The Mediocre
The Mediocre is of three kinds :-
1- One who suffers silently.
2- One who promises to make a difference and at the end of the day goes to sleep with a content heart counting the bucks that he made.
3- One who takes advantage of the other two kinds of mediocre and becomes a self-proclaimed “one-of-a-kind”.
A major portion of the world demography consists of mediocre who are further sub-classified as:-
1- Lower middle-class 2- [Middle ] middle-class 3- Upper middle-class
The rest of the world is either aristocrats or aliens. Some among these are the upper-middle classes who have moved up to be the aristocrats.
I think I am a mediocre of the second kind.
I see a child working, and then decide to adopt a child.I see an old man begging, and then decide to donate at an old-age-home [I did have the tax-saving thing in mind].I see my maid crying hopelessly because of her wife-beating husband ,the three daughters’ responsibility on her shoulders and daughter-in-law beating in-laws for having borne no sons, I decide to take her husband and in-laws to the police.I see men pissing on walls, decide to put scorpions inside their pants.I see poverty in my village, decide to become a “good-in-quotes” politician.I hear about communal riots, decide to become an atheist.I hear about child-molestation, decide to murder the culprits.…
So many decisions taken, but how many were put into action? At the end of the day I checked out the due dates of the bills to be paid, the balance transfers to be done, the savings to be made.
The decisions were merely self-consolation that came for an immediate rescue during the flash of a temporary guilt. The perpetually spontaneous decisions are still no better than travesties of justice, sympathy,hopelessness,misery…..
Living the self
“Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing.”
Charles Caleb Colton (English sportsman and writer, 1780-1832)
I’ve been living for myself all this while and will do so in the future to come.
Back in school I willingly gave away my pocket money for any charity collections that were carried out. The money was my father’s. Later the void of pocket money in the name of charity was replaced with more pocket money. Today I earn myself. I can claim couple of thousands of money to be mine. How much do I give in charity? 0-INR.
Self explanation comes to rescue that when I might have enough ,I would give the rest in charity. Somehow the thirst of “just enough” never seems to be quenched. I’ve no clues if it ever will. Yet I’m hopeful without having to be like the monk who sold his Ferrari [errrr…TATA NANO perhaps]. Want to give enough of it away in charity when I’m alive else Charles Caleb’s ghost would brand me a selfish crab [condition applied :- only if I have nobody to my name to hoard all of it].
What does charity mean? Living for someone/something where the I, me, mine are imaginary parameters and helping someone who doesn’t have. That’s easy. The difficult part creeps in when I try to subtract the “just enough” out of what I might have ,to give the remaining in charity.
The just enough includes only a small chunk. I should gift a beautiful house to my parents with all the comforts for their old age. My little brothers should be well-established financially. I should be able to give two sarees worth 10K each to each to my 10 aunties who took a lot of care of me when I was a kid. I should be able to gift gold jewellery and high-end electronic gadgets to the 30 kids of my 10 aunties. I’ll count the uncles in the night when I’m having a nightmare.
Now comes the crucial structure : “I”. I should’ve the basic needs like food [the menu shouldn’t be repeated in a month] , shelter [a cute house , cottage-like from the exterior while the interior should’ve all basic home appliances with hi-fi technology,a spa and a home-theatre] , clothing [nothing unbranded], status and respect [a second-hand limousine can be managed with and a maid who should be able to explain the French economy to me]. 20 years down the line if I start earning five times of what I earn today, by the time I have all of this I’ll be 90 and all set to jump into my grave. I think I should be able to yell “CHARITYY..EE..E…” before dying so that it’s no longer posthumous.
Well, that was an exaggerated estimate of things. [TATA Nano is predicted reality with current circumstances 
] Now if I’ll do charity ,it would probably be to receive a Tax benefit and if tax benefit is the deciding factor then I might decide against the idea of charity and invest in an ELSS/PPF or the sorts which would also provide me returns in the future for my own financial security. So the latest idea of charity is to donate 50% of the interest that I might earn on my savings after 10 years [CONDITIONS APPLY :-subject to my willingness to part with that amount which I might classify as my blood and sweat and set up another 100 parameters not to give it away for example I should save some more money and open a school for the kids in my village].
“I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.”
Jane Austen (British Novelist and Writer, 1775-1817)
First Anniversary at my first project
The prelude of my career lies with this project and it has been a memorable odyssey all the way through. There were many ups and downs, hurdles overcame by determination and victories rejoiced. Nevertheless , there was an exorbitance of elements learnt during the journey, both technical as well as on the emotional front.
On the day of our completion of one year in this account, our managers held a meeting with us to discuss on the areas of improvement, targets to be achieved and the assets that had been so far. I had a zillion things to speak about but of course on a personal front. I wanted to talk about my journey in the project, my stance during decision-making, what difference I had made in the project and vice-a-versa and how much I had learnt from my mistakes to be a better and mature person today. Time was the constraint and secondly there were another 20 associates who were required to sum up their quest. So finally it turned out so, that I spoke nothing of all that I wanted to say. Well why is this space for ?
The expedition into data warehousing kicked off with a lot of energy and spontaneity with training sessions of a database and another of an ETL tool. After the training sessions, work was awaited with a lot of zeal and ambition. The initial phase was cool and pretty easy and it was monotonous [this was the only tough part]. Then came the understanding period of the business rules and data transformation. This was the time which actually took a toll on me and transformed me entirely while I was expected to transform the data that was handed over to me [hah]. I made mistakes and as a consequence was dejected beyond limits without being assigned any substantial amount of work. This was primarily because of the high expectations of working like an expert right away. While I failed a number of times before succeeding minutely ,I had already discovered the way things were slipping out of my grasp…how I had started visualising my ambitions being crushed down in front of my eyes. It was mostly a phase of depression in the literal sense and how much I longed to escape these maladies by deciding to quit doing what I was capable of doing and wasn’t being given a chance. That was a tough time to survive in.
However, some soul searching and the super-egoistic creature that I used to be, decided to steal work if nobody gave it to me. I didn’t bother whether I should be rewarded or not because by then I had been stripped of all the ambition and motto in the field. Made investigations on my own, tried to understand things on my own developed on my own accord, found out the million reasons that lay hidden behind the truth what I thought to be a mystery. Life had never been more interesting. Then one day a TL happened to notice me providing solutions to my colleagues and assigned me a huge chunk of work. I made mistakes again HAHAHA…but this time with a difference…I had already begun to understand the ways to resolve the errors and of course the support of some of the ever-helping colleagues who believed that I could do.This helped me regain the confidence in my capabilities.
Over-confidence misled me and gave me a bang on my head and I found out that I should act before the doors have started closing down on me. This taught me to be humble , curious, purposeful and most importantly felt accepted for what I had changed to be the person that I am now. I had literally earned friends with the way I had learned to value relations and rectified for the better. Now I consider myself a confident and independent girl ready to take on my world with patience and intelligence.
Every person’s life is just the same as mine just that the ups and downs are morphed in varying profiles. The bottom-line lies in living an uncalculated and fearless life with a concoction of the ability to withstand the downs and holding your feet firm on the ground when fortune smiles at you.
Never Understood…
If only my brother could have stayed longer with me ,I could have apologized for each time that I hurt him, been a friend to him when he needed one the most but I wouldn’t have realised all of this hadn’t he gone.
I never actually understood what he tried to explain by his actions until he left for home. I should have given him some time ,a chance and a little bit of affection rather than trying to dictate norms to lead his life. The unsaid respect and love that he has left for me in the house is unconditional and will remain a regret in my heart forever for not acknowledging them when he was around and when I had a chance to make him feel special ….precisely a child that he is.
He never made his bed after waking up but today when I returned from office his blanket was neatly folded and kept on his bed. The shoe rack had only my shoes that were kept daintily on the shelves as if he was urging me to come back and take on the world wearing them on. The refrigerator would always be bankrupt without food of any edible kind and today it was stacked with my favourites. The stupid guy spent all the money on me that I had given him while seeing him off before going to office.
God bless you dude. All the good things in the world for you.
“”
“Perseverance is being hopelessly hopeful to hit at success”
–Anonymous isn’t me
