The Troll’s tale..! :D

        I am going through one of those phases in life where nothing ever goes right. This is more in context to The Office. We are out of training and it is time to perform. It is needless to say that I am not making my Trainer proud by my performance. My performance is so pathetic that often I wonder how The Company hasn’t issued a troll alert against my name yet. That hasn’t lifted my spirits, in fact my dispiritedness has been augmented by the fact that two of my best buddies have outperformed everybody by a margin and it makes me stick out like a sore thumb between them. What hardly helps matters is that the only guy who could’ve matched my troll-ishness has left the company. So now I am lonely as well.  And I have all the more reason to miss him.

                    When The Trainer appraises us of our performance and reminds me what a moron I have been, I look around to see the Winners look at me with surprise at my inability to meet such a ridiculously easy target. I then turn to fellow morons who try to alleviate my embarrassment by attributing the Winners’ performance entirely to luck.

           Today, I was pretty worked up to do something at The Office. I had to endure another of The Trainer’s motivational speeches last night. If not for anything else, I wanted to do well so that I could escape my trainer’s accidental brushes with intelligence.

                           I managed to do well until Miss Shanghai called up. Miss Shanghai was on a three way call with Miss 1942 and wanted me to help Miss 1942 place an order. I was in a great mood and I went out of the way to help her place the order. After all, good customer service is my forte! Once I had finished placing the order, I was required to read a set of disclosures. I went through them blithely. Miss 1942 was in a hurry. I had to coax her to sit and listen to my blabbering as she was required to accept them. I tried to be as good humoured as possible. Finally, I was through with them and I was smiling broadly for having done an excellent job! I finally wouldn’t have to bear with The Trainer’s droning at the end of the day!

   I was just about to pat my back, when I hear Miss Shanghai’s voice over the phone. Apparently, they continued talking and were unaware of my presence.

“Whew, We’re done finally! He took a long time..!” said Miss Shanghai.

“Yeah, and I wonder why, of all the people in the world only I had to endure this moron?” Replied Miss 1942. And she went on to perform a very nasty imitation of me.

And if you would have seen the expression on my face then, you could have seen what a deflating tyre looks like!! :D

MJ, no more?

                       I was browsing the internet at 5.00 in the morning and came across a news article that said that Michael Jackson was dead. I was shocked. I mean, he was so young. I know life is uncertain and that death is always sudden. But Michael Jackson? It was one of the most cruel twists of fate. He was scheduled to perform a comeback tour next month in Britain which was touted to be the greatest comeback tour ever..! The fact that fate robbed him of his last opportunity of regaining his lost glory makes his demise even more painful.

                      I know it sounds selfish but I wish that MJ would have lived long enough to enthrall his fans one last time..! He certainly didn’t deserve to die in this ignominy and loneliness. For an MJ fan, his untimely death, just before his farewell concert is devastating. Words seem to elude me and I am groping for expressions that would describe my anguish for this loss. Life has been so unfair to him. And for all the horror that he had to endure courtesy the media and the relentless paparazzi, MJ deserves more than a post from an obscure blogger.

            For me, It would take some time for me to come into terms with the fact that the King is no more and that he would not slide his shoes across the floor.. ever..!

 

 

                           And now, as I relay this news to Mum at 6.00 AM, She is equally shocked..! She was an ardent MJ fan as well...

Finally... :D :D

                  The sun was beating hard on the back of my neck. I was on my way back from class. The walk from my college to the bus stop is a long one and this is where I try to exercise the grey matter between my ears.

                    I was in one of such reveries when I realised that the sun was no longer beating upon me. I looked around and saw the familiar darkening of the skies. I tried smelling the air. I swear I could smell the arrival of the monsoon. The road I use is a busy road and is adorned with some really magnificent trees. When I looked around, I could see people beginning to rush, birds chirping happily, the same busy traffic and the all so familiar chaos but it all seemed so beautiful now.

                I boarded the bus and by the time I reached home, the skies had given in and it was drizzling steadily. The clap of thunder was like music to the ears and it marked the beginning of the most delayed monsoon of the decade. I was savouring the sights and the smells as the skies bellowed again. The drizzle was steadily increasing. The smell of the earth during the monsoons is mesmerising and is the greatest treat to the olfactory nerves. I stopped and I took a deep breath.

With the taste of the damp earth still lingering in my senses, I knocked the door. It was afternoon and the room was pitch dark. I realised that we got the first power cut of the monsoon as well..!

A Case of misdirected concern…!

                     It was the day the Sri Lankan army blew the top of Prabhakaran’s head off.

Mum was not so happy. I too, felt bad for the fallen leader the same way I felt sorry when I saw the videos of Saddam Hussain’s last moments. I thought it was the same with Mum.

“So, what about the Tamils in Sri Lanka now? Would their lives be any better now under the Sinhala Government?” She asked.

“Why should we care? Don’t we have enough on our platter?” I replied, rolling my eyes. I knew where it was leading.

“Arre, how can you say that? Don’t you know how Tamils are discriminated against by the Sinhala Government?” She asked incredulously.

“They are not Indians, why should we care?” I replied, irritated.

“If we don’t, who will?” She asked, it was a line straight out of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. “That Rajapakse (Sri Lankan President) is worse than Hitler!”

I think it was  poor analogy, but then Mum, being my Mum, has her own set of theatrical ways of showing her concern. It was her way of saying that she hated Rajapakse as much as she hated Hitler.

“Why should we care? Just because they speak our language doesn’t mean we should feel their pain too!” I persisted.

“Why do you think I say this because they are Tamils? Isn’t there something known as Humanity?” Mum demanded indignantly.

“Oh! Humanity, was it? Where was your Humanity when our Tiger Cub was bellowing his lungs out against fellow Indians? Don’t they deserve more of our concern?”

“Do you feel the same for the Humanitarian crisis in Chechnya and Somalia? Or Sierra Leone for that matter?” I asked, mockingly.

“Alas, Son! I am not as well read as you. I don’t even know what ails these countries.” She replied sarcastically. “Though, I have never been so condescending when you spoke at length about the horror of the Taliban or when you felt sad for Pakistan. They’re not Indians as well.”

“That, was for Humanity.I felt sad for our neighbours and fellow humans.” I replied airily.

“Well, So did I.” It was her turn to roll her eyes..!

Modesty..?!

                       The World has a weakness for people who are modest. We all love the person who belittles his own abilities and achievements. He endears himself to us by embracing mediocrity and coming down to our level. He is virtuous and noble. Had he exhorted us to come up to his level and become his equal, he would have been termed arrogant and blasphemous. It puzzles me.

                                 Isn’t being modest akin to being dishonest? And isn’t dishonesty the worst disease that afflicts mankind? What is wrong in acknowledging the fact that one is a gifted singer without looking down upon people who cannot sing? Isn’t that accepting and thanking God for a wonderful gift? We certainly don’t do justice to God for bestowing a rare gift by feigning modesty to gain acceptance in the society and feed our dark, conceited self in loneliness.

          We all despise the smooth tongued hypocrite who sings praises in our presence and becomes the exact opposite when we turn our backs to him. Worse perhaps, he despises us from deepest recesses of his heart. Similar is the person who feigns modesty. He has a glib tongue, he uses it to endear himself to us but deep down he despises the same people for being so mediocre.

                   People often misconstrue honesty with arrogance. There is a huge difference between the two. For the honest person, an attempt to feign modesty is akin to flirting with dishonesty. For the others, the lines are blurred. Whenever I said that I did not believe in modesty and that I feel that modesty promotes mediocrity, I have seen knowing glances being exchanged. Some look at me with a wry smile as if I am proud of being arrogant. Maybe I was not coherent enough, or my audience just couldn’t see the point I was trying to make.

              Maybe the list of virtues was prepared by a person who was dishonest himself. It has been drilled into us since time immemorial and has become a very indispensable evil now. Imagine a world full of honest individuals. Modesty would not find a place in our list of virtues. Modesty helps mediocrity survive. I believe that we would have gone a long way had we not been taught to feign modesty in every walk of life!

Some cerebration...for a change

          

                       I’m in training so I guess I have lots of free time to use the matter between my ears. Not for practical purposes though, it’s when my trainer explains to us the intricacies of our profession do I allow my mind to wander towards more fertile areas while putting on a ‘very interested’ expression at the same time. I am an expert at this. (Considering the fact that I have been doing this successfully for three weeks without getting caught even once!) My trainer believes that I am one of the most attentive blokes in the class. So I present some products of my fecund imagination..which I churned out when I was ‘attentively’ listening to him...!

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I see so much potential around me, so many bright minds.. so much of variegated talent, and I see an entire generation working jobs they don’t deserve.

Attending to rude, drunk foreigners, bending over their backs to please people they’ll never meet … wasting precious days of an already oh-so-short life . Doing this of their own volition, killing their own ambition... burying their talent in pursuit of material happiness , to fuel their vices .. or to pay the bills for their ill-advised indulgencies. A lifetime spent chasing cars, skirts and everything that you’d never need.

I don’t believe that there is a ‘higher’ purpose to our lives; that we need to ‘realise’ something in our lives or seek a greater ‘truth’ through renunciation. But we seem to have lost freedom to pursue our innermost passion.. the real thing that drives us..!

As I write this, I see a Performer who knows nothing but music and acting struggle to come up with a phrase that would ‘positively affirm’ his customer’s selection while A Poet, An Artist, A Struggling Director, A Choreographer and An Observer (Me, of course) watch expressionlessly...

Deroga-tory!!

Our American Client was visiting India. This made the Management anxious and it became worse when they realised that The Client might want to meet the new hires. Now, the Training team was anxious as well. The Trainers were now using The Client visit as an excuse to keep the trainees on their best behaviour.

               They would always talk in hushed tones when referring to The Client as if they were letting us in their secret. This trick worked well when The Client finally visited us last night. I suddenly felt the tension in a palpable wave.  Our Manager entered first and She played the perfect gatekeeper to The Client. She kept the door open long enough to let me wonder if she was expecting a tip from The Client. Now, She is a stunner but I had to stifle a laugh to see her bend over her back to please The Client. Soon, she realised that The Client had completely forgotten her existence and was more interested in us so, the Manager sheepishly closed the door and departed.

         When I learnt that The Client was also a ‘She’, I was expecting a blonde bombshell. I was sorely disappointed upon seeing that the blonde was Old and Fat too. After her customary ‘About Me’ section, she asked us to introduce us to her.

So began a tirade of names and a corrupted repetition of them. I was pretty scared of saying my name because I guffawed pretty audibly when a certain Hasmukh became Hash-Smoke. Thankfully, She didn’t try to repeat my name, maybe it went way over her head. I was relieved nonetheless.

            Soon, people bombarded her with their seemingly intelligent questions. The Client, to be fair,  turned out to be pretty nice and had a sense of humour as well. Patiently, she answered all the questions ranging from Swimming pools to Beer and from her Mobile phone to a colleague’s daughter! Curiously though, She reminded me of Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series.

                   She then went on to explain how the Women of America are so fiercely independent and how the fact that 40% of American Mothers were unmarried and actually reflected upon their independence. How they worked for long hours and were unlike the Europeans who enjoyed more benefits and holidays. And how the Americans were better parents, had better education and she also confessed her ignorance of Hindi despite visiting India more than 15 times.

Now, it was her turn to ask us questions. We were to give reasons as to why we loved America and what attracted us to America and so we did dutifully.

“What is special about Barack Obama?” She asked. A Four year old could have answered that.

“He is the first Afro-American President of the U.S.” A Smarty answered. In the far corner, the trainer sighed in gratitude as The Smarty didn’t say ‘Black President’.

                              ‘It is derogatory’, The Trainer would have said, pronouncing ‘derogatory’ in the most ridiculous manner I have ever heard.

Meanwhile, The Smarty nodded knowingly.

Maybe it rubbed onto the The Client in a wrong way, she blurted out almost immediately, “It’s like you Hindus use Caste background, We Americans use Ethnic backgrounds to differentiate.”

Now, It was my turn to roll my eyes. So much for being a developed nation!!