New Plumage!!

After a very long interval I present a changed bird (in more ways than one). Long time have I given those 2 people who read my blogs religiously, to recover their sanity, but I was worried about Iyer, who had grown tired of re-reading my posts. What I did in the past months was to actually start working in the office, which left me very little creative time, plus somehow I started achieving targets twice over, which resulted in my targets being revised four times over. Now I am back to under achieving my given targets & the joker during our staff meets every week. So in every weekly review if someone gets flak for under achievement the common excuse is “but I did better than bird!”. and then people are again reminded of the person who has come to personify deficit. I am waiting for the day to arrive when people who do not achieve their targets, instead of the deficit percentage, start entering “Better than Bird” in the surplus/deficit column.

My topic was not about cribbing though, but a celebratory one. Bird’s New Plumage. It shouldn’t have happened, it did because I screwed up my earlier template & then I realized how ugly the whole thing was, with or without the screw up. This template is courtesy of some brave soul somewhere who has not realized that I will be amongst the people to use this, now you know why they ask you to make stuff “fool-proof”, cause I am generally around to fool with it if you don’t.

I also fail to understand why I chose this color (Which I prefer to call moss-green, ladies & other people with sharper colour-name associating knowledge please excuse me). But on studying a bit, this is what I came across, on some site,

“Green is a balancing colour, in the middle of the visible spectrum. The higher three colours are known as the "cool" colours and are calming in effect, the lower three are known as the "warm" colours and have a stimulating effect. Green is the balance between these two.

When a therapist comes to the end of a colour therapy treatment, he/she will use green as a balancing colour at the end of a treatment.

Green is the colour of balance and harmony and can, therefore, be helpful in times of stress. If one has experienced a trauma, a green silk wrapped around the shoulders can have a very therapeutic effect.”

I know for a fact that appoo will counter my claim that this blog can now be used to relieve all my readers’ stress, although the rest of the world may beg to differ (& that’s why appoo has all the needless arguments with every alternate person that he meets). I also wish to proclaim (its my blog & I can be assertive) that I am not a fan of this particular color but I still own 2 Shirts, 2 trousers & 2 pair of shoes which are round about moss green in color (which is my full wardrobe) & I also have these dreams in which my hair is moss-green, so I may have been sub-consciously influenced to prefer this color over others. On the other hand, it may also mean that I have all the above qualities as have been researched & stated by a person who had absolutely nothing better to do with his/her time (like myself). Of course it does not mean that people should share their problems or worries with me, I already have my hands full for coming up with novel excuses for target deficiency & additionally I have problems with people who think they have problems.

During the time that I was allowing people to recuperate, I found out, the hard way, Lesson#1 stations, airports & bus terminals should not have multiple exit points.

My colleague coming down from Kolkata was to be received at CST. During the countless conversations I had with him over the phone before he left Kolkata, I had repeatedly told him that I’d be waiting at the taxi queue & that he was supposed to call me when his train reached the station. But it seems God has blessed me with friends & colleagues who would teach me new lessons every day of my life (like why train terminals should have only 1 exit). As all the passengers of Madgaon Express alighted (which came 1 hour after the Gitanjali Express had arrived & thought, by the railways, to be dirty enough to be the first train ever to be cleaned within an hour of it’s arrival. Although I must mention here that cleaning for railways is a different term. This same day, I took the last train from CST to Andheri in which a sweeper boarded at Mahim Stn., swept the main aisle without cleaning the space between the seats & got off at Bandra Stn., my type of worker) I knew I had lost another friend, this time physically, to the functioning of railways. Just then I received a call from an unknown number, it was my friend on the other side. I greeted him with the new swear words I have learnt recently & kept on repeating them because he calmly told me he’d caught a local train from CST & had reached his hotel while I waited with a taxi for him at CST. Which led me to…

Lesson#2 Nobody is really dependant on you.

As I reached the Hotel this person was calmly puffing on a cigarette in the lobby. Just out of courtesy he had refused to check in before I got there. I helped him to check-in (the first time I used my office ID ever for such things, except when I need to take benefits for the “below poverty line” citizens. I have come to know very recently that anyone working in our office, vide some government statute, is considered to be underpaid & is allowed to claim concessions at rationing shops, but everyone need not line up to claim benefits, we are really paid nothing or thereabouts.) & that being the only reason that my friend had called me & now I am stuck with him for a week. I am sure he will be the source of entertainment for coming days.

I hope by this above post I have made most of my readers (1 out of the 2 that are still alive) happy. Also I expect to not listen to any cribs from Iyer over the next session, its too weird to have a Sanjeev Kumar imitator ask me to write a post. And notwithstanding Appoo’s protests to the contrary, I hope to have made some people (either of you 2, my dear readers) giggle & forget your worries, if my post wasn’t relaxing the colour should do the trick for you, or better still read the books I have recommended.

Now I have reached a stage where my hands refuse to put in words the thoughts which are coming out of my mind.