Be Straight!!

Well, thank God for blogs. Or whoever started them. At least its an outlet to let loose your thoughts. Somedays they take the form of poetry and sheer creativity. On other days they are venomous. And yet some other days are bland like noodles. Whatever form they take, all that is reflected is the writer's current mental state at that particular time. Unless of course, he or she has written it and posted later. And I am no different. Usually it is typing something in a notepad, pasting it in the blog, a little bit of formatting and voila. No elaborate preparation or thoughts go into it. Unless I am looking for specific feedback which I have done a couple of times during the early blogging days.

I am learning to cook these days. And immensely enjoying it. Just the possibility of the taste altering by different usage and quantity of spices excites me. Not to mention the amount of experimentation which can go into making an omlette. Too bad I don't know the English names for some of the things I use or I could whip up a nice recipe here.

So far in my life I have never "prepared" for anything. Prepared as in done the groundwork, analysis, elaborate thought process and pain to achieve the end result. And this is true in everything I have done so far - relationships, work, education, growing up, health, wealth and everything else. I've never laid the groundwork for pataoing a girl. I've never sown the seeds for working on what I want to do in my life. I've never done adequate batting for impressing my boss. I've never done the necessary thing to amass wealth. Ditto for education. It has all been a pure gut feel so far. And it has served me well in about 70% of my life changing decisions so far. And the other minor ones too. Today I feel that for being capable of handling anything in your life, you need to invest that time and effort. At least in the early portion of life which decides what happens to you later. For causing a change in what you want and getting the result, immense planning and focus is necessary. Only then something will flower. Decide what you want and go completely after it. And this insight came to me via cooking. These days I am taking a shot at doing all the things I used to hate earlier.

No point in rueing about how some of the things in life have turned out so far but like cooking, I have set across to strengthen myself and invest in time to lay those bricks which will hold my building ready later down in life.

A very poignant and immensely powerful sentence consisting of two words was shared with me - "Be Straight". The first was in one of Jaggi Vasudev's books. The other by a very close yet so far person. It is extremely important to be completely straight with yourself in what you want at any juncture in life. No dicing, dithering, beating around the bush, refusing to accept whats in your face, covering the unsaid and so on. And it can be anything in life - money, sex, love, fame, spirituality et al. As long as you are honest that this is what you want and willing to pay whatever the price, you will go end up getting completely screwed in the latter stages. Entangled. Confused. Schizophrenic. And too late for anything.

Current Music: Pink Floyd - What do you want from me?

The Runaway Train

Have you ever known people whom you have never met in person but who have affected you deeply and then disappeared completely? It could be via chat, phone or anything else. I am not talking only about love affairs here. Rather I would exclude those from this subject right now. And those are always the intelligent ones with a really mad streak which you can detect at times during the conversation. That really attractive mad streak. I was recently reading "Timepass" - a sort of autobiography of Protima Bedi (Pooja Bedi's mother and Kabir Bedi's ex-wife). What a mad utterly bold character. She reminded me of this lass from Texas whom I used to chat with in the early internet days, ex-girlfriend of one of the band members of Lynnrd Skynnrd and partly working with the US army. She had that fiery streak, that unpredictability which I could sense even across the modem, that insanity as part of her regular personality which was quite intriguing. Suddenly one day she left her boyfriend of 5 years telling him he bored her, packed her bags and went to UK. Fucked around quite a bit, came back and shifted to Seattle. Got deep into massage therapy, a little bit of shamanism, fucked around a lot again, came back for sometime to her parents in Texas for some healing and got lost in Seattle again. Breaking a lot of hearts on the way. Guys absolutely besotted with her. Doing quite a bit of weird things to get her back. Ah those long write-ups. I don't know what happened to her after that. You see I lost her email password.

Protima reminded me of her yesterday. It's best not to wonder sometime.

Current music: Michael Jackson - Gone Too Soon

Confessions of a resume writer in denial

So like I mentioned earlier I think its time for me to move on. Perhaps. The doubt still lingers. To propel this thought forward, I spent considerable time making my experience docket, dribbling it with key experiences etc and finally uploaded it on a couple of mainstream job sites. A couple of days later, I got a call which went like this:

Caller (female): Hi, am I speaking to XXX?
Me: Who wants to know?
caller: I am Pooja calling from Naukri.
Thinking this to be a sales pitch for their resume services, I grumbled a little mentally but persevered to see what she said next.
Me: Yes, I am XXX. What is the context of this call?
Pooja: Sir, we came across your recently uploaded CV on our website and wanted to speak to you about it.
Me: Umm.
Pooja: Did you avail of any professional resume writing services for the CV?
Here comes the pitch. Or so I thought.
Me: Nope. I don't need any professional assistance to make a CV. I need it to find a great opportunity.
Pooja: You made it yourself?
My nose was on the grindstone by then. I hate repeating myself. Typical male trait. So with a few deep breaths, I replied:
Me: Yes.
Pooja: And did you take the help of anyone?
Me: Why so many questions about it?
Pooja: Actually when we saw this CV, we thought you are a professional resume writer. We haven't seen such a professional and creative CV in a long time.
Umm..this was interesting. So I bit my tongue.
Pooja: My Director would like to speak to you at a convenient time. Could you advise a suitable time?
Me thinking - Wow. What is this about?
Me actually: Sure. Say in 30 minutes?
Pooja: Ok. She'll call you.

After 30 minutes:
Director: Hi, this is Rashmi from Naukri. Thanks for etc. etc.
Me: Yeah thanks. Hope you are doing good etc.etc.
Director: Could you share your professional experience with me?
Me: Ok. I've done etc etc etc yada ya. Went on for 5 minutes. So that's about it in a nutshell.
Director: Wonderful. To come to the point I'd like to make you an offer. We are really impressed with your CV and the way you have put that information in a concise creative format. We wanted to ask if you would consider working for us professionally.
Me is wondering which experience in me CV is relevant to naukri.
Me: Umm. What kind of work?
Director: Would you like to join our creative team in a xx position to help aspiring individuals build better CV's?
I am tongue-tied here.
Me: Umm. But I am looking to make my career in selling offshoring services. I have no experience in your kind of work.
Director: Your CV more than speaks about your creative skills which we can use. It would be a shame to let it go waste.
Happy glow pervading all over my face.
Me: Thanks for the appreciation. But I really am focussed on making a career in sales and then my own consulting business.
After a few more tries:
Director: How about doing the CV's on a free lance basis for us in your spare time?
I let out a loud groan.
Me: It took me almost 5 days to put that thing together. And a lot of induced creativity. I don't think so.
Director: We are ready to pay xxxx per CV.
Angel on one shoulder and the devil pops on another.
Me: Thanks but it would be too much effort and I really wouldn't be doing justice to my current job or you.
Director: Please do think about this. Pooja will call you again in a few days to check with you.
Me: Sure. Thanks a ton. And wish you a good day ahead. I only hope it helps me gain entry into a good firm.
Director: I'm sure the least it will do is open doors for you but think about it. Have a good day.

WTF? What kind of a curveball was that? I put the pillow over my head and went off to sleep. It reminded me of my interview with the editor of Mid-day. I'll write about it someday later.

P.S - Names have been changed to protect identities yada yada...

Current Music: CCR: Bad Moon Rising

Late Night Encounters

I was driving home on the weekend from Whisper Valley. It's a steep climb for a kilometer or so, largely unilluminated and without a divide to add to the agony. Before this I must mention that I've narrowly missed have huge accidents on three occasions in the past week. I attribute it to the huge Chinese good luck charm that hangs from the rearview mirror and the horse shoe cufflinks I wear at times. It's not that my senses are not on alert these days. One of those phases which are unfathomable to the ordinary mind.

I put the fog lamp on for good measure 'cause sometimes even the two legged creatures who take a piss at the side and choose to cross the road in gay abandon are hard to spot at times. Halfway up the climb I suddenly noticed this puppy heading right under its glorified death - the right front wheel. I twisted the wheel in full force, slammed the brakes but couldn't escape the triple squeals - one from the victim, one from my car and the rest from the fellow road travellers. I imagined a bump too as if the tyre had passed over a small lump on the road. Fearing the worst and amidst the loud squealing and whimpering emanating below the middle of the car, I got down and tried to place the little bundle. It stood right between the rear two wheels obviously in pain but thank the lord - uncrushed in any way. I tried to hold it below its armpits and pull it out but the little bastard nipped my pinky :). Instant justice I think but I persisted in my efforts all the time making appropriate noises from my throat. This was a nice little drama in the middle of the road and some cars had by then positioned their cars with full headlights to help my case. I gave up for a couple of minutes and the puppy ceased its squealing by a couple of octaves. A couple of deep breaths and I pulled the puppy out as gently and as fast as possible before it realized that I suckered it and held it up for fresh air. It jumped right out of my arms, scrambled through the hole in the fence of a nearby garden and started howling to glory. Ach!! I parked the car next to the fence, opened the dicky and removed some of the biscuits I had bought from Hypercity. And thus started the patient wait. A few doggie whistles, a few yu yu's and I was feeling like a kid already. My heart was in my mouth though as I had seen it limp and drag itself to the garden.

10 minutes: No go.
20 minutes: The puppy went deeper into the bushes but was still in the garden.
25 minutes: I threw a few biscuits on the path leading to its hideout trying all sorts of whistles.
30 minutes: Puppy does a peek a boo, ventures out and goes right back in.
40 minutes: A loud bark and another dog gets into the garden. The puppy yelps and rushes out through the whole limping and squealing again. By now I know the fella is only scared and maybe bruised a little. I grabbed him up and gave it a hug for a few minutes.

There were these two street kids watching this whole drama unfold all this while. So I took the puppy and the kids to the nearby tea shop. The three of us had tea, the doggy had biscuits and I lit up. The doggy licked my pinkie in consolation and sat nicely ensconced in my arms. We sat this way for a while with MJ crooning "I just cant stop loving you". And then with a heavy heart I placed it back where it belonged and went my way. Smelling of dog and clothes layered with dog hair.

But felt much much lighter in the right place. Like I said in an earlier post, if you give anyone enough time and space it melts even the toughest cookie. One point at a time.

Current music: Lobo: Me and You and a dog named Boo