Men will be Men

It was 8 in the night on Wednesday, 23 and I had crossed the main road after coming out of my office and was waiting for auto rickshaw. There were men and women waiting for the rick too, but I was in hurry. A shared rickshaw came, a man was already sitting. I asked the lady lady if she wanted to get in. she nodded “NO”, I got in. not loosing a moment another guy got in and then we looked at the lady and realized how mean we are, so both the guys (not me) got down and then sat aside the driver, I shifted to right corner of the seat, and then we again looked at the lady but she didn’t respond and seemed not interested in taking the rick. The guy on the left side of driver quickly jumped back to his seat and then another guy rushed to grab the last place. Auto was filled in with men and then it moved. I was in too busy to understand why that lady didn’t get into the rickshaw; I was looking for the restaurant where I had to get down to attend my roomie’s birthday party.

I reached the place and met my roomie and his friends, there was one, yeah a single, and I mean both - one and single, gal in the entire gamut of guys. The place was restaurant cum bar, so guys quickly got involved what they wanted – alcohol. Smoke and booze created all together different atmosphere for guys. Sometime later guys asked this gal IF she was feeling out of place (every one had to ask for the sake of it, like we didn’t know). What gal could answer?

At that point of time it struck me why that LADY didn’t get into rickshaw. The LADY didn’t want to seat herself in middle of the seat (probably thought of getting harassed), so, she declined it first when I offered her and then we didn’t leave her any option. Even after we made adjustment it was thoughtless concern for a woman. It never concurred to me that women have to tackle so many issues for almost everything they do. I don’t know if any men ever thought how it would be if they always have to protect themselves from getting harassed anywhere. Men don’t have to be bothered in man’s world, though they may show concern about other half but always forget to be thoughtful about it.

Independence Day for a Lousy Guy

It was aug15, I woke at 9am and switched on my tv, flag was hoisted and speech was delivered. I saw all that and speech of our Weakest Prime Minister who told us how strong the citizens are, braving all the govt.’s apathy and calamities. Then I switched to the patriotic songs for some time, even that didn’t last long. There was no flag hoisting in my apartment (there is no provision and nobody thought of it). I was left with nothing to do for a day that seemed endless. My roomie woke up and suggested we go out. I panicked, after all there was threat on my life and on everyone else, and who wants to become Shahid on that day, but we ventured out as my roomie hates crowded place.

So, we ended up at a shopping mall which was luckily empty (coz of terrorist threat). I thought, this was the opportunity to do something for nation’s economy – buy something and make it strong (that’s all this generation does in the masquerading for self consumption) - there were discounts and I could have bought something but then I heard something.(No, not sound of a bomb blast). This mall was playing patriotic songs, I wondered why? But after listening “takat watan ki hamse hai” (have you ever heard it?), manoj kumar & sunil dutt patriotic songs, I was finally nailed by “aiye mere watan ke logon”. I didn’t know what happened but I just didn’t buy anything though my roomie asked me several times. Then I realised something!

I don’t know how many people have ever noticed the difference in the way a person’s perception and meaning of days like Independence Day (or national days) change. But I thought about it this time, though I used to remember how it used to be in childhood. I remember that when there used to be holiday on ID, it was celebrated in our housing colony.

I never realised the fact that I used to take bath to go to flag hoisting ceremony. I mean, it’s only RELIGIOUS Festivals when you take bath to purify yourself to go for a ceremony. Our INDEPENDENCE DAY had such significance that it was considered inappropriate to go for flag hoisting without bathing. I mean, mathematically INDEPENDECE DAY = RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL!!!
And you are not worth it if you didn’t do it properly. In those days, I would wake up early and get ready to make sure that I don’t miss the ceremony and specially those Jalebi and Samosas. Yeah, but that was not the only thing, I never understood the rationale why kids used to keep running for hours with national flag in their hands, but who cared, even I used to run. Watching parade on TV was a family affair (tv was new those days and there was hardly anything to watch).

But when such celebrations became compulsory in school, I had to do little more than the usual to get those Samosas, sometimes parade, and sometimes cultural program. But that running with flag thing went off though I used to catch up with the Independence Day celebrations around the country on TV. One thing that added up to my list was the “Gandhi” movie, which was broadcasted every year, no matter how it bored me - I still used to watch it. By the time I was in college I lost some passion about Independence Day, I would wake up but only watch the ceremony on tv (bathing and preparing was gone), only exception was MBA days when I did go to flag hoisting like my school days.

Now that I’m working, I do watch the whole Independence Day coverage and the remixed desh bhakti songs on it, but hardly care about going to flag hoisting or even putting effort for that( may be some day I would do that again). I seldom realise how less we care and value our independence - take everything for granted. Faith is probably still alive within coz I still put that tiny flag on my shirt.

SMART Work and FART Work

Though its just two years into professional life but I have heard this noise SMART work at almost all levels of organization. Some one from top level management giving ‘BHAASAN’ on it to your team lead, there is just no end to this funda, you see.

You will realise that smart work is actually not ‘TOP NOTCH’ work or the best quality of work ever done!!! (Yeah man, this will happen when you self actualize.) Smart work is just managing the outcome which will satisfy the client most. It is shallow and doesn’t have much depth, of good work, but can hold and superficially looks better than most of the outcome in same line of work. It is delivering just what is required without actually fulfilling most of requirements. Smart work something that successfully deviates client/user from the original concern but make him feel that it concerns have been met. Since everyone gotta save his ass but that doesn’t happen all the time, so smart work comes in. what people don’t realise when they ask for smart work. What people don’t realise is the kind of work person has to do to smart work.

I think there are just two types; I call it Good work or Fart work.

You see, good work, when people get the kind of work they desired in the life or the kind of work that really use the potentials of a worker and helps in his/her development. Now, this kind of work is actually hard to get. In fact, I believe that most of the people actually don’t get it and they just dream for that day when they will have what they wanted. So, I won’t waste much time on it.

Then

There is FART work. Yeah.

You know when you eat something and your stomach doesn’t take it well then you fart. This happens with the work also. You don’t get the good work but you are asked to make it good. The work that disserved to be dumped sees the daylight of your desktop. There is nothing that can come out good from that work but since someone in the system has to do it, so it is thrown at you. You don’t like that kind of work and it upsets you sometimes. You don’t feel good about the work and then it start creating trouble in your professional life, makes it stinky. You take some help (kind of medication) manage the work and come out with smart work. But in long run every thing stops working for you and fart works sucks everthing "Fresh" out of your life and the stink of your life becomes visible in your language especially how you describe your work. The more you are force to do fart work, more helpless the situation becomes.

You just end up hating your work.