Friendship Day? Really?

So how did you 'celebrate' this 'Friendship Day'?

Mine was a pretty standard fare: got a few forwarded SMSs with flowery messages about friends and friendships, saw some tweets and FB statuses with 'Happy Friendship Day' (some even tried now-so-yawnworthy 'Fraandship' too) and that was it. Hope you did hang out with your friends and I don't mean the group web chat on Google+.

I have become 'wiser' (read 'cynical') with wishing people: Every new year I write 'Happy New Year' to x number of people and then get reply from x/6 number of people. So this time I decided to just reply to people who cared to send me those flowery 'Friendship Day' messages with a not-so-flowery 'Happy Friendship Day to you :)'.

I didn't feel guilty about my cynicism. I justified that by thinking of being brutally honest about my friendships. May be it is the scars I got from the people I called 'friends'. May be I should have moved on by now, may be I have. May be I need to do more about it. May be I have become choosy about the people I want to be friends with. I don't think I have understood and accepted the Facebook culture of friendship. May be I am still old-fashioned and my thoughts/values about friendship are stuck to same old ones. May be I am a jerk!

I know this post presents me as a full on psycho but I really don't care. At the end of the day I am just glad to have talked to some of the friends I value. But for such friends who needs a special 'friendship day'!

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My Quarter-Life Crisis just got worse!

I remember, it was a mail from Neha, when I first heard this term. I mentioned every single feeling that I was having and I thought 'Wow. It happens to others also. I am not the only jerk out there!'

But then knowing that many others are thinking the same doesn't make any difference to what I am feeling. Right!

In a previous post I told about the quagmire of marriages in which I am caught. It doesn't seem to end. My roomy is going to get engaged on 12th Dec. (No he is not the same flatmate who is going to get married on 6th Dec. He is Ravindra.) Crook, he didn't tell me till eleventh hour. Ankur says that I am idiot that I couldn't read the signs.

And just now I come to know that another close friend (am under 'Oath of Confidentiality' so won't mention her name!) is going to get married on same day!

It seems my worst nightmare is coming true. A perfectly lonely life with all friends either busy with their spouse or out of India and nobody to call to. Already I can hardly call anyone in this city and with she also getting married I am thinking I should switch to an STD only plan (to call home). Worse, sharing a flat with someone I don't know. This may sound childish to you but for me this uncertainty is unnerving.

Wikipedia article on 'Quarter Life Crisis' says "Nobody wants to admit to feeling like a 'loser'; this secrecy may intensify the problem." WTF, I admit. I AM feeling like a loser. There have been days when I kept on asking myself what I am doing with my life, what is my goal, what have I achieved till today (this was easiest to answer: Nothing!).

I had pinned so many hopes on my planned start-up LiveHead.in. I saw that as a goal but don't know what happened I lost faith in it midway and this start-up dream has been stop-down. Don't know if I will ever be able to revive this dream, who knows. (Perhaps that's the reason I want so badly for DYPC to succeed.)

Almost everyone I know is in US, either studying or onsite (some are in Europe also) and I would be lying if I say that I don't want to be there. But I am in this product company and these people had already told me that there would be no onsites, so I can't even hope of going abroad. My relatives ask me when I am going US to which I give them a lame answer 'hamari company nahin bhejti' to which they reply by giving ten examples of son/daughter of some neighbour/relative who was sent onsite twice/thrice/zillion times.

And whenever I go home, my father would say something about my job which would really piss me off. I know he is concerned about me but why the hell can't he appreciate once, what ever I have done. (I know I have done nothing but world doesn't know that yet!) This time it was a tip that I should do MBA. I know everyone does it these days and people say I should do MBA but I don't want to work on excel and powerpoint every single day of my life. I don't want to do MBA and I can't do MS now so what can I do? Nothing! My job doesn't suck and as a matter of fact these days I am doing what I had always wanted to do. But something is lacking somewhere.

It seems I am an emergency case!

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The Circle Of Life.

On 6th Nov, my ex-TCS colleague Prasanna married Ravindra. 

On 6th Dec, my friend and flatmate Ravindra is going to marry Padma.

Padma is name of my recently-married colleague Raghavendra's wife!

(I don't know what happened to me, that I left writing almost completely. Hopefully this short post will break the block!)

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Life. By Chance!

The camera had been under water for what seemed to be an enternity and I knew perfectly well, that life would never be same for this (Sony Cybershot) DSC H7. I have always loved my cameras and I had understood that my most precious (and loved) possession had been damaged, possibly beyond repair, even as I watched Chandu trying to wipe it dry.

But in my heart, there was not as much sorrow for the camera, as a sense of resignation to fate. I was surprised by the feeling. I should have known.

I was happy to be alive!

Prashant and I had visited the river Tungbhadra in the morning and like everything else in Hampi, the river too seemed to be calm and serene. Huge rocks and boulders are strewn all over the place in and around the river's course.

So that evening when all of us visited the river, I had already made up my mind to cross the river at a point where the stones seemed to be very near the surface.

I had made a huge calculation error.

Yes, the river seemed to be somewhat shallow and rocks were very near the surface but that didn't mean that one could walk across. But flowing water makes the rocks smooth and algae makes them terribly slippery. I was near the edge of the rock and had folded my jeans up, when I first saw that. Before that I had told Manish confidently that 'coming back' was what I was going to do, after crossing to other side. But seeing the algae I was in doubt about validity of my claim.

Seems it was too late to suffer from dilemma. I was too near the edge and turning back was no option. I slipped as I tried moving backwards. Next moment I was in the water and hit my heal against a rock. The first thought that came to my mind was that I had got wet completely and tried to get up by holding the rocks. But it was not possible to hold on to the rocks due to algae, and I slipped in deeper waters, loosing all contact with rocks.

In the next fraction of second, I was neck deep in water and the camera was on my body and I worried about it. I tried to swim towards a rock and fling the camera bag to someone, but water current was stronger than I could manage. And as water pushed me I tried to stay put in water so as to avoid moving any further but suddenly the river bed got even deeper and before I knew I was completely inside the water. It was no more sane, worrying about the camera!

This was the instant, when I felt that I would die. Before that I had felt that I would move towards the bank or would get on to some rock. But as I went deeper, the light green colour of water seemed ghostly and very very scary! I struggled hard and somehow was buoyed up.

I was breathing hard and had almost choked and was finding it difficult to stay up. The fear was creeping up again. At this point of time I heard someone shouting to move towards right. I tried moving towards them but flow was still pushing me ahead but thankfully the water was lot shallower and I was only too glad to find ground. Seems I was having a good day. I was flown around a big rock to this shallower area. Had I been flown straight, I would have been in deep mess, literally!

There was a girl (Keerti from Wipro, Bangalore) and a guy (Sachin from Accenture, Bangalore) here who gave me hand and comforted me as I walked towards the bank. (Sachin, Keerti thanks so much!)

Talking to Chandu, I suddenly realized that my glasses have been washed away. And after some time I remembered about my phone as well, which had stopped working! My right heel was in terrible condition and I could hardly keep the foot on ground and it still hasn't healed completely. And I don't even know how the thumb of left foot got that clot below the nail!

But as I said earlier, I wasn't too sorry about any of these. For the first time in my life I was HAPPY to be alive!

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