33 Years Of Solitude (with apologies to Marquez)

SCENE ONE - INT. IW's BEDROOM. NIGHT.

IW is seated by a study table, with his back to the camera. Apparently he is updating his (secret) personal diary. He casually glances at the calendar hanging on the wall. It’s a no-frills, out-of-fashion, middle-classy kind of calendar. The kind of which you get from your friendly neighborhood grocer. It has picture of Lord Hanuman (the inspiration & guiding light of all pious indian male bachelors). A thick wad of papers hangs at the bottom of the calendar. It shows the date, with month at top & big fat numbers underneath.

IW is staring at the date. Camera follows his gaze . Now we are looking at the calendar thru IW's point-of-view. The screen fills-up with the numerals 31. It flutters a bit. Camera pulls out, as IW resumes writing his journal under heading - Jan 31, 2007.

Voice over starts. Its IW's voice. Viewers get to hear the lines that are being scribbled.

IW (V/O) : "A New Year is all about new beginnings, new dreams, new girlfriends."

We get to see the lines being written on the page. Handwriting isn't that great. It’s kinda crooked but legible.

Suddenly the page loses its opaqueness. And in typical 60s style movie, a face appears on the page. Its IW's alter ego (IWAE). His inner voice.

IWAE : (dry mocking tone) "Right, Girlfriends. Who are we kidding here ?"

IW : "It never hurts to be positive. "

IWAE : "You are not being positive. You are just plain lying! That too, to your own self. "

IW : "What else can I do ? Everything else has failed. "

IWAE : "Failed spectacularly, at that. "

IW : "Right. Go ahead. Rub it in. Harder. Harder. "

IWAE : "Watching too much porn again ? "

IW : "Get off my case, ar!@h*le. "

IWAE disappears off the page with a deriding laughter. IW tears off the half-written page angrily. Crumples it into a ball & throws it aiming for the waste-basket in the corner. He misses the mark by a mile. The paper-ball lands on the floor. Frustrated, IW walks up to the waste basket and kicks it with all his might. Now we have more trash on the floor. But IW couldn't be bothered less. He heads towards his bed & slumps on it like a crash-test-dummy. The bed creaks noisily. Lights Out.

CUT to a super(impose) with few words of wisdom , it says -

"The terrors of Solitude were not so terrifying, once they were known."

END OF SCENE ONE .

BEGIN BLOG PROPER.

33 Days, 8 hrs & 33 minutes into the new year & so far the only new thing to happen in my life is : I am now sitting in a shiny new office cubicle.

Earlier, me ‘n’ my boss use to sit cheek to cheek (okay shoulder to shoulder) with hardly a distance of a feet & half separating us. The close proximity didn't bother me a bit. But, it bothered my boss a lot. Especially after one sleepy afternoon, when I caught him playing solitaire on his laptop. He was not amused, I guess.

My (old) seating area was cutoff from the rest of office. While everybody else sat in their own private cubes. My boss, me & 2 more folks were quarantined in a separate room. It was like an office within an office. This secluded work place suited me just fine. I am clinically anti-social. It’s a disease which has afflicted me at quite a young age, & like any other chronic disease it has gotten worse with each passing year. Being social requires a person to smile & talk. I don't smile easily or certainly not as often, so as to qualify myself as a social animal. I don't talk much, either. Small talk leaves me speechless.

Small-talk: The kind of talk which is expected of you when you run-into somebody in lift-lobby, reception, pantry or washroom.

The problem is, there is always someone lurking in every corner in this world; eagerly waiting to talk with you. These wretched people expect you to say few nice words every time your paths cross. First, you have to say something pleasant & while you are at it, you are expected to be cheerful & funny. If i were to be brutally honest, then on any given Monday morning, my small-talk would sound something like this :

Lurker : (cheerfully) Good Morning. How was the weekend mate ?
IW : (sleep deprived, depressed, undersexed) Absolutely riveting. I locked myself within the 4 walls of my apartment for the whole of Sat & Sunday. Stepped out only to throw the rubbish. How about you ? How was your weekend ?

That’s exactly what happens on most weekends in my life. Now, please don't think that I am whining or complaining. I absolutely dig being at home & doing nothing. No complaints. I love it. But would it sound interesting & funny to an outsider ?

The point is, with the sedentary life that i lead, most of the times there isn't anything interesting bit for me to share or talk about. Regardless of that, I still fail to understand this primal need of people to "talk". I am quite comfortable with silences. I don't get anxious or jittery upon being silent for hours. I don't feel the burning desire to catch hold of someone & talk about the sitcom that was aired previous nite or perhaps the soccer game that was played over the weekend, or for that matter, talk about the hot gurl that you met in the bar last nite.

My another weakness is, I am clueless about office politics. I am not aware of the circles within the circles. I am not into bitching about colleagues. That quite narrows down my topics of office conversation. I open my mouth only twice a day - When I walk in & exchange polite Good Mornings; and when I walk out in the evening, waving polite "Good Bye’s".

Once I am settled in my desk, I fiercely guard my silences. I time my pantry breaks in such a way that i don't run into anyone while I am in there. I play it by the ear. I first venture on a dry run, wherein I walk past the pantry, stealthily, keeping my ears tuned to action happening inside. If i hear any sounds indicating human life, I quickly turn around and bide my time by idling at the printer or walk purposefully right ahead, with some documents in my hand, looking busy. When i am absolutely sure that, there is not a soul inside, I make a quick dash for it. In & Out in a jiffy. For the rest of the day, I chain myself back to the chair. Lunch breaks are no different, since i swear by Indian food and nothing but indian food, I am forced to have my lunch alone. Just me, my food & my perverted soundless thoughts. Bliss. 966. That’s the number of lunches which I had without any lunch companion(s) in past 4 years.

Coming back to my new cubicle, it is located diagonally opposite to the pantry. Now I don't even need to do the snooping, to check if the coast is clear. Though my eyes appear glued to the PC screen, the corners of my eyes are always focused on live action happening in the pantry. Its something akin to being at the watering hole in the jungle. Sooner or the later everybody has to come there gasping for a cup of coffee or a quick bite or two. I can now rattle off trivial data as to - who has how many cups of coffee in a day & at what intervals. Who took how many servings of the leftover cake, and so on & so forth Though I don't like to talk, but I do like to "watch". Watch silently at that.

Okay, this post isn't progressing anywhere near to its logical ending so I am afraid, I have to end it abruptly. There you have it. My life at its exciting best. Don't even try to top that. No please don't.

In passing, I would just like to share one more bit. For past 5/6 years, at the beginning of each new year I have been resolving to get married. This year too, its on top of my wish-list. So if you happen to know any marriageable girl between 28 to 32, please pass on my blog URL to her. That way, there would be one less thing to wish-for in 2008.

IWAE : That was quite pathetic.
IW : For once, I totally agree. Pathetic, Lame & Desperate.
IWAE : That too, so early in the year. Hardly a month has passed.
IW : Do you know 14th Feb is just round the corner ?
IWAE : Goodness Gracious, I had almost forgtten. Carry on pimping then.
IW : Bugger off, rubber mouth @$!#&*.

IW & IWAE walk off in the sunset . A song starts playing as the credits start rolling.

" Hum Honge Kaamyaab.. Hum Honge Kaamyaab
Hum Honge Kaamyaab... Ek Din.
Ho Ho Mann Mein Hein Vishwaas.. Puraa Hein Vishwaas.
Hum Honge Kaamyaab... Ek Din. "