Narendra has his hands full with the work for two sites in Mumbai and Gurgaon. And Kamakhya is divided halfway between Nagaur,Uniyara and Aviation. Himanshu is cool with whatever work he is given.
Visited the office we are shifting to yesterday and was not very happy with the way it is shaping up. The contractor is cutting corners to complete it and that is affecting the aesthetics. Ok. time for confrontation and drawing boundaries (yet again).

The impending family function has triggered grief. Grief for all the times my parents were not there when they should have been there, grief for the brokenness of our family, grief for the fakeness we are trying to fake with all the outside accolades and accumulation of wealth. There are layers of pain sitting beneath the facade of ‘coolness’ and ‘all is well’ that we all portray.
And I cannot ‘act’ with elan anymore. That is all I have.

‘Realness’.

To be real is huge. To not hide. To not act.

My family abandoned me long ago. Now they want me back to put in an appearance. To ‘appear’ as a family in front of the public. To put up a show.
I am not sure if I am good with putting up shows anymore.

I am too grounded!

The turnover of the company should look good ( number crunching exercise with some manipulations thrown in for greater effect). Sometimes it can backfire like in the case of Satyam guys. I guess they went overboard with the manipulation. The turnovers were all fake. But they were real for a number of years. The common man believed them. The banks believed them. They looked good you see.

Similarly, in our lives, we just fake everything, our feelings , emotions, relationships just to look good. ‘Feeling good’ is secondary. ‘Looking good’ is the ‘be all and end all’. Our family may be dysfunctional but its not OK to talk about it. There may be abuse of all kinds in the family but the message always is, push it under the carpet. If there is alcoholism or some other addiction in the family, don’t ever talk about it. In fact assume that it does not exist. Just ‘act’ normal.

How much damage this ‘looking good’ business causes.

But maybe ‘feeling good’ may mean letting secrets out, showing the real me, standing in the sunlight just as I am with all my faults and foibles and that would be scary man. Very scary. What if everyone rejected me?

So hiding is next best option. Act as if. Act as if evertything is OK. Act as if there is nothing wrong. And do this for a generation till it becomes a false reality for the next generation and the cycle of ‘acting good’, abuse, addiction continues over the next few generations till someone decides not to look good.

The choices we make are never easy. But I guess for me today ‘feeling good is definitely more important’.

Whatever the cost may be. Anyway, there is nothing more to lose.

‘All is quiet on the western front’