message in a bottle (02.2003 - 09.2008)

She was exhausted by the heat and by changing multiple buses. Not a very good thing when one is appearing for a job interview, she thought as she looked around herself. The receptionist sat behind a high wooden desk, only her extremely fair face with brightly painted lips visible. The phone kept ringing non-stop. Behind the glass door that separated the reception area from the work area, she could see the regular hustle-bustle of a busy Monday morning.

There was another person waiting besides her. He was busy reading the newspaper as she sat back and scrutinized him. Around her age, this boy was dressed causally in blue jeans and an orange check shirt. And sneakers. Lines formed on her forehead as she wondered if he was here for an interview as well. But who dresses so casually for an interview? She was soon distracted by the absence of the interviewer. She had tried to be smart and had clubbed two interviews that morning. Well, it was the sensible thing to do since they were both in the same area, which was in general very far from where she lived.

As she sat there hoping for an interviewer to emerge from behind the glass door, the orange-shirted boy ruffled the newspaper, the receptionist talked on the phone, and the clock ticked. When someone did walk out from behind the glass door, the big needle of the clock had completed half of its hourly journey.

She then found herself being ushered into a meeting room with an oval table and chairs all around it. A fat wad of sheets was thrust under her nose and she was told that she had two hours to finish the test. She took a deep breath and began reading the test paper. In two minutes time, the door opened again and the orange-shirted boy walked in with a fat wad of papers in his hand. She looked up and smiled. He smiled back.

An hour had passed as she sat engrossed in writing the paper when the door opened again and another girl walked in with another fat wad of papers in her hands. She looked at the two occupants of the room but did not let her expression change at all. She took a seat as far as possible from the other two people.

There were still twenty minutes to go before her allotted two hours came to an end. Her paper was done. Almost. There was this one silly question carrying one mark that she could not figure out. Could she leave it? Leave a question unanswered when she had time! How could she? But she must hurry or else she would be late for her next interview. She looked around the room. The new girl was writing her paper and her expression was still the same as it had been when she had entered the room. She then looked at the boy. He sat across from her. In comparison to the girl, he looked much favorable. She cleared her throat and said, “Excuse me,” he looked up.

“What is the distance formula?” she knew that this was an extremely simple, and hence stupid, question and was slightly pink as she looked at him hopefully.

He looked at her for a very short moment and then said, “Oh, are you talking about question 32? But see, you do not need the distance formula. It is a trick question and the answer is there in the question itself. The correct answer is the time specified in the question. Option C.” He smiled. She gave him her fake smile in return and he got back to his paper.

What the…! Speed x Time or Speed / Time was all she had wanted to know! She had asked him a question and he had told her everything except what she had asked. Slightly embarrassed by her own impulsive query and angry at his helpful response, she ticked option C and left the room.

Back in the reception area, she handed her paper to the receptionist and thought that she should forget about this vaguely humiliating and hugely anger-provoking experience. She tried to calm herself down for the next round. After all, what were the chances that she would see that orange-shirted stranger again?

Can you guess the chances?

Last one month has passed like a whirlwind. When the wind settled, I found myself in Hyderabad and there was this other person, awesome though he is, but he was there right beside me. In addition, I found myself carrying the extra weight of very pretty red bangles that always stay on my wrists.

So my love for Hyderabad is no secret. I have made at least five posts about the city in last couple of years. But loving a city is one thing and living in it, another. I am adjusting to the city where there are 143 movie halls but one never finds tickets for a show. Frequent rains help in getting the city more and more brownie points from me. Though it is the distance between work and home that is the biggest plus. It is only 3 km. Did you hear that? Three bloody kilometers! From 38 to 3! Fantastic, I’d say.

The whirlwind also took me places. From hills of Jammu to the islands of Phuket, via the beautiful George Town and some other cities, on a sailing ship. Err…no the ship did not start sailing from the hills of Jammu but we do not want to get into those details right now, right?

Traveling implies that I have been eating a lot too, of course. Tried many interesting dishes but also ate a lot of Indian food just so I could avoid eating beef, but that is material for another post. Oriental seafood is something I do not swear by but delectable Thai food in a local restaurant in a village built in the ocean is another story. More food stories coming up soon.

Well, so now that I am in Hyderabad and not getting to watch any movies, what have I been up to? Playing games, of course. Having married the gamer, mild mannered or not, games become an essential part of life. Now, when I am not playing Gears of War (I suck at it, though), Elite Agents, or Wii Sports, I am found with my head bent over a Windows mobile phone. Checking mail on the little device is so much fun, inconvenient yes, but still fun. Also, the joy of seeing the coffee shop you are sitting in on google maps is humongous. Right, I have a pretty meaningless life but what the heck, I love it!

Poll #753479 work or home
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

During an idle chat over lunch yesterday, we realized that 80% of highly successful women in our organization are either unmarried or divorced/separated. Does this mean that a woman can either have a happy family or a successful career?

No Anupma, let me explicate it for you…

Nineteen is a selfish age and finds one’s cares tightly circumscribed. I felt endlessly powerful and endlessly optimistic; my pockets were empty but my head was full of things I wanted to say and my heart was full of stories I wanted to tell. I felt I had been made to do those things. How conceited does that sound? A lot or a little? Either way I do not apologize. I was nineteen.

Around the age of thirty-nine, my troubles began to set in. The world eventually sends out a mean-ass Patrol Boy to slow your progress and show you who’s boss. You reading this have undoubtedly met yours, or will. I met mine, and I am sure he’ll be back. He’s got my address. He’s a mean guy, Bad Lieutenant, the sworn enemy of goofery, fuckery, pride, ambition, loud music, and all things nineteen.

- Stephen King

Unlike King, I never did drugs or got drunk enough to boast about it. Nevertheless, I have had my own share of careless juvenile ambitions that gave me a high back then but wouldn’t catch me dead now.

Dreaming my way through life

Until five years back, I believed that one day I was going to grow up to write books for children, to open my own bookshop, to earn enough money to take vacations in Hawaii and Vatican City, to build my dream house…you get the drift, right?

I still want to do all these things. I really do. I still think that one day I will do all these things and more. Yet sometimes, just sometimes, I feel the feasibility of all somewhat bleak. I Doubt. Damn this Doubt.

So how did I come from believing in my dreams to wanting my dreams to come true? How did the big D creep in?

Spotting the Patrol Boy

The day my hairdresser discovered the first strand of grey in my hair, I stopped to think for a moment. But no, that’s because of the polluted environment and the harsh chemicals I bestow on my hair, I told myself and moved on.

Then I tumbled upon a book written by 24-year old author and the book was not another Opal Mehta. I walked into a florist shop run and managed by a 23-year old girl and bought flowers for my friend who was throwing a house warming party for her own house. That was the day I spotted the bad old Patrol Boy in my neighborhood. He was right there making clandestine inquiries about me.

As I looked at him from behind the lamppost, I realized that the clock has been ticking. If I were to make all my dreams come true, I would’ve at least started on some of them. Sigh.

Being friends with the Patrol Boy

No dear reader, no, I have not given up just yet. I have a game plan. I am going to switch on my charms and be friends with the Patrol Boy. Being his nasty self, he must be pretty lonely. If I were nice to him, he’ll have no choice but to reciprocate. And then, I shall gain some more time to make my dreams come true.

What do you want from life?

In my opinion, this is a pseudo deep question. When I close my eyes and think about it, the first picture that comes to my mind is that of the Nescafe girl. The one I see on the Nescafe vending machine - curly hair, cheerful smile, hot cup of coffee.

Happiness and peace of mind. That is all I ask for. Not too complicated, is it?



Of late, I have taken some decisions without consulting many and these decisions do not match with the general idea of a successful life. Why are you so rigid, Anupma? How can you say no to such an opportunity? I am not rigid, I have just made up my mind. And sometimes, opportunity lies in saying 'no'. You just have to figure out what works for you.

I have figured that living a life you want is possible. It is possible to be happy outside the boundaries the society has defined for us. There is something to be said about coming home to a warm smile and piping hot home cooked food, about sipping masala tea with your friend on a Saturday afternoon, about falling asleep with your book in the familiar comfort of your bed, about walking into a room full of smiling, friendly faces and cracking a bad joke every morning. I chose all this and more over what they call an opportunity.

The way I see it, it is the society that has rigid ideas. Let me take the example of my favorite topic - 'shoot me, I am single!' Society refuses to believe that a thirty something woman can be happy unless she is married. This high flying, free spirited woman with a great career is hiding her loneliness behind that matte makeup, they say. But what about the woman who finds herself caught in the web of a loveless marriage or, worse still, a hostile relationship? That's okay, life is not fair and one always has to work things out, they say. Hence, I rest my point that it is the society that refuses to budge.

Come to think of it, the solution is simple. All I need to do is to tune out toxic, close-minded people who spread nothing but negative energy. I refuse to measure the success rate of my life on their parameters. Is all.

“There is a lot to be said about suppressing one’s emotions. If you do it long enough, you do not feel anything.” – Excerpt from Neil Gaiman’s American Gods

I read these lines more than a week back but they’ve stayed with me. I know that one can condition oneself to reach this state of numbness but I still don’t agree with the philosophy. Do you?

“When I grow up, I want to be a newsreader!” the eleven-year-old Anupma would happily announce, often.

From a newsreader to a radio jockey, a college lecturer, a print journalist, a fiction writer, a bookshop owner…the proclamations may have changed but they have always been present. You can still find me declaring that I want to be such-n-such when I grow up.

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This morning, I was looking for a mug shot of Topher Grace to check out if he’d suit the role of Venom in Spider-Man III. While looking at his biography, I noticed that he is only five months senior to me. Look at the list of small somethings that he has under his belt! And, he is not even half as famous as many others of his age.

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So the point is that I’ve missed my station. If I had to grow up and be something, I would have done that already.

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The new, adjusted announcement:

“If I grow up, I want to own a bookshop!”

As I stepped into the crowded corridor, I sensed an acrid stench engulf me. I quickened my pace and tried to ignore those pushing me to get past. I climbed three flights of an extremely narrow staircase to enter a sea of people in black. On second thoughts, not all were dressed in black. I could see spots of colors every now and then. I walked to the panel where a list of names was pinned to a board, ran my finger down the list, and stopped at number 23.

A man wearing white trousers and gray sleeveless pullover called out a name. I checked the list again. He had called out for number 15. I had time. Seated in the last row of a tiny courtroom, I looked around. This was nothing like what I had seen in movies. The judge looked calm, which surprised me. A man standing to her right called out names and people, in groups of two or three, hurried towards the judge's desk. The judge did not spend more than five minutes on any case. There was a strange disinterest in the environment. People who made the colored spots in the ocean of black were somber. The blacks did not seem to care or may be it was just my overactive imagination.

The white-trousered man stood up again, raised his voice and called out “Roopa Mehta versus Shyamlal Mehta.”* An old couple walked towards the judge's desk accompanied by their black guy. The woman wrapped in a beige shawl tugged at the man's arm. The man followed his wife's gaze, which was fixed on a woman in early thirties, walking beside another woman in black.

The woman in black immediately took control and started off by explaining to the judge that her client Roopa, a widow with two kids, was an eyewitness of her husband's murder. She, along with her two sons, was now living with her parents. The woman in black then pointed at the old couple and said “They are her husband's parents and want her children's custody.” At this, the judge gave a confused look and said “Explain!”

This time the black guy took over. “The parents and the wife of the dead know that the son was murdered by his cousin, who sought his property. They are collectively fighting the case of murder. However, at present, the parents want that their only son's wife and kids should come and live with them.”

“How can I live with them?” piped Roopa pointing at the old man. “His brother's son killed my husband.” She continued talking about property, money, and her children's custody, and stopped only when the judge rebuked, “You shut up! Let your advocate talk.”

The woman in beige shawl looked at Roopa and said, “All our property is yours. Come, live with us.” This was as fruitful as talking to a rock.

Five minutes were over. The judge looked at the old man and said “Why should I not give the mother custody of her children? Is she unfit in any respect?”

“No, My Lord”, said their black guy, “They are not asking for custody! They want their only son's children and wife to live with them or at least meet them once in a while.”

The judge shook her head, “Write an application and present it on April, 6th.”

Roopa and her black woman walked out of the room. The old couple followed. I wiped a solitary tear from my cheek as I saw the crumbled old couple walk out.

*Names are fictitious.