4:44 AM

As I browse around the space that is just meant to create envy and creep in the void we never knew existed, I saw something desirable and whispered ' I want that!' but in the milliseconds that followed I turned away and stated 'May be not'. In the effort to understanding the power of desiring intangible things, I realized how momentary and confusing they are shaped to be. The fact, that you had the same and let go, is scared to face you to the same extent that you avoid it each time. In this struggle the only reason you muster among the scattered pieces of the puzzle you once had together is that you weren't the one who dropped it. You didn't save it, but you didn't throw it away. And this places you closest to the edges of either Loser or Winner depending on which song is playing on your playlist.

Of course you are sorted, or so you tell yourself. Now at 4:44 AM what's the truth? You got this? Sure?

Akshay Kumar, Magic Mike, tomorrow, today, last night, what's the strongest? Haunting? Go ahead tell me it's all good.

The 4:44 AM syndrome is one that provokes all the thoughts that try to creep in between your carefully scheduled day but suck power to charge at you at night. At this hour what's your defense? It's the truth you've been avoiding, it's the lie which refuses to blur, its the face you thought you buried, it's the you, the one you don't want to handle anymore. Still it's all that will make a difference to you.

Have a coffee, count your blessings at the breakfast table, look good to the world, make yourself proud, solve something unimportant, fuss over something incomplete, envy another body, mind, pretend kind, caring, search eyes, talk, listen and come back. Come back and I will be waiting to haunt you with the right wrongs at 4:44 AM.

The Pedicure

As the nail polish upon my toe nails was drying I took a deep gaze at the dirt my feet shed in the water tub. It was more dirty than Hussain Sagar which took years of dirt into itself. Just when I was disgusted looking at it something far more disgusting teared me up. He walked up to me in bright-tight checked shirt, loose grey jeans, South Indian complexion and almost no expression (the expression one has when it’s nothing but work). He quickly picked up the gold plated water (dirty) tub from beneath my feet and walked away in a jiffy. I noticed he didn’t wear a belt, his pants were held by what I know as Moldaram. He drained the water down the basin and left to clean the empty tub. With three fashion magazines resting on my recliner couch and my cleaner feet I sat their almost numb. As I saw him leave, a myriad emotions stirred up in my belly and head aiding tears down my eyes. I felt a strong rush of guilt and shame and choked my throat.

We are all much more than what we do and I wish I had a way to explain it to myself. Those 2 seconds were beyond confusing to pen down.

I demand the best and worst of people I love and loved. I am the most unkind person I know of, who claims a share of good deeds of Sharath (brother) and Archana (soulmate) and feeds of their blessings and prayers. I am also the most pampered, by people who choose to stick and few who don’t have a choice. In essence I feel completely insignificant to be asking for more.

 I must clarify the perspective and context. It’s from the perspective of an insignificant being and the context of my country.  I must mention a sub-perspective when I mention my country. My country is my home. Home, where I belong. Home, the place I come back to. The place is an integral part of my personality and sadly (to people surviving me abroad) shapes my opinions on the grounds of irrationality (at times). Homes can be dysfunctional but one defends it anyway at their own expense. I find myself doing that many times to the extent of sounding illogical. The dignity of labor at question has a huge role to play in one’s life and no can be devoid of it. Its a social responsibility we must attend to.

In France, a waiter who delivers a bad service isn’t afraid of his client shaming him loudly with assumed authority. He holds a well-deserved confidence and exudes his personality guilt-free. The society not only respects him but is also grateful for the value he adds. No, I am not making this up!

If only this was possible or executed in India we would be one step closer to the utopia. We all are enablers and victims of this epidemic and we don’t realize it. In India one’s work more than defines a person to others. To all the uncles and aunties, we, millennials, who shower namastes and pai lagoos on unimportant occasions, we are nothing more our current status. They remember us as – “oh she? The one who works at Infy? Oh he? He is in US and married? Oh them? Who managed to open their own business? Oh us? Winners?” We all are slaves of our impressions and we fail to realize this.

It’s hard to map the incident to my analysis and it might not be absolute..... but it’s one to force the reboot.

Much Ado About Nothing

Exxageration of every phase that kindles the worst and best of us is second nature to us and our denial of this fact is our first nature. It takes a supreme level of stupidity to ignore this fact and pretend the weight of the world upon oneself.

What's beautiful can only be saved in thoughts and treasured to encourage us to smile to ourselves at times. No, there is nothing more to it. Nothing more that you would want to assign to it. But then, it is no reason to be bitter about the cause and effect. Quoting my friend Archana here- " You can never complain I should have chosen the other way as it is the path you never gave a chance to and hold no knowledge of what it holds. So suck it up and move on". I found this profound for my own reasons.

To blame ourself for all that it took from us only goes to prove the extent of self affliction we hold. I am no preacher but Victor E. Frankl is and he has experienced enough to identify the loopholes in human endurance and the strength of it. To not know consequences at testing times is a bliss as it allows room for irrational and illogical positive speculation. On the other hand, knowing all of it and what's ahead of us is a bliss variant which ends speculation once for all and for good, leaving no room for denying the truth.

There is a purpose to the imposed euphemism in this post. We give ourselves many chances to fail at things we give our best to. The chance must be respected for what it is and not for what it should be. The context is open ended for one to fit in their recent judgement of themselves and realize its for the best against nothingness.

Being and nothingness.

The thing about "Knowing"

I am an Indian so I take pride for the wrong reasons like Satya Nadella becoming the CEO of Microsoft or over the alleged news that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were supposed to get married in Rajasthan, "India". I am also a yet-to-be MBA graduate, so that means I must take pride in knowing almost everything and try to be interested in knowing what I don't know. I am glad my MBA gives me the opportunity to travel abroad and understand where I really stand. In this journey I discovered that we aren't the only ones taking pride over the little we know.

Among the myriad things one must know nowadays to have a decent conversation or for that matter to sound smart is insane. One must know what North Kardashian wore while playing in the garden and must keep up with ( no not the Kardashians!) what Malala Yousafzai is doing this very second. I don't know either, so I am ignorant! However it's a much safer place to be. Among all the pseudo intellectuals Internet procreates every millisecond I stand last. I do take pride in that *Ting*!

I don't loathe internet, it's great for a zillion reasons but not for claiming your knowledge's worth. I understand competition to the extent that my parents wanted me to crack IIT JEE and then lowered their expectation to AIEEE and then settled for me attending MGIT. However I don't understand the competition wherein everybody is supposed to know everything. It's sad to see people around me develop an evolved taste for popular hobbies and match lack of interest with lack of knowledge. Along the same lines its disturbing to see pseudo concerns and pseudo contributions to grave causes. Internet allows that sarcastically and we buy it.

The new normal is different and it's all about being different. In other words Lady Gaga is the new normal, no wait I take that back...she is back to normal. Damn!

It's too much to keep up with and we instead of admitting to the inability of pacing upto it, we take a flight to the destination, in-cognizant of  the nuances of the beauty lined up along the road. However our previous generations are immune to this epidemic. I am glad to have mentors both in my work space and personal life who don't understand and celebrate the 'know-it-all' trend. I have the freedom to pick up the phone and ask the most dumbest questions in all seriousness to them without being judged and making them fall in love with me all over again.

If everything were to be this tamed then what about Wiz Khalifa! *Ting*

Being or Beautiful

The description of the place where I come from is enough feed for people to guess the way I look and I for one Love IT! No I don't louuuuu the way I look nor do I hate it, I love the fact that people can create a mental picture of me uglier than I already am. My family never let me bother about things like beauty and weight and in fact they provoked me to be uglier ( pun intended). They always encouraged me to be the best I could be and have been beyond supportive in whatever I chose. However being a South Indian in the North Indian space alienates one to a different orbit unintentionally. No the kids weren't mean to me nor did I lose a crush because of my color but certainly there was an unintentional demarcation.

Being around the world ( just USA and Europe, or so I say to impress myself ) enough to understand different people I realized the importance of looking a certain way among my gender. It wasn't particularly disturbing but it's concerning, given its shallowness and lack of importance towards one's personality. I have never understood the art of make-up out of my laziness and my mom's prettiness. Her gorgeousness doesn't need supplement and she just decided mine doesn't either. Recently however I entered the space of make-up and was lost and disinterested. When I asked my friends why they chose to buy them, they replied in all honesty " It makes us confident". That's the second saddest thing I've heard in a long long time given I am from India where the news is filled with my gender serving victims with or without confidence. If confidence were to come from the way you can make yourself look and not from the way you look, it's time to take a second look at many things.

I see animated drawings and paintings on faces which only begin to show the effort they put in. Lashes are replaced by bushes, brows lined using a sketch pen and lips drawn beyond their outlines. Hair is a mystery as they themselves can't trace back what the original color was to begin with. Nails are heavier as they are laded with another. I must take a pause to explain that I don't condemn all of this. I just implore to not draw a relation in which being confident is directly proportional to the way you look.

To this extent I would blame the other gender of holding expectations based on false images, images which are fabricated in every sense, botox, surgeries, make-up, lighting, implants, bleaches, tans etc etc. Man' listing that was tiring! Moving on, when did men start doing all of these too? Third saddest thing I've heard. I look good twice a year precisely when I put an hour effort and a weeks gym to fit into an outfit and mind you all that is FOR ME! No it doesn't make me confident and I was born confident.

I've had some amazing girls around me telling me how beautiful I am in the sense that matters to me. I've had my brother remind me how no one will marry me given my ugliness and then I have my parents who think Aishwarya Rai is yet to watch out for me. Among this spectrum of opinions that matter I chose to be happy the way I look. It works!

Day 6- Unintentional Bitterness

I must elaborate that sometimes things just don't work out, despite it being no one's fault. It might appear as a lame attempt to split the blame or flush the blame completely but I am convinced it's unfortunately one way things pans out. I can swear by the intentions I held before moving into the Host house, I had no prejudices against the process. Neither did I ever gauge how much it is important to both parties.

I just decided to move out and explained different reasons to different parties to mitigate the bitterness. All in vain. I think my host family understands I didn't like the place enough to stay for long. I did not. They are a small happy self-sufficient family. They did everything they could in their capacity to accommodate me. However it wasn't justifying the rent and I have my reasons to choose a different space.

So I just broke the news to my host mother and she wasn't pleased. One week was enough to figure out that the family depended ( atleast a little ) on the rent as part of their income. She smirked to hide her disappointment and me trying to comfort her by lying that she could expect a new student didn't help. Right at the moment , she received a call from the university breaking to her the same news that I did , however informing her that I was leaving as I found the rent to be expensive. This reached her the wrong way. It reached her husband in a much worse way. He took offence. Mariano ( the husband) is not much of a talker or a pleaser, infact he appears to be a genuine gentleman. I respect him. Over lunch, the vibe was different and tense. It was obvious but unspoken. One question over the dish was enough to turn the spark into fire. However the fire manifested itself in bitterness and words and also in spanish. I understand now I am no longer a good person to them in some capacity. I understand they needed this. But its hard to communicate that I never wanted this to end this way either.

A part of me is heavy and restless at how this turned out but the whole of me is sure that this is the right thing to do. I never usually insist on being liked ( infact I pride on being hated) but this is the one time I wish they hated me less and knew my intentions were right. I know I have disappointed them. 

Day 4- Hungry and Awkward

For an overtly simplistic and forever hungry existant, its only fair to expect atleast 3 meals a day if not more but when you chose a host family to understand your needs, you realize how you are your own nemesis.

Day 1, as soon as I reached home, I requested my host for a cup of milk, to quickly pour down my throat and gift myself some sleep. I was given quarter of a cup milk, my brain didn't bother to processes any of it due to exhaustion. When dinner was announced, I disappointed my host by informing her I don't eat fish which she prepared with much effort and warmth. I was given a bowl of soup made of three ingredients - water, salt and potato, it tasted good and I couldn't ask for anything warmer and better. I was glad.

Day 2 I dont remember what I was provided for breakfast, but I am sure it was something negligible as I didnt register what it was.  For lunch I was given spaghetti, it was so bland that the Indian ketchup I carried along to Spain couldn't make it taste any better.

Here's the catch. My host always provide me some kind of meal and prefer to cook something else for themselves. This is not the part I ever had a problem with. My only concern is I never know whether I am done or not. I understood the basics of a meal only to the extent that it always includes a soup. Calling it soup would be unfair to the word for its just water , salt and some kind of dried-all-purpose-flour. Initially I understood it as 'the' meal. I even got up with my bowl thinking to myself this it. She later told me there is a sandwich to this meal. It was a toast with butter with a slice of cheese. I was sure if I should even bother eating it or just announce I am done as it wouldn't make any difference to my appetite.

Day 3 I was to myself and I gifted myself Maggi and cornflakes both of which I carried to Spain.

Day 4 My host decided we must go out for shopping and take advantage of the sale. I woke at 8:00 AM out of hunger and waiting till 10:30 expecting breakfast.  I had no clue the day didn't have breakfast to itself, but a late lunch alone. The lunch included quintessential bowl of water+salt+semolina followed by a spoonful of boiled beans.

The awkwardness begins when I am not sure if that was it. Today there was something else cooked on the table but I wasn't served that , not because I wasn't supposed to , but because they thought I am full. I sat there awkward not sure if what they were eating was ham or beef. I got up to end the confusion and currently I am not sure whether I should even bother eating meals.

Its almost the first experience in my life to be fed meagerly and may be now I will respect food more in the sense of a commodity that provides nutrition if not as delicacies.

Forever hungry....