A New Life

As I boarded the B'lore bound Jet Airways flight from Dum Dum airport, Kolkata, with the tickets of 2 more between B'lore and Delhi already booked, two thoughts kept me occupied: 1) had France managed to qualify for the 2nd round to give Zizou one last shot at glory & 2) the lines from the song "Thoda Paisa" by Aghosh "..jahan bhi jaenge, jaenge flight se aha, are aha. Aur Sunday manaege Friday night se haan.....". Viera and Henry made sure that the talismanic Zidane gets another chance and later the perennial underachievers Spain made sure that Sunday will see a repeat of the '98 finals between the favourites, who are yet to show their Samba Magic to full effect and a team which has somehow managed to scrape through with most of their players in the twilight of their career.

It's been 5 days since I landed in B'lore after having a fortnight's break with my parents in Bokaro which followed a momentous event in my life; that of my completing my final project, graduating and becoming an engineer, the reason for my hiatus from blogging. I have always been a here, now kind of a guy. Future plannings, setting long term goals, looking ahead are things which I am seldom able to comprehend though I tend to think about them a lot. So as I stand at a crossroads of my life, I find myself at a totally alien environment, that of the software industry, in a city which is fast loosing its charm to outsiders though the weather is still awesome especially if you happen to come from Delhi, unsure of what I want, unsure of the course of my life in the next one year, hoping to find my true calling. It's a big jolt to say the least. Make no mistake though, I am neither worried nor sad. It's just that things haven't yet fallen into place for me here. Instead of the twenty odd familiar faces that I used to see everyday, now I see only one, the 3 to 12 sleeping schedule has given way to a 3 (Thank God there is the World Cup) to 9 one. Office is mostly boring and banal. The guest house is pretty impressive and most importantly has a TV. The soccer has been dramatic though predictable and is destined to get better in the final stages with the prospects of a Ger-Bra or Arg-Bra Finale. Krissh turned out to be more melodrama than super hero so hopefully Superman Returns soon.

The fortnight long vacation with my parents was spent packing my wardrobe with formal wear or cotton casuals as the brand would name them, replacing my 4 year old 3310 with a flashy one with camera and radio and what not (I don't remember the model number) and mostly basking in the glory of becoming a graduate, trying to fathom the reason why my parents were so happy when I hadn't done anything more than allowing things to take their own course. Somehow I knew things are going to be very different and it was a time to let go. Let go of not washing yourself or your clothes till God knows how long, let go of living day in day out with lots of people and noise around you, let go of familiar places, let go of your Dad's money, let go of your lifestyle for the last 5 years. Suddenly the proud and spontaneous answer to an elderly gentleman's query or a lady's with two beautiful daughters in a train to "Kya karte ho beta...." had changed to a very everyday and commonplace just another face in the crowd types. It was time to let go of student life and take a step towards the professional one. Meanwhile I also had counselling sessions with two more new entrants to the college I left and the hopes and aspirations of the boys as well as their families were so akin to those of mine and my parents' half a decade (wow that seems long!) ago that it almost seemed I was doing it all over again.

So here I am, in the garden city trying to find my footing (and more importantly a house!), waiting for more friends to arrive in mid July to lend a bit more familiarity to this place, hoping also that the next blog is not this bad and random.