Some days are just luckless!

I discovered this in the drafts folder, half-written. It belongs to a wintry day in December.

I shouldn't be writing it down, because writing about anything gives it prominence, and if I give it prominence, I'll see more of it thanks to law of attraction (which works). But how else am I supposed to take it lightly? If I don't write it down on my blog, I'll keep thinking about it and stress over it and waste some more of my extremely limited, very precious time. Coming to the point, my day today was such that I can safely (and sadly) call it a day with the worst luck possible. (All right! I'm exaggerating, but sometimes you have little patience and then it gets tested in the most severe way!)

On some unlucky days...

In my current workplace (which has the worst rules, being a six-day work week in the first place), we are allowed to come late to work on three days a month ONLY, after which you start having your late days counted as leaves, and once you exhaust the limit of leaves (which is a paltry two days a month), you start having your pay cut for the day. (The one who made such rules will die.) I didn't think much of it before because I always reached well before the late time for the first two months. And then, as a commenter on one of my previous posts helpfully observed, came winters, when it became a bit too hard to get out of the warm bed in the chilly weather and be in office on time. Now, the 'late' mark is applicable even if you are a mere few seconds later than the deadline (which is so sadistic anyway!). In December, I reached late thrice just in the first week. It's not just the matter of getting up, but the entire thing of having to don so many clothes, dealing with your lethargic reflexes, rushing to the station and running on the platform to reach the 'right' train on time. It's maddening! And then there's the whole mad crowd of people in the metro, which is an entire issue altogether. To cut a long story short, I had to, in fact have to, be on time this entire month or else just work for the company for free (which they don't deserve, because they're already eating my head off for a bargain that suits only them).

I haven't even begun on the day. Ugh! I woke up fairly on time, did everything on time, but somehow, because it is just so cold, I got 5 minutes late and set off at an alarming 8.20 (my absolute latest before this was 8.16). Scoot catches a cold in winters and needs half a minute's warming up before it can start, so I put it in position while it warmed up, and then set off speedily. Having crossed two blocks, I realized I hadn't picked up my phone. Cursing everything I saw, I turned around and zoomed back, got the phone and started again, having actually lost hope for being on time today. Still, I'm a hard nut to crack, so I held on to shreds of hope, and found a place for Scoot under the tree where the roosting birds who use Scoot for their droppings, live.

The metro was packed, but after half an hour, I found a seat (yay!). It was still five minutes till deadline, so I walked and half-walked-half-ran with as much speed possible (because you haven't seen the crowd at that station, either in number or in type). The usual auto-ricksha driver waved to catch my attention (and such are his marketing skills that I'm now accustomed to look for him) and I gratefully sat in the auto. There was an armada of autos and buses on the road, but thankfully the driver seemed to be in as much a hurry as I was, or perhaps my sense of urgency was so tangible that he sensed it, so we got a clear road pretty much within a few seconds. There was some delay because the roads were bumpy, and I ended up punching in my finger 45 seconds after the deadline. There! Perhaps my labour of the day wouldn't even fetch me my dues (and I worked so hard today. Sucks).

The day finally ended. I take a lift from one of my co-workers, who came ten minutes late. When we finally moved, there was such a traffic jam as we never saw before. It was HUGE. That was when I actually imagined and saw the level of insanity in traffic and population explosion. The actual explosion for me came when my lift-giver said that since traffic wasn't moving an inch, she'd have to take an alternative route, and she actually convinced me that I could get to the station faster if I walked. I got down amidst traffic and started walking on the so-called pedestrian path (which was so high that you’d have to scramble on top of it instead of just step on it, like it should be!). As I stumbled along, because the path was not only high and broken but also uneven, cars, two-and-three wheelers, trucks (and cows) started moving because the traffic jam kind of broke. Talk about timing!

I’d ideally have wanted to take the opposite road, which was where my preferred metro station entrance was, but with such mad traffic (and mad people) it’d only have been inviting death, and I don’t fancy a death at their hands. As a result, glaring lights from thousands of vehicles met my eyes, making me stumble even more, especially as it had got dark by then and I had just realized, for the first time, that there was a large space on my right, dense with trees and bushes and whatever else. My breath came in sharp gasps and my heavy bag felt even heavier on my back. It was all I could do to hurry and not get kidnapped (because of course, these are common, everyday things in our fantastic country). I’m not even mentioning the horrid smells that met me each time I breathed just enough to avoid passing out. 

After what seemed like years, but were perhaps ten or fifteen minutes in reality, I reached the station and ran upstairs, not looking at anybody and promising to leave this job asap! (Still hasn’t happened. Anyone reading this knows of a workplace that is situated in a decent-enough area? PLEASE tell me) 

I don’t recall what happened after that. The train would definitely have been extremely full, I wouldn’t have got a seat (even when the train starts from that station), and I would have narrated the details of the day with much screaming and cursing at home (as a matter of fact, I do remember this). By the time I would have written half of this post, I’d have been tired and left it to complete later, never getting around to do it until today, when it seems irrelevant but is better than boring work at boring work! (It’s not always boring. Today is just one of those Fridays I feel angry that I have to come the next day too.)

If luck was measured in days, it was the worst luck day! :X

And this world is a madhouse.

Kbye.

PS—Not really bye, because I have to update! I’ve been busy with something… a secret project, say…and it’ll keep me occupied like anything till at least the next three weeks. After that, I might have some time to write and post the thoughts of my befuddled mind, but I’ll only let you in on the secret when the time is right. Wait for it!

PPS—Post December, I’ve entirely stopped bothering with keeping time to each minute in the morning. Even if I’m 5 minutes late, I’m still coolly devouring my current read (The Lord of The Rings right now), because so much of anxiety is just not worth it! Those who complain can go to hell.

Basically, what I understand is...

It’s kind of expected (by readers as well as the writers) to make a welcoming-of-the-new-year post, especially if they’ve been seeing it in the past, like in the case of this blog. I had it planned, but one thing that even my optimistic self would accept is that life is very very uncertain. However much you hate change, it is the only constant (that clichéd line again, yes) and you reach a point where you *finally* stop running away from it. It is never easy to embrace change. In fact, it is the hardest thing I find, something I hate doing, something that makes me fear that my whole life is on a change trajectory, something that makes me extremely uncomfortable only because I love my comfort zone. But anyway, I understand that when you try too much to escape, it only builds in magnitude and later comes crashing down on you. And then it hurts a lot. 

I understand that not everything will be perfect. You may want it to be, you may hate the imperfections, but it just isn’t “supposed” to be perfect, because then we wouldn’t have anything to work for and we’d stop being human.

Even if you’re an optimist with an ever-ready “it’s okay” at the tip of your tongue, there will be some problems to which you can’t reply with those words. You will yourself get into situations and feelings where these words would sound useless. And really, you just have to accept the fact that some things in life are just not okay and sometimes you just have to live with it. It can’t always be okay-ish and happy-ish, because some things would inevitably hurt, even if you’re an escapist or a protect-ist. This ridiculously pessimist-sounding stuff would catch up with you, no matter what.

Once an Indian, always an Indian. And always being plagued by some kinds of Indianness and mindset, no matter how you want it to be. Even if you run away to live in another country, you’d still be haunted by stupid things associated with being an Indian. Even if your whole family is awesome, you’d still have problems, because with Indians, you can’t be just “you”. You have to look at the whole society, culture, customs and all those things you actually respect, but they don’t necessarily return the favour. How dare you even think about just yourself? You have to live according to superficial rules, or else you’re a dark blot on the society and no one would ever love your family again. *Wishing she could have been a gareeb angrez instead*

Pic credit: Me

I understand that I won’t understand everything (even though I am quite amazing when it comes to understanding, but still) and it’s foolish to feel bad about not ‘getting it’. Also, I’m not a social being. I can focus on just a few people outside my own self at a given time, and trying to add more people into it just causes problems for me. As an experimental thing, I deactivated my Facebook account recently, just for a while, and although there isn’t enough evidence to prove it, I think there is somehow a correlation between my happy nature and switching that source of interaction off. For one, I can focus more on “my” things (reading, writing, thinking, crafting, talking to people who’re close to me). Secondly, I am not in contact with other people’s lives as much. Do I really need to know what 300 something of my FB friends are up to? I really don’t have that much of time. I used to scoff at those who deactivated accounts, but now? Not so much. I see how it can reduce the level of noise in your life. And sometimes, you just need silence.

I understand that I don’t have any ‘blog-obligations’. Y’know, like to make a New Year post (however much I had wanted to), making a certain number of posts a month, keeping away from openly writing about feelings, etc. In fact, when I read one of my favourite columnists, Natasha Badhwar, talking about writing about feelings and experiences and your own stories, I’m even more open to them! Consider this line that makes you go “Ohhh yess!!”

“The struggle to express is a struggle to heal”

I’ve been having trouble writing since the past few months, not because I suddenly don’t know how to write, but simply because I mostly write on stuff drawn from experience, and at that time, I didn’t quite know how to deal with myself, I was trying to heal and hence, struggling with expressing.

“The power to write your own story will come to you when you give up the fear that your truth will somehow hurt you”

Really. Why don’t we write about things that hurt us? What we learned from it, or rather, how much we hate it? Because we try to ignore the truth, we don’t acknowledge it, we turn into escapists. That is why.

And oh yes, I also understand how cool it is when you can get this idea from a cool friend to write posts in a font you prefer. ;)