By-Two Kaapi in an oilfield

Times they are a changin'.
Oh yes, they sure are, chief!

It's hardly been a fortnight since I last posted here, and it's been a rollercoaster ride. Of pleasure. Of pain.

'Twas yet another morning. But I woke up early, and for only the second time in a fortnight decided to have breakfast. Three of us walk in dreaded silence to the notice boards. Of all the silences I have heard (hear silence ?!), I swear to God, that's the one I dread the most. And yes, we'd been called for an interview. Phone call, SMS, Formals, Shoes, Executive Folders. Interview. The paucity of sleep shows. I crash in the afternoon. A phone call in the middle of my sleep asking me whether I know that I'm in the next round flings me out of the bed. Phone call, SMS, Formals, Shoes, Executive Folders. Conference room for a Group Task. The tension gets to us, and time for coffee. Interview, once again. The hopes fade away to oblivion. Phone call, SMS. Give up. Go out for dinner. One more phone call telling me that we've been called by the Chief Recruiter. Phone Call, SMS, Formals, Shoes. Sixteen of us standing in front of the recruiters. Reminded me of these reality shows on television. Rockstar Schlumberger. I made it! Yes, I made it into Schlumberger last week.

The pain I've seen in others' faces over the last week is awfully disturbing. The pain of being dumped by a company, of not yet being assured of a career while the friend next door is partying, with booze flowing through the cracks in his doors. Sheesh! The empathetic pain in consoling a friend who lost out, sometimes to mediocrity. Unbearable!

The joy in hearing that line from Dad's mouth - "Now, I can sleep in peace without any worries!". The joy in calling your best friend and saying - "I made it!".

Will I take the job? or will I continue with my plans for grad school?
Reminds me of Roger Waters' line:

"Did you exchange a walk on part in a war for a lead role in a cage?"

Now I know how Juve must've felt. This is the pain of Relegation.

My last job was at Infy. 3 years. Now I'm on my own. Running a small tech startup in Bangalore. Infy was a great company. Infy built my character. The people there taught me - a shy, introvert - how to live 'life'. And among those people was my best friend. Anant. A friend who made life so beautiful. I spent one year with him. I called him my Godfather. But, to me, he was more than that. We loved each other's company. We went out on dinners, parties, and what not. And then one fine day, he had to leave to the United Fukcing States of America. What started off as a job assignment, took a U-turn. He enrolled for an MBA there. The parting was sad. He cried. I swallowed my tears, but burst out on the phone the next day. We spoke long-distance for hours. Time passed. Phone calls reduced to mails. Time passed. Mails reduced to scraps on some damn networking forum called Orkut. Time passed. Mails went unanswered. Time passed. The scraps vanished. Time passed. All his mails used to be signed - ' Love, Anant'. After a long time, I got a mail, today. A small non-descript one. 'Twas more like a mail written on compulsion. Just like the ones these damn businessmen write. I went and picked up a beer, after I read his mail. It was signed - ' Regards, Anantapadmanabha Subramaniam, MBA Class of 2007'.

Three cups of coffee.
Adequate tar content inhaled into the lungs.
A constipated day

The head feels like it would crack like some alien abdomen and ooze out some gooey-red paste.
The eyes droop, as if the only thing that can keep them awake is some mechanical eyelids-opener.
The fingers move as if they were the only remaining bread-earners for a sick, abandoned family.

Surfing through blog archives makes me laugh in contempt and cry at fate.
That folder of music called 'Romantica' on my disc makes me puke.
It is The End, beautiful friend, The End - are the only lines that make sense.

Coffee no longer gives me a kick.
A fag can't give me a high.
Music is the only thing that still hasn't lost its potence.

That urge to lead, the hunger for fame is long gone.
And I'll never look into your eyes, again - said Jim.
I saw those eyes - a faint glitter, a remote tear remained.

Insomnia : wake up at 3 in the night to watch a movie.
Watch the sun rise as I wear the inside out and then try sleep.
Wake up as I hear the words over the cellphone in a nightmare.

I got the hint.
I learnt what I had to learn.
Didn't I know?- It was never meant to be.

Three more weeks to cram 50 wordlists.
Careers and paychecks driving into the desert.
The thought of losing out to mediocrity drains the energy.

A fucking loss.
A big fucking game ahead.
But it's the same ol' fucking me - yeah, with a couple of stab wounds.

Then:

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?

I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who need reasons when you've got heroin?

So why did I do it? I could offer a million answers - all false. The truth is that I'm a bad person. But, that's gonna change - I'm going to change. This is the last of that sort of thing. Now I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm gonna be just like you. The job, the family, the fucking big television. The washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead, the day you die.