Appu is not well and I am not being able to give her the extra love and attention she needs. Amma is also not well so the cooking is up to me today (if the phone remains silent for a while). I wonder if I remember much of it. But again what has to be done has to be done. Maybe it will help bust the stress that has built up over the last few days (it has been months or years now). And just when one is dealing with all these seemingly urgent issues, there are these irritating mails about celebrating new years’ eve on the beaches of Goa. yaar, let us be. Saala yahaan jaan nikal rahi hai with the overload of bills and the disintegration of the team and all the travel agencies can talk about are the lovely time we could have on the beaches. Itna shauk hai to khud chale jaao apna paisa kharch karke. Leave us alone. Everything today is about marketing, marketing, marketing. Even when we are on our deathbed, we might just get a call promising us a safe stay in heaven or hell if we could get ourselves insured!

Nothing big on the horizon, as yet. Fingers crossed. As always. Struggle within and struggle without. The biggest battle is within ourselves. The biggest hurdle and challenge is ‘we’ ourselves. And yet we keep trying to prove to the world outside.

The awards, the accolades, the looking good.

And in the end,
Desperately looking for some goodness somewhere.

Some goodness somewhere.

Its a sunday and for once I do not have to get the rations. Ajay (The HR manager) has taken the responsibility to do it. I always get the ‘atta, chawal’ from the ‘chakki’ but I managed to finsh that on friday. The major cleaning exercise of the office was finshed on saturday, our weekly cleaning day. The doormats were washed, the pantry and toilets were scrubbed and an antivirus scan was done for all the computers. So I can go for a long walk today and spend some time with the trees.

Appu was extremely unwell last evening with a splitting headache and symptoms of food poisioning but she is better today and that is a relief.
She has her dance performance scheduled in Pilani and she is very excited about it. Their practice is on in full swing and the costumes are also ready. She will leave for Pilani with her team on the 19th. I am very happy for her.

‘Work’ is still elusive. But there are talks in process and there is hope. And ‘hope’ is a good thing. It is the only ‘thing’ sometimes.
Bills, responsibilities, work, money, looking good.
I guess we are in the right direction. And maybe that is all that matters.

‘The direction’.

We need chairs for the conference room. ‘chairs’ are expensive. In all ways. (after all ‘kursi’ is everything you see). But we will have to do something. Its very cumbersome to keep moving the chairs from the technical section to the conference room as and when visitors come.
Lunch continues to be served in the office. That is quite an achievement. It is very easy to start anything. And very difficult to sustain it.

Appu is going to turn 18 this year. My God. I mean she will become an adult. Huge achievement to sustain on the surface of the earth for 18 years. And to live with me (the mad insane person that I am).

I wish we could say now:
‘ and we worked and lived happily ever after’

But thats only in a fairy tale guys. And valid in the heavens.
And we are on the earth.

So let us stay on the earth and say: ‘we are just fine for now’

Doing a glamourous job is so much more better than just looking glamorous in a glamourous environment.
Wake up guys. We cannot afford the luxury of making mistakes. Not even minor ones. There is no Godfather to protect us. Good work is all we have. And maybe each other.

Attended an NA meeting yesterday after a long time. It felt really good. No pretensions. No faking. No acting. No looking good. Just showing the real faces to each other. And the vulnerability of our emotional parts. Addicts are all insane but I think given a chance we would do a better job of running the world than all the sane people. Some insanity is needed to change the rut. After losing everything, one learns how to give.

Appu had her farewell party in school yesterday. The dress code was a saree. Seeing her look her so beautiful, so graceful in a saree took my breath away. I am not sure if we have proved to be parents or people worthy of having such great kids. And if we have done our bit for leaving this earth slightly better for our kids in any which way.

Aakar Consultants refuses to talk to us. Kya kaare. So many people are not keen to communicate with us.
Either we are very real or very fake.

God knows. Hey, buddy come down on this earth and provide some clarifications. Its getting very confusing down here.

Appu has also been suggesting that a huge cost cutting can be done in schools by replacing the so called erudite teachers with ‘parrots’. I mean they can be trained in the same way that teachers are. And they can keep repeating the same chapters day in and day out and in PTA meetings they can keep repeating.’marks lao,percentage badao,padte raho’. Where is the difference? The ‘parrots’ will definitely reduce the budget and other administrative hassles.

It is disappointing. The way we are running our world and building systems to kill the very human beings for which the systems are being built.

My sister called. And she said that we needed to appear like one big huge happy family on the D day of the celebration. That I needed to buy clothes and whatever else to look good. That it might even help in the growth of the business. I mean having a good solid ‘happening’ family is a good thing for ‘business’ and ‘politics’. Point taken but let us agree to disagree.

Don’t feel like working today. Just tired I guess. Maybe one proposal. A walk of 1 mm.
Bills,layout plan,projects,shifting,money-the same rigmarole.

Something is better than nothing. At least we are not static.

Being dynamically static.

Attended a family get together yesterday on account of my brother’s sons’ birthday. It is always stressful to be with family. The fakeness, the looking good is always tough. And mother was wearing a ‘Kanjeevaram saree’ from the collection of sarees that she had bought from me in peanuts when I was desperate for money. And that always triggers me. Rest was fine. I tried to hug my sister and brother genuinely and that was it. It is what it is. And it is not what it is not.

Diwali time and it is craziness all around. Gifts have become a way of showing ones’ prosperity, achievements and success. Also to oblige people explicitly without shame. It is less about cleaning ones’ soul and mind and house and more about showing off and filling the emptiness within, with electronic goods.

Me and Appu went to get some diyas last night and it always feels good to buy the hand painted earthenware. Diyas are the best things about Diwali. The next is lighting them up.

I am hoping the diyas can spread some light in our lives too.

Shivaji, the accountant was also traumatized yesterday. After the way the landlord behaved with him, he just came and sat quietly in my cabin for half an hour. He just could not speak. It felt as if he had been raped (mentally and emotionally I guess it was a rape) and he was in shock. And I felt very powerless over the entire situation. Mental rape and abuse should also be punishable. But emtional crimes are not even acknowledged in this country. Where rapes go unpunished, how can one expect justice for mental trauma.

The MD of the Jaipur client sent a mail yesterday regarding the sample of the map we had sent and other deliverables. He said it was the ‘worst’ sample he had ever seen. The mail was read by other team members and everyone was angry. The MD has no idea of GIS, no idea how difficult it has been to match the hand drawn khasra maps to the earth coordinates without actually going to the ground for survey, without having any ground control points. For us, it was technically more important to bring them to earth coordinates, merge and mosaic them accurately than on making them look good in terms of colors and presentation. If the village maps are not geo-referenced, the other layers would definitely not overlay on this. But I guess the client is only looking at the ‘looks’ and not the ‘accuracy’. How does one deal with ‘unintelligence’? I have no idea. Or ‘obnoxious’ clients?

Or stupidity? Or control freaks? Clients who just wish to control and show their superiority. Clients who do not believe in freedom or team spirit or positive support.

The team was feeling very de-moralized yesterday and I could see how I could not protect them from the harsh realities of living. It is what it is and it is not what it is not.

Sometimes it feels as though it is a meaningless exercise, this business of living, making money, following the system, getting some rewards, some brownie points for being a slave.

for proving a point.

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’