Skip to main content

Dancing in the Dark

A few epiphanies have made their presence felt over the past week. Here goes:
  • You come prepared to face gale-force winds and sheets of rain and are instead greeted with 38 degree C heat and 91 % humidity. Every day. For 3 weeks, to date !! To say you feel cheated would be an understatement.
  • You may be open-minded about different cuisines but the dish that makes you genuinely happy is the saada-dosa. Of course, you realize that the fantastic Udupi restaurant you discovered only in week 3 is right next to the Thai place you have been manfully frequenting. Hidden by a cunningly-placed potted plant, mind you.
  • Your colleagues and boss are smokers and you are not. Ergo, your chances of receiving any pertinent information as regards the workplace are dead in the water. And it does not make an iota of difference giving any of them the cold cod eye as they discuss things to death since they can't see a damn thing through the nicotine cloud anyway.
  • You are anti-social. Quite likely schizoid. When coupled with the epiphany above, you never really stood a chance of passing off as remotely normal as far as fellow interns are concerned. Making for fascinating observations on office group-dynamics, body language and avoidance. Oh joy!!
  • The amount of work at an internship is inversely proportional to the pay. I work for free.
  • You are going to be working in strange places all your life because 1st world countries do not need help with 'development'. 3rd world countries, on the other hand, do. And convincing yourself that the travel is a bonus only works as long as things are going well.
  • Not everything named Angkor is spectacular. Especially beer.
  • On the subject of beer, Beerlao is recommended. Some morons may think that this is the only item that gets exported from Laos, but that is a fabrication. On the other hand, it may be the only item that ought to be.
  • No matter how hard you try to rationalize it or how many times you hear it, any friend's "oyez, oyez" concerning impending matrimony is regarded with a fine mix of happiness, disbelief and the realization as to how old we are. Or are getting.
Song for the moment: Have you ever seen the rain - CCR

Comments

bhumika said…
:) looks like week 3 turned out to be quite fruitful!
16 June 2008 at 17:17
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Longfellow Serenade

Dear reader, A conversation in a buzzing bar over a mug of beer got me thinking on today's theme; the writing of a letter. As with many of the shared contemplations I've had, we spoke about it for the sake of the flowing idea, the peculiarly gentle glee in being able to use what have commonly been referred to as 'big words' in actual conversation without having the threat of perplexity hanging in the air. Perhaps you have & enjoy these moments yourself. Mayhaps, you have debated the same theme ? Nonetheless, I often ponder upon the march of time & technology that has left me regarding life with some ambiguity. I appreciate technology & how it has made living easier on many levels. I do not hanker for the b/w television nor for a computer with 16 MB RAM & the large floppy disk. I thank the heavens for air-conditioning & the photocopier. I use the internet a lot. The Dark Ages or in India's case, the years up to the 1990's, had their moment in ...
8 comments
Read more

Love and Happiness

The year was 1950. Having missed a prestigious Government position in Delhi by the proverbial hair's breadth, a 24 year old youth from the south of India began to look for work elsewhere. In this land, destinies were & are made in Bombay. Fate decreed that this boy, called K, had been gallivanting around the backwaters long enough and directed him to the city caressed by the Arabian Sea. Once he'd begun to work, his family wanted to check off the next thing on the list - a bride. K bluntly told his father that he was not interested in an arranged marriage, practically scandalizing everyone in the vicinity and a few ancestors for good measure. Predictably enough, his wishes were ignored and the hunt for a suitable girl began in earnest, culminating in a small town in Tamil Nadu. K was tersely informed about his upcoming nuptials and although furious, he acquiesced. Which should come as no surprise, really, as young men and women do so even today. The bride-to-be was 20i...
7 comments
Read more

Many the miles

Some time ago, I decided to cut down on the whining that seems to be a major theme on this blog. After having written a couple of short story posts and one interesting challenge, I found that more commentary on life, its machinations and assorted tomfoolery just did not interest me. For the moment, at least. That also thankfully means that I can't talk about the Indian cricket team's test saga. Anyway, in recent weeks, a new trend has taken root in that fragment of the 'gang' that lives in Pune. Instead of meeting up and hitting the tipple every now and then, we meet and they discuss trekking to various forts in and around Pune. Notice how I'm not in these councils-of-war. Although I've played sports in school and college, I've never been a fan of physical toil. All these talks conjure up are images of waking up at some ungodly hour before sunrise, scooting to some random hill / fort and huffing, puffing, slipping & scrabbling around in near darkness w...
14 comments
Read more