I haven’t found work yet. Which is a message that my friends are getting slowly I think. Earlier, this was either because I sounded like a menopausal aunty, or because I just plain didn’t reply. These days, I cheerfully admit that I am still unemployed. Screw stigma. So what, huh?
Why do certain situations demand certain reactions? Why can’t I be happily unemployed instead of unhappily unemployed as I am expected to be? Most people in the world also happen to be unhappily employed. Of course, I’d rather be happily employed, but at least I am happy in the meanwhile, right?
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Of course, there’s a reason for my being happy. I got off my smug ass, fought the ennui and started to work as a volunteer, which makes me even more smug.
At the cost of sounding holier-than-thou, I am learning that absolutely nothing is beneath you. It is certainly worth shedding the ego and opening your mind a bit. I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw.
Of course, this volunteering business buys me time to stay in the country to continue looking for work. But then, I am also happy to realize that when pay or promotion isn’t a motivation, ideas certainly are. I love my job when I think of something to do and have a chance to do it. I feel valuable, like I am really making a difference, sitting on the balcony of a church, with pews for seats in the meeting room. Of course there are dull days and weekends are a relief, but on most days, I go to work singing aloud. And that’s saying something.
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In the meanwhile, I continue to look for a paying job. But every day, I am able to appreciate my situation more. Few people are lucky enough to be able to take their time finding a job without too much pressure, and with lots of support, financial and moral. Living at the edge of the underbelly of this great city, walking past the projects to go to work everyday, and watching people devote their time without remuneration is humbling and inspiring.
Apparently Sani is in a perfect place, and Guru is really strong but in tension with Suryan. But the tide is turning, and so, I ought to recite Aditya Hrudayam to move things along a bit.
And when I do find a job, I will first buzz everyone on my Gtalk, prompt them to ask me now about my job scene. And then I will write a smug post on this blog. Post a status on Facebook and force the friends to comment. Discover the perfect reason to reactivate my twitter account. Do a mad jig in my bathroom, and post the video on Youtube. And then, I will run on the streets in the rain and display mental behaviour like a Tamil cinema heroine.
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I wish that someday, I write an autobiography, and then pretentiously name this chapter of my life, ‘Eliot and Unemployment’; talk of how Eliot and Godard helped me through my dark days. In reality, I am reading a book of JFK’s sexual escapades, and watching Baasha when bored.
Above mentioned book somehow succeeds in being clinical and vivid all at once. Apparently, the ‘subject’ once had a you-know-what that could have been twanged like a tuning fork. Now you know how worthily I spend my time.
Somehow, there is something about adultery that makes me sick in the pit of my stomach. I cannot read about it or watch it depicted on screen and go to sleep in peace.
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And then there are days when it seems like you are going to make some money, and so in anticipation you go ahead and indulge in a Gujarati thali, convinced that you deserve it. But the money never comes, and you are left nursing an upset stomach for having been such a glutton.
Apparently the lack of economic prosperity is reflecting on my physical self. I got an email from the mutter telling me that the fother is very worried upon seeing some pictures, and advising me to “eat bananas and all”. With that stomach? No, thanks.
The lack of a full-length mirror in the new house is causing you to check yourself out at every store window you pass, making you look like the most narcissistic ass this side of the planet. E then says that all girls do that all the time anyway, and you call him a wife-beater. What a happy household we are.
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The most recent excitement in the household came in the form of an idli cooker. None of us had eaten an idli in over a year, and thus, the usually universally-panned lowly idli caused many a ripple. You know how these irritating Indians living in the US will praise a mere ooruga to the heavens? Like that.
And then, those who make pasta and panneer quite nonchalantly had no idea how an idli is made. After gathering a consulting committee, wondering whether to put water in the cooker or not and constantly sticking a fork in the idli like we would check a cake in the oven, we successfully became the first people in the history of mankind to burn an idli.
Of course, that was only the first batch. Subsequently, the specimen felt like mallipoo, resembled Khushboo, and tasted, well, like good idlis should.
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The most shocking revelation came in the form of my Activities and Interests on Facebook including Amnesia Ibiza, Key Vive, Christmas Miller and Diabetes. Doubtless came from my browsing Facebook on my random touchphone with my fat finger. Like how I once poked an unknown boy and had to clarify, and ‘liked’ a status message that announced another boy going from “in a relationship” to “single”.
While I couldn’t make out what Amnesia Ibiza is, the Christmas Miller page had some buxom girls revealing all, like on benaughty.com. And diabetes is sure to become an activity and interest if I don’t stop eating whole boxes of kaju katli by myself.
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Few things as happy-making as an iPod shuffle dishing exactly what you want to listen to that moment. Few things as cathartic as chopping off half your hair. Few things as comforting as seeing an important person in a crumpled jacket at a fancy event, clunky silver et al, that you have tried very hard to look spiffy at.
Anything with the word Harvard in it, somehow manages to sound so so fancy. I wouldn’t mind going to a Harvard Tutorial College in T Nagar. Oxford, not so much.
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Yes, I have an Indian accent. Anyone who claims to have gotten an American accent from being here just over a year, is obviously faking it.
No, I don’t know what a ‘daatabase’ is. I only know Daata Udipi Hotel.
And please. Try not making Bono sound like an uncool Banu.
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Yes, I have to learn brevity.
In other news, I now have ads appearing on my blog. Does that mean I have arrived?
