An Immortal Everyday Misery

When I will count those moments which have occurred recently - among them the ones which were entirely unplanned and unexpected - this incident will indeed rank among the higher ones.

11-12-2014, a unusually usual morning for me. Mom wished me Good luck for the day, as she left for her office. Brother and Dad wished me the same too, and I get set for the 10 kilometer journey to my office, like I'd been doing for the last approx 150 days now. I could feel the cold in the bones of my fingers as I rode on, and was pleasantly surprised to see the roads not as packed as they usually are at ~9:30AM. The highway was crossed with unexpected ease and there I was in Noida waiting to complete the remaining 60% of my drive. It wasn't too soon that the storm hit me hard. Like a million dead vehicles clogging the veins of this metropolitan, the roads were nowhere visible. Amidst the cuboidal blocks were minute struggles of motorbikes, cycles and pedestrians grabbing every chance to sliding though the gaps. Though the journey was still enormous like the Pacific to be covered in a lake motorboat. I did think different and broke the law. The right of this road had but a few vehicles, and so I turned about, reached the gap in divider, and shifted to the wrong side till I was close to the junction of action. Few traffic police personnel seem to be struggling with routing the vehicles, while everyone wanted to be the first one to cross. I loved the fact that being on a bike you could somehow swim through the rocks of obstruction, and so I was soon a kilometer ahead of where I could have been if I was in a car. Little did I know that the junction ahead was going to be a reason for a constant reflection for sometime today.

A huge bus standing strong blocking the road I had to follow. And beside it was a jungle of cars and auto-rickshaws, resulting in a blockage that seemed almost impossible to dodge. But then there was a limit to this stack of patience I had, and so I started to hunt for opportunities of slipping through the crevices. Turned here and tilted there, I was soon close to a gap that wanted my gut to decide whether to take the leap. And then I just did. Slowly moving ahead I knew something was about to snap as the gap was a few millimeters short of my bike width, which was increased a bit due to metal protectors on the sides of my front tire.

Then the sound came, and I bit my tongue. The rear of a car on my right had a small scratch and the one on my left had a snapping noise as it's number-plate catapulted a bit but nothing was broken. I looked at my right, expecting a scorn in the rear-view mirror. But like a blast at the back of my head, I heard a particularly eloquent abuse hurled at me from an elderly not so gentleman in the car on my left. This was unexpected. But what was even more unexpected was that he walked to the rear of his car and took a wooden lathi out. I thought to myself - Wow this dude is up to some serious beating business here. At such times, the brain has almost no time to speculate and take a side. So I stood strong (had no space to move anyway!) and waited for the epicenter of this storm to hit. He walked up close and an array of unstoppable verbal filth erupted from his elderly pockmarked mouth. I looked at the bloodshot in his eyes and suddenly felt pity. The humility with which I talked to him would surprise me later on when I give this incident some further deeper thought. I remember myself acting not like I usually do. When the old man was the on the brink of exploding the nerve on his forehead, I smiled faintly and placing my palm on his chest asked him to relax, lest he get himself unwell.

A particularly junior traffic policeman came close and asked the older man to calm down. Though he himself stayed away from the range of his lathi. It was miraculous how such a natural and simple gesture as showing him support resulted in easing down his catastrophic blast. He walked back to his car and waited for the traffic to loosen. He did honk a few times before silently leaving.
For me, it was easy to call him an asshole and move on. But somehow my brain stuck a different cord. This old man, who had just abused me in the most outrageous of ways, was nothing but the face of a common Indian. He's probably wasted so much time stuck in traffic jams that it could be accommodated in a happier mini-life. Every day of these 150 ones while I've been driving from home to office, I noticed vehicles, roads and traffic instructions. But never did I notice the people. I never actually looked at their faces, while I exchanged abuses more than once every couple of days. It was today I realized that life is tough. It's short. And when you spend a chunk of it honking and waiting for hours in unending queues, it's but natural to be painfully dry and pissed off. But then who's to blame? I guess all of us. It's all of us who set certain rules, and then break them. The logic ultimately brings you to the decision - me or us? You can skip a red light and probably reach a few minutes earlier. But imagine when you interpolate this trend to a country of a billion people. From a logical standpoint, when you look at the larger picture, it's a blunder big time. But when done at the individual level, the long term impact isn't visible.

Being an Indian, I have learnt how even earning stomach-full is an everyday struggle for a jaw-dropping huge proportion of people. Can we solve it by coming closer in spirit, holding hands and walking together? Probably. Will we actually do it? I have no clue. I don't think anyone has. Not even the unknown old gentleman who's left a print on the sands of time for me.

A Snapshot of My Times - 3.1 (5th December 2014)

Adobe - Festival of Lights

It was a few months since June (when I moved to Adobe Systems, Noida), and a silent pinch inside my mind reminded me of this ghost of monotony that was soon going to envelop my everyday memory and leave nothing to be remembered.

Festival of Lights is the name given to Diwali celebrations at Adobe. There were different competitions and a round of Tambola at the end. Events were spread out evenly and consisted mostly of activities I had never experienced before. The first time I saw their notification email, it was like a view of an Oasis far away, and me being the desert traveller smiled.

Rangoli and Mehndi on Day 1, and Graffiti, Tambola and Best Dressed Male/Female competition and Photoshoot on Day 2. The first challenge was to get into teams. I ditched a group of my friends for Rangoli and joined a few seniors who had certain prior experience as the 2nd runners up of last year. For Mehndi it was almost a give-up until my friend from HR helped me get a volunteer. Something that remained common above was my NOT mentioning that it's going to be my first such experience in any of these. Marketing myself by showing my ancient sketches was pretty much sufficient :D All set, I was optimistic at least about not screwing up too much.

I was right, partially.

Parallelizing Planning & Execution

To call my experience of Rangoli amazing would be a dire underestimation. It was like asking a Guitarist to play Violin. With movements like rubbing my charcoal on a canvas, it was like natural instinct in play all throughout, and yes we rocked big time.

The 'Om-Ganeshaya-Namah' Project

I made friends. Ordinary people who suddenly became special for me. It was a natural connect, which translated into beautiful memories. We won the third. And I have no clue where I spent my 1000 bucks cash prize.

Tanvi, Utkarsh, Somya, Me, Chani

If Rangoli was the 'Good', mehndi was the 'Ugly'. My homework was extensive. A day before the event, all my traditional friends were busy searching the perfect mehndi design for me to use in the competition the next day. I did overestimate my fine art skills and thought any design was possible. The shortlisting was done and I suggested two choices to Kanchan, the volunteer. An Arabic mehndi pattern was selected, and the competition began. It was past the first few minutes that I realized it's not a child's play - that the Guitar-Violin logic doesn't hold true anymore, and even keeping the hand stable and letting an optimum flow of mehndi needed careful calibration and patience. Kanchan did have skyrocketing expectations thanks to the pattern I was supposed to emboss. Halfway through, I just wanted it to end. It did end, and I felt it wasn't too bad, but her eyes were partly murderous partly on the verge of bursting with tears. Not the best experience, especially when she's mentioned never forgiving and forgetting my 'Spider-Mehndi' :D

Model Credits: 'Khadoos' Kanchan

Graffiti was just random. There was no team, and the one that official existed had all but one members backed out. It was Somya who said 'What the heck' and we went to the 3rd floor balcony where the event was to happen. People with dangerously creative expressions seem to gape on blank canvases, and there we were asking random people to include us in their team. The bakras were finally found and we were all set with freshly collected team members, and having extremely no idea about what to draw. The obvious - keeping 'Adobe' as the theme, we thought of graffiti of characters as seen in fancy Hollywood movies. But Sir, sometimes that Ant hill is a mountain, and so here we were spraying the hell over this innocent white canvas, till it was so ugly a kid with a sensitive belly would have vomited. But then as good coders, we had to hack this into something that just clicked. So the graffiti was entirely overwritten' with black, and the ugly background was beautifully cast into the Adobe symbol. This was an achievement beyond measure, though the judges will never know, as no one in the team has any clue about who gave our Graffiti viva during judgement. Regardless, a taste of Graffiti, with a hint of a lesson - it's okay to be completely crazy, you won't essentially screw everything up. (Just remembered that I don't even know the team members' names!)

Somebody tell me what the f*ck have I done!

Getting into Serious Business!

The League of Unknown Participants

Searching frantically for the best possible Kurta-Pyajamas belonging to anyone in the family, in order to win the Best Dressed Male award, was an unbelievably embarrassing effort in vain. I was soon informed that the award is delivered as per the number of accessories. So you were supposed to look more like a Raamlela Character rather than being gracefully dressed in ethnic wear. So the USP of the day would primarily be posing like struggling Bollywood actors and getting clicked a billion times. The ladies, much in line with expectations, looked like their evolved avatars, hopefully past hours of hard work and labor in self-decoration and mending. The men looked like they took a bath early morning.

The 'Spot-Me!' Challenge picture

Happy days

The Photo-bomb Conspiracy

Revenge! Vengeance! 

Looking back.... :)

Division Speech Evaluation Failure

My mind split into two and debated about whether I should record this not so pleasant memory, but then there were certain hidden pieces of subtle reflection which would have perished with the memory.

A week of Viral infection, lying on the Sofa watching Television till the eye socket pained, sleeping on the coarse sofa itself, swallowing unbelievable quantities of medicine, and cycle repeat. Now that the background for my major excuse is set, let me take to you that morning when my Division level Speech Evaluation Competition was due. I must mention that this follows the emotional mention of my Area level victory, and so obviously the stakes were higher this time. To give up or not was the question, and it was a single fraction of a nanosecond when I said - F*ck this shit, let me go for it.

Covering myself with a painfully large number of clothes, I set off for the route on my bike. It was closer than the Area level venue but still took some bit of searching. My main concentration was not to lose consciousness while I'm on the wheels. Staying alive is (obviously) more important than delivering my Division level speech. On reaching the venue, I mustered a reservoir of strength to speak aloud my name for participation. I knew it was late already, but didn't expect any disturbances as the Area level event has started ages after the stated time. But what was to follow punctured a hole in whatever strength I had been reaping. I was officially replaced by the first runner's up of the Area level event as my Club president had informed a night earlier that 'Karan might  not come tomorrow as he's unwell.' This particular gentleman (let's call him Person X) would be jubilant to hear this news, and so there he stood. I was humble and expected the same from him, but then I noticed the darker web behind the scenes. One of the Officers being this X's close friend didn't lose a chance to kick me out of the event and claim the participation for his dear loving friend. I sensed danger and like Spider sense I knew that if I were to deliver what I was supposed to, I would have to fight for it I didn't though, as higher authority was called and they brought forth the rule book which was to resolve this conflict. When the confusion prevailed, the most senior gentleman was inquired, and without a moment's doubt he spoke in the favour of original participants confirmation, i.e. me. What happens next will break your emotional dam. X cried. Tears in his eyes, his voice cracking like I'd stolen his house, his daughter and robbed him of the treasure of his life. To be honest, it was that moment I thought it giving it to him, but what floated in the back of my mind was the dirty politics X and his Officer friend had played. And so it was another F*ck-This-Shit moment and I was in the Conference hall.

I replaced his position, which was the last among about 7-8 people. This was worst case scenario for me, as I'd not know the competition till the results are out. Looking at their faces, I knew this was it, and that I should push as hard as I can, and then leave it to fate. When the demo speech was delivered, a part of my active processing brain made notes and when I went on stage I knew deep inside this was it and I would be crushed under my own expectations. The speech began well, and I saw the senior-most officer smile, but all what followed was void of each and every component of my otherwise USP - confidence, energy, clarity and definition of content flow, and most of all substantial evaluation points. I spoke a bit too much during participant interviews, and quickly got down of stage on spotting a couple of murderous eyes for overshooting the time limit for empathetic listening to random bullshit.

The climax comes, and I didn't even win the third prize. X atleast got a hug, special mention in the audience and a badge to boast of his leadership skills. Like an elderly gentleman returning to his old age home, I slowly got up with my Jeans bag and walked upstairs to leave. I spotted the lady who was one important reason for me still sitting there. I walked past her. I was difficult to look into her eyes with the Sorry-I-Screwed-Up-Expression. Then almost at the exit, I turned back. Thanking her, we shook hands. Her robotic gesture about 'Good job there' was followed by a warning to my club for better organization. I guess it was good to close chapters and leave.

Thank you Papa Mum and Bhai for not making my self-esteem sink even deeper. When I told them I screwed it up, it was cute to see Mum mint the obvious logic and try to make me feel comfortable in my own skin. Papa and Bhai followed and I suddenly felt that achievement isn't essentially the only path to happiness. Sometimes we should experience this non-glittery-shimmery aspect of happiness when you're just content the way you are, and a hug is infinitely more touching than a facebook dp with a trophy.