Yesterday's child

Like scar tissue, the past strangles and constricts
You cannot move and you cannot breathe
Judgement passed merely on your actions
No recourse, no forgiveness, no salvation

It is the same in the courts of men
Where age old questions of love and war were tried
Then why should matters of the heart be spared
Mercy is but a preacher's living fare

The guttural scream of change reverberates in you
But there is no sound, gagged by deeds
A lamp tries to shine away the darkness of yesterday
But they will put it out, to die as you were born

A friend of mine once told me about the muslim belief that every person has a log in heaven where his good deeds and bad deeds are recorded. It could be imagined to be like an accountants book with a side for credit and debit. When you die, you will be judged by the things in that book. Far for me to assume knowledge of afterlife, I am a heathen anyway. But it has been a painful discovery for me that such a book is kept in our time as well, in the minds of people. And its true even for people you are closest with. You will be judged everyday on the credits and debits that you make. You may think that you are doing something you enjoy with no conditions or expectations, but you are wrong. Everything is measured. Even seemingly irrelevant actions. These small debits add up to increase the red side of the book that will be used to judge you when the time comes. When you debit too much, ill will comes in which is hard to wipe out no matter how big a credit or sacrifice you are willing to make.

So people, don't fall into the folly of being complacent. Always try to live your life knowing that you have to make as much credits as you are making debits. To give as much as you get, if not more. To love as much as you want to be loved.

And if you do fall into the red like me, try to redeem yourself. Even though it is hard and seems impossible. Even if you are likely to fail, at least you would have passionately fought for what you believed in.

Adios Glasgow

So I have this ritual, see..whenever I leave a place, I try to write down something about the people I have come to know there. I figured it will be a good memory to mull over in future. When I was in 10th and 12th, I actually drew cartoons of my friends and one para write ups for all my dorm mates. Did the same in engineering for my immediate group. Didnt really do it for MBA, but thats because the college itself printed out this book with writeups on everybody...and I was involved in the write ups for a few of my close friends. So, to keep up with tradition, am doing one for my colleaugues here who have become good friends over the past ten months. But this being a public domain, I have to effectively mask their names with character specific nicks...but then I remember the older paras written in my private journal, and that private journal has gone through my bro, sis and mom...so whos to say what stays private...

Verbose venkat - This guy is a junior of mine. Ever the smiling and cheerful guy, and totally mallu. He is really capable for one so young and with little experience in anything, but his defining point is his long and verbose emails..yes he is attempting the GMAT..so he actually tries to use big words in everyday language...and it comes across as forced..He helped a lot for me to set up in this place, so am ever indebted to him. He has a very characteristic laugh, more of a sneer like a hyena actually which is sure to make you laugh

Mamma's boy Meiyappan - Meiy is the nuts and bolts technical guy of the team. All he wants to do is work. And if you gou out with him, all he wants to talk about is work. He cannot forget files and loads and uploads and schedules and support for half an hour. Although this was a pain in many ways, I wouldnt have got through my job without his help. Especially when I am trying to act as the business manager who understands the business and in reality, I am new to the business and completely clueless about the technology. So Meiy was largely responsible for easing me up the learning curve, to the point where I got accolades from the client. He has some other peculiarities too...like feeling hot even in 4 degree celsius weather, only able to digest home cooked food and always being concerned about work...yep that is a peculiarity which has to be mentioned twice.

Yappety Yap Yamini - For a traditional girl from the heartlands of Karnataka, she is talkative. Endless yapping about things I am not really interested in. I had to develop a mechanism to close my mind and think of other important things during those sessions. Yamini used to stay with Meiy and they did act pretty much like a couple. But being the nice traditional kids they were, she actually went back to find an arranged marriage via her parents. I felt they were really denying whatever they were feeling...but then thats just a guess. She loved cracking sad jokes and sending forwards. But you had to agree that she is one of those who are ever cheerful and full of life...unlike morose looming depressives like us lot...a fervent shopper, u wont believe the tons of garbage she buys.

Beeran Bhadru - The chubby bub who is ever smiling and always has an interesting story to tell. Very negligent about his work, but always interested in beer and booze. He is someone who used to have beer before and after breakfast!! The guys mellowed down a lot after marriage. He would ask for a 100 confirmations before doing anything and always needs someone to direct everything. But the nights out in town wouldnt have been half as much fun if it werent for him.

Dowry Divakaran - The self confessed creorepati from Andra. A gult who took up IT because he needed something to bide his time and didnt want to go into farming like his Dad. Hes worth a few crores in dowry in the competitive marriage markets of the Gult heartland...so he tells us. And he is onsite, so that his market value will increase a bit! Its as if you picked up a simpleton from the villages of India and put him in an IT office. He is extremely good with the technology he works on..and is strongly opinionated on everything. Happy go lucky no care attitude!

Slow Selvaratnam - This family man is the most cool and collected guy I have ever seen. Even in an emergency situation, he takes his time to respond..always composed and always accurate. He even walks in a slow and sure manner, as if he calculates the optimum arc for his leg to follow before placing the next step. Some great experience in him and he used to give valuable advice on how to go about doing things.

Trader Thankappan - Trader is a really amazing guy. You would think so too, if you knew that his background is a graduate and is working in testing services. I dont understand what it is about him, but he can floor women really smoothly. And he has had a string of girlfriends here before his current long term relationship...He is a self taught finance expert and stock trader. If you though profiting from day trading and minor changes in stock price was something done only by big investment firms who have lots of money to play with, you are wrong. This guy understands market timing really well, and continuosly churns a daily profit from his day trading. His aim is to be able to support himself by trading alone, so that he is not bound by the constraints of a blue collar job.

So what is dysfunction all about?..Dysfunctional relationships don't just mean sexual and physical abuse, nor is it limited to families where family members are detrimentally enslaved to their respective addictions. It could be a family where people have learned to live without love. To be there just for the sake of it, because the blood lines have to be maintained. And what's it like? Pretty sad, to be in a place where family members feel limited and constrained to the moulds society has prepared..where the love and affection that is supposed to be the basis of a family is just absent! It saddens you deeply, and although you want to, you know that there is really nothing you can do to change the situation. All that you can hope for is that you don't fall into the same trap. That the family you create with your significant other does not follow the same path. You hope that the lives of your significant other and your children are not affected by all this baggage that you have.

Somehow, these days, everything in my extended family and that in my own seem quite dysfunctional. I remember everything being so pleasant and good when I was young. I guess the younglings are shielded from such facts and so they grow up feeling they have a perfect and happy family. Then suddenly one day, they're grown and up and everything they used to know is very different. Why do families have to be so schizophrenic? everything is a facade..and this true for most families I know..