Stop, re-evaluate, continue...

When I was scrambling about to write the previous blog a couple of days back, I was facing a severe lack of subjects to blog about. Maybe the problem was that I was so used to having those umpteen number of colorful friends resulting in a fairly high number of humorous incidents. But the last blog brought out a comment from 'yama dootan' which has resulted in a bulb going off on top of my head.

"TINGGGG!!!" (or something of the that sort. You get the picture).

The gist of what he asked was whether I was happy after all this. Something to the line of me being unhappy after all this and maybe he being happier after having a ton of cash in the bank.

Now I am not sure whether the question was a serious one, or a understandably misguided opinion after reading what I did write. It is in fact understandable if someone would have assumed that I am not quite happy with what I have right now. I usually tend to tone down the matter and try to twist it to sound maybe a little more humorous than it actually is.

Now, what I wanted to point out was, never did I actually mean that I do not lead a happy life right now. In fact people who know me or knew me from back in Trivandrum would agree strongly that I am one of the strongest candidate for living one's dreams after coming out of their college lives (in a purely social context, because I am still getting paid peanuts). While most of the people I know are bored with work and do not have much of weekend life outside their extensively enjoyable day of washing clothes, cooking and watching TV, I can indeed lay claim to a little over dramatic line of 'Oh, such a hectic weekend. Wish I had more time to do everything I had to do'. On a lighter note, I have indeed felt the need to find a companion to spend my Saturday mornings with, but I would say that the following continuous marathon weekend involved would justify the 3-4 hours of cleaning/washing/the aforementioned extensively enjoyable work I too engage in (though I try to put it off all the time and wish I never had to do).

Pause. Re-evaluation of the current stand.

Savings: 0

Well, I do know a hell lot of people who have indeed become technical lakhpathis in their own right in the last two years. I am deviating from my normal unconfrontational approach to my blog (I do not think of writing about girls and related admiration of their species as politically incorrect, especially at the ripe age of 23, which according to me too young to become too mature. You can bloody afford to be a little bloody light when you are young. The fact that I am continuing this blog after a meeting involving a heated argument with on site has absolutely nothing to do with the abrupt change in intensity/quality of words being used). Personally I do not agree with the philosophy of living like saints and saving up money in your bank accounts at this age. Well if you were a young Warren Buffet it would be different, which is anyway irrelevant since he probably made his million before this, and he definitely did not make his millions sitting in front of a computer screen and wasting away weekends only cooking and cleaning.

The only point I see for making money in my opinion are:

• actual raw requirement of raw cash to buy the materialistic stuff that you need
• the raw pleasure of knowing that you are good at making money (maybe a little Warren Buffet'ish)
• some sort of predicament you find yourself in, infected by yourself (as in spending in the range of 20k a week in pubs on credit, which actually is a spin off of the first clause) or filmy style family need of pengalude kalyanam, or very understandable supporting retired parents.
  

Other than this, I feel the life that many of my friends/colleagues lead; working their asses of for something completely intangible and spiritually un-fullfilling, coming back home to a messy house being shared with similar minded individuals doing the same thing, lounging around at home in their lungis and still dreaming of a Dil Chahta Hai lifestyle; is completely pointless. True that a few of the are amassing wealth at an unnerving rate. But sometimes I feel many are forgetting the big picture. We might still be burdened with the same sense of urgency to settle down and dredge through life and save money which lingers from the gulf going, stone carrying malayali from the 1970s. In the last generation, almost all the chettans were having the time of their lives, going to the kayal varambu at night, stealing cocunuts (climbing involved), and drinking at such picteresque localities on a weekly to daily basis, or even stealing batteries from random cars/bikes and selling them to buy juice. All of them turned out fine in life by 30. Contrastingly 23 year old young men now are mellowed down enough to be sitting at the same point, only moving their fingers an inch to the left, right or down, and worrying about their managers shouting at them for not doing something which will (might, when come to think of it) accomplish something you certainly cannot see. I mean, I can understand if your manager shouted at you for forgetting to put in the fourth column before starting on building the roof. But what is it to me if I forget to put in a stored procedure into the production database (existence of which I now seriously doubt. I mean, I haven't seen it till now. Is it just an excuse to make up write all this bullshit) which is causing random error to popup at some Call center people sitting in Riverdale.

So when they spend their lives without point, dropping out of IT to go back to studies, or back to their core fields, or even a flashback to the 80s kind secure Govt jobs, I certainly feel I have something special. Does it really matter that I am not making my millions at 23/24, and am instead having quite contended life, spending all the money on myself (especially vainly spending money on looking good and feeling good without a morsel of remorse). Come to think of it my philosophy throughout life was always taking as little effort as possible and achieving as much as possible, having as much fun as possible en route to all that bullshit.

Another problem with making all this money, living on Kanji and payar, is that you never learn to spend money well, enough to have fun, but safe enough not to leave you out on the streets. Yet another problem; many of them do not know why they are making the money that they are in fact making. Is it to build hospitals? At least that would have given a sense of purpose to an otherwise pointless life. All this leads to another stage that I would detest to have to be in. Waiting to get married, just because you are bored, just waiting to be 25 so that society will at least accept that you are getting married. You are settled, you have a ton of money in the bank, and now you can just write away your life and freedom to get married just so that you do not have to spend your saturdays alone at home. Was'nt there a ton of promise ahead of you?

It does seem a far cry in my life. I personally have too many things left to do. When am I buying a bullet and going for ride to Tripura (I might have to take up a map to actually find where in northeast India it is. I hope its the eastern most point. See, I am trying to make a point here and I would prefer it to be as strong as possible)? When am I going to live in Finland for a year and a half? When am I going back-packing with a mamoth lens SLR canon through the dusty streets of old Madagascar?

Well some people would indeed find all these quite reasonable questions, relevance of which is quite high, maybe not specifically in those places and camera models, but they would get the picture. But many other people would not. Even if they think that they want to do many of these things, I feel they never will. And there will always be few other who never dream of these things or anything for that matter. And doing all these things take time and money (Of which I have very little, but that you'll already know if you reach this part of the blog, remember the saving 0 part). So my claim that I am not going to get hitched before 30 might not actually be as far fetched as it might seem at first look. Take a look at the IT guys who are getting married at 26. Did they ever learn horse riding ? Did they ever fire a high powered long bored magnum? Probably not.

I keep forgetting what the point to all this random babbling was. I just hated being politically correct all the time. I got off my ass and did something and I do not regret it. I see many people who will benefit from doing the same, but will not get around to doing it. All I want to say to those people is, get off your bloody asses and get going on the road to finding your dreams.

Out. P.E.A.C.E. (damn.. there I go being politically correct again. Go fuck yourselves!)

Last wind of change..

As the years pass by (technically 2 years qualifies me to start using years as a reference of time to measure my life), we see various changes in us. Many of my last few blogs have somehow or the other dealt with these very changes. Anyway, since I have not been blogging for quite a while, I'll convert a mail into a blog. Well does it matter if its a lame one as long as the blog actually keeps going forward ?

There was a time when we used to skip a trip to the beach just because each one could not put in 5 bucks, and we could never in a million years comprehend how a single guy could possibly spend 20k a month. Right now I am at a point in my life where I could imagine how I could easily spend a lot more. Hell.. I had even made plans of investing and made detailed plans on what my imaginary portfolio was going to look like. Right now, forget savings, I am scrambling to keep my head afloat after my regular expenses. The only thing that seems to be a solution to my current situation is the next hike coming up, by which time I'll be wondering how in hell I made through this one year with so little money each month.

My circle of friends, may it be my biker friends, or my college friends, were never extravagant. Though there were exceptions to this rule in the form of Joji and Dasappan, the general rule was to eat from home as much as possible, walk as much as possible, take the bus as much as possible and put in as little money as possible for petrol when going for long rides and hope somebody else will pick up the tab for cigarettes, liquor and miscellaneous expenses and try to put up a face trying to show that you have put in your fare share of the ride. Gifts for friends were kept at the bare minimum, with people putting in an average of 25-30 bucks apiece, contributing to a grand total of 200-300 bucks. That bunny looks good.. but too costly.. lets get this shitty ass wind chime.

Then came the move to Bangalore where I started out living with 8 other roomies in a 2 BHK, happily paying 1.5k rent every month, even vetoing a bill to shift to a better place paying 500 bucks more. We all started frequenting Marathahalli and Brand factories skipping up a level from 100 buck Tees to the 250 buck ones and half price Branded Jeans to the envy of mates back home.

Now after 2 years, I find an irrestible urge to pick up any 38 sized shirts, whatever the prize( and what ever the bloody color). It never does matter, whether I have any money or not. The motto is, I can always make it up next month. My wardrobe, though not a designer haven yet, still sports all the popular international brands.

The 25-30 bucks gifts went upto 2-3 k gifts, as soon as Shinu's and Naomi's influence started creeping in. And it is not a bad thing at all. Who said being materialistic is bad. What the hell do we make all the money for ? Debasish, Anitha and Spoo did their part too. Birthday gifts ballooned up from 200-300 buck affairs to 4k affairs. Wedding gifts have stopped being cheap 6 piece dinner sets and have elevated themselves into the proper TV ad levels, with nakshatra.. Ash rai dancing around in all the flames ....and resulting in a diamond pendant/ring/...whatever.

Even though I never actually started drinking per se, I've begun to feel its a waste of time going to a pub and wasting all this money without having one of my Long Island Ice Teas just to blur the laser beams a little when I try to scare away all the people with the mix of Salsa and Hiphop I get to practice for the odd 8 hrs or so of dancing at the studio these days.

Music. Even that has changed. Rock to hip hop and now onto house, which I can't get enough of these days, especially while working... People must think I am mad looking intenty into the computer screen, typing my ass off and bobbing my head to a trance beat.

....... Enough of this.....

Well, I hope I can break off from all this 'change' blogs and actually start blogging about my real life.. Maybe I'll stay a loser a little more time aye!!