Random mumblings

Almost five months after taking the wedding vows, I am a changed man!! or so says, Gopal jee....one of the nice people I know from the old world school of thinking.... (incidently, I am a misplaced concoction - lost between new world and old world ) - i don't really agree


What i do agree to is the fact that things have changed - my house, my job and my life - and so have some of the thoughts and beliefs I lived with all these years - am trying to put some of them into perspective, words don't do justice to the complexities of life though :)

• Marriage isn't demanding - but the way we are born and brought up in life requires us to be nice people to the others around, and others may include wife - and so you start restricting yourself, so that the lady who has moved in leaving her life behind does not face the brunt of your adventurisms -- in my case "Biwi" has been supportive and never said a thing , and YET I have drastically reduced the outings and parties - this is also partially because my office is now 40 km from my house, and half the time I am more happy beating the traffic at rush hour, than plan late evening jists with friends
• A wise friend once told me "don't change three things together - house/city , work and social circle" - in my case the all 3 have badly changed and it shows up - i am still lost like a zombie!

Well, am planning a 15 day vacation sometime in January - February, and just can't seem to finalize the place...help me if you could - initial thoughts - Sri Lanka-Maldives or Bangkok-Cambodia-Vietnam or the north east...any more suggestions - welcome

the uncomfortable feeling

have pondered over this even before - what are we running after ( here and here ). and somehow this is the dominant question which is coming back to haunt me again for the last few days. I did talk to a friend a while back about this uncomfortable feeling this week, and somehow i feel that the 2 hour chat just made me even more chiseled off simply because it made me put the hard things in discrete words - in essence making me  accept the things or thoughts i always chose to overlook.

so here's my dilemma - i have managed to reach a coveted position in my life- something others look up to - both professionally (where things speak for themselves), and personally ( well things don't really speak for themselves, but still)...from a material world perspective have done well for myself, have reached a decent spot in career, consider myself one of the luckier people around when it comes to career choices and education. Managed to get a good salary, bought the material possessions - car/house/shares/financial stability - all that people look for, and herein lies the problem - i need a new target now, because in its absence the same targets get rehashed in a bigger way, and come back and haunt you- now i need a bigger car, a bigger house, more money, and an even higher package, i seem to be perennially feeling dissatisfied with my job, what with looking for a fourth switch over a couple of years, with the first seven plus years in just two jobs. the issue seems to be that - these targets have been achieved, and since i could not really think on a different tangent...i am looking at going further along these redundant dimensions. Constant job dis-satisfaction is leading to too much heartburn, the current job is just perfect from a worldly sense- pays awesome, very little work, and great brand and job description, and I AM NOT LIKING IT. when people around ask me- why are you planning to quit, i tell them i don't like it, but do I really know what do I want. perhaps not- which reflects in my next prospective job- I know i do not like the work culture that exists there, but I am still going ahead simply because I want a change and a break, and I am ready to take the risk knowing fully well that I'll quit in less than a year. I am doing this since I feel decently insured for any fallback option  after that 1 year. I know i have another job waiting for me, and therein lies the problem - i am too complacent, too relaxed and too full of myself. It may sound arrogant to the world, yet deep inside me- i know I am not liking it. This is not me, this is not the same relaxed feeling that I had in the first 7 years of my job, then I was at peace with what I was doing, now I am not at peace with myself. Then i knew exactly what  i wanted, now i don't know what am i running after. PERFECT MIRAGE!!!

On a more personal front, I always had a vivid social life- lots of people around, lots of social activity and some great fun in small things. I always maintained ( and close people around me have heard this from me) - i have a lot of acquaintances and a few friends, i use acquaintances and allow friends to use me.  that was my motto in life- always, and i was really proud of the friends league- things have subtly change - the top line remains the same - lots of people around, lots of social activity and some great fun- but the context has changed- the undercurrents different - now i really yearn for the friends i could spend just any amount of time , i can have so much fun with so many people, but I really miss the heart-to-heart easy conversations, lunches and dinners are abound, but i miss the simple "chhole kulche" on a cycle with those friends, all the barista's and CCD and Costa coffees could not add up to a simple "chai" at HCL Manak building or at the Patel Chest crossing chai wala -simply because we now have friends of convenience- put up a status or comment on facebook, forward bulk SMS and emails, and you are friends, whatever happened to endless talks all night, and mindless gup-shap. 

OK ,these are all generic rants- why am I presssing with these ? Simply because these are things or traits I always hated, and the irony is I feel I am getting pushed to becoming the same stereotype i painted above, i know its hypocricy but i am "blogging" these thoughts instead of talking it out to someone in person. and thats the machination in my life that I am not comfortable with, my life is fast becoming an ordinary life - i was not made for the ordinary life, I deserve something special, something exciting - and i have lived the exciting life all these years......call me arrogant, but i will find MY life back so till I find my LIFE BACK, this blog gets the dose of my mind

musings mood again

sitting at a dhaba behind my school with a good friend of mine, i had a aloo parantha and egg bhurji for dinner....well for old times sake, and this friend stares at the happy face that i had, and said..."aaj fir kuch nostalgic sa likhega tu blog pe".....well i can not make my friend turn out to be a liar, can I???? so here goes another senti wali post another week, another aimlessly wandering 7 days....since last wednesday --> work followed by awesome dinner with friends, work, allnighter party, drive out of town, little work, work, work followed by nostalgic dinner at a dhaba which goes back 20 years in my life ( the dhaba at refugee market behind my hostel at modern school....some old times)..... days just seem to float past, and each new week, each new day comes back with the same feelings, same old story...high time i changed this pattern.... break free from the shackles, do something different..... way back there was a difficult hindi word that i had learnt - mrigtrishna (mirage), and when i reflect upon the last week capped by the dhaba dinner today...it seems to be the story of my life....that hostel life probably was the age of innocence- of sweet nothings in daily life, of a life sans air conditioners, of a 50 rupee pocketmoney, of cricket sessions in the sun, of simply chatting all night with room-mates, and jumping the school boundary to go get a parantha from the dhaba at 1 in night....there was no hurry, fursat ke din....when we had ambitions, and the urge to achieve them.... when all these sweet nothings had a meaning in everyday life.... that followed engineering, in an era when there were 3 engineering colleges in Delhi-NCR, we were the achievers....cracko.....!!! a job on campus followed by a world tour all paid by the employers under the garb of onsite trips, a stint at IIM where loads of others want to be, a job with a top consulting company, a wallet full of more debit and credit cards that the actual cash i ever carried to the dhaba ( that used to be 3 rupees for an egg paratha, and i carried 5 bucks to the dhaba:)), and at the same dhaba, i was nostalgic, but not happy- not content.....whew.... am i the only cribber, ( i realised that most posts on this blog are cribs) or others feel the same too.....not that I am against parties, against pubs and discs and 5K dinners, but somehow nothing seems to beat the basic parathas n chai on the hostel rooftop....why is it so? even today I want to go higher up in the professional career, and may be i would, I m doing pretty well for myself, I have managed a GOOD(ok people who know me would pounce on me for this) work life balance, and i yearn for a little more.... PS- thank dost, hope u now know why is it called the refugee market, and YES, you were the only girl in refugee market }-)