Disappointment

Never thought of writing this, but may be the failure and disappointment make you susceptible to all this and inheritance of loss pushes the mind to the state where almost every moment defeat is palpable. The mind is hallucinating of losing even if you are on the brink of pulling something extraordinary. It is just like the vicious cycle, you create the bad habit of losing and suddenly this bad habit start governing your life.

Losing affects the mind in such a way that whatever is happening in and around you conspires to you in branding you as the loser in every small thing. Right from beginning we all are programmed to win, that is why we fail to behave normally when the failure catches us. Strength does come in time of adversity but we are never taught of how to handle it in our life. Inability to handle adversity along with the outflow of the emotions blinds the thinking eye and we are not able to comprehend for what should be done next.

Alleviating yourself from the pain of failure takes a lot of fortitude and commitment. But these two key ingredients are always absconding at the time of need, maybe their absence prompts failure. We do get so much fed up from failure that every clichéd activity we indulge in, we want to change it without realizing the major causes and extent of failure. We fail to analyze one failure and soon we get attacked by another one, it is just like failure begets failure.

However the truth is how we conquer adversity effectively without being taught of how to handle it, is what create the difference between winning and losing. Taking up the challenge to renovate one losing habit and polishing other one to an extent that it overshadows your weakness in tough times makes you winner.

Ps: If you aim for losing in life, you can be a winner by simply losing. If you fail to achieve your aim you cannot be a loser either.

Rajdeep Singh

Bench (DE)Pressed

To start with, I am a S/W engineer…by chance. I never wanted to be one. As a matter of fact, I am still not sure what I ever wanted to be. It just so happened that I became a part of this S/W industry. Its not that I am repenting it now because I don’t know what I ever wanted to, can, or would do with my life. I don’t seek anything. Life is like an ever flowing river and I am flowing with it trying my best not to get drowned. This job is my ‘Tinka’ which has kept me afloat for the past 2 years. But, this ‘tinka’ is now not that much supportive as I thought it would be (courtesy the Lehman and Raju Brothers Inc) when I clung to it during the turbulent times of my life (final year of my engineering when I needed a job as badly as someone needs a place to attend the nature’s call when compelled by a full bladder).
This industry has taught me a lot many things, sitting idle and doing nothing for months is one of them. It even pays you for that. Who else in this world will pay you 500-800 bucks daily, along with free breakfast, lunch and evening snacks, for:
1.Booking online movie tickets and taking their print outs from the office printer.
2.Doing train/flight reservations. ( a guy in my office has actually put up a rate list for ticket reservations through net)
3.Watching ANY movie with a hot cup of coffee at your desk.
Surfing the net.
4. Orkutting (Using Proxies, Its a unending war between the n/w guys and employees. Tum ek band karo, hum doosri layenge).
5. Reading news papers, novels and what not in the office.
6. Chatting …
and many other things that u couldn’t do gratis outside the office.

But all these things, after a while, stop giving you the delectation you experienced when you started off with them. After sometime you start feeling that all these things are only adding to your ineptitude in some way or other.
After a while your heart starts pining for work.
This is a situation like you are sitting inside a car. The interiors are dimly lit by the refulgent yellow light bulb that is smiling feebly on the top of your head. Your car might be in a tunnel or cave or a subway. You desperately want to see the road ahead but you can’t. Everything around you looks blurred. The windscreen is wet with morning (or evening) dew. You don’t know which hour of the day it is. You don’t have a watch. You want to reach the windshield to wipe the haze but you can’t. The moment you stretch out your hands, your seat slides back and make your hands shorter than the distance between you and the screen. You can’t see any ‘Wiper’ button on the dashboard. There is a CD leaning against the dashboard. You don’t want to play it bcoz you have already listened it to death. You have newspapers and magazines spread all around you. But you have read them all. You try to unlock the doors. They are jammed. You don’t have the engine keys. It’s like a bad dream.
You are sitting there, incapacitated, waiting for someone (maybe your PM or Boss or anyone with a superior authority) who could take you out of that stinking shithole. But they too are helpless. The keys have been snatched away from their hands by this Recession. You don’t know for how long you have to ‘just sit’ there.
You hear the staccato buzzing of the vehicles driving past you. You look out from the side windows. You notice the same people inside them who were there trying to fire the ignition when you drove past them. They are overtaking you now, waving smiles at you. You manage to hurl a smile back; the one which a runner up gives to the winner.
You ponder, Is this why they taught me to drive a car? You know that you can anyday drive better than many of the jerks overtaking you. But you have to wait with a clenched heart and a frown-creased forehead for God knows how long.
It feels like you are shooed to a brothel after being castrated. This phase, in a S/W engineer’s life, is called ‘Bench’.
Signing off now, but keeping the lines open for brickbats and bravos. Jai Ho.

Avinash

Long distance relationships: The beginning of the end

This post is merely an expression of my utter disregard of established institutions and a lose attempt at propaganda. My knowledge and experience on the subject are highly disputable. Anything I say can and should be put under industrial grade microscope. I will base my argument on observations - clearly this is not a subject for theorists.

The dynamics of long distance relationships have intrigued sociologists for centuries. Right from the time of Newton and before, people have been trying to figure out how do long distance work or to put it bluntly - how and why do they not work. The two most important factors determining the course of a relationship are trust and honesty. Put them together in a blender with a lot of seasoning called 'understanding' - perfect recipe for a healthy relationship eventually consummating into marriage. If any one of the ingredients is missing - then it becomes a recipe for disaster.

Trust. In my definition - trust means absence of doubt, not even a shred is allowed. Both should be able to trust each other - even on the edge of vulnerability. The x number of months/years that you spend together before the relationship becomes long distance should serve you in understanding each other. Behavior is extrapolative - you should be able understand your partner in such layered depths so that you can confidently forecast how would the partner react in situations which test the foundations of the relationships. Lack of trust gives rise to insecurity. Insecurity brings out obsession. And it’s all downhill from there. No matter how much one tries to fix it or make things right, if there is lack of trust from one end then that relationship is already headed for the gallows. The interesting thing is that trust always sits on an unstable equilibrium. And the unstable nature of the system all around that one equilibrium point makes it all the while hard to actually get there. Once you get there you hold it there nice and tight. You do not let your imagination or perception disturb it. Neither you allow others to disturb it for the sake of their vested interests. But if some incident of mammoth proportions does infact disturb it then its hard to get it back, infact impossible in some most cases

Honesty. Your partner should know you as intimately as you know yourself (or even better than that). Being honest is not the same as feigning honesty - that is even worse. Truth should not be at the behest of convenience or motive. Truth should be pristine even if it gets you into little trouble (alcohol indulgence, partying habits, courtship propositions to name a few areas of thin ice). If the foundations are strong, I am sure you would be able to get past any disagreement or argument which may result out of the revelation. If the foundations are shaky, then you will know where you both stand and either you can build it more strongly or you can move away before any irreparable damage is caused on either side. Talk to your partner; discuss every little thing that you go through everyday. Make sure that the partner does not feel 'distant' in any way. Live each others' life alongside your own.

Understanding. In simple terms, if you are able to answer every single question about your partner that starts with a 'Why' then I would say you have perfect understanding. Exchange of information is important and the previous two factors take care of it but the tricky part is how much you know your partner based on the things he/she tells you (honesty) and your own intuition (trust).
If a relationship is strong on trust and honesty but somehow the partners do not fully understand each other then the relationship is in an unstable equilibrium. You would feel that everything is mushy and rosy unless one silly little incident triggers off a catastrophe. Everything will come falling apart even before you can utter WTF ! A chain reaction could initiate which would easily knock out either the trust (you might start to get suspicious) or honesty (you might start feeling in obligated to share everything)

In the end I would like to say that if the arguments presented above reek of undesirable complexity or create nausea then just stick to the tried and tested basics - have good sex whenever you meet. Ring his/her bell so well that the partner has no desires to look elsewhere.
The proceedings of this space were partly sponsored by "Tony Stalker - Grey Label..... Keep stalking". And a message from our sponsors - "Alcohol can give you enough wisdom. Just look through the glass of en empty bottle (the one you just finished) and you will develop unprecedented perspectives on life."

Sarabjeet Singh

Resting in Peace.....

I opened my eyes to find heavy air enveloped all around me. My heart was pounding like anything. I could feel my young blood gushing through the arteries as if carrying some secret message from the heart to the ever working busy mind. The message was clear but still I couldn’t comprehend it. Its meaning was there, right inside me, I could feel it, sense it but couldn’t understand it. I was running away from someone or maybe something. Sweat on the smeared forehead was conspicuous enough to raise the brows. I was panting hard, and was about to collapse at any moment. The air was feeling a lot damper and was making me uneasy. Breathing was becoming much harder and painful. But I was helpless, unable to find my hands as if they didn’t exist. There were dense clouds of smoke everywhere around me, crushing my lungs with full force, squeezing out whatever little air was still present inside them. The pain was becoming unbearable. May be I lived to deserve this punishment throughout my meaningless life. I could hear voices, hundreds of them around me. They were telling me something or may be giving some sort of advice I didn’t wish to listen to. The voices were present everywhere, cursing me for ruining their lives. Suddenly everything had started making a bit of sense. Although I was still struggling to fathom the sad scene around me, but some part of my brain knew that this day could not be averted. It was always coming. It had to come.

It all started when I had taken that first puff boasting of the fake sense of pride it had given me. That comforting moment in the stairs of college had given way to this excruciating pain on the hospital bed. Deafening beeps of the ventilator were echoing from the infirmary’s blank walls, and were piercing through my ears like a needle pricking my flesh without any noticeable resistance being offered by the body. I was just lying there burdened beneath the remorse for those innocent people in the car parks and bus stops, that I had unknowingly snatched a part of their healthy life away from them, just for the sake of satiating my addiction. Now it became all clear to me. I had no right to interfere in their lives in the manner I did. Why didn’t I stop? How could I allow myself to carry on like this for years? A sense of sorrow filled my heart and tears ran down my cheeks past the closing eyes. I let them close and let myself die, repenting for the deeds I had done. And then the final words somehow made their way through my dry lips craving for water. ‘I AM SORRY’ is all I could say to all those voices and breathed my last.

Harpreet Singh

The art of making scrambled eggs

Life leaves you at crossroads many more times than you might envisage, sometimes with a daunting task - 'how to make perfect round omelettes in small pans'. The shoes of an average graduate student might not be as difficult to fill as the task at hand. You begin to undergo a slow transition that starts from a student and ends with a responsible adult. And all through the period, one thing sticks with you more than it sticks on the pan - the omelettes. A typical American breakfast you say; quintessential for all the proteins as against the paranthas we all take for granted back home. But one thing I have come to realize as my first year of grad life approaches its mid age - it’s almost impossible to make perfect round omelettes in a small pan. Always I have many things to look forward to during the day, but it’s the one thing that annoys me right at the start – when my omelettes messes up in the pan and I end up with scrambled eggs. Many times, I have tried – I have been careful, I have flipped it nicely, I used the blade spatula but nothing works and I end up eating scrambled eggs everyday. You don’t always get what you plan for. I have had my share of omelettes and I have had more than my share of scrambled eggs. But I have learnt to live with it. The scrambled one looks different but deep down it’s the same shit. In fact now I don’t even try for an omelette anymore. I blend the bastard as soon as it starts to harden. Pragmatism has replaced dreams. And in the end that’s what it is about – omelettes and scrambled eggs. Either you chose to strive for that perfect round omelette or you make your peace with whatever that doesn’t stick on the pan.

Sarabjeet Singh