The broken cry, the loner’s lie

The gate of the rustic lift crunch shut  with a nasal twang ,lets out a heave, preparing itself for the flight and vanishes from sight.  What’s left behind is a closed door, an empty landing and a frustrated rush of breath. She turns away, back through the door , into the darkness beyond.  Thus begins the loner’s night.

Trembling fingers scroll through the contacts hitting upon the name that lightens her , -lightened  or so to say. The familiar picture , the haughty profile , colour corrected  by the muse himself in order to look aristocratic stared  jauntily back at her. She  hits call  and waits with bated breath for the familiar  drawl.  She’s not lucky. The carefully permed pruned voice  of airtel’s telecaller told her that he was on another call. She sat herself down on the floor of the kitchen , trying to mop up her thoughts through the dam of emotions that gushed out of her. A feeling of helplessness washed over , blowing out the flicker of sleep in her eyes.   The phone bleated suddenly jolting her out of her thoughts.  She rubbed her eyes, put on her chirpy voice and pressed the green button. “Up for coffee ? , she chirped a little too brightly”. “ No. came the masked voice, one she’d of late come to recognize as the deadpan controlled one he had designed specially for her. It was a flat tone , no trace of irritation , no tint of humor , a monochrome  verbatim , that gave none away. “ why aren’t you talking to me anymore?  “Why don’t we share the good old rapport from a month back? She yelped , sadness engulfing  every trace of the ego that had held her dignity back before. The response was pre conceived and recorded “ I don’t have a problem. I’m tired okay? Let me go to bed. “. The phone went dead.

She wished Emma was around. Emma always knew what to do. Emma was the olive branch that bridged the gap, cleared the ego clashes and made them smile. But emma , was now miles away , getting on with her life and she did not want to scratch their  newborn long distance relationship with shards of their fight.

The next day she set her alarm early. She  pottered around ,  brewing sugarless  coffee just the way he liked it , and buttering his eight slices of bread.   Today is a new day , she promised herself. She was  going to get her best friend back , no matter what it took.  She picked up her phone and hit the call button. A muffled voice picks up.

“Rise and shine “ she chirped , up for coffee?

“a  distracted voice yells out through the din of traffic that he had already left for work and would talk to her later”

But , will you call me after….. she trails off as the call gets cut. Tears fall into the coffee mug , ruining the coffee she prepared for him.  Hastily washing up , she saunters into the living room , the carefully ‘i-don’t-give-a-fuck-‘ look pasted carefully in place.  “Anyone needs some coffee ?” she calls out.

Yes, ego was her new best friend.

From then on , ego was the dealer of the gamble. Ego told her that  if he did not give a damn about her , why should she? Ego  rattled to her ears that she had better people to hang out with , to stop glancing at her phone hoping for the purple display picture, to stop buying extra coffee sachets hoping he’d make it for breakfast some day , stopped her from calling Emma and breaking down ; instead taught her to  hide the coffee mug and act happy and distant every morning when he made his cursory  ten minute visit to iron his shirt. Ego was her new best friend. Ego made her cool. She could lay reading in the same room and glance up warily when he entered.  She lived a lie, behind a carefully painted mask of happiness , a mask that stifled a broken cry. 

The gates of the tears flowed free though ,  behind closed doors , and  solitary  bus rides, she wept the loss of her best friend. She lit candles at a church, asking divinity to be her alibi ,She even wished he’d died. She’d rather treasure a dead memory than have a living reminder dig knifes through her heart.

Best friends were eventually replaced and new routines made.  Words of advice poured in from ill wishing well wishers as to how her life was better off. Yeah fuck they would know better. Lukewarm advice , new best friend plans and schemes were laid out. It looked like people were trying to help her replace a lost insurance card with a new , safer option. She itched to tell them what she really wanted to, but ego shook his wise head .

she  smiled on.

 Yes , Life has a way of going on , and common grounds were soon lost in the tide of lies that surged through them. A new insurance policy was underway.

From then on , the mask ran the show.  From cursory hellos, out of habit goodnight messages that  diminished in characters as nights went by , and obligatory time together , the lie began to seek solace in her mind.

But  she wishes she ‘d been brave enough to break the mask , wrench away the lie and make her cry heard.

Then again, ego tells her that life is a stage and we are all actors. She wishes she could murder Shakespear all over again for even suggesting such an atrocious thought.

She removed her mask.

The broken cry resonated from the loner’s lie.

If it’s ok to blame it on impulse .it’s ok to murder your boss

I sit at my desk sifting idly through scripts, earphones firmly in place, tuned out from the rest of the world. It was a slow afternoon, and my new enemy at work was the clock at the mantel , ticking away at its own sweet time. Barely three hours of sleep the night (or was it day break?) beforehand had left me cranky, and longing for some good old KFC and the downy comfort of my mattress. Just as I’d drifted off lazily into my little world of  sweet nothings, a snippet of conversation from my boss sitting beside me , made me sit up. She was discussing this prospective extra marital affair she was having with her husband’s friend and asking her junior colleagues for relationship advice. What must have been a break from boredom from his rusty job or the increment that awaited him the next month made the guy sit up and feign interest. He kept nodding at the right intervals, dropping the ‘right’ compliments, ooh-ing and aah-ing a the expected pauses and thoroughly acting like the excited girl , my boss had cloned him to be

I turned off my music and tried to tune into their little chat. Anyway , the guy’s excitement gave way to concern as my boss began to unravel un-parliamentary secrets out in the open, I looked around feeling guilty of having eavesdropped only to see people on the other aisle, earplugs firmly on too  looking just as flabbergasted , exchanging shifty grins. Well, I had company down the guilt trip.

Back to my boss’s story. She kept telling her (now avid) listeners details of her parallel love life , from the texts she exchanged to the prospective trip Mr. X ( as I fondly nickname him) intended to make the coming week. My boss’s dilemma was on whether to meet him and let the inevitable happen or play with her food and let it go, rather than going for the catch. Her male ‘mentors’ offered her lukewarm advise on moral values , while one tried his arm at philosophy and tried to tell her how unhealthy it was. My boss, I realized was only half listening to their advice.. she hadn’t really wanted relationship advice. She was a high spirited woman , who wished to do things her way and blame the consequences on impulse.! I could already see her getting dolled up to meet Mr.X the next week and no amount of coaxing or the ‘playing with fire’ warnings could set her astray. Poor Mr Y, bobbing along in a ship a 5000 miles away would have no clue. ( Mr.Y is her husband , a sailor)

So miss rich bitch was going to have her way after all. But reading between the lines, she’s not the only one branded under this label. There are  a lot of us who do things , we know are wrong , but we do it for the high that life gives us , and when the aftershock ( or the ‘next morning’ as the Americans call is) comes around , there’s good old impulse to blame it on! And we’re not only talking, relationships behind blinds or a shady hobby here; we’re slitting it down to the smallest blurbs of life – a heated argument and an ‘impulsive’ break up threat  that kills  a long distance relationship, a teary fit that cost a new wardrobe from Vero Moda , an  ego trip that takes forever . yes we blame the entire platter on impulse, because if it’s ok to be impulsive , you’re forgiven somewhere down the lane. I consider myself impulsive too. A temper tantrum with a friend often costs me a new pair of shoes or a sulky shopping spree, and once the defensive ‘Don’t-care-a-damn-about-anyone’ phase wears off, I’m stuck wondering where my impulse has taken a walk to, and a year back I used to pride myself on getting bored of things too fast. Not.Funny.Anymore

The point is , it’s cool to be impulsive about the good things! Hell, that’s where the term impulse got its brand image from,. Some of the biggest ideas that were born  into this planet were a stroke of impulse, but that however does not carry over to playing hooky with your conscience.

I silently send my boss’s impulse a silent plea – it’s ok if life’s a little dull  and predictable now and then. It takes only one impulsive moment to put it back on fast gear and you can tear down the road, feeling the high while it lasts , but what it can cost later could be a shattered relationship , a sense of security( which we called monotony)  and a severed conscience.

So why am I writing this, playing hooky from work sitting right under my boss’s nose? 

Well, call it impulse!

                                                                                                                                                                     

White Lies

There are two kinds of people in the world – one who pretend that everything is alright and live the life marooned in a mirage, and some who have the balls to stand up and say enough! I’ m not liking who I am or what I’m doing right now, and I want to do something about it. Needless to say I ‘m writing this little rant , playing hooky from this excel sheet that I’ve been filling up laboriously (not) since goodness knows when . one month into being treated like a clerk in a channel’s programming department , tagging along for endless shoots and writing out scripts and reports in a language as friendly to me as math was once upon a time , let’s just assume (or just say it), I ‘ve left my brain back in my two seater at Lavale.

Makes me ponder. What was the point of this internship? Here I am spending close to two grand a week , struggling to make ends meet , waking up every day to dry buttered (not) toast and watery coffee only to rush to work and be pushed around? The dictionary has fondly  christened the term intern for ‘ a student undergoing supervised practical training that will enhance his growth potential ‘ . That sounds like a welcome package ,  something right out of a country club brochure . The student envisions himself being welcomed in , only short of a red carpet , seated and given the dream job , that he invariably ends up bagging , with the stipend as the cherry on top. You w.i.s.h

In reality , you wander hesitantly down the corridor of your office, and you’re given a lukewarm distracted welcome , asked to hang around indefinitely while your  well wishing ‘mentors’ whisper loudly about where to accommodate you ( accommodate does not mean professional accommodation , it refers to the space you occupy in the miniscule department) and  eventually you’re given the million dollar smile and your little seat.  The accommodation problem sorted , the HR seems o think his job is done and he saunters off. You’re left at the mercy of the girl siting beside you, who makes you an offer to tag along with her for meetings and shoots . your position tends to accelerate when people around your workplace realize that they have a free clerk at their disposal. Then watch out, your time is not yours anymore. From Xeroxing sheets to writing out lists to prompting the anchor her script, you’re the ring master of your circus while the director has gone for a smoke! Your name becomes synonymous to an unpaid clerk , who everyone looks at when they have to mind their own business and need a proxy.

The stark similarities between a country club offer and an internship is evident here. The country club makes you a welcoming offer and you plunge headlong into it , only to find yourself paying right out of your pocket at every advancing step.

By the end of a month you’re burnt out, fatigued, mind fucked and clueless as to what you’re doing in an organization, where you have no interest in spending another minute. when the day dawns that you start googling IRCTC tickets back home and counting the days left on your mobile calendar is the day you must admit to yourself that you officially need help!

In reality such a moment makes your realize what you hate the most about your life. Lets you compartmentalize your hate list , lock them into little draws and throw the key away .

With the things you hate left behind you, you feel a lot lighter , like this huge American tourister you’ve been lugging around all your life is finally off your ass.

I look forward to the last day of my internship with the same anxiety Anand Jon awaits his trial. Rather extreme, I admit but there’s nothing as derogatory or mind fucking as going about day in and day out doing something you hate. Its like being tied down to a bad marriage. You  wake up every day next to the man you loathe , yet you fake a smile and pretend everything is ok. And you tell yourself, that things will get better only  to find yourself years later growing grey around the temples  wondering why you did not have the guts to walk out when you could!

It’s the same with the job. You fake a smile every morning , walk into the same office and spend your day eyes glued to the clock on the wall. And remember that if it’s the watch that guides your day, you are NOT having fun.

Either I have the guts to come out and admit to the world ( more to myself) that I’m hating it and want to leave than stick around and live a lie. Two months of this trial has left me drained and hating the concept of internship. To be fair some of my peers are having a kickass time and actually loving every minute of it but that luck did not smile down on me this time round.

Yet I feel that the worst has passed, stretched to' the nerve breaking -hollering -around -the room -in- a -fit- of -madness ‘ moment has passed. Things can only get better from now. And they will.. only because I have screwed up the guts to tell myself that I am not liking what I’m doing.

 A word of advice to the organizations hiring interns – if there’s nothing significant happening in your company refrain from taking on interns , and always remember to put yourself into the shoes of a college student once in a while.. I mean, doing excel sheets and waiting for a hairstylist all afternoon is going to bore you definitely .. why on earth  would it amuse an intern?

So there goes. To all those fragile minds I have hurt by penning this down , I must clarify that I do not feel the least bit sorry . Truth’s dagger can sometimes hurt ,   just as much as a miserable internship and a few wasted grand not to mention wastage of intellectual property. I cant remember the last time I used my brain.

Food for thought before I sign off , is duty reason enough to live a lie?