Feeling so Sunday

life is boring at 22. I can't imagine how unbearable it's going to be much later. Was I born out of place in the wrong age and place, or is this how life's always been? If the answer is the latter, then I suppose I'm ignorant of what it takes to make life meaningful beyond 22. Never realized life can be so depressive. My head is too full of childhood stories of men who wanted to live forever, who hated to die. I wonder what made them think that it would be a nice idea to be immortal when, I at the prime of my life at 22, already feel senile, wilted and wanting to explore death as an interesting turning point.
My survival has seized its connections with my interests, values, passions and pastimes that have defined me and made me what I am. I don't find me living my life in waking up and having to report to work that I don't appreciate doing.
I no longer take pleasure doing the little things that added meaning to life, like visiting the temple pond, short walks, occasional midnight meals with friends. The day is morose, and feels like the world will die a cold death at next dawn. I refuse to talk to much, I refuse to do anything worthwhile as I'm eaten by the emptiness of what life has become. No time to interact with friends, nobody to trust with secrets, no more group studies, no more outings to hill stations, no more beer parties, no more nothing. Suddenly I realize it's getting to late; I need to go crash right away to get some decent sleep before its dawn and an entire new day begins. Cause I know the world won't die a cold death so soon, and I would be left back, too back, if I don't run to the work I don't like; by all means hate.
I don't like to plan my entire day so that my work receives highest priority, when in actual priority is family and time for myself.
My thoughts break away, I feel tired thinking of the sharp turn life has taken after college. I fear I have to bear this all my life. I wish my life was short, so that I can put an end to this sooner. All my teachers were wrong about me, when they said I have a great future. How can something be great if it isn't even enjoyed? I only wish I could live the life of hope that I lived while in school or the glorious college life; glorious despite the small pockets. Every new person that I meet is graver than the previous. Probably that's how everyone feels about me too. Everybody's talking things that other doesn't understand, not even interested. Few are willing to listen. yet, everyone wants to be heard and I have become one among them. Far from what I wished I would be when I grew up, I'm everything like I never wanted to be; over working, impatient, complaining, unsatisfied and worldly ambitious. The best way to overcome my predicament is to crash soon and let Sunday pass while I'm asleep charging my spent spirit for another week of work I'm not passionate about.

People management

Great leaders have accomplished what they've because in addition to their visionary insights and persistent attempts they were great people managers. The art of managing fellow humans is indispensable for the success of  organizations on the longer run. While various theories exists to help managers decide their approach to management; good people management skills form the core of character of modern leaders who collaborate and perform team work to succeed. Good people managers are individuals who in nature have tremendous self-respect and manifest it through their actions several times a day in their interactions with fellow humans, be it one's reportee, friend, family member or just another person whom he meets. They recognize another man's self-respect as being equally important as theirs and abstains from acts that may startle the beholder's self-respect, which would then shake one's own self-request. Good leaders seldom raise their voice or speak crap out in anger. They are men who measure their words and have handle on their temper.
True leaders have in stock a variety of methods to see the task to completion, and their choice of strategy is solely based on its suitability to the problem encountered, as they believe there's no 'one fits all' solution for problems. Managers who often shout or resort to fear tactics to get the work done are out of place in today's consumer driven market where good customer experience that is pivotal to success depends to a large extent on good employee experience. Bigoted heads often miss the larger context of management in fulfilling the minor obligations of the trade, and end up drowning the organization in the process. The importance of proactive people management in a multicultural, equal participatory workforce is realized if we recognize that bosses are an employee's window to the organization. Most employees look up to their bosses for support and knowledge in discharging their responsibilities; and ill-educated manager often think of themselves as men who have to be flattered and fulfilled if a reportee were to have a career in the organization. Sadly, such organizations do not survive. And the cause of its defeat would be its own employees, who though very capable failed because they're fighting the whimsies and fancies of their bosses instead of being productive at work. Most managers wrongly logic that fear and insecurity drives productivity. On the contrary, in a employment rich market, able employees will seek opportunities where they can freely express their inventive ideas than try to save their jobs. It's a sad fact that some managers still languish in age old practices of enforcing work on his reportees using fear tactics like in the zamindari-peasant system. Fear might work to force complete work that doesn't require creativity and inventiveness. Employing the same tactics in a creative workspace takes away space for ideas to take shape. This will at best lead to the erosion of the top performers acting against the interest of the organization, hampering it's progress. Able people managers know this potency of fear to wipe out organization's best talent and are always on their guard in employee relations.

Friends' day out

We set out later than we planned after confusions caused by the previous night's rains and attrition of friends from the plan. We were a modest group of seven at eleven 'o' clock and weren't  expecting anymore to join. At half past noon, the five boys arrived at VGP universal kingdom along ECR (east coast road) in two batches. It was decided to spend the day at VGP itself after finding the ladies' proposal to visit Mahabalipuram untenable upon consideration. We ventured into the theme park on rs.315 tickets and engaged in the regular merry making. The ambiance, however, seemed to suggest more of a haunted dungeon of all the cursed vampires living in exile. And even before we got to terms with the vapid air, we realized to our dismay that even the most basic rides were available only upon a separate fee over and above what was charged as entry fee.

Another shock awaited at the pool when we were forced to wear uniforms for another rental fee instead of being allowed to wear swim suits we carried with us. We managed to negotiate the fee though after an altercation with the managing staff at the rental counter. Just as we sighed relief hoping all our disappointments had ended, we discovered that the wave pool floor had not yet been laid with tiles. The concrete, worn out of the poor painting threatened to bruise holidaying visitors and the unfortunate trooper of our group was John who lent his knee against the rough concrete and got it scratched. Nothing notwithstanding we enjoyed through the day in the pool and shower as Sandy sat over our slippers of all our belongings.

If you're waiting to see the incomparably noble hearted Sandy who sacrificed the pleasures of pool to oversee our sandals, you can easily distinguish her in the snap below.

Intermittently we clicked few crazy poses to have a record of the celebration to conjure/catalyze the magical moments at a later time, and not to mention to flaunt on social networks. The traditional picture of encircled feet was one of it and followed closely.

 

 The dancing bird couldn't anymore control her impulse after the dance floor opened. She swiftly swung her charming moves and moved enchantingly across the floor, swooning the rest of the troopers along into the mood.    

I could only, awkwardly, follow from the inspiration.

We even explored few moves on the floor and went ahead and captured them for the record.

How could our favorite Goudarmani step be left out in this reckless spree of shower dance. You can see on the background that by now we're joined by hordes of more pastime dancers.

Around 3:30pm we realized that we hadn't had lunch we stepped out of the water park and shot the final souvenir of a place we decided never to come back again until it became evidently apparent that the managers had demonstrated their will not to disappoint visitors with foolish policies and pricing.

We lunched at Pitstop, again on ECR, at supper time where the idea behind the graphic below was suggested by Satz..

Imman, Sandy, John, Vasi, Maits, Satz & myself

Sandy was quick to realize that we're not going to make it to Dakshin Chitra after she checked the time and made sense out of it. She required minimal consolation, as usual. As we ate we recounted from the repositories of our funny drunken episodes. While most had some story to narrate, others silently absorbed the Zen wisdom as masters and amateurs spoke in turns. It was not without proposing a plan for a bigger outing that we cleared the place. Some where during the confab, Satz made mention of hookah. That's all the required spur to set Maits up and we dragged ourselves to Drizzle to ensure that we didn't end the outing prematurely. After fruit salads and hookah and whoo uh huh ( mild coughing), we drove back in to our destinations bidding farewell to the communion.

chant of night and sleep

Days ripe with rigorous work
nights will soothe the bruises and tears
in the stillness and silence
in the mysterious darkness
desires catch fire flamed by
the tunes ears love to hear
dreaming distant dreams of past
of trails tests and losses
and impending glory, waving
its little hopeful hand
in the darkness, silence and stillness
of the night; slumber sweeps the
bruises and heals all wears.