corporate climbers

Some people grow in companies...
some others grow on companies...like moss...

I must write because I love to write.

I forget the name of the guy….sorry, I must more precisely say, I never remembered the name of the guy in the first place…but there was this guy who was an author kind of person who had written many newspaper columns and perhaps a book or two also…..this guy was on TV and he was saying “one of the first things I learned as a newspaper columnist was that I should not think about who I am writing this article for. I should not think about the reactions of those who are going to read this. Only then can I write. So I just wrote whatever I felt like writing, without worrying about whether it will be appreciated or put down”. That’s probably the best advice I have ever received. And maybe the reason I feel myself capable of taking it is because it was not intended for me personally.

My friends often ask me why do I not get down to writing a book.

I offer my entire range of theatrical shrugs and poignant sighs by way of explanations. Work, frustration with work, life, frustration with life.
But I know the real reason.
And its something which ashames me as I admit it – even to myself. Such a damn delusionist I am.

Till the time I don’t write anything significant, and just keep shooting off a glib mail, a sarcastic reply, a biting review here and there I keep convincing myself that Oh Yeah, I have this talent as a writer. But what if I write something more substantial, say like a book, and it falls flat?

Then, I would convince myself and everyone else that I never had any gift of substance.

And that would be it. That would be the end of this feeling that I have of being a good author, of being able to write stuff that interests people. And that’s why I don’t try writing a book. That’s why.


Well, if no book, then no book.

Writing, out-pouring of thoughts and ramblings.
That’s something I can do and I will do.

I do not consider myself a person of any deep or incisive thoughts – about life or anything else.
But there are times when I feel like I have understood something, like some fact that everyone else, or most people have already been aware of for quite some time, which I have realized just now. This feeling is quite something I tell you.

The way I see life, myself, the world around in those moments, I wish I could see the same way throughout life. At all moments, in all occasions.

I just finished reading Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.
(Considering the heavy analysis of psychological theories and alternate viewpoints in the second half of the book, it might even be called as “Man’s Search for Meaning…of This Book”)
Pretty interesting book.
And more than that.
If one reads this book and finds it no more than interesting or touching then it’s as wasted as a conversation with a pretty woman without appreciating how intelligent she is.

One of the interesting things I found in the book is the importance he attaches to the past. The past is real. The future is all potential.
What has been achieved and done has been secured in the past.
What is there in the future and undone is a mere potentiality.
Hence, to live life one must try and put as many things as possible in the past.
The potentialities must be converted and secured as permanent indelible pages in the book of Past.

Each moment spent in regretting is a moment stamped and sealed as “Moment of Regret” and that’s it – it has been lived, it has become real and it has become saved unalterably as a “Moment of Regret”.

I was walking back from the Churney road HDFC ATM, rolling these marbles of thoughts in the palm of my head - ‘look, I have got these 5 minutes while I walk and whether I like it or not these 5 minutes will definitely become history 5 minutes hence. Irretrievably cast into a statue of sand. Nothing bad is going to happen to me in the next 5 minutes. Despite all the transitoriness of life and treachery of fate I can still say to myself very re-assuredly that nothing bad is going to happen to me in the next 5 minutes. Now whether these 5 minutes freeze into wax statues of drooping, wizened listlessness or rising little angels of joy was upto me. Is that a decision that I can make? Oh yes. In the face of all the fatalism and determinism of the world, that is still something I can decide. '

And I just decided to fill the next 5 minutes with feeling good. Just feeling good. No regrets, no worries, no expectations, no evaluations. And I tell you, it felt so beautiful. So calming. Maybe that’s what Bliss feels like. Such peace.

Now, as I write again, I am looking for that 5 minute walk here.

a monday morning conversation

Cast - Myself and Ali
(the missing link in human evolution from apes...er..also a fantastically enthusiastic guy)

Note - This is a true conversation. It could be emotionally unsettling to young people growing old in their workplace. Parental discretion is advised.

Note2 - Ali is notorious for spelling mistakes. Parental discretion is advised. I have underlined all the ones i could find....Ali is a stud, he can spelling mistakes in hinglish too..

Pradeep Vedula - monday....lovely, beautiful, sweet mondays
Aliasghar Bawa- :)
Pradeep Vedula - such brightly coloured feathers, such sweetly melodious birds...such joy in the
air
no wonder i dont see any of it around me
Aliasghar Bawa - hmmm
Pradeep Vedula - as its all filled within me
and i have none to spare for the world outside
mondays, sweet mondays
Aliasghar Bawa - i see someone has had a blast on the weekend
mom still around? mr poet
Pradeep Vedula - "blast" is a term i now associate only with workdays...
we have aged ali...
Aliasghar Bawa - not me
Pradeep Vedula - yeah, u have the privilege to say that... a guy who travels miles and spends thousands to watch people race around in cars....is still naively youthful at heart
(whenever there is an F1 in Singapore, Ali makes sure he is lost somewhere among all that flat hair and silky legs)
Aliasghar Bawa - offense taken to naive
Pradeep Vedula - all youth is naive
Pradeep Vedula - mom leaving today afternoon
Aliasghar Bawa - the kind of stuff i did this weeknd brings a tear to my eyes
Pradeep Vedula - wat did u do? cut onions?
Aliasghar Bawa - 2 movies, 2 shopping trips, 2 long droves
Pradeep Vedula - ailaaa.... fantastic
Aliasghar Bawa - 250 kms of droving
Pradeep Vedula - now dont say with 2 couples
Aliasghar Bawa - 4 hours of sleep
Pradeep Vedula - ahhh, now i understand the tears
Aliasghar Bawa -2 meals with 2 sets of close frieds
total of 8 hours at home from 9 am saturday to 9 pm sunday
total maddness
o n shradhra were asking of u
(no its not shradhra...its shraddha...a very sweet woman who is married to lolo - my dear friend from B who balances off all that sweetness)
Pradeep Vedula - how is shradhha? how is her website coming along?
Aliasghar Bawa - ask her na, i m not the messenger
Pradeep Vedula - arey, i thot u wd hv discussed those things, thats all....stop resopnding like k***
(all the stars obviosuly mean we are referring to some 5 star general in the office)
Aliasghar Bawa - saale kaam hota hai toh login se baat karta hai, warna nahi
Pradeep Vedula - mujhe kya kaam hai yaar ab
koi kaam nahi
aise hi madhur monday morning ke bahaav me tujhe ping kiya, aur kuch nahin
Aliasghar Bawa - hmmm
i m sure boss wil call u soon
Pradeep Vedula - tht will crown this morning
Aliasghar Bawa - tru
Pradeep Vedula - now i am feeling like i will have a blast
Aliasghar Bawa - :)
Pradeep Vedula - and little tears are hanging like kids preening over just tall windowsills on
the edges of my eyes...
Aliasghar Bawa - chal, let me get back to working... rather start
Pradeep Vedula - lotus dear lotus
(lotus is our e-mail service...the real lotus goes far more quickly from bud to flower than it takes our lotus to open mails)
Pradeep Vedula - that keeps me from working too hard
Aliasghar Bawa - mr poet
Pradeep Vedula - i am not a poet
poets are hungry
i am not
poets are angry
i am not
Aliasghar Bawa - u r just in sorrow
like a hara hua aashiq
Pradeep Vedula - please
i am not in sorrow either
Aliasghar Bawa - ok, lament
Pradeep Vedula - i am celebrating bright monday mornings
Aliasghar Bawa - hmmm
Pradeep Vedula - u hv heard of black fridays and black sundays
have ever heard of a black monday?
never...
Aliasghar Bawa - :)
Pradeep Vedula - mondays are always blue
the colour of calm and peace and serenity
Aliasghar Bawa - have u noticed how many pple waer blue shirts on monday
Pradeep Vedula - thts called starting with the best intentions :p

Aliasghar Bawa - chal be, kaam karte hai... later
Pradeep Vedula - chal...bye

Those awful Sunday Mornings

(I know awful is normally for monday mornings, but some sundays can also go bad)

you know, some sunday mornings, you wake up and just lie in bed....and are not feeling good about it..... life and career seem to have reached a zen stage where they intend to just sit at one place in ostensible meditation, but which is actually more like energyless slumber... ...

"excitement" sounds like one of those words that taint old pictures of childhood and irrationally hopeful days of youth...

... yeah...i am talking about one of those bad sunday mornings when u wake up, staring long into the distance watching Life become a smaller and smaller dot on the autobahn of Time as it walks away from you.....

And there is just one cure in the entire South Indian world for such Sunday mornings.....a good, strong cuppa of filter kaapi.....

Why this urge to create?

Why this urge to write?

Maybe, when we create something, a little of one's being is crystallized into something more tangible than a presence inside.

It is the only way one can hold oneself in the cup of one's own palm....and appreciate the beauty and wonder that God has put inside us.

When we create, we feel the creation of God that we are.

Yes, Again...yet again..

i have decided to start writing again...

maybe someday i will write a book,
maybe not
but atleast my grandkids will have something to read about
and feel embarrassed...

Guess a few thanks are due for this resurrection..

Thanks,
to Andy.
for his mindless courage.
Courage is anyways, by definition, mindlesness.
Courage is the inability to see the most obvious and logical outcome of one's decisions, and hence the possibility of creating some shockingly wonderful alternative realities.

to Fart, Vishy and Varath.
for their honest, comforting, cynical brand of curd-rice encouragement.
In Fart's case, make it curd rice laced with vodka.

Whenever I have fallen into the ice cold pool of dark, depressive thoughts these guys have grabbed me by my hair...and pushed me a little deeper into it.
So that I clearly felt and saw what I was comfortbaly sinking into... then they let me free, and I rush up gasping.

to Pondy.
for showing how stupidly one can fall in sensual love with nothing but ideas.
even if they are not one's own original ideas.

to Adak.
for alternately giving advice and laughing as if on dope....laughing, as if that's the only way he knows to breathe

to Narayan.
for long my better half.
a better half i long for even now.
(well....if that scares the girls away from me....sweethearts, u havent exactly been falling all over me either)

to Shantanu.
The jagat-uncle.
who has been trying to make me grow up as hard as he has been trying to grow himself down

to Ali
who keeps dumping horribly written books by grammar/decency/sex-starved fresh engineering grads on my desk with a "if-they-can-so-can-you" shout hurled down his pointing index finger right into my face.

to Hima.
the critic-who-is-dangerous-when-drunk.

to Pappa.
for just being such a pleasant sight to the eyes.
I remember the mornings you would bounce in like a hot-air balloon into my hostel room...and i would wonder in my half-sleep whether it was again one of those complete solar eclipse days....such round darkness...

to Zahra
well....i finally met her ;)
and she is every bit a hot tumbler of strong filter kaapi....

and to someone who makes me half-scared-half-hopeful...

There....I am done with the "Thanks" page of my book, if ever there would be one.
I just re-read it and it surprisingly reads like a farewell note.....

So, dear Grandkids....
if you are ever embarassed of your grandpa...you know exactly which of his friends to avoid...