Notes to myself 11

I was at Chepauk last night. 

Somerset vs Mumbai Indians.

We walked in twenty minutes into the game because buay saw on tv that the stadium was practically empty and that we could easily get tickets. It was a fairly good match except there wasn't too many people to root for and the spirit was just not there. Nonetheless, it was the best I could do on a saturday night without trying to drown myself in a bottle. 

So we are sitting at the match and I spotted this couple sitting a few rows ahead of us.
The seats were empty so I could hear their their conversations. 

The guy must've been about 27-28, definitely a cricket enthusiast. He kept walking off to the front of the stands to get a closer look at the proceedings in the field. The girl, his wife ( I could see the mangalsutra and her metti) was about the same age and she wasn't interested in the match at all. She had the prettiest ear rings in all of chepauk - these big flower shaped ones which often cast colorful shadows on her neck whenever she turned to talk to him.
All through the first half of the match I could here her saying "vaanga polaaam. Enakku bore adikkudhu! Please... " and she even managed to generate these fake tears every once in a while with a big smile on her lips. She was always speaking in a childish tone, in a coy, coquettish kinda way. And the guy simply ignored her and continued to watch the match. He walked off atleast four five times, once to get some food which he polished off mostly by himself, and then in the pretext of going to the loo or getting water or some such thing. On all these occasions he quietly walked to the front of the stands and stood amidst the crowds to watch the match, while his wife sat behind with a bored look on her face. And every time he walked back she would get excited and ask him if they could leave. And somehow he convinced her to stay. 

Apart from the match, he spent a lot of time on his blackberry. He was either talking to someone or typing something furiously. 

I kept glancing at this girl wondering what was going on in her head. She seemed to be pretty calm, and relaxed except for her weak requests to leave.

And the first half ended with Mumbai Indians putting up a traget of 161 for the Somerset boys to chase.
And the second half began and Malinga got two beautiful wickets in his first spell. Stumps went flying, and suddenly this girl, she jumped up and cheered. It was so uncharacteristic of her. She became very excited and was holding this guy's hands and grinning from end to end. She even said something like, "See, i told you he will get the wickets!" 

And then the match went on without anything exciting happening for a while. The guy had by then settled down in his seat with his blackberry in his hand and the girl was leaning on his shoulders and trying to doze off. She must've been talking to him quietly into his ears. He put his hands around her and I could see that they were both very comfortable and just like that they had become a perfectly happy couple.

Somerset were doing well for a while but the last four overs changed the game and Mumbai Indians ended up with an easy victory.

And then we left and as I walked away I could see that they were actually a very happy couple. 

The two stayed in my mind for a while after we had left. 

One, I realised I was jealous of them. I was jealous of the guy. (aside - I have suddenly become this super jealous character who envies everyone and everything these days. It seems to come so naturally to me. I remember a lot of occasions where i had suppressed it, thanks to some misplaced sense of "gentlemanliness", and it has only backfired on me.) 

Two, I realised that inspite of everything, there is some sort of a commitment that transcends the trivialities of everyday life. It's not just these two, there are a few others I know too, who like different things in life, who want to be in different places, who are so busy with work that they hardly get time to spend with each other, who spend more time staring at a computer or with their bosses than with their loved ones, still take that extra effort to be with their loved ones even if it is just for a few hours. It may not be a lot of time, it may not even be quality time, but they are willing to compromise everything else for those few hours. 

And are happy together. 

I know married couples who spend as little as a few hours every week together. I have seen people who hardly talk to each other on the phone during the day and by the time they reach home, they are too tired to even talk for long that they simply doze off in each other's arms. These people take that little extra effort to spend some quality time with each other. Even if it means missing out on an office party or some well deserved weekend sleep.  

It amazes me how they manage so well.
 But then I suppose this kind of effort comes naturally for those with that kind of maturity and commitment. 

I suppose it is unconditional love that keeps these people together.

This is also a lesson in time management.

Lesson learnt. 

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I am off to Kotagiri tonight.
I will be there for four days and I will get to interact with a lot of kids. I am doing a small theatre workshop for 12-15 year olds and conducting a few story telling sessions for children between classes 1-5.

I am looking forward to this. It will be exciting.

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That is ofcourse the only respite in an otherwise difficult phase of my life. 

It is two fold. 

1) there is this insane amount of pressure at work. There are a million things to be done. I am doing everything by myself. And anything I do has a direct impact on my life and on the future of the company. And I am working alone. (If you know me, you know what happens when i am left alone) I have to put together a team soon. A team of 8-10 people. And I will be responsible for them too. Suddenly I have been thrown into something big. It scares the living daylights out of me.

2) then there are my parents. Not a day goes without my mum or dad asking me to get a "real" job - a "steady" one in a Bank or in a "big" company. And not an hour passes by without my dad or mum taking a jibe at what I do. "I had great hopes that you would be studying airplanes or something great. And here you are sitting and reading children's books" or try this one "You are an idiot, a tharuthalai (gone astray) what will you teach the kids? You will be a bad influence on them" and "How are you qualified to be teaching others when you have no qualifications to be of any use on earth". But then, I am glad they still let me live with them and they are generally kind to me and show a lot of concern. Its just unfortunate that they channelize their concern this way. 

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I missed this fantastic opportunity to take out all my frustrations in life. A few hours back, I was caught by cops at the adyar depot signal. That's the fifth time in the last 15 days. I have already paid fine thrice, tried playing with their "fine" printing device, and made friends with a few cops. And I got caught again today. For the same reason - No helmet.
I started with "saar, naan naethu dhaan fine kattinaen. please give me a few days time to buy a new helmet"

And then he was like "that's okay. I don't want you to pay any fine. I want you to swear at this other guy we caught who is talking a lot of bullshit" 

WTF? And I get down and go to the corner where everyone was standing and this fello, seemed my age, not from Chennai, seemed to be an IT kinda guy, and he was driving a fancy new bike. He had been caught for not wearing a helmet and he was complaining loudly about how the cops are being unfair and had caught only him while there were a lot of others who had been let go. 

The cop told me that he was pointing at old men and ladies on bikes who weren't wearing helmets and asking them to stop so that they could pay the fine too. 

I wasn't particularly interested in either what the cop had to say nor this guy but for some reason he thought I would sympathise with him. He started off with "see, when government lays new rules it should be uniform and unbiased. These cops are being unfair to me!"
I simply took out my wallet, showed the receipt for the fine I had paid two days back and left.

Then the cop came to me and said, "enna saar neenga. vandhu naalu thittu thittitu povenganu nenachaen. Rendu arai vutturundha kooda thappila. Semma mokkaiya engakittiye rules pesaraan"
(What saar, I was hoping you would swear at him or atleast give him two tight slaps. He is talking too much rules to us) 

I wasn't in the mood to get angry or worked up. I just laughed and said "make him pay the fine and let him go sir." 

I drove on and reached Gandhi Nagar. I then realised that I had missed a golden chance to take out everything on him. 

"You stupid motherfucker. Life is absolutely unfair. You can't be talking rules when you haven't obeyed them yourself. You are earning truckloads and drive a fancy new bike and if you can't buy a helmet for your head I hope you get crushed under a lorry and die. Here I am driving a shitty Kinetic Honda that is probably cheaper than the cost of two helmets. I once owned a helmet which was stolen from me by someone I had trusted and employed. I haven't got my salary in two months. I have exactly a thousand bucks in my pocket that I have to survive with for the rest of this month. I am running around trying to make a living and I pay my fines whenever I am under fault. So yes, Life is fucking unfair. please shut the fuck up and pay your fine and leave." 

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So yes, I had that one chance, and I blew it. I could have probably got him worked up, started a fight and beat the crap out of him and the cops would have been on my side. 

They don't come often, these awesome opportunities.  

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I get very tired these days. I hardly sleep well at nights. I am always tossing and turning. There is too much running on my mind and It is very taxing. 

I wish I could simply stop everything and just run away from it all.

But I don't want to do that.
I don't want to give up, however tiring things get. 

I have done that in the past, when I gave up on something because i was very tired. I have given up and quit a lot of things where I should have simply grit my teeth and persevered, or changed my strategy or simply spoken things out. But I quit, I walked out. I gave up on a lot of things. 

I have regretted it later. I have felt absolutely miserable. I have spent days and weeks feeling bad about it and wallowing in misery, and guilt which slowly turns into self pity. And I have hit the bottle, or smoked like a chimney trying to get over it.

I don't want to do that again.
I won't quit.
I don't want to give up easily.

So the next time I complain to you saying I am tired and that I want to run away or some such thing, simply slap me across the face and remind me that I should never quit. Ok?