Q n A

Last month, when I was in Mumbai, I met a cousin of mine who is around 20 years younger to me. Talking to her was like being on the show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire where she was the host and I was a contestant with no lifelines. I kept answering her questions patiently but when she used the word "black" for describing someone's complexion I thought I must correct her. What followed was a hell of an interesting conversation, though I don't remember it entirely.
Me: You mean dark complexion.
She: What's the difference?
Me: Well "black" sounds awkward and besides, it's racist too.
She: What's awkward and what's racist?
I explained both the terms to her.
She: If I say "white", will that also be racist?
Me: It'll be but not as racist as saying black.
She: Why not?
By this time I had become extremely uncomfortable. Had it been a grown-up asking me this question in the course of a debate or argument,I could have said a thousand things because the focus in those cases is not on answering the question. Your goal is to confuse the person you are talking to by saying something really clever to win the argument but when you talk to a 8 year old kid, it's a completely different ball game, trust me. The focus is not on winning the argument but on telling the kid the right thing. You can't mislead them because of your lack of knowledge. So for a change, I honestly accepted that I didn't know the exact answer to her question and stayed silent.

Well everyone keeps asking me if they would be alive to see the day when I would honestly admit not knowing about something which seems really complicated to me. I sometime feel like telling them that the only thing that sounds complicated to me in this world are questions of 2 words, asked by 8 year olds.

A day of unanswered questions.

1. What are nightmares seen during the day called and what about daydreaming at night?
2. Why do I see so many people unhappy around me when everyone says he is fine/good/excellent/great blah blah in response to how is he doing?
3. If great minds think alike, do I really have to be mediocre to innovate?

In defence of insomnia

There are some feelings we experience only in hindsight. I remember my dad had a very peculiar way of appreciating my mom's cullinary skills. Whenever she made something that tasted really yummy, he would say it's good but not as good as it was made on some previous date. One day i asked him "why then you do not say it to her on that day itself". Which was once replied with, "how do you know something is really good if you have not seen it getting worse on subsequent attempts". I did not quite understand it. But I was so young then...and I used to sleep so well.

Insomniacs also experience things after they had occurred. If they wake up in the morning feeling refreshed and ready-to-go, they know that last day was a day well spent. If they wake up with red and/or swollen eyes, they know it had been a normal day. If they don't have to wake up-you have to be asleep to wake up, right?- they are thankful that the day(and the night) is over.

Sometimes we are happy, which is good and normal. Sometimes we are not very sure of what makes us happy, which is weird. But then sometimes we are so clueless about the cause of our happiness, we fail to recognise that we are happy at all, which is normal again. Normal people always miss out on those mysterious, hidden, undetectably happy moments. Insomniacs never do. They always know it the next day. Every morning I feel great, I think of my dad, smile and say to myself, "he was so right"!

PS: Does it also happen when we are really down and depressed without an apparent reason? I don't think so. I, personally could never hide my sadness from myself.

Off-ish in office.

3:30 PM: After clicking the Refresh button of my LOTUS Notes inbox for what seemed like the thousandth time, I decided to face the fact that I am definitely, completely and somewhat comfortably bored. Comfortably because I am in office right now and being bored doesn't seem like a bad option when you look around and see analysts working their ass off and managers desperately trying to look busy- and they do it really well I tell you, as they look so BC to me all the time.

4 PM: Went for an S break with Jan and Ran. Couldn't help thinking, an S break is not always caused by S breaking work.

6 PM: When the load of boredom started becoming unbearable in just the 5th hour of office, I decided to share it with my immediate neighbours. The 1st one gave me an offer which sounded very much like Netaji's classic "freedom for blood" offer...he asked me to share his work and he would share my boredom in exchange which i outrightly rejected and went to the next prospective victim. He welcomed me with an oh-God-not-now look which I conveniently ignored and started cracking the dumbest jokes I could imagine to which he kept flashing his monotonous is-this-the-last-one smile and soon enough I couldn't ignore it any longer and had to go for the third person who was my last hope. Seeing him completely engrossed with his work, I asked him in a deliberately kept casual voice if there is something I could help him with. If I say I was hurt by his reply, that would be an understatement. He told me to get him a calendar from somewhere and to f%^$ off once I have done that or if I am not able to do that! I told him he already has one and was about to point the damn thing out kept right in front of him when I realised it is of yesteryear. I took the calendar from him, blacked out name of the days written on top and re-wrote the new and correct ones(for every month) under it as per a 2009 calendar.

8 PM: No, I didn't have a whiskey. That guy simply didn't appreciate my innovation verbally or visually but kept the calendar anyway. This thanklessness pissed me off so greatly that I had to literally go for it. For the piss, not for the calendar.

9:30 PM: Inspired by the famous Matrix dialogue "everything that has a beginning, must have an end", I wait with Asha.

10:00 PM: End of day, end of blog. I leave with Mukti.