The Solitary Reaper

As a society we are terribly cruel to single people, especially those on the wrong side of 25. A generation of entertainment and literature has thrived on this topic alone, i.e. the stigma of singlehood. Even the most pathbreaking of movies which are otherwise funny, entertaining and enjoyable give in to the temptation of placating the conventional audience and end up rehashing the “happily ever after” climax that has been fed into our systems ever since we were kids.

But let’s take a moment to celebrate that phase of life which is almost like a nemesis for every human being, so much so that many of us would hold on to an abusive relationship or an unhappy marriage, just to avoid being alone. And believe it or not, being single has nothing to do with your personality, your looks or your paycheck, so each time we are tempted to blame ourselves or we are at the receiving end of some unsavoury judgement, let’s remember that more often than not it’s a personal choice.
Unless of course you are Raj from BBT. In that case, it’s just social awkwardness.

Granted there is a Bridget Jones in each of us, a Bridget Jones who fights multiple battles every day: the battle with age, the battle with those annoying extra pounds which refuse to go away, the battle with wrinkles and the battle to be taken seriously. But within each Bridget, there is also the strong and silent Solitary Reaper, who is capable of rising above these petty concerns and holding her own.

“Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.”
-The Solitary Reaper, William Wordsworth

Because, for the Solitary Reaper, the world is her oyster: she can have it and eat it too…

Rotten Tomatoes

It’s been a while since I talked about one of my pet peeves on this blog, i.e. my love for lists. So my regular readers (all five of you, or have you also disappeared?) would already know some of them, like my favourite tourist spots/books/music/movies/sportspersons/actors/TV shows and so on.

But let’s do it in a slightly different manner this time and focus on what I DON’T like instead.

Places: Being an Indian, I might be committing a national heresy here, but I really don’t like visiting religious destinations, which are usually overcrowded and reeling with various types of crooks who make a living by ripping people off and exploiting their weaknesses. While I have visited places like Angkor Wat or The Vatican City, the key drivers of these trips were purely history and architecture rather than religion.

Books: I don’t like the Harry Potter series. There I said it. Kill me. And of course, contemporary Indian literature is a strict no-no. In fact I can’t even consider these books as ‘literature’. I also don’t like the mushy stuff marketed as chick-lit. So no Mills and Boons or Fifty Shades of Gray or P.S. I Love You.

Music: Call me old fashioned, but I still like the 70s and the 80s stuff and none of the current hip-hop or pop music. And definitely no Honey Singh.

Movies: No Salman Khan movie please. I get no kick out of them, nor do I like the 100 crore blockbusters. But I am no intellectual either, so keep those sci-fi movies away (Inception included). Also super heroes mean nothing to me. So all your movies on the Batmans and Spidermans and Supermans or any other hero who is so insecure about his manhood that he has to keep it as a title can take a hike.

Actors: I like actors, not heroes. So give me a Rahul Bose or a KK Menon or a Nawazuddin Siddiqui any day over a Salman Khan or a Shahrukh Khan. And no, pulling weird expressions faces doesn’t necessarily make you funny. Jim Carrey, are you listening?

TV Shows: Ok I admit it, I haven’t watched Game of Thrones yet. And oh, I am not a fan of Modern Family either, especially Gloria. She is too loud for my subtle Bengali sensibilities.

Sportspersons: I have said it before, and I shall say it again, even at the risk of endangering my life. I have never been a big fan of Sachin Tendulkar. And Luis Suarez, I love your game, but please get some psychological help. I also didn’t like Pete Sampras though I don’t deny that he was one of the greatest tennis players of all times. Just that I preferred the volatile brilliance of Agassi over the clinical robotic precision of Sampras. In sports, I have always been on the side of the exciting and flamboyant underdog.

Food: I avoid vegetarian. As much as I can. And I can’t drink beer. It’s my biggest failure till date.

But what I hate the most is pretentious affectation and I stay away from all things which have the slightest hint of it, no matter how popular.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Mary Kom trailer released this week, and guess what, it features a close friend from my undergrad days! So yes, now I can proudly say that I know a celebrity, but this post is more than just my claim to fame, vicarious as it is.

While we went to the same college, lived in the same hostel, finished numerous packets of Maggie and junk food, strolled around Marine Drive, watched movies, gossiped for hours and whenever time permitted, studied a bit, I wouldn’t say we were exactly best friends. In all honesty, we lost touch after graduation, and while I settled for the conventional path to making a living in the corporate world, she was brave enough to follow her dreams. As I rotted within the 2 Km radius in Hiranandani, she traveled the world, dividing her time between Mumbai and New York, trying her luck in modeling, theatre and now, mainstream Bollywood.

So here is a bit of background and I am sure you will soon read an extremely exaggerated version in Bombay Times, but remember, you read it here first!

My college was known for its diversity and attracted girls from across the country as well as a few international students, a bit of a rarity for a degree college, but unlike the homogenous crowd in my MBA institute (where everyone was academically inclined and wanted to be in the corporate world), the crowd here was really a pot pourri of talented individuals with a variety of interests. Also the fact that we were still in our teens and living away from family for the first time, made us a more confused and vulnerable lot. Now this girl hailed from Manipur, and the first thing that struck me about her was her height. At 5’10, she towered over most of us, especially me and whenever we posed for photos together, the photographer had to resort to all sorts of tricks just to get us in the same frame! While she was quite striking even at that age, she spent a lot of time hyperventilating about her weight, going on crash diets or intense exercise routines. One day, while we all pigged out on cheap and greasy Chinese take away, I couldn’t help asking her why she deprived herself so much. And then came the statement, I would never forget: “Because I can’t study like you do. I choose to be in this field, and therefore I will do what it takes to be successful here.” For a 19-year old, it was pretty deep, especially since the rest of us were still figuring out what to do with our lives. Over the years, she groomed herself as a model and an individual, featuring on the Kingfisher Calendar and other assignments which made her quite a popular figure in the industry (with 11,000 followers on FB). For someone from the north-east, who knew nobody in Mumbai or the entertainment/fashion arena, it’s an achievement of epic proportions.

In a few months, we would all see her on the big screen, and I would be proud of her and think about the days when I knew her as just another college kid: gangly, awkward and annoying.

She is the girl who played with fire, and emerged unscathed…

Confessions of a Closet Nerd

This blog has seen multiple posts where I have mocked humoured the quintessential nerd male engineer. However, truth be told, I am somewhat of a nerd as well, notwithstanding my pink clothes or matching shoes/hairbands/accessories. So the time has come, to, behold, unleash the nerd in Nefertiti:

I enjoy writing competitive exams. Ever since I was a child, I have been brought up in a typical Indian middle class household, where we look at competitive exams as a panacea to all problems. Want to go for that exotic vacation? First clear the JEE. Want to marry the pretty girl next door? Write CAT. Want to find the dream job? Don’t even dream about it till you have taken GRE/GMAT, however irrelevant it is. Bored on a Saturday evening? Take IQ tests online. So, yes, I secretly like solving useless Math problems or sentence corrections. In fact, it’s such an integral part of my life that I find grammatical errors in emails sent by senior management, who probably didn’t even write the mail in the first place.

I wear thick glasses. While I wouldn’t be caught dead in my spectacles, the truth is that I have been wearing specs ever since I was 11. If you manage to catch me in a compromising situation (with glasses and a heavy book), rest assured that it’s not an accident. I am NOT as cool as I pretend to be.

I identify with Sheldon. Believe it or not, there are traits in me which are distinctly Sheldonic. Not only am I socially awkward and prefer the electronic mode of communication to personal interaction, I don’t even feel the need for human companionship and would much rather spend my time in pursuit of knowledge wasteful self gratification (Scrabble anyone? I shall beat you hollow).

I use words like “agnostic”, “hypothesis”, “exponential” or “sample space” as part of a conversation if I am not careful. I also play word games on my phone when I am bored or in a party with too many people.

I like being organized to an abnormal extent. Even though I rarely order for home delivery, I maintain a folder with menu cards from all restaurants, arranged in alphabetical order. I have done it ever since I started living on my own five years back, and I am extremely proud of my collection.

I read history because I WANT to. And I find it fashionable to badmouth popular literature.

Oh, and most importantly, I hate the iphone and I am proud of it.

It's time to come out of the closet and embrace the nerd in me...

Monsoon Wedding

Remember those Bollywood movies which go on for hours on two of its favourite topics: weddings and rains. Throw in a few heroines clad in a white sari, some Punjabi dance music and some last minute melodrama, and you have got yourself a Rs. 100 crore blockbuster. Then, a few years back, some smart cookie decided to combine the two and we were gifted a very well-made diaspora movie in the name of “Monsoon Wedding”.

But it’s a different story altogether when you try to enact the reel into real. Of course, the bride and the groom would take great pleasure in the years to come to tell their friends and family about a wonderfully romantic wedding in the rainy monsoons in suburban West Bengal, but for a reality check, ask the poor cousins, who worked non-stop behind the scenes to make the dream come true.

Now, not for one minute, am I suggesting that I was one those poor cousins. If anything, I did everything to avoid doing any work, which would have only resulted in more work. But once in a while, some watchful uncle/aunt would find me loitering aimlessly and put me up to some non-value-adding activity (when did weddings become like office?). But as for the others, they toiled day in and day out as they drove round the clock to receive the guests from the station or the bus stop, looked after the decorations/arrangements/lighting/catering at the venue or painstakingly coordinated the rituals while I looked on, part bemused and part puzzled. It was hard for me to believe that at this day and age, we still go to such elaborate lengths and put so many people at such discomfort, just to make sure certain traditions are not flouted. You have got to give it to tradition: you may not agree with some of it, but it does leave a legacy! The persistent rains did not make all of it any easier, but it did make it all the more memorable.

For a few days, it made you forget all the practicalities that marriage brings, simply because you are so caught up in the wedding…

For a few days, it made you forget all the past grudges and the fights, simply because you were meeting so many people after such a long time…

For a few days, it made you forget the initial awkwardness of meeting new people with whom you had nothing in common, simply because all of you were busy with the same functions…

For a few days, it made you forget about your discomfort in trudging through the muddy roads in heels and sarees, simply because all of you were colour-coordinated outfits…

For a few days, it made you forget about the few mean relatives/neighbours, simply because you had so much fun with the rest of the gang…

For a few days, it made you forget that you were missing all the action in World Cup and Wimbledon, simply because, your kid brothers would sneak you back in the house in time for the match and the three of you would watch it while a hundred people called you incessantly asking you to get some work done…

For a few days, it made you forget that it didn’t matter how strongly you opposed the idea of an elaborate wedding, simply because it brought you closer to the people who mattered the most…

For a few days, you just sat back, looked on and resigned yourself to the Monsoon Wedding simply because, it made you more alive...

(In)glorious Days

Next week I am off to Kolkata, and that too for a family wedding. Now it promises to be a lot of fun, meeting the long lost relatives I hadn’t met in the last decade, spending long nights with cousins discussing inane stuff, pondering over what to wear for the big event and fending off nosey neighbours who would inevitably make sly innuendos about “you are next” or direct character assassinations, “why are you not married yet? I warned your parents not to educate girls or send them away at such a young age.”

My hatred for weddings notwithstanding, I have come to enjoy the specific nuances of such family events which are typical Bong affairs which take you back in time and remind you of the not-so-glory days:

The days when you would look forward to traveling to Asansol in crowded local trains, just to be with your cousins…

The days when you would seriously start packing for your elder sister’s wedding due in six months…

The days when you would excitedly discuss the menu and make sure it included all your favourite dishes…

The days when you would run errands and feel important about making a “contribution”…

The days when you would monitor the flower decorations, gift wrapping and logistics, only to realize everything is screwed up anyway…

The days when you would have “deep conversations” with the bride/groom the day before the wedding and realize how freaked out they were…

The days when you would try to empathize with the said bride/groom and nod wisely, even though you had no idea what they were going through…

The days when you would dress up in your best traditional outfits, decide they are all crappy and then borrow your mom’s sarees, much to her annoyance…

The days when you would run away from the house without telling anybody and switch off your phone, just to catch some relief from the incessant cacophony…

The days when you would pose for endless photographs, worrying if the all wedding sweets were making you look fat…

The days when you would chat up with the random stranger and figure out he/she was way out of your league…

The days when you your relatives would try to set you up with the creepiest person on earth (even by Bong standards) and you would spend the rest of the days trying to avoid said creepy individual…

The days when you would feel sad thinking about how the bride/groom was no longer just your annoying cousin, but someone else’s husband/wife…

The days of mixed feelings and messed up make-up are back again…

The Ego Has Landed

So the FIFA World Cup is upon us, and that too it’s being hosted by Brazil, the Mecca of football (after Bengal of course). Now the thing about being a Bong is that we have a deep respect for rivalry, given that all Bengalis are prepared to kill one other over a match between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, albeit that both are crappy teams.

So while the rest of the nation would be salivating on an IPL final, the quiet Bengali would be staying up past midnight for some obscure Premier League match, just to make sure that Manchester United loses, irrespective who the opponent is.

For someone who grew up in a sports crazy family and pretty much followed all major sporting events (except of course IPL, which is really not a sport), my first memory of the Football World Cup dates back to 1998, when I was a silly schoolgirl, completely in love with Ricky Martin and his song, “Cup of Life”. Of course, over the years, I have learnt to look beyond the good looks, the glamour and the celebrity status of footballers, and focus on important stuff like who they date or which brands they endorse. Or in case of David Luiz, how he maintains his curly locks. Come on, it’s important. I also have curly hair.

But coming back to 2014, I would have given an arm and leg to be there in Brazil, not just because of the World Cup, but also because Latin America has always been in my bucket list, and of course, being there for a live football game (even if it’s Nigeria vs Ghana) is a dream come true: just like watching the Wimbledon final in the All England Tennis Club or a Test Match at Eden Gardens (which I have done five years in a row as a kid). It was once in a lifetime opportunity but I let it go.

So while the next month will witness major lifestyle changes (reverse sleeping patterns, multiple sick leaves and unexplained mood swings), let’s not forget there are more important things in life than just watching the World Cup. This is also the time to step back and take a more objective view of who your REAL friends are, because let’s face it, if the person you hang out turns out to be a closet Wayne Rooney fan, you know it’s time to make new friends.

Now that the time is here and the ego has landed, let’s all put aside our petty concerns and focus on what’s really important, because, for the next one month, “We are One”.

Blondie

My deepest darkest secret in life is that I am an intellectually stunted Arts graduate. As the dear readers reader of this blog would know, I am the untouchables of the academic fraternity and the banking industry. Now if you walk into my department which has about 50 people, you would mostly see bespectacled men who are engineers+MBAs+CFAs who would explain to me that + here denotes the “and” function and not the “or” function.

A typical new hire would walk around the bay, explaining that he is from some IIT with experience in VBA/SAS/Python/Matlab and I would sheepishly look at him and mumble, “err… sounds impressive. I am more into literature and philosophy and political science.” He would immediately recoil in disgust and look around surreptitiously, making sure that nobody sees him talking to me.

So, over the years, I have been a victim of discrimination and low self esteem. Here are some reasons why:

As an Arts graduate in an investment bank, people mostly dismiss you as HR/Admin, who is only responsible for looking pretty, arranging parties and hosting big shots…

During most meetings/calls, you are not expected to participate or say anything remotely intelligent, because you know, what can an Arts graduate possibly have to contribute when “the men” are discussing ground breaking stuff like quantitative easing, predictive modeling or valuation of private companies…

Whenever there is an event/networking session, everyone would gather around the visitor who is typically a Director/MD/Board member, seriously discussing world economics, share prices or debt markets, while the Arts graduate would hide in one corner, picking at her food, waiting for the ordeal to be over. When the said Director/MD/Board member asks her “so, what are your views on this?”, all she can do is smile brightly, and say, “is this your first visit to Mumbai? You MUST visit Colaba Causeway.”

When you tell an outsider where you work, he gets all excited and asks random questions like, “oh, my batchmate from IITX is also working there. Which IIT did you go to?” When you hesitantly respond, “err, actually, I didn’t go to an IIT or even an engineering college”, he gives you the Rahul Gandhi look, and says, “Lucky you. In India, references can take you anywhere.”

Finally, every time you have any discussion with your superior, he would dumb down the conversation as if he is speaking to a five year old. So, while a fellow colleague would be told, “we firmly believe that you have the potential to make a paradigm shift to our metrics milestones by breaking the silos and introducing a positive momentum which can revolutionalize the end-user perspective”, I would be greeted with a kind here-comes-the-retard smile and told, “You.are.doing.a.good.job. Keep.copy.pasting. Soon.we.will.give.you.challenging.work. You.may.even.be.asked.to.change.the.colours.of.all.our.presentations.from.red.to.blue. Was that too fast? Should I repeat?”

Each time you read an article about how MNCs are aggressively pushing corporate social responsibility, you know they are talking about hiring Arts graduates like me.

In college, being an Arts graduate was a synonym for getting married at 21/aspiring for a career in showbiz. In corporate world, it’s a synonym for being the department blonde…

Dilbert Diaries

I passed out of B school exactly five years back, which means I am now five years old in the corporate world. I still remember that hot sultry day in Hyderabad, back in May 2009, when I joined company D as a campus hire. Of course I was super excited about my new job, especially since it was a well-respected MNC and voted as one of the best companies worldwide to start your career. But I was more excited about my brand new laptop, crisp new clothes, the ID card which proudly displayed my name, the good food at the five star hotel where we had our 2-week induction and most of all the promise of “good life”!

Five years later, let me take a quick walk down the memory lane about my journey through this phase:

Now that I have survived multiple meetings, year-end appraisals, office parties, trainings, team bonding events and networking sessions, let me highlight the top three entertaining aspects of the office culture:

1.Skip level meetings: I simply love the concept because it opens up the can of worms (the pandora’s box if you will), where for a change, managers are under scrutiny instead of the employee. For a change, it gives the usually suppressed young employee an opportunity to speak up without worrying about getting penalized for doing so. And for a change, it questions the authority of the manager and puts him/her under the radar. It’s just about as empowering as it can get in the conservative corporate world. Most of all, it’s fun to just see grown-ups hyperventilate.

2.Resignation and farewell speeches: Having witnessed my share of resignation instances, where a fellow colleague has put in his/her papers and come out smiling, it’s indeed a Kodak moment to see the relief and happiness, no matter how transient it is. This is the platform to vent all the pent up emotions and grudges against the organization, its policies, managers and quality of work, even if it’s only a matter of time before you move on to another “bad” organization and start complaining about its policies, managers and quality of work. But what amuses me more are the farewell ceremonies, when the employee graciously sugarcoats his/her experiences while the others do their best to put up the façade of happiness, while secretly planning their own farewell speeches. I have had mine ready for four years now, but I am still waiting to use it.

3.Relationships: My biggest takeaway from the five years of corporate life has been the people I have interacted with, as surprising as it. A lot of my closest friends are my colleagues from the two companies I have worked in, irrespective of our career choices and current organizations. Being in a role which requires me to work with complete strangers in different countries, I have ended up forging a strong bond with people with whom I have nothing in common, and yet, they have graciously kept in touch with me or taken me sight-seeing in a new country or forced a new cuisine (which I could barely pronounce) down my throat. Finally, I have been lucky to work with some of the best managers, who continue to support me despite moving on to different roles/organizations.

At the end of the day, if I look back, I would summarize my journey as: “I get mail; therefore I am.” (Scot Adams)

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

A lot of people around me are having babies: actual human beings whose sole claim to fame is their cute innocence. That’s how they should define babies: “cute human contraptions up to no good.”

But be it friends, colleagues or random people on Facebook, I am being inundated with pictures of multiple new-born babies, who frankly all look the same. Of course, I have dutifully liked each picture, congratulated the proud parents and exclaimed how the baby looks EXACTLY like them. You know like the bald head or the droopy eyes or the chubby cheeks: exactly like the parents indeed.

For the life of me, I can’t imagine how this tiny little thing (yes, thing) can actually turn your entire world upside down AND make you think that it’s a good thing! The same way Arvind Kejriwal convinced the common man in Delhi to vote for him riding on the wave of naïve innocence which somehow appeals to even the most rational and pragmatic of us.

So all of you going coochi-coo on the random kid in the pram, stop, take a breath and catch a Modi moment: that kid in the pram may look cute, but is the devil in disguise: expensive, unpredictable and irresponsible. There is no knowing what he will do next. Really, have you not learnt anything from Rahul Gandhi?

Now imagine the next 17 years before you can pack off the kid to some obscenely remote corner of the country (hopefully by then they would have an IIT in Nicobar Islands): feeding him, taking care of him, teaching him the ways of life, putting up with his teenage tantrums and living under the constant fear that he will turn into a Manchester United fan. No vacations, no surprise holidays, not even feel-good sick leaves. You just have to toil day after day after day and all you have to show for it is a badly brought up, confused and arrogant teenager. Think about it. Do you really want to end up like Sonia Gandhi?

And then a time will come when your boy will finish college and be unemployed in a recessionary market. After all the companies have looked at his CV and dismissed him after a cursory glance, “So this guy can write reports? Amusing”, you have nothing left to do but to allow him into your family business, which has grown through the generations and reached the pinnacle of success under you. But like a true prodigal, he would refuse to take any responsibility, only making guest appearances and putting up the pretence of caring, when in reality all he is bothered about are the perks of the job: the flexibility, the undisputed authority, the flamboyant lifestyle and the guaranteed job security. No questions asked. But within ten years, you see your empire crumbling down, brick by brick, just as you had built it. Even your last minute interventions cannot save it. What do you? Find a scapegoat to blame. Preferably a nice guy. Preferably an educated guy. Preferably a nice and educated guy who is also a Sardar, because you know, that’s a community you like to target as a matter of principle.

Finally, a day comes when your ‘baby’ comes and tells you, “Mom, I have had enough fun screwing up the lives of people around me. Now I need a change. I have decided to get married and ruin the life of a perfectly innocent woman.” Relieved, that the brunt of the responsibility will at last get transferred, you respond with genuine relief and exuberance, “That’s wonderful news my boy. Who is the lucky girl?” And your 'baby' replies, “Lady Gaga, real name: Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. Exotically Italian, don't you think?”

And there you go, the fleeting life of your baby, the Reluctant Fundamentalist, flashing in front of your eyes…