I Left My Apple Behind.....

I left my apple behind......not a very significant thing for a person who has the resources to buy a whole cartful of apples if need be. But then since I have started on my monolouge about leaving things behind, I might as well open the entire pandoras box or in other words upset the apple cart.

I did leave my apple behind.....in my office lounge where I enter to have a just-about-sometimes-edible lunch and I took an apple among the scarce choice of fruits that were there. And upon leaving, I left it behind. It made me depressed that I forgot it behind as if its existence did not matter at all. But most of all I guess I was pricked that I seem to be leaving everything behind.....on the same day I left my gel pen somewhere and my cap of the second pen somewhere else....

And since I am talking about leaving things behind I shall get more verbose.....

I had no choice but to let go of my baby powder because it fell in the loo of a speeding train....and I did not want to fish out a ball point pen that fell in the dark, murky depths of an Indian toilet...so to put an end to its misery and my disgust, I flushed and watched it go into the oblivion of that whirlpool......

I found the world hazy one day only to find that I had left my spectacles behind.

After a particularly emotional altercation with a off and on friend of mine, I once locked my car and then realised that I had left my keys inside hanging in the ignition, and my driver had perforce witnessed nice Delhi sights on his way to help me with the other set of keys. And in the entire process had to bear the ignominy of being caught sitting despondently by the same friend.

I left my purse behind in the dance studio once....would have been much better had I let it remain there as there was nothing valuable in there except for my ID card from work (that too, it was necessary because I did not want to be kept waiting near the gates of my office while the guards who saw me everyday confirm my existence) but anyway mid way on my way back home I realised the absence of my handbag, and thanks to Delhi roads took a never ending U turn to go back and fetch it. In the process, I returend home late to a frosty greeting by my mother who took it as her duty to inform me that I was leading a moralless life (not in those words exactly...but the actual words are a bit more graphic). I must say leaving behind things is proving to be very injurious.

I left my hot water flask in yet another dance studio...and I readily mourned its disappearance/death because I had no hope of it coming back to me......it was a very good looking one after all...but lo and behold there are happy endings once in a while and after 3 weeks of absence I got my flask back...oh such a warm feeling it was.....

Ah yes!!!There was this one time when me and two of my peers went turning our room upside down looking for the spectacles that I thought I left behind somewhere in that room, but the spectacles were found perched on my nose....!!!This only conveys that I had left my mind somewhere and those peers of mine had a myopic vision....

I left a pretty gilt covered stole of mine in a friends room...and it continues to be left behind there somewhere.........

Wish I could leave my past behind with such abandon...........

Youth (Childhood)!!! Where Art Thou Gone?

In a short while, I reach the landmark of 25 years. I say landmark for the lack of any other profound sounding word; for the events leading up to this supposedly momentous day may not be noteworthy for any major achievements of life changing proportions. I am settled. At least considered so by people who think that getting a job is a criteria for being settled. (of course, as far as where marriage is considered as an aspect of settled settlement, I draw up short). By some standards I lead an eventful life on account of my numerous dance class and due to the usage of technology which allows me to have an active online life.

Perhaps its the fast paced life that we seem to dwell in or maybe its just me constantly making comparison...or lets blame it on my age catching up with me...but I get the feeling that the world no longer needs people who are just master of one; that's passe now...but competition requires humanity to be multi-faceted, diverse, jack of all trades and preferably master of some more....

Besides the feeling of inadequacy that I face, it is the sense of wonder as to what numerous industries the human composition is competent in dealing with if one is initiated into it at a young age. I remember two sisters in one of my earlier dance classes; just in their teens, the younger one not yet there....and boy!!!Were they talented...both went to ballet classes, the younger one was into gymnastics while the elder one was into kickboxing...the younger one learned the piano while the elder one was into guitar....maybe they were striving to form a miniature Corrs....but looking at those two, I felt a tug of envy...not because they were doing things I could only fantasize about (OK..maybe a little), but the key stage in my life has gone by without me capitalizing it....I call it youth and the elders and other sensible people will call it childhood.....

Don't we all wistfully look back at the past when we think we could have made those changes....kindly ignoring the fact that we will one day look back at today and wish we had done something more worthwhile then penning down these thoughts in a blog or something more worthwhile than moaning about the if - only - those - days - were - back.

My father loves making comparisons (I think that's where I get it from)....it becomes quite a pain. The strange thing is that my father compares himself with a mythical himself. And I get compared to my darling cousins and well to do children of not so well to do parents. I remember this particluar trip that I made to my hometown in Assam and my father was completely bowled over by the crystals and the ambience of his younger brother's abode....but more particularly he made it amply clear that he thought that his niece was very talented (she played the piano, made a drink out an ambiguous mix of ice cream and limca or something, she could sew, paint, write blah blah blah)and all this when she was just 15 or so......oh..yes and I must mention that she could bake. Throughout the entire time I felt my father's penetrating glance on me....as if to say....and where do you stand???

Time has passed and needless to say I am doing much better than my cousin according to her and my parents now!!!!! Poor thing! And she is only in college. But I just cant help but wonder if only I had been attuned to being more creative when I was younger, then I would not spend my nows wondering if I could have been somone different. Cant help the feeling of agedness when I hear my second cousins starting to read pride and prejudice/the da vinci code and the national newspapers, learning bharatnatyam, Microsoft office at the age of 8..... not generation gap but more than that.....

In HR parlance, my childhood/youth and maybe many others out there (though people may not necessarily concur) has been a wastage of Human Resources. But the trial now, in banking parlance if I might say so, would be to avoid making the remaining stages of life a Non-Performing Asset. In the end I hope not to say.... Life!!!where art thou gone.....?

Hype Over Hearts

Yet another so called proclaimed day for the celebration of love has gone by......this budding contemplator made herself artificially unaware of the underlying excitement that this day brought to many. Of course, it so happened that after a point it required no particular effort on my part to think of this day as anything special. Monotony does that to you. I thought my mundanely exciting office would rid me of any speculations that I might have regarding the existence of Valentine's Day. But for once my conviction that my office and my senior colleagues were of the Jurassic park age was defied and shattered!!!! On a mission of mine to roam about the office with the ambition to look busy and aloof I found many of my senior colleagues excitedly wishing each other "happy valentine's day!!!!!Each pointed to the others clothes (especially the excited female lot) and tried to come to a conclusion about the reason for donning on a specific colour.The usually coquettish males begin to nod and knowingly wink at the poor bachelor batch mates of mine as if to say ....we know what you did last summer.

As for yours truly, it is amusing to note that when people perceive you as even above average looking, it is naturally assumed that my social calendar would be full of marks and crosses and that I must have several plans and suitors falling in line......I would benignly smile while redeeming them of their self made conclusions and graciously move on only to find my batch mates enclose me with their demands as to what rocking plans have I made for the V day. Finally ensconced in my work cubicle, I engrossed myself in multi-tasking between having an online conversation with friends; answering useless queries over the phone; calculating the amount on debit vouchers and for the nth time cursing stupid rules of accountancy.

My dance class was no different with all the lovely ladies decked out for the occasion and waiting for their beaus to come and whisk all of them (all of them are coincidentally friends) to a priorly booked restaurant. I refuse to be envious or wistful.....I come back home sans dance class and back to a lonely welcome of my home......Valentine's Day....I mused...the day one is supposed to be with the acknowledged close one....which has never happened in my case.......but I am happy.....for a reason best known to me and which made my day special......

So I lay to a rest my cynicism about this day and postpone it to next year....