If I would ever see you again...

Life is full of encounters. You meet a hell lot of people, you interact with some, you like a few and you love even fewer people. But irrespective of the strata they occupy in the hierarchy of your regard/heart, fact remains that they have to end. Some of these encounters/relationships end in so to say a physical state of being (when someone passes away, let’s say) and some end at an emotional plane. Both of them are very painful, the first is needless to say pure pain and the second is pain plus complexities plus heartburns plus what not. Neways, coming back to the title of the blog (the famous song, I think of Lenny Kravitz), how does it feel to have that final encounter, either because of that physical or the emotional factors which would completely change the status-quo of things. Either the person won’t be there or the feeling won’t be there anymore. Till date there are two final encounters that I will possibly never ever forget. The first was with my Dad when one small absolutely insignificant mistake on my part ballooned into a major issue and he was mighty upset with it (not with my mistake but the shape it had taken). He was very upset and at the end of the day, though he wasn’t upset with me I was upset too that I was the trigger of it. I was leaving for my post MBA job that day and ironically that day was the last when me and Dad met in person. He was supposed to come to Bombay after that which he never did and I was supposed to go home for a vacation by which time he had left for his heavenly abode. (6 months after that incident) Even today when I think of it, I just cannot help kicking myself. If only I hadn’t taken things so casually and things didn’t take the shape they did. If only our final hug wasn’t shrouded with that gloom and pain. Then there is a second final encounter which was on an emotional plane. I don’t mean to say that the scale of loss was as much as the first one but it’s just that it too meant a lot to me. I just had to let go of what could have been something wonderful, no option. I gathered all my guts and prayed that things don’t change but there was no escaping destiny. That’s about it. Go, went, gone… This brings me to another point. Is it better that you know it’s the last encounter or to put it in another way; is it better to be aware of the fact that shortly things are to change. The answer like most cases is a yes and a no. Being aware helps you prepare in a better way. You know it’s the last, so lets make it special. If someone is dying, why not recite his favorite poems, devotional music etc, why not do all those religious things that are to be done. If its at an emotional plane, why not do all those things for one last time, just one more time before it all ends. However in a most of cases, it’s a No as well. For example, in the first case of death, knowing most of the times signify death brought about by illness which I must tell is an extremely saddening experience for everyone. There is little more killing than seeing your loved ones succumb to something and you being a useless piece of shit, unable to do anything. As for emotional separation, well how does it feel to see a relationship die down and you wanting to do something about it but failing in all your endeavors. The encounter in this case is never a last, it’s always a step towards the last and when the last finally arrives, well it hardly has any significance. All the things are already lost.

Face it and move on....

In life, small things and large, there are times when we need to take a tough decision. None of us want to get into that situation but fact is, we are at times forced into a situation like that and there is no way we can ignore it. Often we are tempted into just avoiding or overlooking it but then it hangs around us like an albatross haunting us everywhere and just not letting go. I guess I was also like that earlier but I will never ever forget the stroll with Dad, late one night in the streets of Ballygunge, way back in 1999, where he told me, "Look Son, its very easy to avoid problems and run, but fact is how long will you run. Its always better to gather guts, face it and move on. If not anything else, atleast you have a sigh of relief" There was a particular context in which it was said and thats one thing I have kind of tried to follow and trust me, it feels much better when following this policy. Obviously taking such decisions give a very tough time but then having a tough short span of time is much better than letting things linger on and pain u slowly and slowly for a seemingly eternal period. Another point which warrants mention here is facing something in the above mentioned context is also related to the timeless discussion between the easy wrong path and the tough right path. I have been faced with such a decision only once and thankfully i chose the right one. Though the scars left were deep and sad, the conscience was clear and I didnt have a guilt feel in me. Its easier said than done, lot of us think that taking tough calls requires balls. However I personally feel that thats not always the case. Many a times, u take the tough right decision because you are scared to face the consequences of the wrong decision which will inadvertently happen in the long run. Or maybe even if u escape that, there is a linering fear of God watching u...and that makes u shit in ur pants and something deep tells...Dude, dont....

Lady Luck...

I remember once Mohit (my boss in Seagram for whom I had immense regard) told me, “Sandeep, remember, all you need to succeed in life is good stuff between your two ears”. For a moment, I couldn’t really understand what he meant (I wasn’t an MBA then and hence my ability to infer such could be simple but made complicated statements was pretty low…now, I relish such literature) and he could sense that. He went ahead to elaborate, ”Look, what I mean is you need luck which is personified by the forehead and brains to make it in life and while the importance of either cannot be undermined, if I were to prioritize I would be rank luck a notch ahead”. I agreed with him then as well but today I agree with him like never before. In the last couple of years, I have seen such absolutely nondescript people being in such good positions and at the same time I have seen some really good people being in such unworthy of places. I mean there is hardly any symmetry between what you deserve and what you get. While Mohit was talking about luck from a professional point of view, I don’t think the importance of luck is any less in personal affairs as well. Look at some people; they are so damn lucky. I know some friends of mine who have everything and more a person at their age could think of and then I see some more who have nothing at all. No career, no money, no love, no companionship, no present, no future. Everything exists. This thought further brings me to another point. Is it really necessary that everyone needs to have an equitable portion of luck on their side. I mean why is it necessary that luck should account for a standard X or a Y% of every person’s success? Is life really meant to be fair? I don’t think so. Fairness and equality simply doesn’t exist in life in a broader sense and it is foolish to expect it to be so. I don’t mean to undermine the importance of capability and toil but at the end of the day, all of us must be mentally prepared for a larger force deciding our fates and you might be either the blue eyed boy or a step son of that larger force and that creates all the difference. I mean life can be really unfair. I know of people who have suffered all their lives, struggled all their lives to accomplish certain things and no sooner they accomplished all of those, life just snatched all of it away in one stroke. I have actually being witness to people cry at the way fate has played with them. But hardly have I come across people who accept that they are successful because of fate. It’s really strange; if you were to take people at their face value, every successful person is successful because of his capability and every failed person is a failure because of luck. Some immodesty!!!Taking the thought a bit further, is there a limit to which luck could be bad. I mean there is only so much that a person can be fucked. Apparently everything has to even out and reach a steady state at some point or the other. As far as luck or rather the opposite of it is concerned, I doubt that it is so. I have seen people and really capable people facing defeats over and over again. I doubt if luck or more precisely bad luck plateaus out. In my opinion, what happens however is that these set of people get so used to being fucked that it stops affecting them any more…they simply become immune to pain in a way. Remember the Floyd number ..Comfortably Numb.

Pics on the road, en route to Client site...

In the company of married friends...

Saturday night was very interesting. We were 9 of us at Soda’s place, the composition being 3 couples and 3 of us singles. Now counting Vidhi out made us 3 couples and 2 singles and what was remarkable about the evening was the stark difference between the married and the lukhas. Take some lukhas and what you see is cards, beer and some totally bizarre talk. Now u take some married people and what u get is a conversation on how the quality of water supply is bad or what artifact would best suit the design of their sitting area. Can you beat it, yesterday we were playing games like Taboo!!!! I mean yesterday so clearly brought out the way men get tamed after marriage. Ankur so smartly brought out Johnnie Walker, Grey Goose and followed it up with the always there Baileys. He knew, in front of controlling eyes, everyone will have very little. Would he ever do something like that with only men around? Forget that, we even reached the sophistication of having whiskey in cut glasses and Baileys in a goblet. WoW!!!! But the class in drinking was best beaten by the overall ambiance in the place. Imagine yaar, being overwhelmed by the married folks, we were left to discussing things like which sofa cum bed is best suited for small Bombay houses, how water is a perennial issue and the best was how it is really painful to go out shopping cause the respective wives don’t approve of home delivered supposedly stale vegetables. Going for vegetables shopping; God!!!! But it’s really enjoyable to be with married people once in a while. Unlike your married counterparts, you don’t have to be afraid of closets being opened. I mean what the heck, common speak whatever u want to; nobody is going to take my ass once I reach home. But with married people, they were like in a constant state of vigil and scare; you simply don’t know you will be held up for what and the best part is when their wives so sweetly scare their lesser halfs…Ghar chalo, phir batate hain…!!!!