Keepsake

Today is half over, and by the time I'm done with the other half, I'm guessing I'll nearly have passed out. For various reasons I do not find worthwhile going into. Its being one of those days when you ain't got the blues, but you just feel blue.

Having turned a shade of metaphorical blue I look into the things I need to get done today. I have to finish collating the service tax liabilities for an extremely well paying client, who wishes to build an 'industrial complex' somewhere in Bangalore. For those who live on this shit, let me tell you that this contract of theirs is kicking my arse. Its a 2 headed contract with too many babies (sub-contracts). Unholy it is. After which I must commence research on another "question of law". I am a lawyer by fluke and not choice, and finding facinating case-laws is not something I find terribly exciting. Then I must speak to my landlord today to convince him to allow me to stay for another couple of days. I am supposed to vacate the premises by Sunday. Also I need to give all my dirty clothes for wash and ironing so that I can fit them back in my rucksack. Also I need to meet couple of old school friends, one of whom I haven't met since I left school and the other I probably won't meet for quite sometime after I leave Bangalore. Needless to say, being school friends I really want to meet them. The unfortunate bit is, in a working man's life even your friends get clubbed with "things to do". This is something I detest yet can't help. Work is not just God, its a part of your life that takes priority over all other. Even the fact that some of your batchmates are locked up in their PGs/rented apartments out of fear that still has not abated.

While at work today, I'd been visiting the various blogs I had earmarked to read. They've become my substitute for a smoke break, because I can't take too many. Most of them carried personal responses/reactions to the "terror attack" on Mumbai. Even though the various responses were radically different from one another, varying throough a range of emotions from anger to sadness to absolute numbness, I couldn't help but notice a singular thread of despair common to all.

Despair, Desire's ugly twin (ref: Sandman Graphic Novel, Neil Gaiman). Despair followed by its younger cousin Numbness (my own addition). The common man's solitary weapon/drug to carry on after he realises that his desire for revenge/putting things right is futile.

I personally underwent swings in feelings of anger and utter helplessness, knowing that I too shall eventually succumb to numbness and move on with life. All I can do is remember, and I will remember. I will not forget. Its the least I can do. I'd rather grow numb to the pain, still keeping it with me, than forget that I ever felt it.

Flummoxed

Today's been a long and flummoxing day. And I'm still not done. Fuck.

The day started with me finding my phone lying broken under my bed (must've fallen out while I was asleep...that explains why the alarm didn't go off) and it continued with the Breaking News of the terror attacks in Bombay. I know too many people in Bombay. Friends all. I'm too tired to go over the things that have been going on in my mind all day long. I'm just glad everyone I could get through to is fine, and hope that the rest are the same.

Also I got down on my knees to this 'friend' with whom I have I haven't been on speaking terms with. She too was in Bombay, and at the end of the day no matter how much I've cursed her, I can't bear to see anything happen to her. I just don't know. I'm too tired and brain dead to know anything today.

So goodnight world & stay safe.

Mornings & Headaches

This morning I woke up to a missed called by a colleague, after oversleeping through the regular alarm and subsquent 'snoozes'. Its not something that has happened till now during my short stay in Bangalore. I am working now and have a new found will to remain disciplined in life. However, not having time to ponder upon the reasons that may have brought about this folly on my part, I got into action - cigarette on the pot + brushing my teeth + bathing + iron the nearest clean shirt + get dressed + get out = 23 minutes.

I walked out of my automaton daze to the most beautiful morning in Bangalore. The single most beautiful morning. The air was light, and sweet (if one can impose a taste upon air) and the skies just refused to turn bright. It was beautiful. Ok, I've said beautiful too many times now, but please understand it was beautiful. I was fresh in an instant, clearminded, I was thinking and feeling again, awakened from my routine morning stupor. My colleaugue came by and picked me up from my designated pick up spot and all we both could discuss was the weather.

Right now I'm typing from within my chamber up on the 12th Floor of really tall building (a senior from the Hyderabad Branch visited yesterday and told me that "you're working on the Indian Wall Street"). However, in this really hip office you have no clue as to the changes that occur around you. You sit for hours in a controlled and 'safe' environment with intricate temperature controls and various other controls maintaining a perpetual homogenous atmosphere for all eternity, where you can work and remain undisturbed, unmoved, unchanged forever.

Now I know why I didn't wake up this morning, and why Tax Consultants cannot work in the open.

So I sit here and get random headaches. Another new experience in my life.

Of Bad Habits

Heading towards the end of another new day I've spent in office. I've got 2 more people share my "workstation" with me. They're fun, easygoing, and capable individuals. All senior to me.

I haven't really had a great day, but then again I haven't really fucked up today. Just feeling a mild headache (usually I dont get headaches, whatever I did get were after prolonged journeys on buses and trains). It seems that sitting in one place and staring at a screen for too long really hurts your head. So my head is hurting, and I don't want the life of an 'office go-er'. But I need to.

I don't want to need anything anymore.

Moral: I should quit smoking.

Evening Walking

I have been 'blogging' so to speak for a while, but haven't really experienced the blogosphere the way I now wish to. I usually write corny/emo/brown blues poetry on the regular blog of mine. Of late I have been visiting blogs maintained by friends old and new, and have been feeling the terrible urge to have a space to rant, ramble, scream, mumble whenever I need to without bothering anyone (I'm guessing if anyone's reading this, they are doing so out of a personal choice which absolves me of my responsibility of not irritating them). Hence I've decided to turn a new leaf and become, from an occasional blogger-poet, to a hopefully more regular blogger-mumbler.

I hail from the City of Joy, in India. I live, for most of the year, in Hyderabad. And now I'm looking for work (actually means to a livelihood) in Bangalore, as a Tax Consultant. Or rather soon-to-be(fingers crossed) tax consultant. I don't know how people refer to Bangalore, but in my vocabulary there are very few nice terms for it. Lest I offend anyone, I shall stick to those few things about Bangalore that I like. The best, top of the list, would be the weather and the streets.
To provide some background I live about 4 kms. from the place of my work. Mornings see me rushing out of a 3 story Paying Guest facility to catch a colleague who is kind enough to lend me a ride to work. At work I usually spend 10-11 hours everyday, attempting save a lot of really well to do people a lot of money. Hopefully I'll get better at it, and also lose any remaing bits of a concience. But we digress. Back to the 4 kms. Now after sitting for 10 odd hours in the same place I feel the inmitable urge to take a walk. Also the fact that Bangalore has practically no decent public transport system to speak of, encourages the fact that I cover the aforementioned distance on foot.
My usual route is to walk down Lavelle Rd. into St. Marks Rd., where I hold my life ransom, so as to cross in front of Koshy's into Church Street. Thereafter I come out into Brigade Rd. where I turn a left and head straight down through Commercial Street till Mosque Rd., Fraser Town which has been my temporary place of residence for the past 3 weeks. I like roads, actually streets. I like streets, they somehow make me feel organically connected to the body of the city. They make me one even with an alien settlement such as Bangalore. Lavelle Rd./St. Marks Rd. form a bit of the upper middle class portion of town, where from you hit the eternally crowded Brigade Rd. (except when I work late. this city practically empties out by 11pm. shame!) . After that its a straight 40 minute strut down the 'shadier' Commercial Street which hosts practically everything that is neccesary to be middle class. From a open-till-late Subway to Ration shops and jewellry stores (in one of which I had got my ears pierced when I was 19 and drunk out of my head). In that entire stretch one gets to see a very prominent Muslim population, which is especially visible due to their women actually upholding the wearing of burkha more than Muslim women in any other place that I've been to. Actually I think there are more women in burkhas on Commercial Street than there are in Old City, Hyderabad. Fraser Town again blends into the upper middle class society with 2 alcohol shops open till late at night, just in case you've got them blues again! Not to forget some brilliant eating joints which arent too heavy on one's wallet.

As pointless as the above description sounds, this walk I mention has become one of my favourite activities during my short stay in Bangalore. I love the streets I walk here, and the weather Gods have mostly been kind to me. As I finish submitting this I shall go on another one of these walks that raise eyebrows from most of my collegues with responses like, "oooh! long walk man" or "hey! you dont need exercise. i won't say you're healthy, but you're not fat man" or simply a wide eyed "why??". I find a smile as the only response I can manage at the end of a full day's work. My daily evening walks are my only time with myself and with this city, not my city, yet my only companion.