Quarter Life Crisis

The fourth anniversary of my  joining an IT behemoth was a few days back , Oct 29th to be precise. I am a dimwit when it comes to numbers and dates and have trouble remembering important dates like birthdays and anniversaries ,but try as I might this date is stuck in my head . Its been a bitter sweet 4 long years and I can't say I feel the way I did on my second anniversary . So I take a moment to pause and analyze why . 

Its all too common to find people complaining about their worklives and blogosphere itself is inundated by these hate posts .Suffice it to say that I have a mountain of complaints,frustrations and worries myself which I want to let out too .Important question is , what can be done about this ? Hmm .. I'm stumped . 

Mid life crisis has been in popular parlance for a while now but the latest one is the quarter life crisis . May be that's what's happening .Maybe I need a job change ....or a career change itself . Its prolly time to go back to acads ... or get married and sit at home for good .. There are so many girls who do that cos they can't stand the ordeal anymore , people who were good at studies and wanted careers for themselves .. so whats the way out ?? I dunno .. But I think all people who consider themselves hit by this particular malaise should put their heads together to find the solution . Maybe something might come out of it and actually fix the problem .Ah,wishful thinking ! 

Many of you would suggest ,go follow your dream . This implies that you actually know a course of action to realise your dream which you are consciously resisting for whatever reasons . If that's the case, you ought to be kicked on your behind and be made to see sense. There are other poor souls ,like me , who have financially or otherwise unviable areas of interests - like the creative fields,literature in my particular case. These could be followed as hobbies , but unimaginative workplaces can kill the passion and stoke stress , which is why I can't wait to escape ..only I don't know where to . I would have just shut up and told myself to sort out my problems on my own instead of blogging about it , had I not seen and heard so many other people going through the same problem. Looks to me like some disease that's infecting a lot of people of my generation .

 I have a lot of questions but no answers . But I have this to say to the generation coming after us . If there is some subject you really love in school , go on to college and learn it .Because if you go to one of those run-of-the mill engineering colleges , you will end up with a neatly paying IT job , but you will always keep wanting to go back in time and undo that damned day when you told your parents ,"Alrit people , I will do engineering ok .. now get off me ! " . Pursuing a subject of your liking only can help you realize your true potential and keep you interested in your work ,and remember you will have to work for most parts of your life . I now know that the pursuit of your interests ,no matter how unattractive it may look in terms of money or opportunity, can be quite rewarding . I know this from my younger brother who is learning Physics and I see him spend so much of his time reading books on physics ,talking about the subject and spending All of his hard earned money [he takes tuition for a +2 kid] buying up books .He talks about some uber cool experiments he gets to do as part of his course project and its been an eye opener for me in terms how cool research work really is .. and its all happening right here in Trivandrum . I can see how his interest is leading him on in his pursuit and it is such a pursuit that so many of us covet . My bro's no geek by the way , just followed his passion is all . 

Its very simple really . If there's something you are good at , that Is your pursuit . 

Now if only I could find a way to go back and learn literature !

Anybody knows time travel here ??

Grey ,Rainy Grey ...

It’s a white rainy day today . Right now there’s a brief lull and everything is white – the sky is chock-a-block with gigantic white clouds and all the water puddles and glass high rises are reflecting it .For a bit , you can even imagine it being Narnia with its perpetual winter . The drizzle murmured through the windows as we rode the morning bus to office, its moist breath against the panes condensing into tiny water rivulets that flowed happily along the roof and across the glass. The air is all wet and cold making noses quiver and people sniff away .  But yesterday ,it was totally grey . In the afternoon ,the rain flew into quite a rage ,roaring outside the house and coming down at us in a loud barrage . It seemed quite angry throwing down its might on the brown earth and the greenery , that the trees and plants seemed to shake under its weight . It drummed against the asbestos sheet roof of the neighbour’s house rhythmically ,the volume waxing to a crescendo and waning a little before peaking again like a war cry . The behavior seemed quite out of place for someone who was whispering sweet nothings to a dazed me through the bedside window just this morning ; wonder what set it off … and wondering , I wandered around the house, its insides all grey since the rain was not allowing even a stray ray of sunlight inside .  The mother cat and its very new-born kittens lay in a large wooden box outside the house in the car porch . There were four kittens and they really looked just like loafs of meat with their raw skins not yet covered with fur . The white cat had been straying ,totally pregnant and looking for some place to give birth and it chose our house to do the honours. That was five days ago and now the cat family was happily cuddled up together in its box home when the rain went mad all of a sudden . So I opened the door and leaned out of the verandah cooing into the box, “All ok guys ?” .She looked back at me with her green eyes unblinking , as round as saucer pans . Of course they were okay , they were underneath her and busy feeding themselves ..so I let them be ..I’m sure she values her privacy a lot . But hey , she doesn’t give two hoots about our privacy and walks right in like she always lived here . So I told her to just stay there in the porch and to call out or just meow when she was hungry and we will try and find something for her to eat and Bring it outside to her .. Cat , you can’t just walk into the house and raid our fridge ..cats are not allowed to do that . Well, I don’t think she listens to me anyways . Sigh ..  On our terrace , rows of clothes hung out to dry in the sun , lay limp and helpless on the clotheslines soaking in the rain . The rain happened so suddenly that by the time I had raced to the terrace , the water was already running through the clothes and I just stayed there at the door and watched. A layer of water collected on the terrace floor and flowed towards the pipe that took the water down to the ground. Fist sized raindrops fell on the water ,splashed and rose in the air scattering in all directions , whirled like a flamenco dancer and fell back on the floor ending its brief dance . I watched the rain drops dance for a while and sauntered off to watch the rain from each and every one of our windows and doors while the foamy air pressed in on me . The rain was coming down in sheets of water like someone had placed us in a basin and was pouring mug fulls of water on us ,the thunders like the reprimands to a kid to stand still while being given a bath.  It must have been evening by the time the rain died down ,but by the time the sun had also gone down and it indeed was a dark grey rainy day for the most parts of it .  PS: I am saying No to crackers this Diwali because :  1.I think I may have grown up after all for that 2.The environmental pollution , the smoke and the noise … uff ! 3.It scares the poor animals ,including strays . Read how it kills strays in thousands ,here

Beautiful Stranger

I had gone out to my second floor balcony one evening few days ago , when I met this handsome guy there .He was perched on a bunch of flowers and looked quite majestic in his ruby red body colour.


                                                           This guy came visiting ...

Check out his tender wings

And face from another angle ..


                                        

Initially I tried with the balcony light on and flash,but the pics didn’t look right . So I switched off the balcony light which seemed to be more hindrance than help and clicked this one before turning the  flash on. Can you spot the silhouette?

                                                                  Silhoutte

The rest of the shots were shot in pitch darkness , pointing and clicking at the stud .My fears that I may lose him any instant turned out to be misplaced as he was  absolutely unruffled by all the attention and the blinding flash lights upon him. Going by the good looks,  he must be used to girls swooning over him ! ;)

                                                           I can see ya ..

Clicking in the dark with nothing but a guess of what actually the lens was seeing was fun .So I clicked these beauties as well to see what they would look like. Turns out , they are attractive any time!

Friends

Friends are actually marvellous things, ain't it ?

One to discuss the world and its afairs with
One for the times when I need pep-talk and encouragement
One to wallow about the slime pool that my life resembles now
One to go gaga over movies and old hindi music over
One to share the girl woes with
One for the fun times and merry making
One to share the ,'I only talk like this, but I'm not such a witch' attitude with .
One to fret over weight loss with
One to just send and receive kisses and hugs over facebook ..

So many ... I just don't tell this to them but I like all of them so much !They have a way of making life so so much easier to handle ... Like right now , I am looking for the pep-talk one cos I'm all jittery for reasons that cannot be disclosed here and no, whatever you assume is not that reason ! But she's off on a week long vacation :-( Oh well , her absence did make me mull over how amazing these people are .. and hoping this post would relieve the tension somewhat ..

It All Ends - HP 7 movie review

*Spoiler Alert *




The HP movie adaptation, as always, does not live up to the book . I still remember the wait for the book release of the last and final episode -HP and The Deathly Hallows - how the wait was driving all of us HP fans, including myself ,insane. There were Orkut communities of those who were pulling their hairs out in anticipation and people spawning their own versions with tons of followers for these stories too. On the whole, those were pretty exciting times for an HP fan. The night before the actual book release was a sleepless one and the book was devoured in a single sitting spanning hours and hours of non-stop reading..Mind you , the book was a pretty huge one ,but that was hardly a deterrent. For all the wait and anticipation , the book turned out to be a brilliant finale tying up all the loose ends tidily and giving us ,all the drama and adventure we could ask for. Undoubtedly, JK Rowling did give us the best ending possible to the most favourite magic tale of our times beating all the clones hands down and were we satiated !

The movie labours to be , but still is, a far cry from anything that the book conjured up so easily .If anything ,for an HP fan the movie is just a reminder of the book reading experience, since its been a while since the book was read. The movie does start off pretty well ,but loses its grip on the audience as it progresses. On two occasions towards the end I turned around to the back wondering if they had cut off the sound - there was no background music and it was glaring ! Whatever effect they intended out of the heavy silence ,just did not work. The end scenes after the victory looks like plain lazy direction .Did they forget to put some awesome music in the background and mutual back slapping scenes to drive in the sense of victory and relief? To me , the actors looked like they had just come out of a boring movie! "Its over" ,"Yea right" sort-of !
Personally ,I had hoped they would leave out the very end portion of the story ,but they wouldn't spare us even that .Frankly, the 21 year old actors looked like they were participating for one of our school fancy dress competitions when they appeared as their older selves.

I would still say , thanks for the movie adaptation .Sometime in the future when I want to go back and get a dose of the HP adventure once again , I may watch the movies if I don't have time to read the books all over again. I would also add ,not all of the movie episodes were below par , some of them were actually good .The credit and admiration though goes to JK Rowling, for her incredible imagination that has created this stunning tale and I'm sure legions of HP fans around the world are thankful for the magical experience she has steeped us in . Sadly , it all ends like all good things are destined to be .

Signed
A true blue HP fan !

The Dream

Blood smeared , guts splayed
I lay with a gaping hole
Where the heart had been,
Wrenched open and emptied
Of that gift I was born with,
Unburdened of that dream,
My only reason for existence .


Like a rag doll ,my body lay sprawled,
The last of the shrieks silent on the lips .
Lifeless ,eyes wide open,
And stood over me a shadow
Clutching that dream and shaking with tears,
"Go,I have now relieved you of the pain
Of a dream unfulfilled ",said ,
My shadow to me .


Into a coffin , they placed me
In a room washed in blue, they crowded
And put even more nails on me ,
While the shadow watched from the far corner
Murmuring to the dream in her hands,
"Shouldn't hurt now ....
Those nails had to come ,the pain inevitable
Let life seep out , don't struggle
The struggle cuts it deeper. "


With the last nail, the dream crumbled
Into tiny shards of glass and shined,
Cutting the hands that held them
The way they had been tearing at that heart,
Turned to dust and mixed in the breeze
That blew over the coffin and out of the room,
Into the cold moonless night and a world
Of unforgiving, unfulfilled dreams .