Would not love to hide that I have never hated work as much as I hate not having any. With my organisation not being able to provide me even mundane excel jobs, I can fathom the disappointments of IT people on bench. Lack of work, I have begun to feel, can either kill all your aspirations or frustrate to you to the extent where you start seeing meaning of your life. I am still to make out which phase I have reached.
Past two years have not been really easy on me particularly on my ability to connect with people. I excel in connecting with people through sports, through my likes and dislikes and through my ability to listen and respect. I have befriended people on the TT table, in cricket fields, on tennis court, in swimming pools, in DTC buses, in metros - everywhere. Somehow I was losing that ability. My present organisation seems to have robbed me of every such opportunity. Despite adding 800 people to my friend list on the Facebook in little less than 2 years, I have been feeling guilty of letting go of 400 others already on my list. From friends they were beginning to become a facebook friend. I wasn't exactly too happy with this. As if our lives are already not too virtual that you would want to have virtual or so called FB friends.
Some of my friends have grown away from me physically, others mentally as well. Some I do not disturb, others prefer not to disturb me. Some have persistently kept following me despite my shameless ignores and I really seek their forgiveness for once and ever. Others, I have pursued with little success. Tit for tat, I believe. Some are just birthday friends. I call them on their birthday and they call me on mine with little interaction in between. With still others, I have been able to strike just the right chords.
Never been a very huge fan of social networking sites. I mostly work on it in read-only mode with very little modification rights. I do stealthily frequent it, but mostly to have a peep into others' lives rather than share my own. But what I do admire about Facebook and other networking sites is their ability to provide a platform to help people re-connect. Networking is an overemphasized word in management. Plain meaningless networking. But RECONNECTING is what I was looking for.
This brief stretch of worklessness had a sliver lining though. It brought along TIME - huge swathes of uninterrupted free time to sit back and connect - once again. Time aplenty to feel lost and savor moments and relationships. My old memories needed some cleaning to be done and I was game for it.
With plenty of free time (and internet connection ) and a deliberate attempt to mellow down some of my more abusive and complaining friends, I have taken a fancy for Facebook. I have been able to connect with friends across the globe belonging to different stages of my life. I have talked to and chatted with people I never thought I would on this side of the grave at least. Importantly, I felt friendship once again create ripples in my heart. Pretty nice feeling that is, I tell you.
Only the last day I met a friend belonging to the most memorable phase of my life. 15 years, it has been since I saw him. 15 hours, I thought, it would take us to start treating each other as friends once again. 15 minutes, I believed, would be required for ice-breaking. Seconds it took us. 15 in all. Not an Hi, not a wave of hands, not a hand-shake, just a hug and we had already reconnected. There was no need to ask anything. There was no need to speak anything. He resonated feelings I associated with him and I could palpably walk on the bridge being constructed backwards. There was so much we had missed in each others' lives but not a moment was wasted complaining. The memories of moments we had lived together were too sweet too be soured by complaints of inaction. We chatted away as if these fifteen years never existed and no water, not even a drop, had passed under the bridge. Secrets were slipping out of my tongue and settling somewhere else. I could talk to him things I would hide to myself. We had started learning TT together. We were doubles partners in TT and it was only befitting that we met on the TT table. The ping-pong ball was symbolic of the turnings of a time machine which had once again catapulted us to the world we could not ever stop living.
Contented, I feel today but I am far from done. I hope to reach out to all the people who have made my life the way it is today. I do not just want to look back and enjoy, I want to re-live those moments once again with the people who had made those moments.
All the best Amigos.
