Time Please !

As we stand on the threshold of a midweek holiday I realize that I now prefer these to the weekend extenders. Diminishing marginal utility kicking in for the 3rd day of the weekend - perhaps !

On slightly deeper reflection it seems that this may be to do with the way I am wired. I am apparently not built for speed - maybe for durability & clearly the way life is racing past makes me long for that midweek speed breaker. I had barely recovered from the 2011 New Year party when the 2012 NY was upon us & this year seems to be whizzing past at an even more accelerated rate - Jan end looms already ! The slower I get the faster everything else seems to be moving.

Obviously some of this has to do with work - by design this involves us doing more or less the same set of things again & again day in & day out. While this makes perfect sense it's hardly the best recipe for renewal or engagement. Apparently the guy who won the "Best Job in the World" - a paid position to live in luxury on an Australian Tropical island paradise quit after a while because he was bored. That workplace sage Dilbert says that left to themselves no one would want to do their jobs - if they did then one wouldn't have to pay them to do it ! This sameness of most work days tends to accentuate the sense of the days rushing past while I am standing still.

That can't be all though - obviously there's some role played by the way I over organize life. I have heard exhortations to stop & smell the roses. For me this would involve a Google search to find the nearest place where roses abound followed by a Google Maps search for the best route there. This would then be followed with a quick scan of my friends for anyone who has smelt them & their opinion of the value of the experience. If all this checks out then a weekend plan would follow to leave in the morning, not too early so it doesn't mess with the kids' karate classes, pack a bunch of snacks, carry water & dress appropriately (we may have to walk in the sun or it may be cold..). The moments before the departure as always would be tense - getting the kids ready & into the car on time is usually an effort (never stopped to think that the roses would still be there even if we delay a bit) & then the departure. Who has the time & the patience for all that - wouldn't it be better to watch a show on roses on The Discovery Channel ?

I get the feeling that it may be time to take a stand & what better way to stand than to stop running ? I heard someone asking for the world to be stopped so he could get off - while I am perfectly happy to stay on for the rest of the ride I do want to halt the game for a while. While we were kids the accepted method to do this was to say "Time Please" - I'm saying that now.

A Year of Living Pantless.

These last few months have shown me what being a member of a misunderstood minority means. I know now that this is because we are "not quite like them". I can sense that people secretly envy us the freedoms our situation grants us, quietly speculate on what arcane rituals make up our daily lives & openly belittle our efforts & contribution to society. Despite this I am not ashamed to admit that for the last year & a bit I have been a telecommuter - while that may sound like I am a time traveler who happened to catch a really slow train it actually means that I work from home for a living.

Clearly this has it's charms. Every time the fuel price goes up I have a not so quiet laugh to myself. It seems like the world situation & our Govt. are conspiring to keep me laughing - maybe not all the way to the bank but definitely away from the petrol pump. Also - I work in the evenings & the daytime TV schedules give me an unique opportunity to catch up on movies that may have slipped by unnoticed when they were originally released. Unfortunately, while I do hit the occasional jackpot with a giant helicopter chomping crocodile or a made in Ooty Mithunda potboiler in most of the cases it soon becomes apparent that these movies deserved to sink without a trace at the box-office. To add to that I have never had to take a day off for illness !

On the flip side - did I mention that I never get to take a day off for illness ? The assumption being that since I am at home I can hammer out a proposal in between bouts of coughing or take a call as the pain killer for my migraine kicks in. Luckily I don't fall sick that often but if that got me a day off from work maybe I would like to ! While every office has it's share of annoying people my appreciation for the people I have worked with has gone up several notches over the last year. This is thanks to the 2 maids who work at my house. Each is innocuous enough alone but their daily collision creates a toxic nerve numbing environment that even the super resilient cockroaches that survive nuclear wars would struggle to last a minute in. At times like this I yearn for a 3 hour team building meeting in an ill-ventilated conference room sitting next to a guy with unwashed socks - anything as long as it's far away.

The moral of the story is that while the grass may indeed be greener on the other side - it's still grass & who needs that unless you are Boris Becker ? Although I have to admit that spending all day almost every day in shorts or tracks & a T-shirt sure beats having to wear formals & shoes so here's celebrating a year (& a bit) of being pantless !

Dye Hard.

Yes I'm back. I guess the first thing to do is to confess my surprise & express my gratitude for all the comments & notes in response to my first effort - all of them were motivating. Well all except the 1 comment that asked me to shut up & not pollute the airwaves but I'm used to hearing that from Priya.

Anyone who has seen me will know what I'm talking about when I say that I am grey. UFOlogists apply that description to small, wrinkly, strange looking alien visitors & while most of that description could apply to me as well I am actually talking about my crowning glory - my hair. The salt started joining the pepper on my head very early on & I have spent a large portion of my life explaining it away as "premature greying" - at 43 that no longer holds water. To make matters worse it's not the stylish sequential greying that starts at the temples & works it's way inland like a well organised invading army but rather a random sprinkling that at just the right angle looks like sunlight reflecting off. Unfortunately there are no longer many of those angles left to hide behind.

At most times my condition is easy for me to ignore but it's brought home to me emphatically every time I visit my neighborhood hole in the wall barber shop. The routine is always the same. Looking at my head after the haircut could give people the impression that the person who took the shears to it had a special brief to address only the black hairs & that this discrimination caused the white hairs to stand up for their right to be seen. On seeing this the barber (how can you call someone who takes things off the hair rather than dress them up a hairdresser ?) invariably feels compelled to ask me if he should colour my hair ? I always refuse. He then tries to entice me with the various colour options available. I refuse again - in this at least I prefer black & white to coloured. He looks at me with a mix of pity & bewilderment & leaves it at that until the next time.

Somehow I've never wanted to hide the grey - never even considered it in fact. I guess the reason is that maybe in my mind I don't consider myself any older than I was while I was in college - despite everything that my body & slowing metabolism may scream to me. Somewhere I'm probably thinking that this is still premature greying - if I don't feel old then even if I look old it should not matter - right ? The grey in my hair is probably why I get a salary too - what else signifies my experience at the job that I do ?God knows that sometimes my actions do not show that !

So in the end analysis my leaving the grey in my hair undisturbed is my own little expression of freedom from some preconceived notions of what is "age appropriate" for me. Live Free or Dye Hard !

Getting Started

"When was the last time you did something for the first time ?" an ad tagline asks - good Question. Sometimes the routine takes over life so completely that days roll into each other in an indistinguishable mass & it's hard to think that anything beyond that exists. As 2012 kicks off I promised myself that I would try to move out of my comfort zone & test the boundaries. I am conscious though that my good intentions often race away leaving me eating dust in their wake to contemplate what could have been - I aim to make this time different so let's see how that goes.

I was confronted with a Q while setting this up about the subject that I want to blog about - well anything that pops into my head of-course. Fair warning though - Priya, my best friend, wife, most honest critic..., says that my head is a store house of useless information (phrase under trademark) so this could be a wild ride for those that tag along ! There's no end of interesting things out there - some of them happening to me too so it's more likely that I will run out of patience before I run out of subjects.

It's somewhat strange that there are people out there that have a better opinion of my writing abilities than I myself do (looking at you The Nikhil) so this may turn into a exercise in getting them to shut up as much as in expressing what I feel. On the other hand my father & my brother are both published authors so who knows this may even be readable after-all stranger things have happened.

So a big hello to all those that want to join this trip to see an old dog learn some new tricks !