Nescience

I am now a part of those who are gainfully employed. I have joined the ranks of the 9 am to 6 p crowd. I am now one of those women wearing inappropriate footwear in Mumbai rains and expensive jackets that serve vanity more than utility. I am now one of those women who talk about the targets for the year and clip clop around the office in dangerous heels. I am one of those women who lug a laptop bag everywhere and give presentations in slick meeting rooms. I am all that and hope to be more. This transition to corporate did not feel like a shock - four fieldworks have ensured that. Rather it feels like slipping into old shoes that I had stopped wearing (why these shoe metaphors today, I wonder).  But that does not mean I do not miss TISS campus. I crave the green lattice on damp roads, the steel tables and the smell of hot tea in the DM canteen, the rain drenched amphitheater, and the smell of cold rain on hot soil.  But in the past weeks, I have sat thro...

Have you met Gudetama yet? He's the lazy egg. Say hello. He probably won't say anything back, he's lazy that way so I totally understand. He spends his time being fried, boiled, cut and made to suffer other indignities, but he always prevails and returns to spread the noble message of indolence. He clutches to a strip of bacon as a blanket, is always tired and his past-time is lying tiredly. I totally get him. I love him. Thank you, Mohita for the introduction. You may now call yourself the duenna of matchmaking business.

Struggle is eternal. Don't roll you eyes. Don't scoff at me. If my twenty-three years (yes that many now) on this planet have taught me anything, it is that struggle is eternal. The knowledge for the struggle of existence is innate. For Darwin, struggle for existence was the basis of natural selection. The war of nature is a reality. I prey on you, you prey on him, he preys on her. This is not a lesson in pronouns; it's the truth. Juxtaposed on theory of literature, this finds four forms: A. Character versus Character Ex. Pooja versus Sonakshi (bwhahahahahah) B. Character versus Society Ex. Pooja versus Middle class Morality (I am a heroine don't you know!) C. Character versus Nature Ex. Pooja versus Mumbai Rains (especially when she wears inappropriately expensive footwear to fieldwork) D.Character versus Self Ex. Pooja versus her pet demons. There you go.

A bead of sweat rolls down my forehead, even as the AC is running at full blast. My legs throb with a dull pain - I have been standing for four hours now. A lady in red approaches me - she sees me smile, she sees the glint in my eyes, and she tries to side step me, but it's too late, I'm already in the fray. "Hello, good afternoon! Would you like to taste Lipton Ice Tea?" She gives in. After a small spiel, and a five minute discussion about Mumbai weather, she is on her way with two packs of Lipton Ice Tea in her cart, and I am closer to my goal of the day. This is Modern Trade Blitzkrieg, and like me, there are several interns, and managers in the market, working side by side with the field forces that drive the monolith that is HUL.  I am almost at the end of my two month stint in Hindustan Unilever. My days might seem to follow the same set pattern - hurried breakfast at the 'Wadala Sheraton' (an affectionate, slightly derisive nickname fo...

March drives me crazy. I've written about it before. ( http://thesilkenthreadofnescience.blogspot.in/2012/03/march-madness.html) And yet the specter of March continues to haunt me. How can it not, though? The sky above makes me want to be a cloud, and the soft wind of the night brings with it a pleasurable chill. But here am I, reading one research paper after another, waiting for the exams. Curse of the student life strikes again. Another March gone. I still feel that restlessness in my soul, the hunger that very few things in the world can quench. As this month will recede into the next, I'll be looking forward to something else. My internship. Maybe March is just a harbinger. That's why it brings out that madness in us. It's everywhere - in the water, in the air. Say, can't you just smell the anticipation?

There are days like these. There are days when life is passing you by. Things are happening to you. You are the froth on a raging wave, helpless and tiny, and nothing you can do will change your course. The only thing you do is persevere. Life is passing you by. You are the sidekick now. A sidetrack, a comic relief in you own sitcom, you don't know where the star is, and hollow disembodied laughter follows your every action. You peer into the darkness. To no avail. Days like these, when time passes you by. You are waiting. Still waiting. But the darkness is closing. You are Valdimir and Estragon that's why you are waiting.  But don't you know? He's never coming. 

Mumbai baffles me. A lot has been written about it. Songs have been sung, films have been made, stories have been told. For me, Mumbai has not quite been the city of dreams. But it has given me something else - hope. I came to Mumbai in June 2015, with a heavy suitcase containing all my material posessions, and a heart heavy with dread and anticipation. My love for this city blows hot and cold, but it's not that fiery obsession that would consume my soul - that honour is reserved solely for my beloved Pune. My self is torn between these two places, which are for all accounts as dissimilar as chalk and cheese, but are similar only in my regard for them. One is my 'janmabhoomi'. The other, in all probability shall become my 'karmabhoomi',  In a few days, this year will end. This year, that turned my life upside down. This year which closed some chapters in my life, and started some new ones. This year taught me that dawn comes after the darkest hour, that the...