A few days ago I was talking to my sister. We were catching up on the family sagas- you know the usual ones: A la “the daughter of an aunt of my mothers talking about her sister-in-law’s niece in a fashionably jealous way”. I don’t remember what I said to my sister, but whatever I said must have been quite smart. Because she suddenly said “you seem ready for marriage!”
This breaking news made me immensely happy, but I got a little pre-occupied trying to decode my own words to see where all the wisdom lay. After spending a considerable number of years in this world, I have begun to take my brain-waves seriously. Apparently whatever I said implied that I understood all the undercurrents of a family conversation- a requisite skill if you are to marry. More so, I think I demonstrated my ability to breeze through a multi-dimensional conversation to get to the gist of it all. This skill is a must-have when talking to females close to you, I am told.
Oddly, this reminded me of a very old comedy skit in Shoaib Hashmi’s TV Program Taal Matol. Anybody who was born in the seventies would perhaps remember this “Handa Hubaalne Ki Tarkeeb” by Muneeza Hashmi. A humble note to those who haven’t heard of Shoaib Hashmi, please google him and Taal Matol, and you would probably come across his weekly column in the Encore section in The News on Sunday- and hopefully you would enjoy reading that too.
How do you boil an egg? This mystery, in my warped mind, sounds very close to the formula of “being ready for marriage”. The complexity, hear this, lies in the simplicity of it all. It is like anticipating climbing a mountain, anticipating reaching the peak, and then expecting to say “was that it?” This anticipation, of course, does not actually come to fruition in real life.
I think there is an inherent problem in this anticipation of satisfaction, or the lack of it, in marriage, much like in boiling of an egg. How the intrinsic satisfaction is derived from a boiled egg can have many faces. In some cases it is like delaying the high point in pleasure and saving the hard yolk for the last. In some cases, the pleasure lies in discovering that the egg actually turned out to be half-boiled, and the yolk had to be had first because of the runny nature of it. In some cases the boiled egg goes in the middle of two toasts and becomes a sandwich.
Now if this be the case, what is the point in anticipating? Or to begin with, what does being ready for marriage actually mean?
I think its all bullocks, and one is never ready for marriage and one always naturally settles into a numb state of mind called settling down. Or perhaps, to duly present a floppy flip-side, one is always ready for marriage- puberty being the only pre-requisite…
Do we care, or do we have a choice to but to live through and learn?
Don't think. There is no point to whatever I wrote.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Hey you, third from the corner, what do you do?
Today, I am going to write about what I do for money. I work on debt restructuring in large corporations listed on NYSE/FTSE and specialise in working under the strait-jacket of Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, primarily for the purpose of investments in new ventures.
Who am I joking? No one. Only myself.
I don't do the above hideous job and I pity those who do. I pity them because I keep wondering what do these people say when they are asked, "What do you do?"... Because saying what I just wrote would make anyone look like a young enthusiast trying to make it big in The Apprentice, and of course making a complete idiot of himself in the process. But I am surprised at the number of people who I come across who go describing their jobs in tedious, verbose, and useless ways. Although I should really not be surprised, because a reality program, after all, is based on reality.
This "What do you do?" can be a very annoying question at times. Although it is the most popular social ice-breaker, it carries the characteristics of snobbishness, pompousness, and self-righteousness. That too, all packed in to these plain and simple four words. I mean why would you ask me this question unless you are dying to tell me what you yourself do? Also, you wouldn’t even dare ask me this question if you felt shitty about your life 9 to 5. You would in that case perhaps make an effort at making it a wee bit more interesting after 5 and ask me a different question.
When I am asked this question, I usually politely respond in a way one is supposed to. What I really want to do most of the times is actually ask a series of questions in response: What do you mean what do I do, you mean what do I do for money? Why would you want to know that? Is your hand dying to feel the thickness or the lack of it of my wallet? Why are you not interested in knowing what I do when I am not doing what you think I do for money? What is that single digit that represents your IQ?
I do appreciate the fact that a lot of people are actually quite passionate about what they do for a living. I am too. I also believe this question can bring about a certain discussion that, funnily, brings people together. But then, should the question not be “what do you feel strongly about in life?” or some such stuff? Also, if someone feels strongly about restructuring of debt in large corporations, then the real question actually is what kind of toast did he/she have with breakfast.
But then the world does not work according to my principles and theories. In fact it does not mostly even agree with my opinions. I learnt to live with it ages ago, but I still crave a bit of fun when I am asked “What do you do?”…
“Usually flush away the toilet paper after use. Do not drink water during a meal. Do not have milk without some sort of flavor added to it. Yes, and I also struggle, almost always, with stupid conversations.”
Who am I joking? No one. Only myself.
I don't do the above hideous job and I pity those who do. I pity them because I keep wondering what do these people say when they are asked, "What do you do?"... Because saying what I just wrote would make anyone look like a young enthusiast trying to make it big in The Apprentice, and of course making a complete idiot of himself in the process. But I am surprised at the number of people who I come across who go describing their jobs in tedious, verbose, and useless ways. Although I should really not be surprised, because a reality program, after all, is based on reality.
This "What do you do?" can be a very annoying question at times. Although it is the most popular social ice-breaker, it carries the characteristics of snobbishness, pompousness, and self-righteousness. That too, all packed in to these plain and simple four words. I mean why would you ask me this question unless you are dying to tell me what you yourself do? Also, you wouldn’t even dare ask me this question if you felt shitty about your life 9 to 5. You would in that case perhaps make an effort at making it a wee bit more interesting after 5 and ask me a different question.
When I am asked this question, I usually politely respond in a way one is supposed to. What I really want to do most of the times is actually ask a series of questions in response: What do you mean what do I do, you mean what do I do for money? Why would you want to know that? Is your hand dying to feel the thickness or the lack of it of my wallet? Why are you not interested in knowing what I do when I am not doing what you think I do for money? What is that single digit that represents your IQ?
I do appreciate the fact that a lot of people are actually quite passionate about what they do for a living. I am too. I also believe this question can bring about a certain discussion that, funnily, brings people together. But then, should the question not be “what do you feel strongly about in life?” or some such stuff? Also, if someone feels strongly about restructuring of debt in large corporations, then the real question actually is what kind of toast did he/she have with breakfast.
But then the world does not work according to my principles and theories. In fact it does not mostly even agree with my opinions. I learnt to live with it ages ago, but I still crave a bit of fun when I am asked “What do you do?”…
“Usually flush away the toilet paper after use. Do not drink water during a meal. Do not have milk without some sort of flavor added to it. Yes, and I also struggle, almost always, with stupid conversations.”
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