A Creature Of Habit

That I am absolutely not ! And when I find myself dragged and pushed into a life of monotonous routine, naturally, I find it irksome ! So what is it that I endure, unfailingly, each and every day...

Autorickshaws !

They might go by the deceptive name of Mini Taxis (Oh ! The aspirations of some !), but in their truest and most inherent nature, they are bumpy, lowly, tin foil boxes of menace and pain...They run under the vile machinations of their Drivers who unfortunately forget to bring their brains to work and instead carry along a rucksack full of silly guts ! Ofcourse there follows no method in the operations of the autorickshaw...It might pick up from by the road anyone and everyone who tosses his/her hand out (Without much consideration of the fact that the tossing might be to straighten a crumpled sleeve)...And yet, on another day, the whims of the Driver might ignore the desperately flailing arms of commuters despite the fact that the 'Taxi' is empty ! And what do I write about the ride that follows?It could certainly put NASCAR racers to shame...

Air Conditioning !

My, my, do I see a few eyebrows raising?One would say, "She sits all day in the comforts of an air conditioned cabin and yet complains ! The audacity of youngsters !" I take a bow in reverence of the 'comforts' granted to me by the Company (Hallelujah) but coming from an humble upbringing in the sultry city of Bhubaneswar, the need of certain people to live their lives in a perpetual state of 16 Degree Celcius somehow fuddles my imagination...And do you not think that I have persistently requested the Admin to raise the temperature?But, seemingly, the entire staff is in the vile spell of that frigid white little box on the ceiling...Mutation, I presume...Well, it wouldn't be much of a surprise, if in a few months, I were to find a little penguin where Mr Ramanamurthy erstwhile sat ! Brrrr !

Walk ! (Or should I say Run !)

I wonder why BASF must build an office atop their warehouse, an economical way of coordinating the Supply Chain, I suppose...But what it does to a lone, abla nari is that she must walk a kilometer from the highway to reach her office each morning...Ofcourse the exercise is what I look forward to but somehow the trek by the long road of Trucks and more abominably, the Truck Drivers is something that I wouldn't categorise as a good habit ! On my lucky days, I walk with my earphones plugged in, oblivious to my surroundings and on days I would call not so lucky, a bit of jeering, a stray whistle or a few claps would fall on my ears ! And my heart would shout, 'RUN' ! Well, BASF is hardly planning to shift somewhere into the city, what with a voluptuous budget spent on the two month old office and Valsarajanji planning a Badminton Court...What I can look forward to (Chuckling) is the gleaming black Bolero that'll come my way in another 6 months...I might very well then go around showing a finger to those losers on the way ! 

The Other Girl...

The reference is certainly not to an adversary in a triangle of Love, she is merely the other girl, apart from me, in my office...Decently shod, a trifle bit shy and very much the efficient clerical brain...She was drawn to me, from the day we met, for a few words of professional advice (A few nicks and tricks on Excel, in which, I must admit, I am yet to be adept) and some unspoken assurance of sorority support...Everything seemed fine, I took to the sisterly role with ease, but then the insipid queries began to take their toll...A demonic toll at that ! It would start with a smiling "Good Morning Ma'm" and suddenly a seemingly innocuous "What did you have for breakfast, Mam?" would be hurtled my way...Each and every damn day ! It shamed me to say to her that I have two slices of Brown Bread or a few pieces of semolina rusk and that, unfortunately the woman she looks up to, isn't much of an expert in the matters of domesticity...I try my best to avert her query, to mumble a few inaudible words whenever she puts it forth but mind you, she is a persistent little bee ! So sometimes, I take to fabrications, Bread & Rusk become Idli, Ugaani or Poha and on few whimsical days, I even manage to cook up (Pun Intended) some Puri Bhaaji ! (Yes, yes, I am ashamed !) But what do I do when it seems as if there is a secret roster that she maintains with details of my morning dietary habits !

Quarrels !

Inadvertently, each and every night, there are sounds of a quarrel...Did I mention, I live in the respectable Doctor's Colony (Refer Dr Jeckyll & Mr Hyde) of Lal Bahadur Nagar?And yet, it escapes me how, but I hear them fight, someone or the other, squabbling away, in a drunken stupor or whimsical sobriety...Sometimes, they start early and go their separate ways by midnight and on other, unluckier nights, the theatrics begin when the clock strikes 12 ! Men, women and sometimes, screaming children...Residents of the adjoining Apartment Buildings or Vegetable Vendors at the nukkad...It is, as if God's way of sending to his children (Me in particular), minstrels to sing a lullaby ! And who said, God doesn't have a sense of humour !

Though I portray myself as the whimpering, complaining grinch through my aforementioned experiences, I must say there are some habits I am in no hurry to break...

>> A smile from my neighbour's wife and her toddler of a son when I step out to work in the mornings...(Well, we have never spoken to each other, I being unaware of Telugu and them of Hindi or English)
>> Bal Bahadur, the Nepali peon bringing me my cup of tea and a bottle of water to my cabin...
>> Dosa and bits from the others' tiffin boxes at lunch each day with all my bosses (Giri, Narayana and Valsarajanji)...
>> My house in the evenings...I spare a few moments in the Living Room, staring with hope at the marginally filled bookshelf with the first ten books of my personal collection and the glittering Kumukoppu I bought from Dharmavaram...