A lot of my friends find it funny that though the job I do is so different from all the conventional jobs they’ve chosen, I seem to be happier and more passionate about it than they can ever feel. It’s harder for them to fathom this especially since I also do the very dreaded “Night Shifts.”
Having had multiple opportunities of switching to a relatively normal job with a more socially acceptable “Work Timing”, when I refused to move, a close friend very rightly said, “You must have something that keeps making you go back, day in and day out…oops....I mean night in and night out..:)”
I thought about what he said and realized that he was absolutely right. Until then, I had never introspected on what made me tick about my job. That day, for the first time, I realized how truly, madly, deeply, and desperately in love I was. I had unknowing and wonderfully fallen in love….surprisingly with my “Job”.
I wonder why my ultra professional friends with their coveted “day jobs” and excellent benefits have to still drag themselves to work daily despite their humongous salaries. Why does work seem to them like an obligation though it was their preferred career option? Don’t get me wrong…there are people who do the same job that I do and still find it a drag. But since everyone assumes that the grass is greener on the other side, I find these detractors from the greener pastures odder, especially because they not only lived up to the expectations and hopes of their families but also the high standards set up by society. Yet they are dissatisfied with their choices today and are surprised by my passion for my job.
So, may be the satisfaction you derive from your job is not just from the salary, the shifts, the travel benefits and from being the envy of your neighbors. Although I must admit that the above are definitely “icing” on the cake. But how many think of baking a “Great Cake” first?
When I chose my job, I followed my heart. I do what I do regardless of all the above benefits. I love the opportunities I have every day to innovate and create. I love the challenge and excitement of being a part of the pioneering force in a budding industry.
I do my job well because I don’t know any other way. The benefits just follow. Does my “night shift” bother me or stop me from giving more than my 100%? I don’t allow it to do that. I control my thoughts and my life and not the other way round.
Also, I wonder if the army protecting us at the frontiers like so many others working in our industry demands a “day shift” as well.
The doctors and nurses I am sure don’t leave their patients unattended at night just because, they want day shifts. Don’t flights still take off quite a few times daily during the night? I wonder what the social life and health of the pilots and the flight crew looks like. Be it security guards working at night or astronomers who work especially during the night, the world is full of nocturnal beings like us. Even the Earth doesn’t stop its rotation and revolution just because it’s night time.
Man is not a “Dinosaur” who will become extinct because he couldn’t adapt to the changing world. Agreed, that our challenges are more unique than those of others. The theory of “Evolution” however, still applies to everyone regardless of their shift timings. Survival of the fittest will continue.
I think the idea of being “Super Nocturnal Beings” is kinda cool. So what if you have to be more careful about your health and eating habits than those around you? So what if you have to make more effort to keep in touch with friends and family because you sleep during the day? So what if you are still working on getting yourself adjusted to this new world? Eventually it will all work out. And anyway, who said “making history” was going to be easy…But that’s exactly what we are doing here, ”Building History, one block at a time.”
All the best.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Friday, November 10, 2006
I believe in angels
I've dreamt of my Prince Charming since I was 12. The masks he wears in my dreams have changed..I have changed and so has my world...but My Dreams remain the same.
I still dream of white picket fences, rooms filled with laughter and sunshine, strong arms that feel like heaven and a home turned paradise because he and I are together.
However, from my past experiences I have learnt something....dreams some with a high price and the risk is huge too. Why? Because the returns are high as well!! Ive also learmt that the most courageous people are those who believe in their dreams, those who believe that there is a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow.
People laugh at me and sometimes call me childish because I dream...Because I believe he exists!! But I ignore them, coz they don't know him the way I do. Have you heard the Savage Garden lines...I knew I loved you, before I met you...I think I dreamed you into life..I think I must have dreamed him into life. I feel as if I've known him through eternity and it's just about meeting him again this lifetime.
His perceptive eyes, broad shoulders, his colgate smile, his thick eyebrows, intelligent forehead...I feel I've already seen him somewhere, may be some far away time ago. Everytime I read a great book, I imagine discussing it with him. Everytime I look at myself in the mirror, I see him looking at me. Everyday after my bath, when I chose my clothes, brush my hair, apply my body lotion, kajal and then my lip gloss...I imagine what it would be like to have him watch over this ritual. I wish it was him, everytime a guy glances at me appreciatively. Everytime I walk a road, I remember so that one day I could bring him along. Everytime I watch a wonderful movie, I wish he was there to share it with me. Everytime I am sad it is his embrace that I seek. Everytime I succeed It's his proud smile that I look for. He is at every book shop, every petrol pump, every mall, every multiplex, every music store. He is besides me when I light the first lamp for Diwali and when I sit for the SatyaNarayan Pooja. It is his approval I seek when I learn a new recipe or write a new poem....
You think I am crazy, don't you? Is it crazy to crave something as desperately as your next breath? May be....
I don't know...I tried being realistic as the world advises me everytime I lose hope...or may be everytime the world advised me I lost hope...I dont know which way around it is anymore..but it gave nothing but an emptiness worse than loneliness can ever be, from the depths of which I probably would have never been rescued...Why was pushed there?
Is it wrong to believe that love begins when two minds explode in a blinding light of mutual awareness and sustains with two physical entities emerging into one? Why do people not understand that if you take the breath out of life there is nothing left behind...if you take the faith out of dreams only hollow shells remain...
As the ABBA say...
I have a dream, A song to sing...to cope me up with anything.
If you c the wonder of a fairy tale, you can take the future even if you fail...
I believe in angels, something good in everything I see.
I believe in angels...
When the time is right for me, I'll cross the stream...
I have a dream..
And my destinations makes it worthwhile,
Pushing through the darkness, still another mile...
I believe in angels..
I still dream of white picket fences, rooms filled with laughter and sunshine, strong arms that feel like heaven and a home turned paradise because he and I are together.
However, from my past experiences I have learnt something....dreams some with a high price and the risk is huge too. Why? Because the returns are high as well!! Ive also learmt that the most courageous people are those who believe in their dreams, those who believe that there is a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow.
People laugh at me and sometimes call me childish because I dream...Because I believe he exists!! But I ignore them, coz they don't know him the way I do. Have you heard the Savage Garden lines...I knew I loved you, before I met you...I think I dreamed you into life..I think I must have dreamed him into life. I feel as if I've known him through eternity and it's just about meeting him again this lifetime.
His perceptive eyes, broad shoulders, his colgate smile, his thick eyebrows, intelligent forehead...I feel I've already seen him somewhere, may be some far away time ago. Everytime I read a great book, I imagine discussing it with him. Everytime I look at myself in the mirror, I see him looking at me. Everyday after my bath, when I chose my clothes, brush my hair, apply my body lotion, kajal and then my lip gloss...I imagine what it would be like to have him watch over this ritual. I wish it was him, everytime a guy glances at me appreciatively. Everytime I walk a road, I remember so that one day I could bring him along. Everytime I watch a wonderful movie, I wish he was there to share it with me. Everytime I am sad it is his embrace that I seek. Everytime I succeed It's his proud smile that I look for. He is at every book shop, every petrol pump, every mall, every multiplex, every music store. He is besides me when I light the first lamp for Diwali and when I sit for the SatyaNarayan Pooja. It is his approval I seek when I learn a new recipe or write a new poem....
You think I am crazy, don't you? Is it crazy to crave something as desperately as your next breath? May be....
I don't know...I tried being realistic as the world advises me everytime I lose hope...or may be everytime the world advised me I lost hope...I dont know which way around it is anymore..but it gave nothing but an emptiness worse than loneliness can ever be, from the depths of which I probably would have never been rescued...Why was pushed there?
Is it wrong to believe that love begins when two minds explode in a blinding light of mutual awareness and sustains with two physical entities emerging into one? Why do people not understand that if you take the breath out of life there is nothing left behind...if you take the faith out of dreams only hollow shells remain...
As the ABBA say...
I have a dream, A song to sing...to cope me up with anything.
If you c the wonder of a fairy tale, you can take the future even if you fail...
I believe in angels, something good in everything I see.
I believe in angels...
When the time is right for me, I'll cross the stream...
I have a dream..
And my destinations makes it worthwhile,
Pushing through the darkness, still another mile...
I believe in angels..
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Men and Women
I can do anything I set my heart to. This is the mantra my dad gave me when I was a little girl.
Whenever my little sister and I met any of the people my dad and mom knew they’d introduce us to them. After all the courtesies were done, there was one question that would always pop up in the end, "Two daughters and no son?”
Once I asked my dad and mom whether they were unhappy because I wasn’t a boy and they just laughed and assured us- My baby sis and me, tht we were even better than boys were and that they were really proud of us! But those episodes left behind an insecurity I wasn’t even aware that I was nurturing within.
I could do anything I wanted to and do it better than boys. Studies, sports, drawing, dancing, drama, climbing trees, staying out late, and anything else you could name!
I went to college with this same idea, started work with the same faith and lived 20 years of my life believing that I wouldn’t let any man stand a chance against me.
Funny isn't it? Because these were the same men I started liking eventually, some of whom I fell in love with or who became my best-buddies who I trusted with all my heart. Others I was so crazy about that I could do anything to have them look at me adoringly like Jack looks at Rose in Titanic.
When it came to my professional life, these were the same men I needed to work with. I resented their chauvinism but that did not stop me from being aware of the fact that many of them like my female co-workers were infact good at their jobs and this demanded my respect if nothing else. And it wasn’t as though I was perfect. I had become a hard-core feminist too and I couldn’t justify my irrational behaviour based on my past experiences.
My attitude didn’t go unnoticed. A lot of men I know did not like the way I treated them. I had a lot of contradictory feelings. And when I realised that men I really cared for couldn’t believe that I could have an “girlie” feelings, as they put it, I was really hurt. So after a lot of introspection and mind-boggling research I have got a few answers…Please read ahead!
Chauvinism and whether women are equal to men
You know it really disturbed me to realise that men and women were not made equal by God, because I have been brought up saying tht I could do anything a guy could do. But as I am growing up, I realise that there are a lot of things that men can do that women can’t and this realisation really upset me when it first occurred to me.
The worst part was that many of my female colleagues spoke as if women were not equal to men, One even asked me how I could say that women were equal to men when we still had 33% reservations in so many fields and when we still needed reserved seats in busses and trains, I had no answer then. Now I do. After being suppressed for thousand of years, in order to change the inferiority complex now embedded in the minds of Indian women, reservations are an important tool.
It is diffcult for us in the 21st century to even fathom how it must have felt in those medieval ages of Sati, where women’s place was considered to be the bed-post, the kitchen and looking after the children. I experienced a glimmer of this chauvinism when I entered the corporate world. Of course, times are changing and not every man thinks like a neanderthal but it still can appropriately called a man’s world especially in a developing country like India.
So getting back to my introspection, was I a fool all these years strutting all over the place thinking I was better than these species??
I raged a war against GOD…my God who made everything on this planet equal, gave everything equal right to freedom and equal right to our planet. Could I have misunderstood him? May be I am just like other animals, here for the pleasure of these MEN!!
And one beautiful night when I was on my usual walk, the answers suddenly dawned on me. A smooth stream of thoughts started tickling my mind and I could see clearly what I had been unable to see before. Men and women are equal counterparts. If men are made to protect women, to take care of them, to be the physically stronger ones, to love them and be the ones who earn a living then, women are made to be mothers, nurturers, emotionally stronger than men with invincible faith and love that can gives her the strenght and courage to face the world for her loved ones.
You know the way our anatomy is …a man enters a woman…He dominates her, that’s what people believe. But ther’s another way of looking at it as well. I feel that she receives him in, so again there, she nurtures him.
She gives him her shield and protection in her own way just like he protects her. Both of them may or may not have pleasure on their own but to make the most beautiful fireworks and magic they have to both be in harmony. Have you also noticed this thing about the human anatomy, men and women fit into each other …they are equal halves..meant to become one!!
Men and women are equal because they balance each other and not because they can do the same things…You know what I mean…so if physically he can move mountains ..then emotionally so can she.
If he’s good at handling the world…she’s still good at handling him…
God’s harmony is so great…for a sensitive and emotional mother…he made the soft body of a woman…and for the protector and father…he made the body of a man! I mean, how would lying in the lap of a mother or being held by her or holding her hand be so beautiful if she’d been strong like dads. Similarly how would being held by dad make one feel so secure as if nothing in the world could harm us, or how wud a slap from him for making a mistake be as effective, his image as our hero be as true but for his strong physique?
Further on in today’s 21st century world…when women are doing so many things men did before…so are men doing so many things women did…right?
I mean, if she’s flying aeroplnes, driving rickshaws and buses, he is also changing diapers, cooking and being the one children share their problems with.
Both of them are still in harmony…the minute they are not… there are divorces and unhappy families…so its basically about just being compatible with one another. Both of them can work and both of them can look after the house or whatever suits them…that’s so cool na?
And as for the neanderthals at work and other facets of our lives, we shouldn’t define men based on our experiences with them, right? Nothing’s black or white..there are only shades of grey. I am sure there are a lot of women who aren’t too nice either.
Now I feel at peace with myself…I am happy with Mr. Ganpu for this entire arrangement!!!...;-)
Whenever my little sister and I met any of the people my dad and mom knew they’d introduce us to them. After all the courtesies were done, there was one question that would always pop up in the end, "Two daughters and no son?”
Once I asked my dad and mom whether they were unhappy because I wasn’t a boy and they just laughed and assured us- My baby sis and me, tht we were even better than boys were and that they were really proud of us! But those episodes left behind an insecurity I wasn’t even aware that I was nurturing within.
I could do anything I wanted to and do it better than boys. Studies, sports, drawing, dancing, drama, climbing trees, staying out late, and anything else you could name!
I went to college with this same idea, started work with the same faith and lived 20 years of my life believing that I wouldn’t let any man stand a chance against me.
Funny isn't it? Because these were the same men I started liking eventually, some of whom I fell in love with or who became my best-buddies who I trusted with all my heart. Others I was so crazy about that I could do anything to have them look at me adoringly like Jack looks at Rose in Titanic.
When it came to my professional life, these were the same men I needed to work with. I resented their chauvinism but that did not stop me from being aware of the fact that many of them like my female co-workers were infact good at their jobs and this demanded my respect if nothing else. And it wasn’t as though I was perfect. I had become a hard-core feminist too and I couldn’t justify my irrational behaviour based on my past experiences.
My attitude didn’t go unnoticed. A lot of men I know did not like the way I treated them. I had a lot of contradictory feelings. And when I realised that men I really cared for couldn’t believe that I could have an “girlie” feelings, as they put it, I was really hurt. So after a lot of introspection and mind-boggling research I have got a few answers…Please read ahead!
Chauvinism and whether women are equal to men
You know it really disturbed me to realise that men and women were not made equal by God, because I have been brought up saying tht I could do anything a guy could do. But as I am growing up, I realise that there are a lot of things that men can do that women can’t and this realisation really upset me when it first occurred to me.
The worst part was that many of my female colleagues spoke as if women were not equal to men, One even asked me how I could say that women were equal to men when we still had 33% reservations in so many fields and when we still needed reserved seats in busses and trains, I had no answer then. Now I do. After being suppressed for thousand of years, in order to change the inferiority complex now embedded in the minds of Indian women, reservations are an important tool.
It is diffcult for us in the 21st century to even fathom how it must have felt in those medieval ages of Sati, where women’s place was considered to be the bed-post, the kitchen and looking after the children. I experienced a glimmer of this chauvinism when I entered the corporate world. Of course, times are changing and not every man thinks like a neanderthal but it still can appropriately called a man’s world especially in a developing country like India.
So getting back to my introspection, was I a fool all these years strutting all over the place thinking I was better than these species??
I raged a war against GOD…my God who made everything on this planet equal, gave everything equal right to freedom and equal right to our planet. Could I have misunderstood him? May be I am just like other animals, here for the pleasure of these MEN!!
And one beautiful night when I was on my usual walk, the answers suddenly dawned on me. A smooth stream of thoughts started tickling my mind and I could see clearly what I had been unable to see before. Men and women are equal counterparts. If men are made to protect women, to take care of them, to be the physically stronger ones, to love them and be the ones who earn a living then, women are made to be mothers, nurturers, emotionally stronger than men with invincible faith and love that can gives her the strenght and courage to face the world for her loved ones.
You know the way our anatomy is …a man enters a woman…He dominates her, that’s what people believe. But ther’s another way of looking at it as well. I feel that she receives him in, so again there, she nurtures him.
She gives him her shield and protection in her own way just like he protects her. Both of them may or may not have pleasure on their own but to make the most beautiful fireworks and magic they have to both be in harmony. Have you also noticed this thing about the human anatomy, men and women fit into each other …they are equal halves..meant to become one!!
Men and women are equal because they balance each other and not because they can do the same things…You know what I mean…so if physically he can move mountains ..then emotionally so can she.
If he’s good at handling the world…she’s still good at handling him…
God’s harmony is so great…for a sensitive and emotional mother…he made the soft body of a woman…and for the protector and father…he made the body of a man! I mean, how would lying in the lap of a mother or being held by her or holding her hand be so beautiful if she’d been strong like dads. Similarly how would being held by dad make one feel so secure as if nothing in the world could harm us, or how wud a slap from him for making a mistake be as effective, his image as our hero be as true but for his strong physique?
Further on in today’s 21st century world…when women are doing so many things men did before…so are men doing so many things women did…right?
I mean, if she’s flying aeroplnes, driving rickshaws and buses, he is also changing diapers, cooking and being the one children share their problems with.
Both of them are still in harmony…the minute they are not… there are divorces and unhappy families…so its basically about just being compatible with one another. Both of them can work and both of them can look after the house or whatever suits them…that’s so cool na?
And as for the neanderthals at work and other facets of our lives, we shouldn’t define men based on our experiences with them, right? Nothing’s black or white..there are only shades of grey. I am sure there are a lot of women who aren’t too nice either.
Now I feel at peace with myself…I am happy with Mr. Ganpu for this entire arrangement!!!...;-)
M I alive
a tear for a sadness i cant name..
a wistful longing i've never before known
a dagger at my heart ...it's piercing me..
an unborn pain...not my own..
it's drowning me in this deep dark sea..
It wont kill me...It doesnt let me live
like a parasite sucking my life
it's taking me away ...its taking me away..
I am no more..
and then I am back to living again..
....but m i alive?
my breath comes out in strangled gasps
my heart's but.. a shrunken mass..
The tears have dried and the dreams are back..
yet I know tht they will never be true
I have only dreams to sustain me
Dreams tht r gradually killing me...
a wistful longing i've never before known
a dagger at my heart ...it's piercing me..
an unborn pain...not my own..
it's drowning me in this deep dark sea..
It wont kill me...It doesnt let me live
like a parasite sucking my life
it's taking me away ...its taking me away..
I am no more..
and then I am back to living again..
....but m i alive?
my breath comes out in strangled gasps
my heart's but.. a shrunken mass..
The tears have dried and the dreams are back..
yet I know tht they will never be true
I have only dreams to sustain me
Dreams tht r gradually killing me...
I'v found my home
I have so much, yet i want some more..
y do i feel this tht i'v never felt bfore
a tiny spark...
and now a fire within me
it burns me it gives me warmth
and then drowns me in an unknown sea
I have so much, yet i want some more..
y do i feel this tht i'v never felt bfore
a soft breath
a warm presence
yet noone besides me
just a voice and a smile
n i feel myself soaring deep
I have so much, yet i want some more..
y do i feel this tht i'v never felt bfore
I feel love
I feel loved
Is it u
or is it just me
what i feel is like i've never felt bfore
I've reached my star
Now i hold it close
I've found my home
n it'll always be....
y do i feel this tht i'v never felt bfore
a tiny spark...
and now a fire within me
it burns me it gives me warmth
and then drowns me in an unknown sea
I have so much, yet i want some more..
y do i feel this tht i'v never felt bfore
a soft breath
a warm presence
yet noone besides me
just a voice and a smile
n i feel myself soaring deep
I have so much, yet i want some more..
y do i feel this tht i'v never felt bfore
I feel love
I feel loved
Is it u
or is it just me
what i feel is like i've never felt bfore
I've reached my star
Now i hold it close
I've found my home
n it'll always be....
If I could
If I could fly...where would i be
I thought over this for a while
but no place i could see
In my mind..
I went to the mountains
I went to the skies
I went to the sea
but there was no place where i felt I was free
I flew high...i ran hard
I sunk deeper and went far
i tried finding a place where i wanted to be
not one ...no where..
I looked and searched
but there was no place where i felt I was free
N then I realised..
I could never be free
coz I was really a prisoner within me
The freshest air and the freest sea
were there and would always be
but there was no place where i felt I was free
Coz I was not happy just being me!!
I thought over this for a while
but no place i could see
In my mind..
I went to the mountains
I went to the skies
I went to the sea
but there was no place where i felt I was free
I flew high...i ran hard
I sunk deeper and went far
i tried finding a place where i wanted to be
not one ...no where..
I looked and searched
but there was no place where i felt I was free
N then I realised..
I could never be free
coz I was really a prisoner within me
The freshest air and the freest sea
were there and would always be
but there was no place where i felt I was free
Coz I was not happy just being me!!
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