T G I F

I heard some voice at an unknown distance telling me,"Wake up. What are you doing? Still asleep? What's wrong with you? Are you alright?" Suddenly I realized someone was pushing me hard. With a lot of reluctance I slowly opened my eyes. I noticed the face of a woman yelling at me to wake up. Not knowing why the woman wanted me to wake up, i rubbed my eyes & opened them. As the eyes allowed light to enter, I realized that the woman was none other than my wife. As reality started dawning upon me, I wondered why she was yelling at me to wake up. Perhaps reading my mind, she said,"what's wrong with you? You have 1 more day to go to work. It's friday today. And then, 3 days off." Yawning & still trying to wake up fully, I asked,"why 3 days?" "C'mon. Monday is the 15th of August. It's independence day, stupid". I thought to myself,"yeah, I now realize what it takes for most men to come to terms with their stupidity. Yeah, you got it guys. Its got to be marriage, right?" And ironically, it's not that men come to terms with this reality in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe. The reality sinks in slowly & steadily.

You know, marriage is like a litmus test for men. Until marriage, we mostly think of pretty women as a must have by our side. The problem begins when that matures into a relationship & culminates into marriage. Some wise man has said - for women, life begins with marriage, whereas for men, life ends with it. Oftentimes I wonder, what sort of pain the wise man must've endured to come to such enlightening conclusion?

Any way, let me continue with my story. Dragging myself reluctantly, I entered the bath. Noticing the cloudy & slightly cold weather outside, I told myself - what a lovely day to just sleep, sleep, & sleep as if there was no tomorrow. As the thought passed by, I wondered if most people think like me, or was I alone? An endearing thought that I & a close friend share is to wake up in the morning to the reality of having the rest of our lives for whatever we want to do. It is such a uplifting & liberating thought that quite often I & my friend keep discussing how near or how far we are from this goal? While the goal itself might look too far fetched (considering our socio - economic background), we feel it is a good goal to have & a worthy one to pursue.

As I came out of the bath, I saw the clock reading 7:55 AM. I still had quite a few things to finish before breakfast & start for work. In between, I also had to keep my son engaged so that he doesn't end up throwing or damaging whatever comes within the reach of his hands. With a rush here & a barge there, I left home @ sharp 8.30 AM. As I engaged the car in the first gear, my son said with a cute smile,"have a nice day, dada. Come soon." I too reciprocated the wishes & hit the accelerator.

As I hit the main road, I saw that it was fairly empty, although traffic was picking up slowly. I turned on the FM & heard the RJs' excited voice. They were inviting listeners to share their ideas on what they thought when they come across a group of girls laughing? The responses were quite crazy in my opinion. One guy said that he dreaded to come face-to-face with a group of laughing girls; upon further prodding by the RJ, the hapless guy said he oftentimes feels if he looks so stupid that girls laugh at him. As I applied the brake to steer over a hump, I wondered,"how does it matter if you look stupid, dude. It's none of anybody's business. Even if the girls laugh at you, who cares? Perhaps, the guy might be a little too sensitive and under confident about himself to give a damn to what others think about him".

It was quite interesting to hear some of the confident guys speak on air. One guy categorically stated,"if the girls are laughing, its their busness. Neither have I the time to worry nor do I care". I jumped in my seat,"BRAVO! That's it dude. Its very simple". You know, most things in life need to be given only as much importance as is necessary & is due to it. Thinking too much about things more than necessary and due will neither change the thing nor will it really make much difference when we look at the larger picture. Come to think of it - is it really worth ruining one's day over why the girls were laughing at the person? Albeit it sounds too simple, most things in life are such.

As these thoughts raced thru' my mind, I felt my BlackBerry vibrate. I saw it was my dear old friend Sriram, a dear friend for more than 15 years. Receiving the call I quipped,"what's up buddy? How's you? How's work?" He said,"man, I'm f**king tired of this work. As you know, I just got into a new project, & its screwed up from every possible angle that one can think of. I am worried about my job if this mess doesn't get cleared". I said,"dude, stop worrying & start working. Sit with your manager, make him understand the mess, & set realistic expectations with him. And, tell him frankly that you'll need all the support in the world". He agreed & then inquired,"why not meet tomorrow for a drink?" I was about to say "yes" when I remembered that I had to take my family to Mysore, the following day. I said,"why wait till tomorrow? Why not today?" Pausing for a moment, he said,"sounds good. Lets make it @ 8.30 PM". As I ended the call, I entered the last stretch of my drive to work. Slowly I made my way thru' the harrowing traffic & finally found a place to park my car in the parking lot.

As I entered the elevator, I realized T G I F, thank God its friday. 3 full days of not having to do much, except have some good time with my li'l boy.