Pointing Fingers.

Pointing fingers has always been in our blood. You get caught doing something wrong with a friend or not, you start pointing fingers. Well, unless you are the noblest of the people over here and prefer to take the blame for the mistake you did or didn't do. Here we are actually involved in the process and unfortunately we got caught. I remember one time when I didn't do anything wrong and just because I was at the wrong place ( oh no, I was in my place but the person who did it was near my place), we were subjected to a punishment. I wondered why couldn't they reason with my innocence. I was the culprit here. The person who was responsible for this was standing just besides me. Was I angry at him? No, I wasn't. But I sure was angry at the person who pointed their finger at the me and not to mention the Principal who wasn't interested in reason. The teary eyed girl had scored more in this aspect and there was no place for reasoning. Wait, she went into the Principals' office to complaint. I was wondering how childish of her. Of course, we were in seventh standard. How more grown up could she be? 

But this phenomenon of pointing fingers has never ceased to end. Even after being a grown up and people are still vague in their ideologies and still blame others'. Fast forward ten years and here I am sitting listening to people who are blaming, blaming everyone. But I don't understand why! It usually happens in our evening break time when we come out of our cocoon of wired electronic devices and tapping keys to freshen up a bit with the tinge of fresh air or whats left of it either by sipping a cup of coffee (specifically me) while others prefer a green tea ( you know with all the hygiene drama and all) with a essential snack of the evening to keep company. I am usually drowned in my phone sliding the ticker which provides the updates on the technology or likewise. And then out of the blue these guys stop for a moment. I look up and find then staring at a girl in saree. Obviously, she looks ravishing. Obviously, right? But thats' not the point. It is the comments that follow. 

The stereotyping of people based on the locality(the place they grew in/ stay in), their attitude and especially the gender would be a tab difficult thing to comprehend. We all have heard those things. The city girls, the village girls, the dress code, the revealing, the women, the ladies and the girls. I thought that being educated and having the intellect to comprehend what is right and wrong, we are still at the place where are are still immature. So, the women. They are to blame. Of course they are, aren't they? They have taken a step from being that house restricted women to independent women who are excelling at more things we could imagine. So, this independence of theirs is bothering a lot, is it not? Or is it the progress that they are making, surpassing you? They are having more friends, so lets just pass comments on her because majority of the people in her group happens to be boys. Lets judge her character. Oh, she is wearing what she likes which doesn't seem to fall under your the category of "proper dress code for women", so lets' say she is provoking you and she is asking for it. She is independent and does what she loves doing and yeah she happens to be a city girl. Of course with that attitude and that city-culture-she-was-exposed-to, you couldn't possible marry her, can you? Whilst you have this ego problem that she might be the one making the decisions for you. I could bring upon a million other things, but is that really it? Have we come to this? This game of pointing fingers.

I can't even quote what my colleague has said. I wanted to. But I don't want to get that image in my mind again. It is one of those rare(now becoming more common) moments when you feel like standing up and give them a nice trashing. But then again, we can't stop there, there are hundreds of others who deserve the same until they come to their right sense. And then I return back to this cubicle of mine only to find a "guy" almost shouting at the top of his voice emphasizing on the dominance of man over women referring to all the differences, weaknesses and whatnot. Don't they get tired of pointing fingers and accept women for what they are. Yeah, I agree that with a society like ours, it might take a long time, but give them a break will you! 

A moment.

      Everybody loves their hair, unless they happen to do-not have any of it. That is when the giving-advice starts. They seem to feel that they know everything about hair, how it falls and the steps to regrow it. The only problem being that they are still bald. I am not bald yet. But I have taken the first class ticket to it. So, I am going to land in the city of football and cricket grounds pretty soon ( I mean that bald spot on the head looks like those grounds I mentioned). So anyway, there is an odd phenomenon going around with it. Like everybody else I have a good hair day and a bad hair day, of course right? The only difference is that I have more of bad hair days while the good hair days can be summed into good hair moments. I wake up on a Saturday morning and as I look at myself while brushing my teeth, I stop for a moment. Holy shit, my hair looks awesome. Caution. Caution. Don't tilt your head. Don't move, not a muscle. Actually, Saturday is the lets-wash-that-muddy-hair-day, which now is put off indefinitely. I walk as if I am holding a sensitive bomb which would go off anytime if I moved even one muscle. Saturday goes by just fine with the bomb going off a little too many times. But still, it is ok-ok. Sunday comes up and hair is still intact because I didn't sleep the other night because that would involve, well sleeping and ruining the hair. But still, the bomb goes off a little too many times, as the day turns into night. I hold that sensitive bomb and go to check how it is holding up. To my surprise, I don't recognize that person in the mirror. Who the hell is that guy? I thought that it was just my hair which was messed up, this guy is even worse.

     You know the feeling when sometimes someone(just one accidentally) looks at you and you feel like everyone is watching you, your every move, your dress, your hair, your fashion sense, your umm... the complete you? No. Really? No, not one. Every person in the visible range. Oh, my bad. Of course, you must be either very prettily beautiful (for girls) or insanely handsome(for guys). So you do know that feeling except not everybody. I know the feeling too even though no one looks. That's is my sort of super power, you see. So, I just have to be cool to impress them, right? I walk cool, I flick my hair "stylishly", and I know for fact the girls would be crazy about me that very moment. So, just to make sure I glance at them from the corner of my eye. *cough*Where the hell is everybody?*cough*. Oh damn, all my coolness is down the drain. Damn! How could they do this to me?

     Why does the universe have to mock me? Earlier when that I used to get a Cappuccino with a heart shaped on it, it did give me a hope of some sort for love to happen. (No, not exactly. I am kidding.) Now that has changed to a Cappuccino with a tomato shaped on it. I agree that they wanted to give me a heart shaped one, but that didn't turn out as they had hoped it to. It has been happening for the past 10 times. I had to stop taking pictures of it because umm, it is *cough* embarrassing *cough*.

     I just saw a guy at the coffee shop with a laptop, who was using his laptop to listen to songs from his Macbook Air. I guess he couldn't hear that earth shattering music that is already playing in the shop that could literally break the glass. A visibly hot girl walks into the shop. I go..Ooooh. *cough* She goes and sits beside him and gets "handsy" and the family with a kid (10 years, I think) who are just across them leave moments later.

     I just listened to one song the whole day. Present count = 83 ( and counting) ! No, it is not because I love the song, it was more because I wasn't listening to it. I had my thoughts somewhere else, I guess. I just looked at my phone and realized that this some was on repeat and I had no idea. Where did my mind go? Exactly. Since I had listened to this song like a hundred times, I should be able to sing this by now. And so I thought too. Here was my try :

Slow beats....

If..... everything.... 

asdsdhdfoiadadkasdjajasd...

problem .... lose....

asdasdjasdjaskdalsdkasdjasjdalsd...

...tomorrow.....adsasdas ..... wait...

asdasdlad asd asda a adadaad ad

...moon....sdaddiue adasda spin

dfsdfs .... life.... .ebagsbjsnj ... music..

Slow beats.

Oh thank you, don't applause. It was nothing. 

P.S. Yeah, you guessed it right. I was just rambling.

The Social Jungle.

The growing multitudinous of the complexity of life these days has plagiarized the normal perception of things. Aiming for stars is no longer the main objective. Stars! What stars! Particles of dust combined shining light years away. Nevertheless the ability to fly unimaginable heights is still out of question. But heights yeah, thats' possible. Breaking the barriers slowly with each day as the bar is setting higher and higher. Life happened to us. Life! Then came along the biggest fear or the biggest comfort. The Money. Without money it was practically impossible for anything to happen, figuratively speaking. But more importantly something else also did happen. Change! Change has happened drastically. An era migrated with the so called change. It is plain difficult to pinpoint to something and say this is the best change that has ever happened to mankind. 

Keeping aside the whole mankind for a moment and taking into perspective the present life that I am beholding, change has been a distant dream. The dream so farther than the stars that it is simply invisible. In a word you would say there was No change at all, if the topic is to be discussed there would be nothing to point out. But that would be an understatement if I had to tell that there was no change at all. After all it wouldn't be humane if there wasn't any. Well, let's just take a step up and increase this change up a notch. Like the organization I work in.

The place where I actually work is considered better than the rest of the 12 branches within the city. Also this is ecologically well maintained, again if compared with the remaining 12. Even though it houses the maximum number of people in their workstation it still has the comfortable looking environment. There is nice vegetation, more than a couple of trees here and there covering the ground blocking the match in its crucial time. The best environment? No, not the best. But better than we could ever expect for this organization. I don't know whether this is done everywhere with a lot of trees and plants but, here they hang this playcard displaying the name and species of the plant/tree. Pretty cool, right. It was actually re-freshening to find the scientific names of the flowers/plants/trees. I am no biology major or junior but it was kinda cool. 

The corporate environment is always mysterious to deal with. As mysterious it might be, sometimes there are certain crazy things happening. Like when they decide to root up the whole footpath and increase it by one inch. Why, you ask? Was it because the footpath was getting drowned in rains? No, not even close. That is the corporate gimmick which comes under the name of development to save Tax. Well, if this was one greatness you thought? No it wasn't. I literally had no idea to what to tell or how to respond when I saw rabbits caged up and people were snapping photos. Were they cute? Hell yeah, they were. Caging the so called "people" under this spectrum of shitty work wasn't enough. Ironic, right? They would occasionally leave these rabbits in the so called well maintained garden for some time. The worst part is that after they have "successfully" enjoyed their momentary freedom in the "vast garden", they are taken back to their cages which are literally in the open and just covered with a plastic sheet to protect them from rain. This was horrible enough. The worst part was when I saw them out in the garden and they could just run out of the garden and go out to freedom, but they couldn't. They ran back, back to the cage at the sight of any human. If this was brilliance at extraordinary levels, you are wrong again. A week later there was another cage. This time there were these cute small birds, parrots caged. Now, for this the worst part is that they don't have the little freedom of that those rabbits were able to live with momentarily twice a day. I was standing and looking at these cute creatures. If they could talk, if I could understand what they were continuously chirping about, they might be cursing in the worst possible birdlike curses that if translated to a language we could understand we might as well kill ourselves. If only. But aren't they singing, in their usual way, which compels us to take selfies with them and adore the cuteness. Only if they know how to sing.

Dear Stupid Educated People with Smart phones,

Stop clicking the pictures of these caged creatures for god's sake. Even though they haven't done harm to anyone, they have lost their freedom. At least leave them alone. We are caged too, but we don't know the bounds. Once we realize that, we would suffocate in our own misery, literally. You are not helping anyone with the photos you are clicking. And I wonder sometimes what would happen if you were kept in the same cage and someone, some giraffe or a hippo is taking a selfie. Just awesome selfie that would be. It would #BreakTheInternet which Kim Kardashian failed to do with one botoxed butt. 

What is the next plan?

There are claims that there will be a zoo opening shortly. Already there are three animals, one being in exponential majority called humans and the other two are the aforementioned. To complete the so called Corporate zoo, there have been talks to bring all the national park wildlife to one place. After all, ecological balance is what we have always dreamed of. Why not bring the harmony to the work environment? Why not?

________________________________

I showed this post to a colleague at office. And the response was equally brilliant. I was like speechless for a moment and then thought that this should definitely go into my blog. She and her friends wanted to place a board with a quoted text on the cage which had the birds in it. So, this was the quote : 

"Walking is too boring when you know how to fly".

If this doesn't break your heart, I don't know what will!

On love and other things.

"How would you know that? You don't have a girlfriend!". The social stigma of a definite need of a girlfriend or to be in a relationship is swelling the young minds. Is it really a necessity? Is it what we really want in the prospect of life? How important is being in a relationship to any of us? When the people around us are biting away their time with the so called significant others and we are there watching and feeling the need to be a part of that, of that experience. But I don't believe in following the crowd like every Tom, Dick and Harry. When it happens, it will happen, right? By it, I mean love. Love is what we seek right? Or is it just a temporary lapse of enjoyment or heartbreak. We don't have to follow a pretty girl, or a bunch of them just for that to happen. It won't happen that way. And it won't last long. But if you are in for the heck of it, then what is the point? Oh that temporary lapse of fun which leads to heartbreak. Why do things which we are not capable of handling. Or to begin with, why do things just because you that guy across you is doing?

The earlier mentioned dialogue is the close deduction of a funny conversation. I was taken aback when I got the reply mentioned earlier for a lame response in casual conversation. This was mockery at unprecedented level. So, what was the reason for her to mock me with such "absurdity" or should I call a "clichéd notion" ? Now this is where I laughed at the mockery. I am usually the person who would start the conversation with a common ice breaker "Hi". What? It isn't a ice breaker! Dude, stop! So, I usually reply with "Hi, How are you?" even though when the last conversation was just a few hours apart and I already know about the well being of the person in conversation. So, I was asked why I was asking for the well being when nothing possibly could happen in a couple of hours gap. I named it etiquette, correct me if I am wrong.  And said that this is how I usually start talking. After a couple of days, this happens : 

Hai.

Hai.

This is not fare (fair). ladki ko kabhi hai nahi bolna chahiye. [This is not fair. You shouldn't say 'Hai' to a girl]

Why? (I was perplexed, literally and was waiting for my share of laugh).

Respect you know.

Is that so?

Ha. [ Yes ]

Then what should I say ? 

"How can I help you mam?"

(By this time, I was speechless for a moment and started mocking her in my usual way.)

Wow, you are an absolute genius. How did I miss that? 

Hmm, aap ko ye sab nahi ata tabhi toh aap single ho.  [Hmm, You don't know these things, that's why you are single ].

(That comment didn't bother me. But I wasn't going to let it go. I consider myself as a giving-back person, even if it mockery.)

Nice logic. I appreciate it.

Experience matters. 

(Unable to control my laughter, I had to say something back) Yeah right! But I am not a salesguy(in a shop) to be of anyone's assistance to anyone, Mam. And also tell me, how could this be a reply for a simple Hai?

*Insert some angry smileys* 

(I couldn't care less).

_____________________________________

Despite all this, I have seen people in desperate need to be in a relationship. I still haven't figured out the main reason about this so called trend that people are seem to be following these days. The hardest to accept from all of these is that it is not the so-called-love is not the front runner for all this. Just that your friend is in a relationship, you should also be in a relationship as if you would be socially wrong and in the wrong society if you are still single. The obvious question that we, by we I mean single people are bombarded is the question of the relationship status and the response turns out to be frown most the times, unless they happen to be in the same boat as us.. Love is an understatement these days. When one of my friend who recently changed the status from Single to In a relationship tries to hook me up with his girlfriends' friend whom I haven't even met or know, that puts me in a much deeper question. I mean with a few talks/wooing/ flirting/not-to-forget-the-lies her status might also change but isn't this a sort of forced relationship happening mainly because one has been single and the need to be in a relationship is quite evident all over his friends. But to state the obvious, I would bailing on the first meeting if that were to happen somehow. I can't even begin to describe the temptation of the people all around the would being infatuated by a good looking person. The worst is when people have found love on ten different occasions. And I was sitting in at this coffee shop staring at the love shaped foam in my coffee cup and assuring myself that it happens only once and it will be a special feeling. So, hosla rakho. Just keep faith. 

Whom am I kidding? Right? Let me get back to the staring at the inevitable mockery, the coffee cup.