An Old Acquaintance

Something happened today while I was shopping. A guy approached me and politely asked me, "Excuse me, are you Sapna?"

I looked at him curiously and replied in the affirmative, a confused look very perceptive on my face.

He immediately continued, "You remember Sanjay Punjabi from Junior college?"

I answered an embarrassed "No". I added, "I'm so sorry but I don't remember."

He kind of expected this from me. After all I was the kinds who hardly spoke much to others all through my school and college.

Blatantly ignoring my poor memory, he continued "I'm Sanjay. So, howz life? What are u doing nowadays"

"I'm a doctor"

"Wow", he interrupted. And here I was wondering what was so 'wow' about it. I didn't think there was anything great about it.

Courtesy demanded I ask him about his life too.

"I have a job at one of these nearby shops."

"Great", I concluded.

He said he had seen me even before but was confused if it was me or someone else. "I do come shopping here once in a while" was all I could say.

He left with a good-bye and I turned around with all my bags.

I realised his condition - obviously not very well-to-do, his clothes (I noticed the unduly old and a bit tattered shirt) said it. Yet he had a smile on his face. May not be having the best kind of job too... Being a salesman at a garments market isn't really a 'dream job'. Yet he seemed happy. Contented.

I walked away wondering what makes me crib about my work sometimes. Why do I crib about life at all? Can't I just be happy like him and go and say 'Hello' when I spot an old acquaintance?

Voila... Retail Therapy!

Stress is the talk-of-the-town and what better stress-buster than shopping. Na na na… don’t get me wrong… I’m not jumping to any conclusions but merely stating something that has been substantiated completely by research scientists who I’m sure are not shopaholics! On the contrary, they may be dedicated husbands to women who are shopping maniacs (aesthetically termed as ‘compulsive shoppers’) to an extent that they have got their husbands’ credit cards blocked due to non-payment of charges that are well beyond the assigned credit limit. So what makes shopping a mood-lifter after all?

The simplest explanation would be that when we are feeling low, we need to experience ‘something’ that lifts our mood. It may be chocolates or sweets for some, a nice game for others and shopping for most of the fairer sex. Shopping is likened to ‘rewarding oneself’ and who does not feel better when rewarded?? It triggers women out of their gloomy state and launches them straight into the air-conditioned, sweet-smelling interiors of a big store in the nearest shopping mall. At the end of all the My-God-I-bought-so-many-things experience, a wonderful mood emerges that lasts quite a while :)

I don’t think I should even wander into areas that touch the point about the credit card bills that are awaiting you in the coming month… didn’t I say I was discussing only stress-busters today??

Corporate Email Antics

As official as it may sound, corporate emailing is far from being ‘official’ many a times, and becomes a rather unofficial way of getting back at colleagues. Whether someone wants to dodge a particular job assigned to them or settle scores with a particularly nasty colleague, corporate email shows them the way. It’s amusing how much the human mind can evolve to uncover newer and newer methods of such not-so-pleasant tactics that people are often at the giving (or receiving) end of.

Starts off as an ‘FYI’ from the queen-of-lazy-ones who practically dozes off at her desk all the time in your neighboring cubicle. You realize only too late that you got into this loop of a hundred FYI messages simply because this lady found the task assigned to her very un-cool and intended to bat it straight to you. Alas, the boss comes over to ‘you’ and questions you about the task that you are blissfully unaware of, while this lucky lady sips away her cappuccino during the tea break. And what do you do? Sport that Ohh-I-didn’t-know-at-all look only to be fired for being so irresponsible about your duties. You realize your fault too late: Being dumb enough not to pass on the FYI to your next in-line.

Marking CC and BCC is another repulsive trend – don’t ask me who started this trend but I’m still hunting for that person even today… he will become history the day I lay my hands on him! People who don’t work need something to make noise about – probably to show they are on the ball of something important and their easiest tactic is to mark a CC to the boss for every trifling email. Phew… don’t even know how to deal with such people… Can Microsoft Office kindly provide some valuable help?

And the last of the kin are those who have ample of time and energy to write mails for anything and everything (obviously unimportant ones!) in the world. So they will mark a reply-all every time asking for the stupidest bit of information over and over till you fall dead replying to them. Tring tring – do these people know there’s a telephone at their desk that they can pick up and ask their query and get it solved in a jiffy?

Well these super-beings are not the last ones actually – there are multitudes of them out there, but for now, these are all I can spare time to talk about… I just received an FYI with a CC marked to the boss and obviously I am to action it… soonest!

This Year I Resolve…

This year I resolve to be happy… with myself… not dependent on others for my happiness! I have always linked my happiness to the presence of someone else, to his approval of the things I do, to his opinions about me and my work, to everything that lied outside of me. It was never about me so far… never about what I could have done for myself. However, things change, in fact, they must… that’s the only way we can adapt ourselves to the journey called life. I have also taken up this change… for good... for better... perhaps even for the best!

I have realized that happiness does not survive for long if it’s dependent on factors that lie outside of you. It has more to do with what lies inside. Take some time to think what makes you happy… Maybe it’s singing a favorite tune, playing an instrument, painting the colors of life on a white canvas, reading a funny book, writing a love story, penning every thought that takes birth in the fertile soil of the mind, a long chat with an old friend, a walk down the beach watching the setting sun… it can be just anything out of the myriad gifts nature has given us… you just need to find the one meant for you.

The New Year Is Coming…

A lot of hype’s in the air about what should be done for New Year, where should we go, which party to attend, whom to get together with, and so on. How fruitful does this seem? Party, eat, drink, drive home and back to sleep. A new day is here on waking, some excitement in the air still, lots of forwarded messages wishing you Happy New Year and then that’s it. Things once again back to normal - routine, so to say.

How about every day which is new too… does it not call for happiness about its arrival? About getting one more day to live your life and come closer to your dreams. We all take each day for granted…as if we were to live forever. And we take love for granted too. As long as it keeps coming to us from our loved ones, we don’t bother to acknowledge it. The meal cooked with love, the home cleaned, the love showered upon us day after day - we don’t seem to notice all this. We don’t seem to be interested in finding out why our better half does not feel good today, what is it that he/she misses, what can make him/her happier. We constantly think we have given so much to the other... but we don’t see the opposite person has perhaps given much more and may be deserves good after all. We don’t seem to have time to talk about issues, solve them and even avoid them in future. Issues are simply buried for the time being, only to raise their ugly heads later and maybe buried again.

Let us resolve this New Year that we shall love without inhibitions… care selflessly for our loved ones… cherish their love every moment… you never know when the person might be gone forever leaving you behind with a sad wish that you should have seen this coming and perhaps prevented it… don’t take love for granted… it’s the worst thing you can do to your love and to yourself…

Of good and bad things

She felt like screaming her lungs out and hurling half a dozen abuses at the guy who whizzed past her, splashing her crisp cotton saree with muddy water that had comfortably settled in a pot-hole on the road. However, Tanya could not muster enough courage to put this scene into action at that time, though, it played in her mind a dozen times over during rest of the day. In an attempt to avoid what happened, she had even managed to drop the file she had clutched under her left arm, landing her presentation papers precisely inside the pit on the road.

Every time she stepped out of her desk in office to grab a cup of coffee or to collect a print-out, she pitifully watched her saree which still had some remnants of the muddy blobs, though she had tried to wash it off – the first thing she did after entering office.

Tanya had made a mental note of the number and had even decided what she would do the next time she spotted that car. Little did she know she would bump into it so soon.

As she left the office that day, a guy caught her attention while he was stepping out of a clinic, just a couple of blocks away from her office. He struggled with a limp and a fresh injury on his elbow - and he was approaching a car that seemed familiar to Tanya. In another flash of a moment, she realized it was the same car. She felt a rush of blood to her chest and her heart-beat started racing as her mind quickly retrieved information on what she had planned to do next.

The guy opened the door, took a laptop bag out of the car, closed the door, locked the car and waited for a taxi to arrive. After being turned down by a few of them, he finally managed to convince one taxi driver and drove off.

Tanya was left dumbstruck as she was reminded of one of the recent discussions with her mom. Her mom had explained to her that ‘Nature’ has its own way of getting back at people. The good we do, comes back to us, as well as the bad. It’s just a matter of time and faith.

Tanya felt pity for the guy, and maybe, a little guilty too – she felt that whatever bad happened to him after this morning’s episode was partly due to her. Maybe if she had hurled a stone at the car, it would have settled scores and ‘nature’ would not have stepped in between. Trying to get these thoughts out of her mind, she turned out and called out loud ‘Taxi…’

Another proposal on its way

The list of weird people never seems to end and the additions are somehow so amusing -every time. This time, it was a family that came with a marriage proposal for my friend… something she despises so much, especially when the guy himself is out of country and she has only chatted with him a few times. The family decides to barge-in on her mother, get a date for an ‘informal meeting’ with my poor friend, all set to attack her with their baggage of questions.

The group of whackos finally entered the restaurant to interview – yes ‘interview’ – my sweet friend, to judge whether she was eligible for their son or not. If I even begin to evaluate whether their son even deserves someone half as talented as my friend, I will be unstoppable – so it’s better I don’t wander in those areas. Anyway, coming back to these ‘examiners’ of the prospect bride, they start off with some funny basic questions, which, I wonder, who discovered in the first place. All right, they need to know her but there are better ways to find out this. Why make her feel like she is being interviewed by a pompous HR-head of some company? Well, once the funny ones are over, their questions start getting little nasty, I was told. Some not-so-pleasing ones that deserve to be mentioned here:

‘Would she like trying out new dishes if given the recipes from the internet?’ (Do they need a bride or a chef?)

‘How easily does she cry in front of others?’ (Is this a psychiatric evaluation for depression or do they plan to beat her up in public?)

‘How often does she visit the beauty parlor?’ (Excuse me! Would you be pleased to have an unkempt duckling sitting across the table? In any case, what business does the mother-in-law have to ask this?)

‘Do you have a temper?’ (Yes… I could burst that weird- question-compiler head of yours into a thousand pieces, right now!)

‘Are you afraid of me?’ (Well, if any six-feet-tall and hefty woman with a bull-face, monkey-brain and a knife-like tongue was to ask this to you, what would your answer be?)

My only advice to my friend was… stay away from them!