I AM The Universe: Random Thoughts

I know, there’s plenty of reasons for that. Hitting on a married woman (forbidden fruit, what’s a man to do? *shrug*), sucking at God of War (the god will smite you for that!), not worshiping Elvis (or appreciating Britney Spears’ music, if you allow me the liberal use of the word music), or not knowing who Ingrid Bergman was. And there there’s the more colorful ways, let me count the ways:

• When your boss asks how your meeting with someone went, tell him Oh, I had her saying ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ And when your manager looks blankly back at you, say back True story.
• That colleague sitting on the next desk, with the shirt with shoulder flaps? Un-button the shoulder flaps, and button them to the wrong ends so that the right shoulder flap is buttoned to his left shoulder and vice versa.
• Just as you’re leaving for lunch, and a colleague asks you why you never ask her out to lunch, tell her that she’s fat and that she needs to go on a diet. If another colleague tries to console the poor girl that she’s not fat, tell him to stop sucking up, then turn to her and tell her than only two kinds of men would have this opinion of her; a) married men, who have been programmed to say that, because well, let’s face it – when a woman asks you if she looks fat you don’t think, you just say NO! And b) single men who’re trying to hit on her. And tell her that since you’re neither, she can totally trust your honest and sincere opinion and should go on a diet. Then go about your way to Hardees.

I’m sure I’ll figure out more ways.

For two days, I had been enjoying some leisure time at work, which I have to admit, only stays leisurely for about half a day. You know, before you fall prey to ego issues.

Why am I not working? Is that guy working on a datasheet? Seriously, that guy? Why aren’t I doing that?
Come now Absar, it’s not that bad – look at that guy over there, he’s playing the paper-toss flash game!
But that’s [insert name here]! He never works!
Oh.

Please note that I’ve been the only participant in the above conversation.

Anyway. Taking advantage of my (wide) open schedule, I took to browsing some Pakistani blogs. And I’ll admit that I only got to reading exactly… two blogs. But they’re such cool blogs that I just keep flipping through their posts. One is adpdiaries.blogspot.com (run by a member of the ADP rock band) and the other samishah.wordpress.com (a journalist, graphics artist, host and jaw-numbing comic). But I figured that both these blogs give you more ego issues than playing paper-toss on your computer. I mean, when someone asks you what you do for a living, how cool does I’m a Control Engineer sound? Not very fricking much. I’m serious, I’m really really pissed! In fact, I wanted to use the other F-word up there (though that’s partially because of the heavy dosage of the word I’ve read on the ADP diaries blog). Sure you can try to spice it up by calling yourself a mad scientist once in a while, but come on! Compare that to <throaty, husky voice>I slap the bass for such-and-such. Hey, we’re playing at the falan-falan next..</throaty, husky voice> (No offense to you guitarists out there, I hope I’m sure none of you actually talk this way, but dude I have to vent somewhere!)

So. The free-time at work has come to an end. It’s a brand new day, it’s a brand new project, same old Habshan. We start with site surveys from tomorrow, under this insane weather – while fasting. But still I want to be there, because site surveys give you a very clear understanding about how things are, and how the project has to be executed. But well, I’m not complaining, because I’m going to Karachi next week!!! Whoooo!!

I was sitting at my desk during lunch today, trying to connect life as I left it off last Wednesday when I flew to Karachi, and today. I mean work life – even though I only missed two days at work, a lot can change in two days when things are going at this pace. I had my iPod plugged into my ears, and a colleague walks up to my desk and:

Colleague: “What are you listening to?”
Me: “Bennett.”
Him (confused)
Me: “Tony Bennett… nothing to do with Heroes man.”
Colleague: “Oh. *pause* Heroes?”

You get my point? I’m surrounded by people who don’t listen to music, who don’t watch TC shows, who don’t think Kate Beckinsale is hot, and so on and so forth. What the!!

Tony Bennett – Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time a girl with moonlight in her eyes
Put her hand in mine and said she loved me so
But that was once upon a time, very long ago

Once upon a time we sat beneath a willow tree
Counting all the stars and waiting for the dawn
But that was once upon a time, now the tree is gone

How the breeze ruffled up her hair
How we always laughed as though tomorrow wasn’t there
We were young and didn’t have a care
Where did it go?

Once upon a time the world was sweeter than we knew
Everything was ours, how happy we were then
But somehow once upon a time never comes again

Bad day. I mean really, joy is short-lived! I had been looking forward to some lax time at work, which I did get for about – one day. Okay, maybe one and a half, because half the second day I hadn’t fired up my email client. Anyway, I’m back to working insanely now, which is both good and bad. More bad because it’s the kind of work that gets me pissed of at the client/contractor and I have no direct control over it. Which means, more work to indirectly control the situation. Doesn’t make any much sense right now, does it? Thought so.

So, I’m in the kitchen, pissed at some contractor, going over an email in my head and making a strong cup of tea with three tea-bags. Usually I use two, but I needed something stronger. This guy comes to the kitchen, glances first at me and then at the cup, and then back at me again:

Him: So – strong chai pasand hai?
Me (staring at him in disbelief for a second): Nahi. Aaj achi chai peenay ka dil nahi chah raha!

What the hell!!? And yes, I’m using a euphemism!

Hypothetical situation – A contractor emails you some serious stuff. I mean, contractually important stuff, that is not part of your scope, but he’s asking you to do anyway. And you’re going red in the face because of the stupidity of his email. By chance, you notice that instead of Sunil, he has spelled his name as Suni in the From field in the email. And suppose, that instead of emailing him back with contractual details, you write back this line:

Dude, your name’s missing an L.

Totally hypothetical. Because that would be unprofessional, right?