would we humans be happy or sad about that? It would definitely be one of the best inventions of the time, and I can’t imagine the progress of the world with all the great ideas at the run of a program! perl idea_generator.pl build_strongest_bridge > best_bridge.out (Of course, idea_generator.pl calls a lot of other programs and CPAN modules. You know that! ) Humans would feel insecure. There wouldn’t be any meetings in office, no brainstorming sessions, no how-to-solve-this-issue crap. All that the project manager would say to you is “Run the d...

Once again, its Monday. I am sure I have written about Mondays before. “Monday Blues” is what I think I called it. Back in Infosys. Today is different. I am not too glad that I have to go to work, but I am not blue either. I like what I do at my work. I am up early, everyday, not just Monday, get ready, make breakfast, pack lunches and wait for my fiance. He drops me off to work everyday. Monday is about that moment when I get out of the car, and wave to him a bye. It feels like going to school as a kid, a feeling of insecurity of being away from something you love and know so well. He smiles, silently assuring me that he’ll be back to pick me up. I wave and smile back, and see him leave. I swipe my card, and the door clicks open. I am a whole new person, with energy and confidence. I swing through the day with ease. In the evening, when he calls, he tells me he’s a minute away from my office. Hurriedly I put off my computer to sleep, and rush to the door. I see his car lights flash in...

There are no bad people. Not in this face of the Earth that I know. Who defines what is good and what is not. Society. Minds. Perspectives. From an objective point of view, perspectives symbolize freedom. Freedom doesn’t bound within any limits. Limitlessness is Nature, and Nature is good. Actions are governed by perspectives. There are no bad people. Not in this face of the Earth that I know.

It hits you when after so long standing in a queue that spanned miles, after a 10 second interview, you come out with an end to end smile, glorious as though having won the Battle of Panipat. In two days, the courier service brings it to you, your American Visa. That’s when it hits you, and your family. In no time, you are on your flight, feeling sick about leaving home, scared about how you would fare in a whole strange world. You know your family is feeling like having a part of their body amputated, and yet you smile to them and say a spurious “I wont be gone for long”. Enter the US of A. Different people, different perspectives, a whole different attitude to things. You adjust. You look at them and learn. Mimic. In a couple of years, while you had no time to realize or notice anything around, you find yourself in a high paying job, a mini family here with you, consisting of a sole member, a wife you married hurriedly during a short business trip to India. You are still trying hard...