Whispering Shadow

Funny how kids play house-house and teacher-teacher but never play office-office. May be they just know that it is not fun. May be humans are born with an instinctive antipathy towards structured work. Last week was my first at office and it was not as bad as I thought it could be. I want to pen down the first impressions I had of work (actually training) so far for my own record. If I only keep this to myself, I might just create distorted versions with time. So here goes. What excited me about work? The smoothness with which the organisation functions. (I hate the college administration) The professionalism which is put in every task here. (It is a level apart) Coffee/Tea/Hot Chocolate on the house. (It spoils you) Conducive work environment. (Wow! It's cool, quiet and colourful.) Salary (For the first time, my hard earned money, no matter how much it is) Security (Seems super cool. No non-sense here) People (A whole new bunch to interact with and learn from) Learning (Loads, tou...

For the past few days, the word that perfectly defines my frame of mind is 'chaos.' There has never been a time in my life when I have not known what my short term goals are. I have never reached a state in which I am confused about my priorities. What has changed is the fact that I haven't been doing what I should be doing. What I have experienced in the last few days is a loss of direction on the path towards my objectives. What I have seen on one hand is my strengths have become my weakenesses, while on the other, I have found solace in new found beliefs. Is it because of the feeling of self-doubt? There isn’t any. Is it the dependence of my decisions on factors beyond my control? The thing is I don’t know if these are factors beyond my control. Nonetheless, I believe that I haven’t been able to force myself to see the larger picture. Trying to imagine how big the Earth is looking at a globe is not equivalent to the vision a spacecraft can give you. Sometimes you need to...

I spent the early hours of my Sunday morning hunting for tickets to watch Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na. Note that I have said early hours of MY Sunday morning, which actually wasn't very early, well close to mid-day. I called every helpline possible but the only response I got was "This number is busy. Please call again later." in the oh-so-highly monotonous voice (High time they give the prerecorded messages a revamp). Since I couldn't get through most multiplexes, I thought of booking the tickets online, but as luck would have it, my net refused to work. I even tried a single screen theatre, the B-grade kinds and he tells me the only show for which tickets are available is the current show of which 25 minutes are over! The tickets for the next show were being sold in black, for two and a half times their price (100 bucks is day-light robbery for a theatre of its class). After some deliberation, we lost all hope of watching the movie. Nonetheless, we decided we'll boo...

It was my parent's anniversary yesterday. My sister and I gave them a walk down memory lane in the form of a story which was illustrated with snaps which dated up to the year 1985. No material present could have given us so much joy as the expression on their face, the look of surprise and amusement, but above all happiness. Off late, I have tried to make a conscious effort to ensure that the gifts I give my close friends and family members are personalised for them. A perfume or a pen might suit a distant associate but then it surely doesn’t make for a memorable gift. Although, a handmade gift might not look as finished as a readymade item, perfection is secondary if your gift is the only one of its kind. A father who receives a personally designed Father’s Day card every year from his daughter will certainly treasure each one of them because they are special. I too have kept all the gifts/cards my sister has given me on every birthday. These gifts are the kinds just looking at w...

You are anticipating an important call. You keep checking the phone every 2 minutes to see if it is working. You even check your phone occasionally when you hear some other phone ring. And when it finally does ring, you hear that extremely familiar tone "Hello Sir, I am calling up from Blah Blah bank. Are you interested in a personal loan?" I am sure we have all been in that situation before, where you rarely get what you most expect. It seems to be the law of the universe. I think it is a incomprehensible trick your head plays on you. Why does it always feel you have waited the longest time for your bus? Why do you think that every other bus except the one en route to your destination stops by the bus stop but yours? Eventually when you decide to take a rickshaw, there you see it in appearing in the far end of the road. On a recent trip, we had confirmed reservations in a train and we were hoping that it'll be a fun trip to our destination, the whole groups of friends to...

I haven't visited the Shadows in a while because I was visiting some place else. A tiny sleepy hill station on the outskirts of Mumbai (don't know if 180Km qualifies as outskirts) was our destination for a well deserved post exam holiday. It is called Bhandardara. We went there to have fun and so we did to the fullest - climbing the tallest peak of Maharashtra, trekking among the clouds, catching frogs, going shoe-hunting when it is pitch dark, playing the most hilarious game of Bluff, getting caught in fog so thick that it could hide an elephant, picnicking near waterfalls and much more.Nonetheless, I am not going to make this post a journal. I am going to describe three moments which made me feel at peace with myself like never before. The first one came when we were sitting at a step on our trek up the Kalsubhai summit. We were half way up having crossed rickety ladders and slippery trails. At this point, I decided to take a break. I sat on a rock in admiration of the view. ...

It is quite a spectacular view. At one moment you are watching the high rise towers of Malabar Hills sitting on the comfortable parapet of Marine Drive. At the next, all you see is grey clouds. You can make out it is raining out there, there's lightning, and then there's thunder. It looks quite spectacular because of the wide canvas provided to you, a frame which you usually cannot zoom out on in a concrete jungle that the city is. You are so mesmerized by the beauty of the view that you don't realise when the clouds have caught up with you. For a while, you feel it is just the waves smashing into the breakwater, but as the downpour grows heavier, it finally sinks in that it is raining. But you don't want to get cover. You want to stand up, raise hands and feel the rain. It gives you the impression that you are standing on the edge of the world with no one else around you. The thunder overshadowing all the sounds of a busy city and the lightning giving a cosmic feel to ...