Musingz..

Sometimes all I want to feel is the power of what is beyond this life..what is it when the end would be right in front of eyes.

...and i will sit by the edge ,only smile
for years would have passed
and my destination finally arrived
I await you to hold my hand and show me my sunrise.
beyond this world and above this life.

Amen

Brain-da yoghurt ban gaya!

Amidst so much of chaos and hustle bustle while I am busy attending customer query and clearing payments I see my manager  piercing through the crowd surrounding my desk and barks at me “ kyun madam mr. mahna ji ( ex-staff ) ka medical bill pass nai kiya abhi tak? (Mr. Mahna staring at me )

For a second blank, I wondered what bill whose bill? And who the hell is mahna? And then I recalled, it was Saturday afternoon when my assistant manager had handed it over to me and said keep it in your drawer we'll clear it on Monday! Before I could utter another word my manager found an opportunity to grumble on me yet again, "yaar aap kya karte hain kitne baar bola hai daraaj mein cheezein rakh ke bhool na jaaya karo! ( It’s the first time that I came across this work and absolutely didn’t know how to process it and my assistant manager was supposed to help me with it. ) I struggled to keep my raging blood in control, after a few minutes they both are on my desk again and  this time both are with a smirk on their faces to take me down!

Enough already, I kept aside my fears, and put my foot down to not tolerate this kind of behaviour  from them and with warning. My manager  wants everything to be done within seconds without any error and he expects everything perfect but he will not put even 1% effors to help you guide resolve issues or anything, on the other hand my assistant manager he will waste your hours for A:he’ll reply after you have asked at least 10 times the same question and B: when he would try to teach the concept  it will only confuse you more, instead! 
If I had anybody teach me anything good it was the clerical staff.

Coming back to putting my point about their behaviour , I told both of them you guys are in a rush to run after 6 pm and nobody is ready to stay back for not even for half an hour to help me finish work ( since am a newbie in the job) so either you guys stay back with me help finish work or don’t expect it to be finished by me.There was no way they wanted to stay up late so a blank expression on their faces was quite expected.

I so much loved the expression on their faces and Lol there was a customer watching the whole act and could not stop grinning, because he knew like almost all regular customers know that I am literally overburdened!

So much for the crap I was tired of hearing everyday ,I am happy to have put my fears aside and actually said my heart out.Now am sure that my manager would think twice before saying anything unreasonable to me.

I hope so!

There are many others out there struggling with even worse managers than mine but it is important to bridge the gap and the only way to do this is, put your fears aside and have a dialogue.

The Infamous Naukri

Its 30th September 2011 "The half yearly closing day", there is no public dealing. Clerical and sub staff come only for attendance and leave shortly after a cup of tea and chit chat; some for movies and some for good time with family and friends. The officers stay to struggle, endure and work mercilessly for the closing.
I took no time to waste and started with work to finish earliest i.e. by 7 pm. A hand stretches out to me with a letter. I look up, a tall guy dressed up as if heading for a  corporate meeting with a branded bag and huge branded watch flashing on his wrist. I go "Yes"? Him "Hi, I have been asked to report at this branch as a new Officer". The first thought that came to my mind "Push him out of the door and warn him runaway right now else you are doomed!"
An MBA in Retail and Marketing he thinks he landed himself a fine placement with a Public Sector Bank, ignored of the reality. Equipped with good interpersonal skills, a fine personality, good eloquence, it is pitiful that these well trained traits will only fade with time, like mine and many others. Gone are the days when Banks took customers and employees both for granted. While some efforts have continuously been made over the last couple of years to improve customer service nothing much has been done for employees except for adding more pressure. Years ago, banks were infamous for employee exploitation, and they still continue to be so. It would not be shocking if few years down the line a few public sector banks in our country start to tumble due to inadequate staff and the figures in red highlighting the balance sheets!
More and more efforts are being made by banks to leverage the use of Multimedia, Technology and Branding and et al to cope with the changing demography, but all in vain. The situation is more or less same since the internal functioning of the banks is stale. It reeks of inefficiency, corruption, mismanagement and power game.
There is no system as such to provide customer service that is why any customer entering the premises for the first time is perplexed and it is only after, he has been asked to contact the next guy and next until he reaches the first one again, is he attended! Most days the branches look like a fish market which makes me wonder is the new breed of MBA’s ready to work in a fish market like environment calling for more risks, more accountability with no employee protection or are the banks ready to give these brand laden kids a career and a work culture to be proud of?

P.S: There has no single day passed since my joining when I had not prepared myself mentally  before leaving for work and felt as if I am heading for a war and shall fight to return as a survivor at the end of day!

The Walk

How long could I continue this? Starting my every single day of the year with walk followed by yoga, a cup of green tea and last but not the least an apple. Growing up as a lean girl to plump flabby young woman, I am finding it harder to get back in my prior structure. Just when I am at my blossoming age, I look (read feel) more withered. Ouch! That sure hurts. In pursuit of attaining a perfect shape , I forced my sluggish soul to get up early this morning and start with what could save me “The Walk”. Now I am not any aspiring model or blah blah but I do not mind at all to look like one. Since I am working on one of my projects i.e. “back with vengeance” (after being absolutely absent and inactive for a long time) 
I needed to walk.

From philosophical point of view, my walk started with Dell. Seven months of affair with dell followed by return to my soil, exploring and comprehending my culture, experiencing living with my own people, sharing their love etcetera. It takes a whole lot of courage for me every time I look back at the past seven daunting years of my life. Apparently it’s taking me longer than expected to bounce back and thereafter progress. How long? Isn’t it long enough already? May be I am one of those who gets stuck up once in a sarkari naukri and the walk turns into a standstill forever. You start reeking like stagnant water with a rusted brain. All you do is curse Govt. day and night. Do I have any right to be insanely cynical about our government,When I am god dam myself a high time procrastinator, a hypocrite and in competitive! With youth like me this country sure is riding on ‘Highway to Hell’. But contrary to my fear I hear a lot of fuss over ‘Next Gen’; India’s shining bright future and all those politically correct things about us!

Wow do I feel good to be part of this over-hyped attention we are getting? A weak guilty voice inside me said hell no you looser! You are not even an inch closer to be part of this dynamic young force your contemporaries make. Shoo away!!

I am a pathetically boring simple next door girl but I think over everything that surrounds me and I think deep (mostly on the mundane events I come across and observe) and hence may be write deep. If not anything I feel joy in writing expressing myself. It makes me feel safe and secure and just like thinking it opens new door and takes you to new highs of self –realization. Enlightens your soul by constant reasoning, justifying rights and wrongs, analyzing, learning and imbibing the much greater nuances of life!  

and the The Walk not literally but philosophically does continue for me through writing :)

Bogus.

I am home after seven long years, this time for longer than usual period. My stay at home has become ‘a dive into childhood memories and fantasies’. I spent seven long years in Chandigarh, a far different world from my hometown Kullu, for my education. As a kid, I would  fantasize about having that one true best friend with whom I could share, laugh, cry, and swear by anything anytime, a friend who could be my partner in crime and folly.

Since I was home for long time my bhabhi requested that, I teach her boys until am here. I obliged. Yesterday was my first day with the boys, elder one studying in 3rd  and younger one in 1st. In about half an hour, I realized both are pretty smart. I cannot resist to have some fun when am with kids so I decided to take a short break. Somehow, they loved me and soon the boys were rolling laughing on floor with my mimicry, doing impressions of cartoon characters making funny faces etc. (Watching the boys’ love me so much, a movie started to play in my head; how fun and cool it would be to come everyday teach them and later play all sorts of games, go cycling, eating out and god knows what not). I had just started to fly with joy, it was then my bhabhi barged in and with no second thought smacked the elder one twice with a stick who was at that time bouncing on the floor. It was late for me to defend the kid. I did not utter a word neither did the boys. I felt a pinching pain in my heart (and angry for spoiling the sweet movie I was playing in my head) .Unfazed, bhabhi left the room threatening the kid not to make any more noise and better study. My eyes fixed on the boy’s innocent face I could see the tears rushing down his soft cheeks. Hoping that boy would stop crying out of embarrassment, I waited. What was I doing I thought to my self, he was still a kid not a teenager. I went up to him, brought him closer looked at his face (I almost wept, though somehow controlled) and whispered in his ears ‘don’t worry am here and this will never happen’. After this incident, we studied quietly for half an hour more. Nobody said anything. I left after having dinner with the kids. The kids were back to normal, playing. All the way to home I kept wondering why the thought of playing and having fun with the kids occurred to me at all? This does not happen to young normal people of my age. Or may be to only those who still long to have that one best friend. I was surprised the child in me still longed for a best friend.

If not anybody an imaginary friend would have been more than enough just like in movie ‘BOGUS’ :)

I am Novice.

 24-07-2011

Going through so many blogs, it makes me wonder what I am going to write about. I don’t know any thing specific about anything. May be that’s the point. Write anything about anybody, anytime, good people, bad people, good things, bad things, memories, and of course 'emotions'!

And here is the nice part “If it gets good" it’ll be fun reading this post, realizing how innocent I wrote, just like how I feel looking back at my childhood days, my first college days, my first day at work.This blog shall serve a record of how gradually I became a full fledged writer. I write with no intention of sharing my blog but some day if anybody stumbles on it I sure will be ready to  accept their criticism as well as appreciation.

To Anything and Anybody.
Cheers

Edited 24-01-2013
I shall not remove the above posts but  keep adding to it my new progress as I mature and become focused. I think its about time and am ready to add more ideas and sections to the Blog particularly as I have understood myself better and found myself to be a person of culture, celebrating Ethnicity, Food and my closeness with nature and other beings. 

Edited 14-09-2014 
May be I have moved a level up in writing, that means from zero to level 1, a few praises are coming in for a few posts I shared, by some nice people and writers themselves. Guess, I can smile a bit now and may be feel a bit relieved. I have sensed, faced and lived with so much of condescending looks, smirks, expressions, vibes from the 'know-it-all' people that a few praises have come as breath of fresh air! So, fellow strugglers, keep trying, keep reading and writing! :)

And thats why Blog!

Time is flying. We look at past and years have gone by with only hazy memories lingering in our heads, that we cling onto to salvage our soul from the restlessness of our so called busy lives. In a year, since my resignation from job at the end of 2012, this was the only time in 6-7 years I had the opportunity to sit back, rewind, replay and analyze, how I had spent my life so far. I contemplated, introspected and accepted my mistakes with a sense of responsibility and felt proud for the brave decisions I took against everybody's wish. For once cheers to Being Mature and Strong :) 

Realizing the value of 'time and being opportunistic', I was highly urged to scribble my thoughts, my likes and my interests to create a reservoir of memories, feel immensely overjoyed to not have hazy but a beautiful picture of my life and work.

To have a well captured life through words and pictures, And that's why I Blog :)

Edited 14-09-2014

Blog For More:
Leaving procrastination behind, I have started to scribble more than musings- about Food, Anecdotes, Views/Opinions and Stories and thus it is a Blog for more now!