Life in Kolkata -9- I hate everything

That’s it. I hate everything right now. I have not been able to go to work for 2 days now because I overslept. I don’t have a decent movie with me that I have not seen over 5 times. I am bored as hell and finally when I have some free time and no homework or assignments to do…there are no chicks in my life. I hate everything.

Ever heard of the phrase “Call a spade a spade”. We never call a spade a spade. We mince words, we paraphrase. We make sure that we don’t hurt other people’s feelings. Why do we do that? I mean, can’t someone want to kill someone just then. We sometimes feel that way and we should not be afraid to admit that. I have at times wanted to kill some of the closest people in my life and I love them. It’s just that you get that mad only on the people that you love so much. But no…people will lie and cheat …anything to get into your good graces. Makes them into phonies. Each and every aspect of your life is you. The way you take your bath and the way you make your food. It is all you. If you are a wimp then your food is going to be a wimp as well. The way you wash yourself is going to a sorry thing as well. Writing is much closer a reflection of a person than the way he washes his ass. The way you write really tells you your state of mind. Like I am much cooler than I was when I started writing this piece. Look at me …I am already making excuses for what I am doing and reasoning out things for you so that you don’t misunderstand me. I am making sure that you like me. But when I started I just did not care.

But I am angry right now. I don’t know why, but I am. Things are getting out of hand. I am no longer in control. Things are in control of me. The job, the place, the sleep, the laptop…everything. I was so in control for some time now. I was a renegade. I was a rebel. I was happy.

I don’t even know how to start the next para. How sad is that?

I need a change of place. Something fresh. Maybe I will move out of here and live in that AC dormitory in Parkstreet. No privacy there but it is an idea. I am getting too comfortable here. When I came here I was ready for anything. The weather, the people, the pain the humiliation..et all. But now things are different. I have gotten comfortable. Nice and fat. I know of ways to cheat. I know how to skip work. I know how to lessen my work load. I know that small extravagances are no longer an issue. I know that I can get away with sundry other things that reduce my work and make my life easier…more comfortable. I am no longer a warrior…I am a fucking bureaucrat.

Sheesh…it was bound to happen huh? I know that no reward or result is any fun or even satisfying if there was no effort or pain that went into it. I have already established that. Maybe it is not the same for everybody. No, I am not the scum of the universe. I am not worse than everybody and everybody is definitely not same or better than me. I used to think that so that I don’t get cocky. But no…people are a lot more daft than I am. Well quite a few people are. So I better get my perspective right. So people might like the free lunches and the extra pay and the raises without any effort or work …just like the salesmen I work with want from me. But not me. I might like the idea. I love the idea. Who does not want to get some freebies now and then? Who does not want that raise that he does not deserve? But I know from experience that I might like it initially but I hate it afterwards. It pained me so much that people were so happy and jubilant when they got those jobs of theirs which were so much inferior to mine…yet they were happy. They were crazy happy. Whereas I was just relived when I got mine. Because I knew that it was coming. I knew that I was going to get the job when I was in BTECH. I knew I was going to get the job when I was in MBA. It all came to me so easily. It was not a pain. And I wanted to jump with joy when I got it but all I could do was sigh a breath of relief. That’s what good things do me when they come without a decent price.

God or the system or the force or the great joker who is up there and all, just did not make me a person who can enjoy a free meal. Damn. Or maybe I am not that great a guy. Maybe I do like a free meal. It is just now…maybe a phase, when I don’t. Good then. I don’t want to be like those characters in Ayn Rand novels. Or maybe I do. I don’t know. I just don’t know. It takes a bit of character to even aspire to those ideals as the ones believed by the characters I spoke of.
My head is getting fuzzy with ideas now…
I am losing focus. Signing off…..

tata

Life in Kolkata- 8 – A Surreal day

I woke up feeling all tired. I did not want to go to work.

I looked at the monthly travel plan that I had stuck to the mirror to find which distributor I was supposed to visit. There was a strange weariness in my body but I made up my mind to make a move quick. But I was seriously considering if there was some devious plan to skip work today. I couldn’t come with any. Didn’t have to. Because I did not have to go to work then. I had already been to work. It was not morning…it was evening.

My hotel room does not have a lot of sun coming into it. I don’t need much of sunlight because I work in the sun all day anyways. If you switch on the light there is no way of telling the light in the sky outside. My head was reeling now. I was happy that I don’t have to go to work but was confused at the strange blankness in my thoughts. I fell back in some kind of slumber. I then dreamt of explaining the beats the salesmen oerformances to the branch head. Even then I could not tell for sure if all that was real or just in my head. It was all a whirr.

I blame dad for it. He was here yesterday and we don’t usually spend too much time together so here is what we do. I watch TV as he snoozes in the bed. Then we both have some food and I am headed home. This is what father and son do after spending 2 months away from each other. That’s the way we are really! We don’t do the hugging and stuff that well.

Anyways….I think my life is getting back to a boring rut and it is time to shuffles some things up. I miss my friends!

Tata

Life in Kolkata- 7 – My Zen Place

Yo,

Good people of the world, how you doing? I hope well…

Things are going well and it is time to take stock of the situation, do some analysis and move ahead with the lessons well learnt. Stint in Kolkata nearing towards the end. Just when I was getting used to the city. One of my friends said that is life. Well maybe…but I can’t complain. Life has been too good for me for the past few months. So I am stressing on the good stuff so that they keep coming.

I got my first paycheck and I haven’t spent an extra dime till now. I know that I have to pay back the Student Loan and the Loan that I took from my dad. Plus there is the 14k camera that dad has got for me. In ways I have bought it as I am going to pay for it. But I call it a necessity. By my calculation I have to pay my dad 32k in total. That leaves a measly sum left for me but what the hell…it is still enough for me to at least dream of what I am going to do with the future cash flows.

I don’t know what the deal with Zen is. I mean Zen masters and all that is something I don’t understand completely. I have to remember and look it up on the net. But I am guessing that a Zen place would be some place where you are at peace with yourself. Someplace where you feel all powerful…no, some place where you feel relaxed and free and say …you draw strength and inspiration from it. I need to make such a place in my house or wherever that I will put up in. The way I see it, it will have to consist of things that I will be able to rearrange easily and quickly because I might be moving a lot in my line of work. I have a vague idea of what I want. I will be thinking about it as I write this post.

Ok , here are the basic requirements of it:

1. 1) Seating arrangement with provision for a snooze
2. 2) Music to suit varied moods
3. 3) Inspiration, endurance, hope, strength
4. 4) Signs of the important things in life – memories
5. 5) Entertainment
6. 6) Relaxation
7. 7) Food and drinks
8. This should do the trick.

Lemme tell you some of what I plan to have.

Seating arrangement

In the beginning there is no way I can buy an armchair like the one Joey and Chandler had in Friends. And since I will be constantly moving from place to place, Hotel room to guesthouse, I better be content with say a nice comfy pillow or cushion that I can prop against whatever chair that I get. I later times I might get myself once of those massaging ones. What I plan to get later in life is a nice big comfy seatee where two people can sit in whichever way they want and do their thing. But that will have to wait.

Music

I need different playlists. For the mornings to brush away the sleep from my eyes. For the evenings to release the tension that has been building up all day. For the times when I want to celebrate and the times when I am down in the dumps. The peppy ones when I have good company and the smoky romantic ones when I have the Right kinda company. Jazz works for me when I want to relax. I like the saxophone ones.

Inspiration and the works

Symbols, text, quotes, pictures, posters and the sort that can send subliminal messages to my head. Things that I will recognize and I can put deliberately in the right places so that I can program to some extent the thoughts that come unbidden to my mind. Like when I am low I will be looking down…maybe a little something right in front of the seating but a little closer to the floor…that makes me hold on to hope a little longer. Some thing nearer to the ceiling which tells me not to fly off control just because things are working so well and sit back some and take stock of the situation. I have always loved movies. I am thinking some of these things will be memorabilia or pictures or symbols of these movies. The ones that I like for something in particular. Like the “Revolver” or “The Untouchables”. Something in text like say – “Sit still and revenge will visit thine enemy”.

Signs of important things in life

Pictures of family and friends. Some memorabilia of important events in life. Things that remind me of what is really important and what gives importance to the other things in life. So that I don’t put the horse before the cart, so to say.

Entertainment

Playstation and a Big screen TV. That is a must. In later times…one that is separate from the family’s regular living room TV. So that I can play and watch movies in peace while the wife wants to see her daily sitcoms. I know the trouble dad has when there is a game and mom want to watch what happened to the poor orphan girl married to the rich cruel family and her indifferent husband.

Relaxation

Are those feet massagers I see in the Malls any good? If they are I might buy one. Plus the seatee might have some shoulder massager thingy in it. All in good time.

Food and drinks

My favorite food stuffs, carefully regulated by the wife so that I don’t die of heart disease, a bottle or two of my favourite drinks, I don’t like beer so I will need something to go with the drinks that are there. Healthy stuff too like some juice or what not. And maybe some popcorn. I am not a great fan of it but I think it will be healthier than most other snacks.

That’s about it right now.

I always tell myself that it is not bad to dream. So maybe some of the things are a little far away in the future but I will be making that future right now, right? I better know what I am fighting for. Hell…for starters I might put the above in a picture and hang that in front of the whatever chair I get in whichever dhingy hotel that they get me. Everything has to start someplace, right?

Till later then

tata

Life in Kolkata- 6 – Managing expectations

Heya,

So how are you guys doing? I am sitting in my hotel room at 7 in the evening listening to Coldplay’s X & Y album and writing this blog post. Will post it sometime at night. Had a very very long nap. Was feeling a little strange and tired during the day and when it started raining towards the end of the working day (Our active market work lasts for about half a day, till about 3-3:30 pm.) I took off. Been sleeping since then. About 3 hours I think. Then spoke to a very old friend. Felt good. The mix of a good nice nap after a tiring but rewarding week, a long chat with a fellow mate and then finding a luke warm pet bottle of Limca next to the bed. Perfect!

We go through a lot of “Management” in B-Schools. There is work management and there is people management. Money management and time management. And I am not at all talking about the stuff we study. I am talking about the stuff that you learn besides that. Working with different workloads, with different people, each with their own time limits and schedules and then there is the limited pocket money. Just the environment teaches you a different course altogether. But there is a management that I think we have been doing since we were little. Something that we are not aware of explicitly till we are in a job and we have to do it for strangers and new people. Of course these strangers then become part of our lives and at some point we lose sight of it again. I am talking about managing expectations.

People management is managing the problems of these people and their work and what not. But what I am stressing about is something that is never talked about explicitly. It is something I think is special about sales jobs. Since we are in supervisory role we have to look at it in a rather objective way. To manage these people, we have to manage their expectations. What are these expectations? Vary from people to people, role to role and time to time. My salesman expects to have a better sale on the day I am working with him. But that it what they tell you to do in your job. There is a lot more. He expects that I will treat him at the end of the day. He expects that I listen to his problems. Not only the ones he is having in his work. But his family problems. Sickness, food, relationships..all. These are the things that they don’t tell you to do, but they make the difference between a good and an effective supervisor. They think in the beginning that you are some impersonal person from the head office and they are being loaded with some extra dead weight. It is then that you have to draw out the person from this working man. Who is he? What all does he want from life? What is troubling him? Knowing all this is what gives you the effective tools to motivate him, give him hope, help him and make him a better worker. My mentor in Kolkata tells me that at one time he used to send the monthly targets to the wives of the salesmen. He had developed camaraderie with their families and knew them all personally. He would then tell the wives of the incentives and the bonuses on completing the targets. This drove the salesmen in such a way that we would never be able to do. No better carrot and stick policy than that of the wife who effectively runs your life, the life that is worth living and working for.

Made me think that maybe there is a whole lot more than just a sliver of this in life apart from the job. It is pretty obvious that there is a lot of expectation management in life as well. But I think I personally, don’t give it as much thought as I should. Maybe I could have saved some hurt or made some one happier had I just thought about their expectations of me. I always think about my expectations….just that I don’t think of it like expectations. More like what I want and what I don’t or what I would like and what I would rather not. I am not a cold person. No I am not. But I can be a little blind at times to the people around me and their feelings. My usual excuse is that I am bad at picking hints. It is true, I am. But maybe that is because I never think of it in this manner. In the manner that I look at it when I am working. Callous to the point of being hurtful. That is what I can be sometimes. But as all bad things have to go…..this has to go as well. I better get my act together on this front. I am going to take responsibility of the happiness and the sadness and the expectations of the people that I affect. The people I care about. Brave words, huh? Let’s see…..

Till later

tata

Life in Kolkata- 4 – My first paycheck, The friend’s girlfriend and Her Rabbit

Life is on as usual in my world. Some things are looking up but I know that they are so because of a small white lie of mine. I don’t know how I am going to break open the secret but that will come later.

First things first….I got my first paycheck. It was no exhilarating feeling. Just as it was when I got my job. All because I know that it was coming for sure and that I did not have to work my ass off for it. There was never any suspense if it was coming or not. Not that I don’t work my ass off everyday in sun. I do. But I know that I can do much more and no matter how tired or worn out I am when I come back home… I can push myself much more. So it is here and I can finally pay my own bills, payback dad the loan he gave me when I had to come to Kolkata and I can buy some stuff to gift to my near and dear ones from my own pocket. Really from my own pocket.

On to the next few things…..My friend’s girlfriend. Well I said something previously about my friend that I made in Kolkata. He was the first person I had real contact with. Even before I came in full contact with my relatives here. So he is special. My first friend in the land of my ancestors, where I knew no one. But then comes the hitch. He has a overbearing girlfriend who it seems is in complete control of his life. So much so that he can’t even concentrate on chess, he plays chess to get things off his mind. He has been in rather poor shape for some time due to the trouble she was giving him. He says that she is a darling even if sometimes she is a little immature. Well they all say that about their girls, that they have a heart of gold even though the other parts might be built like a torture machine. Well, Miss heart of gold had her birthday on Sunday and he missed it. He fell asleep after a few beers and she is mad. When I say mad it means that she is driving the guy bonkers. I have heard that you have to grovel in love, even believed it but I had never seen it. Today that was struck out of the list. I have never seen a man fall on his knees like that when talking on the phone and I have never come that close to a girl who would stand her man be made so small even by herself. It was pitifull. But then as his other friends who I met today said “All is fair in love and war”. I wish I find someone who I can live life with. I don’t want someone who I will constantly have to save from different issues, like missed birthdays and petty problems that grownups don’t really give that much of a damn. But something tells me that it might not happen. I suppose they all and we all need someone with whom we can become little children. What am I saying….I have been looking for someone like that all my life. Someone with whom I can be a little kid. But something tells me that I would not make her feel the way that she was making him feel. I think that in the past I might have made people suffer simply thru the means that they love me. Like I would sulk and I knew that they will feel bad because they love me or care for me. But that was when I was a little kid, when I was all but selfish and that is a very very long time back. Not now. But there might be people who disagree with that. All I can say to them is that I was an idiotic nut and please if they can forgive me. I did not realize what I was doing or perhaps the magnitude of the effect it was having on the people I love.

So….my friend decides to buy her a pet rabbit. It turns out that she had a rabbit and she loved it like anything. She cried for 2 days when it died. So off we go…he the brave knight and us his 3 musketeers. It was stupid really…he said that the market was mukherjee market when it was bannerjee market and we were roaming the length and breadth of Kolkata looking for rabbits. It felt as funny as it sounds. When we were finally there we found out that the rabbits were in short supply today. We loitered around waited for sometime and then finally bought one small little one. It was the cutest of the lot but seemed to have a slight issue with the leg and was looking a little lazy, or ill…we could not tell. But it was the cutest of the bunch and we took it. Here is when the interesting thing started happening. Every one in the street who saw it asked us how much we bought it for and commented that we were ripped off and that the rabbit looked ill. So much so that my friend started to buy the fact and would ask every other person who seemed interested in the rabbit, if it was ok. It became so irritating that I asked him to shut up and leave it at that. I was rude in a friendly way that would not hurt his feelings but I was feeling a little pissed. You bought it now….what is the point doubting it so much. There is nothing to do now but take it home and present it to his dominatrix. All through the trip there was talk of what if’s and what nots to do with the rabbit if things did not go as well. All along I and the rabbit were the only two who seemed least interested in the cost benefit analysis. But he seemed a bit too calm and that worried me. So we travelled from bus to bus and then from auto to auto till we came back to urbane environment. We could not take it to some posh restaurant as they would not allow it. We took it to our regular eat place. And then when we were about to eat… magic happened. Some people came out of the restaurant and started appreciating the rabbit. We were worried that he might be thirsty and got it a cup of water. And then it happened…..it sprang to life. It was down and out all this time from tire. We gave it some food and all life seemed to be bursting out of him. The mood was infectious and we had a hearty meal. We were all happy and I am sure the girlfriend would be happy too.

I don’t know if I am making a monkey out of nothing…but maybe life and the decisions we make in it are like this rabbit in the cage. We listen to people and feel affected….we doubt and we repent…..where all it would need is some nourishment and it would come out in all its glory. A little appreciation is all that it needs to get started…..

Later

tata