We have been able to submit the CMYK films for the Hindi Atlas to NATMO, with a letter requesting them to at least acknowledge our company in the prints to be rolled out. At least we have asked for what is due to us. This itself is huge. We had to learn to ask for what is due to us. It was a difficult learning process. It is so much easier to just let things be. Its the easier softer path. Jo ho raha hai, hone do. By default. Letting life run ‘by default’ can be debilitating.

In our family, looking good was everything. The insides could be churning and you could be in a lot of emotional pain but as long as you looked good on the outside, everything was fine. So for a long time I believed that I could get away in life by just ‘looking good’. It was only when I fell flat on my face in every area of my life that I realized and accepted that ‘feeling good’ was so much more important. It was then that the focus shifted from the ‘outside’ to the ‘inside’.

We are off today. Man, it does feel good. A long weekend. Everyone is working long hours during the five working days to compensate for this ‘long weekend’. Willingly. Without any external force. Work is being done without the application of any external force. That’s like defyng Newtons’ second law of motion. But we can defy anything. GC is a rebel. Everyone in GC from top to bottom has no choice but to be a leader, be different, live alone,work alone.

The contractors working in the office did bother me in the morning (khopri ghum gai) for a while. But I came back to the equilibrium state very fast. Narendra has committed to giving a treat to all of us on Monday in lieu of the increment he has received (by the way it has been pending for too long guys) so I have been asked to keep my mood normal (meaning by default that I am mostly in a bad mood, what a compliment!)

Akshay called. He had worked me when I had started the last company (It sounds as if I started many companies and by that rate I should have been a business tycoon by now, what a joke that is) in a small room (duchatti). It was very hot in the summers as it was on the second floor and we had no money for an AC. And we had to give training to two professors of SPA (School of Planning and Architecture). So we hung ‘khus ka pardas’ and it was Akshays’ duty to sprinkle water on them every two hours to keep the room cool (making use of the evaporation effect). He says he can never forget that (also that he worked with me). He also reminded me that I had once thrown a glass at him (how pathetic?) I apologized to him but he said that, that is what he missed. He felt he was part of a family when I shouted at him. Thats a completely new perspective for me.

On my knees. This time with gratitude.
For all that has been given. For all that has not been given. And for all that has been taken away or lost.