Memoirs of Geisha

Memoirs of Geisha...I was reading this book during the last week.And the first question that comes to mind is how does the sadness , unhappiness, the feelings of hollowness of people staying long away from us be so similar to our own.Memoirs of a Geisha has a completely different context, speaks of a life that I have never and will never come across.But still I could not help but empathize with them."Them" I say because this book is not only about the central character Sayuri but also about a host of other Geishas..the bad ones..the good ones..the weird ones.The one thing that is important is each of us can recognise with their dreams, aspirations, sadness, happiness, failures and success.
This book is extremely women centric.So whether you like it or not you will be taken to a world full of women..the way they think, speak behave, dress, eat,work, dream , expect.And yet there is no help you can get in understanding how to deal with woman's expectations, in case you are reading it with the intention to find such answers.
This book is like a flowing river, where every phase of life begins somewhere, carries somethings and emerges as something else.Only the name remains same.The book begins with extremely sad things happening ,but slowly some optimism also comes in.But at no point you will feel like happiness has triumphed.This book is not for people who want to experience the rosy picture of life.Rather, it is for them who can feel the deep melancholy hidden in this story.An excellent book, that emerges as a lifetime experience.The entire road to reading the book takes you to a picturesque world.Every nuance is subtly expresses, explained and carried forward.
Indeed a great deal of satisfaction to read this awesome book!!!

What MBAs dont know

About one year post our MBA we have some time to look back and decide what we missed in our MBA.An MBA teaches you to expect the unexpected, to know things in a very short span of time and to get things done. But what it does not teach is your own involvement and the extent of involvement. If you are a workaholic you can dedicate your entire time, if you are not, you don’t have any other option. So there lies the crux that an MBA teaches you to be professional, to backstab even the dearest of your friends, to be indifferent of whatever the circumstances are around you in case it is against your own good. Basically we are mainly taught how to be the best in existing processes. We lose the insight to look into processes in an unbiased way; we lose the urge to create new processes. We go through each process, to perform the best, and as the pressure builds up some of us succeed, rest fall back. We do not have a contingency plan...we just have to be the best. But let’s not forget that not all people can become CEOs and CFOs.Not all people want to. And there can be other ways of making oneself happy other than great money and awesome appraisal. We are taught to be professional at all points of time still we never do forget our trivial and junk methods of personal attacks and stupid remarks. And in being such "professional" we lose the human touch. Let’s not forget that we are human beings and we as humans, as a social creature cannot be mutually exclusive with us, as the hardworking, intelligent worker. Professionalism does also include work-life balance and not making your work your life. If even after work hour you are constantly thinking of "how to do things" at your workplace, somehow you are prioritizing something’s over other. If it is by your choice, you may enjoy it, but if it is by compulsion, you are left with frustration. And your MBA doesn’t teach you to explore the other options. Once our Director Subbu told that the world is unfair and you have to get accustomed to it and accept it. You have to know methods to hack the code of life. But seldom does one speak of changing this unfairness. We look for ways of escaping, not facing it, not changing it. And their lies the utter failure of our so called acclaimed entrepreneurial skills. I don’t say that alignment to existing processes is wrong, because not all of them may be faulty. But what I say is we take things for granted. We do not question the validity of processes or the need of a process.

Break Free

Break Free!!Yes break free is the word. And I often feel this. I have never known the shackles; there aren’t any in the conventional sense. But sometimes I feel this immediate desire and that can be termed as only break free. Break free from work, from all possible outcomes of future, from all the memories of past and just sail through. If there can be life after death and if we can consciously experience that possibly I am urging for such a thing. I am trying to break free from things which I am so fondly in love with. The past memories, both good and bad, they provide me direction, a push to move forward, the future aspirations, they decide which road to take. And then all those responsibilities, so fondly earned credentials, without them I am just a blank bag of blood and bones!! The only exception can be my loved ones, even in this desperate urge to quit everything I don’t for a second feel like leaving them. But this extraordinarily power gush of emotions to leave everything and so immediately makes me wonder how mercurial I can be. Or is it that it happens with everybody. Our mind is the fastest thing to happen to us and when the mind perceives me as travelling to some far far corner of the country without the baggage of aspirations, emotions, memories, it really is tempting! Feel like a crane comes and just replaces me. Or just like a toggle happens…state 0 to 1! Or is it 1 to 0? No one knows. None will ever know. I automatically look to my holiday list. Search for that golden time when this can happen. I am sure by the time the actual time comes I will be back to myself (although I hardly know which is the “actual”” real” self) and will be taking decisions “judiciously”. And then that frantic “what to do” “where to go” look will disappear!!

28 and More

Contemplating on past, present, future...future's future all is a part of us.We spend countless hours for this.And all this investment comes only with the fact that we grow older!!..Yes...I am speaking of my age...very difficult for women to comment on that...and hence its 28 and more...there's a benchmarking done and there's no upper limit.What I am interested is...what has changed...The last 5 years have marked a spectacular change in everything..N (when n tends to infinity) number of malls coming up, reality shows ka tamasha and so on...But what has changed to me...Well now I am a little more wiser, or I think it to be so.One of the people I have known used to comment that people who are single still in earaly 30s or late 30s are like the left outs of food..Though I am strictly very against this funda and only because I feel anybody's value doesn’t run on depreciatiating manner. Rather it’s a constant depreciation and appreciation ,both at the same time. So perhaps now I feel it’s the peak of my lifetime in terms of being fit, energetic and thoughtful at the same time. Even my language skills have typically become great. I know gaalis in Hindi, English, Bengali, Mallu!!That’s a great achievement. Now I have started to look at the anti age cream advertisements and talk nonsense in a very serious tone. This actually worked! Recently I was given two blood reports in Apollo Clinic, for the same sample, same test and on same date. With my "nonsense speaking" skills I was successfully able to make them feel that I understand the "case management" process and should therefore get my money back. Otherwise, anyone wearing a long skirt and a simple T and having that crazy, half mad look will be considered as just a simple si ladki who is almost similar to the cow standing on Kolkata roads. And what else...Most importantly I have learnt that happiness is not something which comes when all your desires are fulfiled.Its either by stretching yourself or by accommodating yourself in the framework of what you have, you become happy. And still I hold almost all of my old favourites true.

20 Things!!!

Twenty things I dont like when I am in a bad mood:
1. To see faces which look slutty (however most of my reference point is based on Hindi movies and some stupid incomprehensible thing called inner thoughts!!?)
2. Accidental and unnecessary brushing of shoulders while walking (though the Kolkata crowd would certainly have some reasons ...like Kolkata is too crowded, they found my perfume too much addictive etc etc which are beyond the scope of my intellectually challeneged brains)
3. The lady behind me in the bus continually leaning over me for support without even giving a try to hold the bus handle to resist the laws of inertia.
4. My car going over bumps
5. Guys expressing "how much I love you" kind of dialogues
6. Completely brainless guys
7. Male Chauvinistic Guys
8. Over indulgent aunties who inflate their son's salaries and send marriage proposals
9. Stupid guys who feel salary is the only thing which can increase their ICC (Intellectual and Commonsense Counter)
10.Guys who share dirty or unreasonable sarcastic hurting jokes about every other girl but are terribly hurt, taken aback, disturbed, destroyed, ashamed,flabergasted , mourned to depression when the same is meant for their lady love who never even gives them a damn
11. People who behave as if nothing has happened and act innocent like teddy bear
12. Gals who keep on blabbering and on and on....
13. Staying in office when I have absolutely no work, no future chances of work, no hopes of staying in the same office again
14. Friends demanding to come over at midnight to have a blast when I have loads of work to do and loads of tiredness to refresh upon!!And then the inevitable blackmail, silence abuse starts...
15. Friends who pretend to be always extra terrestrially busy because of the excellent job profile they possess in an excellently dumb company
16.Friends who shoot amateur , unproductive, uninteresting , totally disgusting, unrelated ,disoriented, boring, trivial videos without any content of humour,drama,nature,character, emotion,passion,story ,adventure, thrill in it ,shot in their high resolution costly mobile phones and show those to me every time I meet them.
17.So called friends or roomies or hostel mates who by chance get hold of my hard earned completed assignment and pass it on to others saying its them who have done it , thus earning 1000000 wow points of great fellowship from others for free
18. Boy friends who show a contorted face with bow shaped eyebrows every time you mention you have something important with your parents/friends/personal.
19. Friends (who are girls) suddenly get hooked to a new found love and start complete ignorance of the presence of others in any common/uncommon place they are in
20. People who post comments in Facebook for every trivial reason, who are attention seekers and who never get that attention and who crave for it and start posting comments!!

P.S. Most of the times I am in such bad mood :)
Acknowledgement: Insprired by MangoMan..really admire his blogs!!!

This time,That year......

Well...has been thinking for a long to write something but always find myself either bored or lethargic or too busy!! But then the mail came...the mail for testimonials...and I could not help but open that excel sheet again. Yes…almost this time last year we were busy filling up those lines, juggling with our multi colored thoughts for our friends. Some of those friends who are still there in our lives, some others whose thoughts are imbibed. And life isn’t about gaining or loosing people around us, it’s about how we deal with that, what we become after all the experiences we gain. A very touchy issue it is indeed. Yet, today has made me a bit happier, when I read through those lines. May be some of those were written in lieu of the final parting which was to be there after an overwhelming 2 years of college life, but nevertheless they were to some extent true. They were feelings felt. Last year on the 13th of Feb I was supposed to go to German Bakery and yet went somewhere else…on that fateful day. Remember all the shopping I did with my friend .My life also could have changed. Last year this day I was in a train travelling back home...the urge for reaching home was getting more and deeper, stronger. Last year, today midnight I reached the smoky station of Jamshedpur …and then went to Ranchi. We visited Bodhgaya..An enlightening experience. We as a class,struggled with the Google docs link hanging again and again...the entire class struggled with it .Still we ensured that we write what we want to for our friends.I know somewhere down the line all those testimonials will be lost...infact the hard copy of the year book (costing a good Rs 300) has already been placed in some corner of my room which I don’t remember.But whenever we happen to come across those comments..Nostalgia pours in. A trail of memories burst open through a small, almost forgotten orifice. Trying to balance, balance hard…yet they come back...Ganapatipule ,Matheran, Mumbai, Sweet chariot, Idlisius, FC Road, Vaishali, E-Square, Campus,407,308,Placements…..and finally the goodbyes….

http://writer.zoho.com/public/bidishapaul/testimonials/noband

She

Her lot is all around .By “her lot” I mean people from her country. Kolkata’s strategic position makes them travel here, sometimes settle here forever. The other day when I was roaming around New Market, saw a bunch of them. Those peaceful faces, soft like butter faces, making their way carefully through Kolkata crowd. She also used to be like this...every step, rather every small step that she put forward was cautious..as if one small push from the crowd can melt her. Yet I have never seen someone who could be so strong, both mentally and physically. And she never had any inhibitions for doing anything hectic, unless, it was something that she would not like to do. Motivation had been a big factor for her, even in making efforts in understanding others. May be motivation, may be confusion. Those small rounded fingers and those weird colours on them, that “no matter what” calm and expressionless face, is it true that her countrymen are also like her or is it me who perceives them like her? Otherwise why should I find similarities even in the way of walking, speaking, and glancing!! Those sweet Hindi words infested with God knows what grammar, those generous mix-ups of “karta-karti”,”jaata-jaati” in Hindi...they are so much known to me. And I do remember her on many such simple occasions…