My BETSy!

A faceless person in a crowded workplace, i was always unconnected and de-socialized from conventional patterns of reality.

Born of my desire to be "like other people" and make emotional contact with someone, i was attracted and drawn first to this fabulous, brown girl dressed in purple colored, flower printed kurta & leggings. Suddenly, she appeared (in slow-motion) from a mass of these filthy crowd on the street, paying fare to the rickshaw driver and then walking all alone into the posh entrance of this huge commercial building, checking for her  identity card in her purse, to flash it off to the security guards, GOD! i can still visualize it. This commercial huge building was the place where she worked. As she entered the building, I observed her from afar, worshiped her and developed a crush on her, viewing her as an untouchable dream-girl ideal (a WASP-ish, angelic beauty in my fantasies).

With all the GOD's Grace & luck on this universe it was my first day of joining an office in the same building. But to my disappointment, i couldn't even have a glimpse of her for next couple of hours. I was asked by a receptionist to wait till my manager arrives & give instructions for the day. All i could do then was, have a fresh cappuccino coffee from the maker, read a Business magazine, or keep moving my eyes looking at those elderly beautiful H.R. girls (which was a better option). After a While I got bored (obviously anyone would be after constantly looking at the same chicks) and rose from the sofa to ask the receptionist how long it’s going to take and she said 'just 10 minutes!' and i reserved myself for next half an hour. To my surprise she called my name, i thought to myself 'Finally' but she told me to go for the lunch break and after that I’ll be called upon by my manager. WHAT? Lunch @ 1pm? yesterday i was having beer in the swimming pool with my friends till 4pm & had my lunch by 5.. i was thinking of all those things & tried to convince myself and asked her for the way to cafeteria. Again there was huge crowd, all these people dressed up so formally with their identity cards on, appeared to me like beggars outside the temple waiting for the food to be served. Pgghewww! i went and had a coke & put my earphones on to listen to some music. As I was sippin' my coke, i was constantly annoyed by this guy flirting with a girl sitting in front of him. Though I couldn't see her face, but it was an impulse that i figured the girl was voluntarily responding to him & was least bothered to engage with him. She was sitting in front of me facing towards the same as i was, so i could just see her back and wait for her to turn. She wore a grey colored full tilt sweater sleeve jacket on, as the temperature in the cafeteria was too low. Now i was deeply observing her movements & then out of my curiosity i got up to put the can in the bin, actly an excuse to pass by her and to see her, my phone rang... it was the receptionist, asked me to come back as my manager called for me. DAMN! What a fuckin' day it was, i thought disappointingly and put the can in the bin & rushed towards the receptionist's desk. She showed me the way to the bay on the floor where my 'Gonna be' team works & adjacent to that there was a small cabin, they call it 'Glass Pod', where the manager sits.

It was 2 in the noon, and i was already pissed off, now i have to introduce myself to the new manager & to the fellow members, a general formality which i hate a lot. But thankfully he didn't ask me too many questions about myself rather he briefed me about how everything works in the office & some 'Do' & 'Don'ts' and asked the team embers to gather, (it was quite unusual to me from my prior experience) within a few moments everybody gathered around (then i was introduced to his powerful command over 'em), and started introducing themselves to me & vice versa. The last guy who shook hands with me, instantly i thought I’ve seen him somewhere.. Struggled a lot with my mind to recognize him but couldn't. Suddenly this guy asked someone behind me (supposedly just entered in) 'Hey where have you been?' 'Here's your new trainee'..  As i slowly turned back to see who's he or she?

 Rahman's 'Hossana' started with an extremely perfect sync of what i saw & felt c’ing her. What a beautiful day? I said to myself. It was her! The girl i saw in the morning! That Angel! Oh GOD  m i dreaming? all of a sudden all these reactions aroused & my mind was the arena where they clashed & met making me Jaw-Dropped!

 'Hello, Sachin', she said.. it was 14:26:32 on the digital clock on the wall, a sunny Monday from an autumn of 2010.

 I was smitten right away, by her. Awestruck by her charm & spellbound smile, and mainly by the brown skin of hers i went speechless, delighted inside. But I managed to reply her in a confused state of mind. Then she started explaining me about the process of work & stuff. I heard & understood nothing but her sweet feminine voice, my whole concentration was pointed towards it.

 After a couple of hours we all went for the tea break, the last break for the day before an hour the shift ends. She offered me to join the team for the break, and she was so quick to ask me whether i Smoke and i was quicker to say 'NO'. As everybody proceeded to virtually lock their systems, it was then i saw her wearing a grey colored full tilt sweater sleeve jacket on, and my puzzle resorted to the fact that it was’ HER' i saw in the cafeteria in the noon & the guy who shook hands with me last, was 'HIM'. For a moment i thought of 'em having an affair, but somewhere i was sure i wouldn’t be like that. Because any person having 5gms of brain would've figured out then, looking at the scene of cafeteria in the noon.

 She was quite affable. But these screw heads (team members) occupied a table & settled around it, grabbed their snacks & beverages, but i didn't, actually i couldn't coz' i was left with some odd 30rs, which i needed to go back home, i lived in a town quite far from this place and three cigarettes. She smiled and asked me why m not having anything, i managed to reply her that i didn't feel like to. Now every vein of mine was red out of the blue for a smoke, DARN! it was almost three hours i didn't go out for a smoke and i lie to her that i dont smoke. Somehow i managed to convince my pretentious GOOD BOY image, made an excuse of making a call @ home and went out of the office. Now while smoking my imaginations went multiplying with the sensuous thoughts about her. After the smoke i put a mint in my mouth, (which i hate doing, i guess last time i did that was some 3years ago in college before going home) and rushed towards the office. I entered in and sat next to her, then she gave a brief revision of what she explained to me earlier and i kept saying 'Yeah' 'Okay' 'alryt' moving my head to indicate to her that I’ve understood everything, which i didn't anything but HER!

 Finally it was 17:00 on the clock & on everybody's screen. It was like they wait everyday for this moment to happen, everybody logged out from their PCs & woke up in such sync, it seemed to me like a parade. I was quite sad about it, the day came to an end & I’ll have to wait for next 16hours to see her again. We all exchanged our 'Goodbyes' and proceeded to leave. Within a couple of seconds the bay was evacuated, so without wasting any time i hurried to the downstairs with a hope of having a last glimpse  f her. Guess what? i did. But all in vain, i saw her getting into a rickshaw with that guy. There was a quick dive into the vibrant disturbance in my thoughts.

 Disappointed, I went back home, had a bath, met my friend and we went to our regular local BAR for a round of Whiskey. After a couple of rounds i finally everything happened in the whole day bled thru my mouth. He gave me some tips not to impress her but to stay away from it, as he hardly have any interest and time for such things. But it was her constantly on my mind and i hardly paid any attention to my friend's GYAN. I went back home, had my dinner & slept.

Money! for WH@T?

“He who has a 'why' to live can bear with almost any how“

                                                          -Friedrich Nietzsche

A chilhood friend of mine has always been obsessed with saving money. For hours he explains about some recurring deposit scheme or some such thing where if you put Rs.1 Lakh 

how it will become Rs.5 Lakhs in 7 years and this he keeps telling everyone in our friends’ 

circle who does not think beyond that day, namely me. He comes from a quite wealthy family 

background than us in our circle, but always lead a life style of not even taking his car 

for outings & stuff, always prefer to keep it under a tarpaulin cloth and travel in 

autorickshaws & often on other’s bike.

One day I asked him what is the point of having money if you don’t use it for having a 

better quality of life. 

He answered saying, "if my grandfather and father thought the 

same then i probably would not have had any money."

I answered ‘fine if you grandfather 

works hard saves and saves and gives it to your father and then he saves and saves and gives 

it to you and then you save and save give it to your son and what if you give birth to a son 

like me. All the earlier three generations will become super big fools, Ha Ha!’

Money for me is potential energy and has no meaning unless it is made kinetic.

I would think in a very simplistic way on a philosophical level the origin of money could be 

explained in this way. When men in the primitive times used to hunt they were like all other 

animals. Hunt, eat, sleep, hunt again would have been the cycle.

And some time one among them has an idea of agriculture as in wanting to grow a crop. Now 

others might not understand or share his vision but he will need them to work for him on the 

crop. So to compensate them for working for his vision which could go wrong or right was 

where money has been invented and he pays them with that.

So with the money they got, it becomes their energy which they could choose to make it 

kinetic in whichever way they individually choose to. But again to enjoy money you first 

need to enjoy the experience of living a life and also to be able to identify what all 

life’s shop can offer you. For instance you can buy the greatest music system that a shop 

can offer but you can’t buy from life’s shop a mind which can actually relish the music 

which plays from it. That mind, you have to have yourself. If not, having money will just 

amount to securing yourself fearing poverty or to feel a sense of elation in comparison to 

others who have lesser money than you. Thus it becomes nothing but a measurement for your 

own self esteem.

If you have a beautiful rich house others will admire especially those who live in the same 

street, but you yourself will take it for granted in not more than one day after the 

interior décor is done and from then on you will be only looking at its faults. Also if you 

have issues with your wife, the same house will look like a horror house from your point of 

view as you are approaching it after your days work.

The point I am trying to make is that no materialistic things like a music system, a car, a house etc can really give you pleasure unless it enhances the pleasure of your own personal feelings with regard to them in one way or the other. If you are with a person who bores you it won’t make a difference if you are having The Balvenie Doublewood in the Lounge of Waldorf Astoria and if you are interested in the person having a Beer with, in a Local roadside BAR also will do wonders.

The point of life is to relish your feelings and money can make a point if and only it helps 

you achieve that. I don’t care for people who want to make money just to save it as I don’t understand the point of trying to prepare for losses and death right from the time of being born. Then what’s the point of being born?

I want money so that I can organise events but I don’t do them so that I can make money. I 

have never made money and I think I never will. The reason for that being my mindset of 

constantly putting to use whatever money I have going by my theory of making it kinetic. So 

even if I organise an event which does not work, which obviously can not be my intention, 

the least it is doing is give that some people work thereby making them kinetic, and yes at 

least it is making them earn their livelihood and I irrespective of losing money i will 

still generate more contacts & goodwill out of it.

Ideas and feelings are the only true wealth anyone can really possess and on that account I 

have always been rich and I will always be, that is at least for myself. Whether that 

achieves anything in others perception or not it’s not my concern as “I live for myself”.

RE-WoRK.

“When you look into an Abyss, the Abyss also looks into you”
                                                               - Friedrich Nietzsche

People constantly live in either a fear of losing or in a hope of gaining. There’s no such thing as an absolute state of success. I have always been successful and that’s nothing to do with my profession. Success is something I define as to be able to get up in the morning and do what you want to do till you sleep. That does not mean that you should want to fly or rule empires. It could be anything which your capability permits and your intelligence submits.

Yes, you have your family, relationships, obligations etc. But if you want to take care of them and stand by them, you are doing what you want to do. In reality most people act and do things out of compulsion by others or within themselves rather than really wanting to do so.

I always had & will have ‘Inshah-Allah’ the courage to bear the consequences of the decisions I take. Many of my decisions went wrong, in fact most of them. But what cannot be taken away from me is the pleasure moments I experienced in that process. By the time the result of a certain decision came about I was already into the pleasure of moments of other decisions and this has been the circle all my life.

If you are on a dry beach and you want to reach a beautiful looking island in the distance, you can make a decision to swim across or go in a boat on maybe take a plane or just fantasize that you are there on that island or psyche yourself that you are better off on the dry beach itself. But what most people will do is to constantly worry about whether there might be sharks in the sea or the boat might sink or the plane ticket is too expensive or what if there is a sudden storm, and thereby remain bitter, frustrated and fearful all their lives.

I weigh the consequences and think of the logistics and plunge in even if I don’t know swimming. I will either learn to swim or sink in the process but what I will not do at any cost is to stay put. After two succesful events(couple of years ago), I again geared up myself & my resources and ventured into organizing an event with higher production cost & risks, after all my efforts with new ideas & trend it turned out a FLOP. But it could have turned succesful too. When I organized two events which were much more succesful. The word success itself is highly relative. In showbiz Flops and hits happen by themselves whereas the only thing I can really make happen is to make a decision & put all my efforts, creativity & hard work to execute a idea into a better manner. For me i always consider myself succesful whenever i could take such risks on my own & make it happen the way i wanted it to, regardless the consequenses & result. For instance after all the effort and courage if I manage to reach that beautiful island, as soon as I step on it I could be killed by a lion there whose existence I don’t even know about. Not once am I saying that I know everything about what will happen. I just want to do things that I want to happen.

Once while we were travelling in a car, a guy very concernedly gave me a theory that 50 years from now we are going to have water wars in the world where everyone will die. I told him that at the next turn on the road we might be hit by a truck and die, and frankly I am not concerned about what happens to the world one second after I die. But if you truly worry about the water wars instead of sitting here and worrying why don’t you go and do some scientific research to solve the water problem. If you don’t know science then atleast work as a tea boy to the scientist and contribute. But I know you would not do that as then you won’t have time to do your umpteen other activities like going to the discotheque, cinema and indulge in bitching sessions. And on the other hand if you truly constantly worry about the world being finished in 50 years, what if a smart scientist comes up with a solution in the 49th year and then you would be the biggest fool for wasting 49 years of your life worrying off.

Most people can’t differentiate between worrying and thinking, Worrying is negative energy and makes your mind run in circles breeding depression and frustration whereas thinking makes you reach a decision and the decision you reach will result in work and if the work does not result in what you wanted from it, all you have to do is Re-work.

My Dream Project – A Night Worker.

Sam Pinto, age 24, lean, hard, very welcoming to his close friends and colleagues. Enjoys laughing & going to the movies with them. He loves cigarettes, music and humor, especially while boozing. He dresses up as per his frame of mind, sometimes very gently and sometimes off-the-cuff.

 A joker in his family, loves & respects them eternally. Shares a very special bonding (unusual amongst his friends & the people he knows) with his mother & elder brother (he often cites him as ‘DON CORLEONE’ – out of his obsession with the movie THE GOFATHER and its strongest character, portrayed by Al Pacino). He’s very much interested in Movies, and gets so infatuated while & after watching a particular film, that he keep impersonating his favorite character, for days or months, either peeving or appealing some.

  He enjoys a lot spending time with his friends, they respect & care for him to some extend and feel that he’s enough talented to get recognized, so they keep him encouraging.

  Since childhood Sam was smitten by girls elder than him. His romantic fascination was always driven by them. He finds them more considerate & striking. He was sympathetically rejected by two beautiful women, only reason being ‘THE AGE DIFFERENCE’, but he feels very delighted of the fact, that it was only the matter of ‘Age’, nevertheless they loved him.

  On the other hand Sam is a consummate loner at office (his workplace). He appears cold & often ungenerous; but he has a quiet steady look and a disarming smile which flashes from nowhere, lighting up his whole face. In the office, to his fellow employees & supervisors, he seems to have wandered in from a land where the inhabitants seldom speak. The head moves, the expression changes, but the eyes remain ever-fixed, unblinking, piercing empty space.

  He’s always haunted by the memories of, his earlier immoral acts on personal & professional grounds.

  Sam is now working in a 24/7 service call center, in a city miles away from his town, where he has to travel by train everyday (mostly nights). It’s the ninth company he’s working for (though with same profile of customer service & sales executive) in his career of five years till date.

  He’s not completely a social inept, but pretends, such as being one.

  Noticed or not, it doesn’t bother him, because he feels that the fellow people he works with are ‘A BUNCH OF JERKS’, the main cause of his social isolation.

  Sam is one with his own surroundings. As the earth moves toward the sun, Sam moves toward violence.

*This is a depiction of the character ‘Sam Pinto‘ from my script ‘A Night Worker’. 

Friends? @WorkPlace?

 It happened a couple of days ago in the smoke zone of my office. I was doing night shift and 
took my dinner break & went there for a smoke after having my meal. I was alone smokin’ 
there, didn’t carry my cellphone, had nothin to do but listen to this gentleman (standing 
next to me), quite elder than me, smoking with an another guy (his junior)). They were into 
a deep sermon. I joined the vacant space lil’ away from them, in the midst of their 
conversation. Initially i thought that it was a general conversation like most of the 
employees does, but eventually i understood that the gentleman was trying to make his fella 
be au fait with something, which was much more serious than i thought .I found the 
conversation so intresting & genuine that i didn’t even bother about my break time which was 
about to exceed, to my manager’s advantage for scoldin’ me.. Fu%K*^g MORON! 
i believe this guy was new in the organization & he was having a hard time settlin’ in & 
did have some problems with his supervisor & fellow team members who were tryin’ to push 
him, so the gentleman, while talking to him said, “Never rely on anyone here, u’ll never 
know who will take advntge of you or push you around, apprearing very helpful & kind to 
you.. just concentrate on your stuff ‘coz ultimately you’ll be reponsible for your own deeds 
here n anywhere in this world, and most importantly you can never make friends at your 
workplace,(due to a lot of certain reasons, i was sure the other guy was kinda emotional) 
someone could be a good colleague but can never be a friend at your workplace”
Instantly it reminded me of a quote from the movie ‘THE GODFATHER’ pt 3.. ‘Friendship & 
Money – Oil & Water’, the lead character DON CORLEONE (potrayed by my favouriate & the best 
of all AL PACNIO) tells this to Archbishop Gilday in a scene where Archbishop Gilday asks 
Don Corleone for help when his friends use the good name of the Church & his, to feed their 
greed and leave him alone to be blamed for seven-hundred million dollar deficit.
What made me stand their & listen to him without caring about my break time was whatever he 
said & was trying to explain his junior colleague was relevant to my thoughts & experience. 
I think it’s an absolute truth that One could never find a friend at his/her workplace, it’s 
wat i’ve obsrvd all these years in different companies, i’ve wrkd with and lot of people do 
not agree with this fact. One can hangout with his/her fellow employees for rounds of booze, 
share memories & cribb about their Boyfriends or Girlfriends, ask for favours, tell them ur 
problems and etc.. But most importantly as the wise gentleman said “You could never rely on 
‘em”, i know one may not agree wt me, infact a lot of ya.. but if u get into the skin of the 
matter, the intensity of the fact, u’ll find your answer! It doesn’t mean one shouldn’t 
trust or disrespect his/her fellow team members, or He/She is always been tried to be pushed 
around by others..’NO’ coz it always affects ur jugdmnt & focus towards the prople around & 
their work. One should treat their fellow employees with all respect, but should also see to 
it that they desrve it. It applies to every individual, to me, you, your friend, 
brother,father,& so on. We should fight our own battle & rely upon ourselves, our self 
confidence & our ‘FAITH’- our true friend sent from The Almighty God.

“For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well – organized and armed militia is their best security”

                                                                                                                       -Thomas Jefferson