Strangers in the night, two lonely people we are

Bored of routine busy Saturday, last evening I started shuffling the mouse through the myriad windows open on the system, when the tiny green bulb flashing on a friend’s g-talk, indicating his online status caught my attention. Impromptu I sent a ‘Hi’ and in sometime received a pop-up with ‘Hello’ in reply from him, a former classmate and current contemporary of a rival newspaper. Following the customary exchange of pleasantries I told him how my current editor, who also happens to be his former boss, is absolutely fond of him. Thereafter this is how the brief chat session unfolded: 
Me- Our editor seems to really appreciate you :p 
He- Seriously? 
Me- Yes.  Not one day goes without mentioning your name. 
He- In what context btw 
Me- Anything. Your existence is the biggest context; I guess 
He- Burai karte hai? 
Me- Are you mad? Burai kyu karenge? He is absolutely fond of you. 
He- But he was telling me the other day that I am not doing any story. 
Me- Ah! That is just to encourage you. You see, he really loves mentioning you. 
No, there is nothing brain-wracking about the conversation that could raise an eye-brow or two. The whole purpose of mentioning it is to drive-in a realization my otherwise-buoyant-mind met with. From the very word go there were at least three instance when I typed ‘the editor LOVES you’ and replaced it each time with ‘really appreciates you’, ‘fond of you’ and finally ‘loves mentioning you’. My thought bulb suddenly came to life in the third instance when I was trying to reason out my reluctantance about mentioning the word ‘Love’. The very next question that popped-up was, ‘Would I falter writing the same a decade back?’ Perhaps no. 
The most trivial conversation abruptly released a tremor in my queries’ quarry, unearthing a slew of doubts. It posed a question on my claim of being progressive and outgoing. I realized the only reason I did not mention ‘love’ was my attempt at sounding politically correct. Don’t know why, but maybe I thought it would sound ‘homosexual’ and my friend would not appreciate it. My action perhaps serves a classic testimony to the ‘hypocrite’ lying dormant in many of us. 
I always thought I was avant-garde at least when it came to love and romance and often considered myself an advocate of the philosophy that ‘Everyone has the right to love’. However, the small incident failed me.  It made me accost the latent prejudices that many of us still hold on to, despite our tall claims of ‘coming of age’. Something I have still not been able to comprehend is the underlying rationale that gave such simple conversation a convulsed turn.  Why, in the very first place did I think of mentioning ‘love’ could sound inapt and even if it did what was so inauspicious about it? Had my editor been from the fair sex, indeed it would not have evoked my mental make-up, triggering my thoughts to find an escape in form of this article, at a wee hour. Then why did their belonging to the same sex create this avalanche in my thought-process? 
The infinite lacuna of thoughts and dichotomy of outlook is so appalling. It is bewildering that the same me whose thoughts are so progressive can be clouded by such starkly different uncouth feelings; leaving me flummoxed if I have at all understood myself in the past 26 years! It is so like being someone during day and someone overtly alien after nightfall!!

Boulevard of BROKEN DREAMS

Witnessing the same sight day after day returning home from workplace has become a part of my mundane routine. Every day I find an army of ants burrowing the earth on the left-hand corner of the bathroom door, marching adroitly and producing a mountain of it. A sight absolutely nettling to my worn out eyes (tiring because of staring at the Dell monitor relentlessly for eight, sometimes even nine to ten hours shift in the office), the first task I execute post entering the house is doing away with the soil and also most of the ants, thus blatantly destroying their day’s labour and ruthlessly enjoying the feel of being a cold-blooded murderer of the tiny helpless species, without any dash of regret whatsoever.

As a disciplined follower of all the self-set rules, I swept off the assiduous labour of the ants with a lash of the broom even today. It was barely a matter of ten good minutes that I saw them rigorously up at work, already having dug a decent amount of earth yet again. However, this time I looked at them not with annoyance but with a feeling I was reluctant to acknowledge; admiration and adulation at their undaunted determination and resilience of fighting the odds. And then suddenly something struck me; I realized the similarities we maintain at least on the work front.  Looking back at the corridors of the past I realize how puerile I was to have invested three precious years into the most inconsiderate company ever, overlooking the insult and profane remarks and still serving it dedicatedly. Doesn’t this betray a situational similarity with the dexterous insects?

Retrospection of all the hollow promises made and gleeful dreams then starts mocking me. Had Chetan Bhagat not purchased the rights for the title ‘3 mistakes of my life’, I would have published a book on the same with Coming to Bhopal, Landing up at Makhanlal and Joining my current print media house encapsulating my life’s biggest blunders.

When it comes to my company, the organization that has robbed me of all anticipations, all that the place has to offer is fake commitments by frustrated old lecherous bastards, who hardly deserve the kind of designation and power they enjoy or should I say misuse. Strong political nexus and a considerable amount of time spent in the company could be way powerful weapon than a nuclear bomb, if used meticulously to create mayhem in a diffident and introvert junior’s life. And this is exactly what the worthless braggarts do. A boulevard of broken dreams, the three-storied building, parked at a narrow alley of MP Nagar recounts gloomy tales of how I have been set to the gallous of unprecedented mental torture almost daily in the past 1058 days and how without any lamentation all my aspirations, in forms of appreciation, encouragement and increment been brutally crucified. The small office painted in olive green stand testimony to my ruptured dreams, crushed under the heavy weight of the newspaper and intolerable cruelty. Tantamount to the ants, even MY anticipations and hard labour have been flushed down the gutter every time. If not anything, one can witness some great dramatics in this replica of hell on earth.  Replete in politics and acts of making a junior’s life a living hell with unabated threats of handing a pink slip is what defines the character of the ominous place and some douchebags working in it. With absolutely nothing positive in the aura, there are times when you start suspecting your own shadow.  

Having said all these, the big question is why don’t I renounce? It is apparent that I am often tempted to give up trying my luck at this hell surrounded by such vile coxcombs. However, soon I realize how this office is but just an insignificant road, an address that will be effaced from the journey called ‘life’ very soon and how ONE DAY I will make THERE. It is perhaps this undeterred faith of celebrating the overriding joy of reaching my final destination that makes my charred hopes spring up from its own ashes life a phoenix, time umpteen. Just like the ants, banking on my prowess I keep going with stars of hope gleaming bright; for my dreams are much higher than some nasty old idiot’s dwarfed macabre ploy. After all in the end is it only the amount of patience we hold on to that decides how far we can go! And this journey has just unfolded….

PS: This has nothing to do with the popular Green Day track