Sessions of sweet silent thought

 Let me begin by quoting Shakespear from whose sonnet i have picked up the tittle of my passage.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,…

 Yes, there has been a constant yearning to unlearn so many things and delve deep in my past. Today as I write, i feel the angst of yesterday which slipped by without a notice and so many yesterdays have spent leaving me with the strange feeling. I have been experencing strange gaps in the memories and i cannot fill in details of so many things that i had clung to my heart in past.

 Nevertheless this passage is an attempt to remember and recreate the magic of childhood. One of the most influential memories that i have is that i was one of the most popular student during those days. I had boyish looks and since my school was girls school, i had many girls having crush on me. I am sure that during those days, our harmonal changes made us do funny things and so here i was one of the good looking tom boyish girl with a huge fan following. I had girls penning down thousands and thousands of lines, most of the lines were of course borrowed from the latest love song. I had girls leaving me with anonymous gifts, girls of all ages waiting to have a look at me during the lunch break. I always had girls doing me so many favours which was too big but however i undervalued all of them. I am sure i pained so many girls..one of the worst thing during that time was that i could have no real friend. I could not give any one of my friend the real authority to boast about me because i felt that if i do so, i would loose on my popularity. I was friendless and i could not really confide in to anyone. It was terrible, to grow with no friend but your ownself. At one end, i was this hugely popular girl, so many people expected so many things out of me. Yet i could not share my fears, my own growing up needs with anyone.

All the king’s men

    All the king’s men are in town. The well dressed, the very sauve, elite people are in the premises of my organization. All the king’s men have gathered here to fix the humpty dumpty! But in my story humpty dumpty never had any fall, its just trying to rise up the wall! The king’s men are here to direct it and to show humpty dumpty to scale higher and higher. They are here to discuss the strategies for growth of the organization. I wonder when will be a part of that league. Now now, what captures my imagination and ambition?

  Well the part of perks is surely very interesting. But the responsibility of so many things especially that of people working under, the sense of worth, the sense that I would be shaping the future of my organization and some of the people who work for it, the sense of channelizing so many beautiful minds, the sense of giving happiness and more importantly working at the top with my inherent values is very exciting thought to me. Maybe here i am talking about some intangibles.

  However i feel a bit strange about the sterner stuff part which is missing within me. The part which says that i should not be so sensitive, i should be stern and should take everything with a pinch of salt. I am working on it but there are so many things that shake me up. There are things which i should just be able to take and also learn to repartee. A special wit with which i was not born but am looking ways to cultivate. but with all this, i still want to stick with basic humanity with which i was born. I do not wish to loose that. I think i do not want to loose the ability to think about the common man.

CEO and his salary

   Well the Times of India (TOI), highest selling english daily of the country, published a story about our CEO getting paid in dollars. I mean they had written an article about how CEOs ( rather CXOs) are getting paid in world currencies while they live peacefully in India ( read like Kings!). Our CEO’s salary figure was also quoted which had left everyone including me with our jaws dropped and mouth wide open. I was shouting at myself for not working hard enough to make it through to the coveted B schools in India. Well when I reached office yesterday and opened the mailbox, there was a mail from CEO to all the employees in the organization which stated that the figure in the TOI is mis-quoted and grossly over stated and that he wished to tell everyone that he does not earn that much!.

   Well I was not happy that he wrote to us explaining that the salary figure quoted in TOI was gross! Well, i hope and wish that he has lied. There is no reason that this story should be false. This man, he is the CEO of the most important cost center which bring huge profits to the organization worldwide. This CEO is the CEO of that unit which helps reduce the cost impressively. This CEO is the CEO to the organization which is growing in leaps and bounds and this CEO is the CEO who heads around 4000+ human resources. This CEO is in the league of other business directors and VPs who get similar salary all across the world. So why should CEO of my company get so less?It does not make any sense. The highest salary that an IIM B passout this year got 195000 dollars. So i do not really understand why My CEO should not get the the amount that is being quoted ( $400,000) This is one of the biggest IT consulting firm and India unit is the highly profitable to this consulting firm so i think that this CEO would surely be getting the figure quoted in TOI ( may be a small figure plus or minus).

 So i think, by mailing to us the and explaining that he does not get so much makes it look all the more artificial and unbelievable. I am all the more convinced Mr CEO that you do earn as much as TOI has quoted  you do and even if you feel guilty that we get pittance as compared to what you get than don’t feel pity. We surely need to reach there and grab it and some one among us would surely do that..if not today someday.

   I feel inspired and i do hope that i work hard as much as he did and earn that much.

Jealous on a beautiful day.

   I am feeling jealous. I know that my brother and his family are vacationing at my father’s place. I feel that he has taken away all the attention of my parents. My father and mother seem to have completely immersed in taking care of my brother and his family. This always reminds me how i used to fight for their care and attention. i almost feel like five year old and try and do funny things, even tell funny stories to win their attention. How much i miss that innocence? Now i know i am grownup and i know i should not feel bothered that my parents are busy with my brother yet there is a queasy sense of unease.

   Being an adult becomes difficult , one can understand his or her feelings yet they have to pretend that they are un affected by it and fake themselves and try and put up a nice and brave face.

   Well as in my work front, i am doing a different kind of work which involves a lot of talking and more than that, a lot of listening. After the strange lull of few months in my career front, i am finding this change a bit more welcoming. My role is to get some projects/ applications transitioned to offshpre.

   Ah! what a beauty Mumbai has turned to be. Lush and green, a days rain and its has just turned to be a beauty! very amicable weather and lovely lively city buzzing with the unpreparedness almost like reaching the venue for an interview little early than required.

 

Memoirs of Geisha

On Saturday, 4th March, i saw the movie “Memoirs of Geisha” and i found it very beautifully directed. The picture indeed throws light on the life of Geisha and i am inspired to read the book. I have to buy a copy soon and read it. The art direction is beautiful and if i am not wrong the art directors of the movie are nominated for the Academy Awards.

I wondered what it would be like being a Geisha? Anyways, though there is one line in the movie which says a lot about Geisha and it says that geisha is not supposed to achieve or dream. Well why alone Geishas, every one of us do not always get what we desire for or what we look at. We keep on hoping and we keep on thinking that one day finally we would get something that we have desired but we do not.

Life is full of different mystries which I have not been able to comprehend. Life often keeps its deepest darkest secrets hidden within the core of the soul and we do not discover it. But someday a thought flashes your mind and its a kind of awakening for you realise that you could also think something which was never thought of! sometimes very unkind and sometimes very loathsome.

I am feeling very lonely and very strange today. I can see the spaces inside and outside myself.

 

 

Another Failure!

I  am always cornered like this in life. I do not give up and i keep on trying to get control on my life yet i am always made to face life the way someone else has decided for me. If there is someone else who has a scheme of things for me than why not make me aware of it. Why do i keep running after things where i am likely to fail. I have always been like this and i every time i loose, i am tempted to ask someone out there. what is the plan for me? Why did i not succeed. I do not know, i keep on reaping things which i have not sown!

If there is someone who can show me the plan, the scheme of things then maybe i would believe. but till then i am angry with myself.

Anyways i will keep on trying doing things…

it hurts when one becomes hopeful!

 

 

 

Connection!

  I want to write about a very complicated exercise that i have set upon myself. Atleast because i seriously need to do that. I need to feel connected to my heart and soul and listen what it is saying and speaking. I want to hear the murmur, the whispers. It would help me unwind a bit and understand what i really need to do. I have a lot of time on my hand right now as my manager wants me to tell him that i would still continue or not post results. So I have a lot of time and i can linger all along with myself.

I want to see the small things which i tend to overlook everyday. I want to spend time with the plants and see them sprout in the warm sun of spring. I want to listen the buzzing sound of the bee, the flutter of the small birds around me.

I am becoming too poetic. Thats not really my charachter but still at times i do become one.

I want to see a movie, which would relax me completely.

Well or maybe read a good book. I just completed reading Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts and when he writes about the abstract thoughts and feelings, i can comprehend and feel the same. It is a very good read and i think i liked it more because i could relate to the loneliness of being in Mumbai.

 

 

Kalaghoda Festival

   The two weeks when kalaghoda hosts the arts festival, that particular area gets completely transformed. It gets filled with the most atrocious business of becoming very beautiful, very tantalizing and quite inviting!I had the opportunity to visit the festival during the weekends. Kalaghoda includes the area just in front of David Sassoon Library, Navy building, Westside store etc, behind Jehangir Arts Gallary. All forms of art is displayed in and around the area. I feel complteley humbled when i see all these arts. I am filled with ambiguous emotions, some incontrollable thoughts and some very sweet memories. I have witnessed a couple of things during the two weekends

1. Crow.d( Expression on the word crow.d, almost a documentatory on the social animal which we know as crow.)

2. Nityanjali’s dance drama performance and then next weekend we show their collage on India’s folk dance

3. Indian Ocean and Rabbi Shergil performace( Completely floored!).

4.Self made heritage walk with Jugal from townhall( now houses Asiatic Society) , Horniman Circle, St. Thomas Cathedral and back to Rampart row.

Here are couple of pictures that we took all along our experience.

 

 

tanabana

I have named my blog tanabana. I think that tanabana is very beautiful word, i cannot think of an english equivalent for this word. Its an hindi-urdu word for warp & weft. The warp is the vertical thread on the roller and weft is the horizontal thread on the roller of the loom. This word for me symbolizes the good and bad, day and night, yin and yang and the different experiences that make the fibre of human existence.

I want to quote Kabir as i start the blog, the mystic seer who has embraced a beautiful religion of humanity and has left us with wonderful thoughts

Kabira, jab. Ham. Paida hue
Jag. Hanse ham. Roye
Aisi karani kar. Chalo
Ham hase jag. Roye
Chadariya, jhini re jhini
Ke ram. Nam. Ras. Bhini
Chadariya, jhini re jhini

Asht. Kamal. Ka charkha banaiya
Panch. Tatva ki puni
Nao das. Mas. Bunan. Ko lage
Murakh. Maili kinhi

Jab. Mori chadar. Ban. Ghar. Ayi
Rang. Rej. Ko dinhi, chadariya
Aisa rang. Ranga rangare ne
Lalo lal. Kar. Dinhi

Chadar. Orhi shankar mat. Kariyo
Ye do din. Tum.ko dinhi, chadariya
Murakh. Log. Bhed. Nahi jane
Din. Din. Maili kinhi

Druv prahelad. Sudama ne orhi, chadariya
Shukdev ne nirmala kinhi
Das. Kabir jatan. Se orhi
Jyon ki tyon dhar. Dinhi