Voices no longer heard

Death touches every mortal's life not once but many times. It invokes in its wake a myriad of emotions dictated by events and circumstances surrounding it. It has left in my mind the remains of many voices I shall never hear again. I'm writing this, perhaps my most claustrophobic piece yet, on the occasion of Diwali, a festival of lights dispelling the darkness. Yet this day has often been marked by darkness for me with regard to those people who lit up my life the most.

During the most difficult years of my education, those of secondary, I used to go to a particular tutor by the name of Mr. Ghosh for mathematics coaching. He had rented the ground floor rooms of a house wherein he taught some 10 or 12 students. This man was ill-tempered but a very good teacher. My being stupid annoyed him and evoked reactions in keeping with such annoyance. My turning up late for tution would have him enter into a long tirade. All in all I had a tough time there.

A year of toil later, one Diwali evening, I reached his place. It was completely dark with no lights on. Since no one occupied the first floor rooms the entire house was shut up. I was rather irritated. Firstly it was a Diwali evening and I had taken the trouble to come to study rather than have fun with my friends and to top it the stickler for discipline himself was late. I waited for sometime. He still didn't come. Half an hour later I decided that he must have got into the Diwali mood himself and abandoned the class. In those days, cell phones were not as common as they are today. At any rate, I had none.

So I reached home and the first thing I did was pick up the phone and call his number. It was picked up and a woman's voice spoke at the other end. I asked for Mr. Ghosh. The voice went silent and next I heard a young girl's voice. She asked me who I was. I informed her that I was a student of Mr. Ghosh. She heard me out and then said Mr. Ghosh has expired. I was taken by surprise. The tone of asperity hitherto in my voice was lost. I stammered, "Oh.. I see." and put down the receiver. I told my mom about the incident and she was rather upset. But all I had was this numb feeling in my head and my only thought was that of how I should react.

I joined the tution of another professor, a Mr. Sanyal. He was a 'stud' as we say in common parlance. A bachelor with a zest for life, he could solve any problem you could throw at him. I stayed with him till my board exams started and took his blessings for my entrance exams. It turned out that I didn't perform all that badly and did end up joining an engineering college. The first few months of ragging kept me tortured and distracted and it was only during Diwali that I decided I should go back and thank Mr. Sanyal for the great job he had done. So I reached his home with a box of mithai and rang the bell. The door was opened by a very old lady, his mother. I had seen her a few times before. I asked for Mr. Sanyal and for a moment her eyes seemed to glisten. Then she replied that he had passed away. "How?", I blurted out in shock. She explained that he had been suffering from cancer for sometime. And we hadn't even known. I handed her the sweets and walked away with a numb feeling in my head and my only thought was that of how I should react.

2 years ago on the evening of Diwali, while I was enjoying myself in Pune, I got a frantic call from home. My mother had collapsed in the bathroom and her already arthritis ridden knee was in a very bad condition so that she could barely move. Even a month and several sessions of physiotherapy later, her condition just got worse. The doctor prescribed a knee replacement surgery as soon as possible. I was forced to apply for a location transfer as handling of the entire thing was well beyond the capacity of my ageing father. I had to leave the place, the project and the people I had grown to love.

Last night I helped carry my grandma's body on the stretcher to the hearse. I touched the flame to her throat. It was over. All I had was this numb feeling in my head and my only thought was that of how I should react.

My boss

Imagine being a male fresher. Imagine having a female boss. Imagine having a major fight with her ending with her red teary eyes and you arrogantly asking her to take the matter higher up if she wanted to. Imagine the allegation being the use of abusive language and a lack of respect. Sounds like the perfect setup for a pink slip? Well, it won me one of my best friends.

I am one of those few fortunate or unfortunate people who has always had a female boss. And not one, but four, one after the other over my three years of work experience. They have ranged from lady-hitlers to smart managers to friends.

This lady who is the subject of my current post initially joined our team as a team member. She had a pretty face, a sweet smile and bright, shiny eyes. My immediate reaction was cynical and typical of me at the time. I concluded that she obviously would do no work and was just a placeholder in the team. To top it she was married. A real waste!

At that time our team was being led by one of those who could easily classify as a lady-hitler. To put it plainly this lady-hitler could get work done. We worked extremely hard for months including weekends to meet the deadlines but when I, in my usual blunt style, asked her for a 'comp-off' she simply replied that she herself had personally never asked for a 'comp-off'. I did eventually manage to get what I wanted but it left me with an inherent distaste for female bosses and supervisors in general. Incidentally, the only thing I liked about her was that she had made the pretty lady work hard as well.

A stroke of good luck freed us from our lady-hitler when she got herself transferred to another location for some personal reasons. But strokes of good luck must be followed by bad ones since I guess even God has his/her balance sheet to draw up each year and assets must balance liabilities! So the pretty lady was chosen as our next supervisor.

The whispers in the air told us she had probably not been a project lead before. Time to take the upper hand! (Remember the eternal tale of the new governess and the naughty kids?)

So I was plain biased towards the pretty lady. I have always been naturally a bit rude or rough in temperament. That day, I gave her a horrible frown and asked her harshly for some information which she had taken a little long to provide. She lost her temper. I don't blame her. I had been a bit of a thorn for sometime. Technically I hadn't said anything offensive but my tone had said enough. She told me off angrily that I was rude and lacked respect and how dare I behave so badly. I was in the wrong but I felt unusually stubborn and retorted angrily. Words led to more words and I took the stand that since I could not talk properly she could henceforth communicate with me by text only.

So for the rest of the day I tried a cold war. But she came to reason with me again. This time, I was even more rude and asked her to take up the issue with higher ups if she wanted but I simply couldn't work with her. But I had gone a bit too far. With red teary eyes she told me no one had ever behaved like this with her in her whole life. The words ring in my years even now, so strong was their impact. Something broke inside me. I tendered an immediate apology. I have tried to analyze what happened to me all of a sudden but I have found no answer. It definitely wasn't fear for I have rarely been scared of anyone barring myself. Was it because of the pretty face in tears? I don't think so for at that time I was still very cold deep inside.

It was a Friday and during the weekend I sent her an apology by sms. I wasn't feeling all right. I was in the wrong. I knew it. I hated having to admit it.

Throughout the whole of Monday I only communicated with her through mails and barely spoke. In the evening she again called me. I sat down in front of her and hung my head. She asked me what I intended to do. I simply said that I had apologized to her and I had been on my best behaviour all day. She said she didn't care about any apology. She just wanted me to be normal and realize where I had gone wrong. I replied that she couldn't have both. I could either be the perfect professional or my usual rough self, not somewhere in between. "As you wish." was all she said. She never went to higher ups. She would fight her own battles.

Over the next few weeks, things somehow changed because of a few little things she did. I used to always complain about the terrible food in the canteen on weekends. So one Saturday, she cooked some stuff along with her usual Tiffin for the rest of us. The work was always pressing and one Saturday her creche matron refused to keep her one year old kid, so she got a special permit and brought him to office. It was then that I realized the amount of effort that she had been putting in to balance work with looking after the baby. She gradually but surely won my confidence to the extent that I began to trust her even on my personal matters. I became my naughty self again though with no longer the need to be rude. She was a boss who cared. She has since become one of my best friends and one of the very few people I trust.

As I look back now I realize that those who really look beyond the facade that people present to others are the ones who understand others the best. She is one such person. She could see right through me. Even on little matters. One particular case comes to mind. The smokers at office typically took long breaks because they just had to smoke while I had no such excuse. So I convinced her that I had taken to smoking as well. I had thought myself smart till long after I had left her project, she let me in on a secret. "I know you don't smoke. I always knew you were lying!".

Answers to a young lady's queries!

Curiosity killed the cat. Or so they say. In any case cats do have nine lives! So I'll take one of those nine to satisfy the curiosity of one petite young lady.

It so happens that this petite young lady is a close friend of mine and also the person to whom I entrusted the arduous and boring (a tasteless effort at being humble!) task of proof-reading my posts. This young lady paid me a rare compliment upon reading my two posts. She told me that she had taken the extreme effort of reading my posts after a whole day of work and had been staring at the computer screen through drooping eyelids. "You must have written a nice post since I actually finished reading it before I fell asleep!", she remarked. For those who know her well, this remark was heaps of praise by her standards. So she had made my day and to show my gratitude I must answer her queries.

The first of these was why are you writing with this weird name, JBozz? It's really embarrassing to have to answer this question as I have no humble answer. Charles Dickens' first novel, The Pickwick Papers was the compilation of the pieces he wrote for a magazine with the title Sketches By Boz. Boz was the pen name Dickens used at the start of his career. I'm a great fan of Charles Dickens and vain enough of my own writings to choose my pen name as J(for junior)Bozz.

The second query was why my blog has this "stupid" title. That is the exact word that this particular petite young lady used. The answer is simple. It goes like this. I have asked a number of people what they look forward to, what they live for. The answers have never been satisfactory to me. Most spoke about marriage, having a loving family, becoming somebody of repute or even becoming the CEO of the company they worked for! So that's why we live? To attempt to leave our 'footprints in the sands of time' or to achieve the same quest for immortatility by having some part of us taken forward by our descendents? Somehow, I don't feel convinced and hence my quest to find an answer and hence the name of my blog.

Finally, I must conlcude this post with a very important disclaimer which applies to all my posts. Any similarity between the characters in my writings and real people is purely coincidental and unintended.

A Haughty Friend!

Over the past year I have been experimenting with an idea that gripped my imagination due to the fact that I was tired of myself. The idea put simply was to find heart in a heartless world.

Is the oft repeated phrase, that there is good in everyone, a truth or just one of the several untruths we teach our children just because they are "not old enough" to face the truth? My desire was to find out for myself. So I decided on a smile, instead of the frown I had grown used to, having on my countenance.

My first target was an old college colleague who had once thrown an unprovoked, harmless insult my way - that I didn't look as tall I was because I was far too fat! My reaction was typical of me at the time, I simply gave a weak smile and walked away, avoiding her in future. I was an introvert. A cynic. And far too shy to fight back, especially a female opponent. (A convoluted aspect of the all pervading chauvinism?)

This particular girl was tall, good looking and outspoken. She had a haughty air about her, typical of one well aware of her good looks and the effect she had on people, especially the men, who got either weak in the knees or looked up to her as one of the many things unachievable in life.

As fate would have it, we were now working in the same project. She was now a married woman and I was much bolder now having stayed away from home and having worked as a professional. I had been trying to change my hairstyle for sometime now. Since she had a very elaborate coiffure, I assumed she was the best person to ask for some advice.

I walked up to her seat and casually said 'Hi'. She looked up and said a civil 'hi'. I decided it would be best to get to the point so I told her I was planning to change my hairstyle and wanted her advice on what would look good on me since she was quite an expert. Her reply fazed me for a second or two. "I don't think any hairstyle is going to make you look any better." And she said it in the same matter of fact way that she had first hurled her unprovoked, harmless insult. But, I had come with a purpose and refused to be defeated. I said, "Still yaar I'm sure you could suggest something I could do to improve?" It was the first time I saw her expression soften a bit. She said I could try one of the new spiky hairstyles in fashion. I was thrilled! Maybe there was a heart in everyone! So I asked if she knew of a good place where I could get such a hairstyle. She told me of a place in the most up-market place in Kolkata and said that a guy called Rahman did a great job. I was making great progress. I had hardly conversed for a few minutes. Then she added, "But I doubt you'll be able to afford the place!" This was the second time I was fazed. I swallowed a small quantity of spit and replied, "How much does it cost there?" She told me the price and I managed to reply that if it was just for the one time it was okay.

The place she had mentioned was within a few hundred yards of my place of residence and the very place where I got my regular haircut! ;)

Since this is my first post I decided to provide an insight as to why I took to writing this blog.

I have always had this feeling that people find me distant, remote. There always seems to be something more they want to know about the man behind the apparent facade. So I decided to narrate a few varied incidents in my life in which I have played the part of the protagonist.

I've always believed that every little thing in life has a bearing on the future, its own place in the broader scheme of things. So every incident in life, however small, is important, special.

Deep down within me I am a dreamer. And it is against the stereotyping of "dreamers" and "philosophers" as being non-productive, and non-pragmatic, that I have always fought against. I am no stranger to failure but that has and will never deter me from trying to make my life a silver screen fairy tale. You may call me immature but I would rather call you faithless.

You may never agree with me and may find me unusual. I admit, I am a typically stubborn sort and I know I'm far too proud, but, in the hour of need, believe me that there's no one you'd rather have at your side than me. The sad part is, as I've learnt the hard way, once you're better off you'll most likely no longer be by my side.

Read on my friend.