A person without thoughts is not a possibility. The thoughts may be redundant, silly, stimulating, destructive..anything but, thoughts they are! We think about multifarious things in a day. Thoughts triggered by different events, with a varied essence and of varying magnitudes. According to me Maslow's Pyramid of needs helps in answering a lot of questions which are physiological and psychological in nature. It can help each of us identify the pattern of our thoughts.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs consists of five levels: the four lower levels are grouped together as being associated with Physiological needs, while the top level is termed growth needs associated with psychological needs. Deficiency needs must be met first. Once these are met, seeking to satisfy growth needs drives personal growth. The higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus when the lower needs in the pyramid are satisfied. If a lower set of needs is no longer being met, the individual will temporarily re-prioritize those needs by focusing attention on the unfulfilled needs, but will not permanently regress to the lower level.
So when we actually reach the stage of self-actualization we are apparently materially and emotionally satisfied individuals.
Of the last few months I can visualize myself as an animated stick figure trekking up the learning curve of my organization, Maslow's hierarchy and life on the whole. After a lot of analysis I figured I think I'm in the "Need to Know and Understand" segment.
So where do you think you figure in the hierarchy of needs??
I crack bad jokes. Really bad ones, and then I get responses berating me.
Thoo he says, haak thu another one spits, thu she says delicately reminiscent of her mellifluous voice, aiye thu another one pings.
Naturally it got me thinking. So many variations just in a spit, whod’ve thought! But then my online friends are like that. Varied in their means to a similar end (essentially expressing opinions about me). I learn. Constantly from them, the delicate art of this chatting. I have been a diligent student and incorporate all their small mannerisms in my own language. Hey, wassup, sup, hi, kanna, doood, *****,****** all greetings. I take them in good spirit, after all the words we use online must make up for the lack of flesh and blood, and the voice. This talking online transcends barriers of sorts, language for instance, gender too. All busily twisting available resources to express opinions.
Talk of chatting and I must mention the ubiquitous emoticon. I used the limited ones available in gtalk, but my resourceful friends come up with more. She taught me the :|. Something without which I wonder how I ever chatted in the past. Whether to counter an opinion, or to endorse it. To scold, encourage or just fill in the gap between two timestamps. He, a most recent friend, said :O. I loved it. The piggy eyes over an open mouth. I express surprise similarly now. Most handy it is, the :O. Another one uses :) naturally making me smile. :-/ to express his stymied status after his girl is through with him.
“Khoop milega rang jab mil baithenge teen yaar, aap main aur youtube” It’s true. I spend all the time pasting links into that little blue box, and so does my friend. Talk a lot we may but our secret vice is in doing this. No video is spared, his extensive talents also include digging up little known lost videos, so chatting with him always leaves me like :)
And then there is the other half of this blog, the formidable vitruvian. We have chats that no one can understand, least of all us. On glimpsing the green dot near our names, both of us start typing inordinately large amounts of information, burdening the little chat box, not caring in the least of the other listens or not. Then we backtrack and read. Then we crack silly jokes. And just when we are having fun she decides to promptly log off. So they end, on a note of hopeless confusion, and assumed future clarifications.
The :O friend also says lol to my supposed attempts at humour. LOL if it is particularly rib-tickling. ROTFL’s, LMAO’s and heehaws follow. They do make me laugh. I am becoming slowly, an extension of my online self. Sadly a friend of mine once mistook my muhahahaha as muuah. I was confounded. Like this :| or perhaps a better sequence of alphabets and symbols was wanting. But I am neither as imaginative nor as resourceful. So I just rely on words to do the needful. Call me old fashioned if you will.
Chatting with people of high office is a challenge. Mainly cuz u cant do this. Or evn hav tyops. So 1 must be clareful. Most high office people however stick to stiff emails, Leaving the dominion of chatting to us lesser peoples. So we do as we please, laugh, cry :’( :(( and as she does , x-( and go through the motions of life all in the little blue box. Orange always was associated with the Indian flag (for those not subtle enough to appreciate the delicate hue of saffron), sanyasis and a political party. Now orange means someone has graced you with their ping and it hangs there, unanswered. Orange dots mean the person at the other end is on the phone. And try however I may, I am unable to get my status to be orange at my will. It is upto the great algorithm inside google. Most sensitive it is, the mere shadow of my finger makes it green, unless I am red. Which has no effect on the pingers, or the pingee. And then there are those who like to have the first and last word. Like him and her. Always invisible, pulling strings, watching you be green, orange and green again, quietly smirking at your futile machinations. They greet, talk and before you know it they are gone. Or maybe they just like to play with me. Anyways, that is no mere power they wield.
Days of chatting have left my fingers longing for evermore. I treasure these online meetings and the friendship that logging in brings. Foulweather or fine, Orange, Red, Green or naught, they are there for me, talking, teaching me, and being there for me. Always.
PS: More than half my blogroll chats, and I credit them as a major inspiration for this post. Yes it is you I am talking about, you know who you are.
“Good morning ma” I said, conscious of the time difference.
Instead of the bleary, sleepy voice I expected, Amma said in chirpy tones “Good morning kanna, You know what happened yesterday?”
I wondered which of my aunts had committed what sin. Or maybe the bai was playing truant. Or was Appa up to some mischief?
Amma went on to describe what she called the brilliantest bloodless coup of this decade. Yesterday while buying vegetables she casually happened to notice that the vendor was wrapping coriander in a page from some comic book. Further inspection revealed it to be Indrajaal comics. Amma jumped, coaxed, cajoled and bought off the vegetablewalli’s entire stock of coriander wrapping paper. Back home she was in her own world of childhood reminiscences and nostalgia, Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon and the ubiquitous Henry. I nodded ferociously in agreement. “Brilliant” I screamed into the phone.
Twenty more minutes of less mundane topics later I was back in my own world and wished I magically found my own piece of nostalgia wrapped around some rotten coriander. ‘Gokulam’ would be found only at Mama Stores (No one knows the real name, that’s what all of us called it). In a corner of this western Indian island Mama Stores was the sole link to Tamil Nadu, selling exotic kizhangus, aromatic kapi podi, and all other paraphernalia required to please the good Tamil Gods and the fat Tamil priests. While parents queued to buy Kumudams and Vikatans, I would jump up to get the magazine. For some strange reason, mama hung Gokulam from a clothesline high up. For an hour after we returned home, feeling like exiles in a strange land with bags full of strange Tamizh goods; I would be absorbed in Gokulam; reading pen pal’s letters to each other, enjoying the illustrated tales, fables and episodic stories. Of all that the magazine yielded I delighted most in the stories of king Jayabalan. Written by the witty J Vasanthan they revolved around a fat, foolish egomaniacal king and his more foolish ministers. I was too young to get any political satires that might have been planted in the stories but at that age I thought naming the minister of communication ‘tholaipesi’ and the defense minister ‘kavasam’ the height of satire. As I grew up and drifted off into wider literary circles, Gokulam took a backseat. On my acquisition of a bike, Amma sent me far and wide to shop for Tamizh goods and Mama Stores lay ignored.
Today that part of my childhood came and hit me, making me miss home all the more. Of the twenty days that my unforgiving schedule allows me to go to India, I must somehow find time to say hi to ‘mama’ and see if Gokulam still exists. That thought alone brings a wide smile to my face.
She came, whiffing of that elusive perfume. He had searched for that fragrance in vain, at stores he knew she shopped, on his mother’s dressing table. It still eluded him. An elegant swish of her dupatta as she sat down.
“Why always the salwar kameez ?”
“I’m not comfortable with jeans”
...their favourate argument at a different time. Now however both wore a veneer of distant friendship, past ties notwithstanding.
“It’s good to see you”
“Same here. One year’s a long time”
To forget, yes but apparently not enough time to forgive.
She spoke of her life, of how she juggled home and work after her mother’s illness. Over coffee reminiscences occurred. Then he spoke of his life in the new world, of loneliness and new friends. Of his job and the bitter cold. Of the ease of American life and the glitter. Of magnificent cities and his longing for Indian food.
“So you have to cook now? No amma in America? Paavam you”
Sarcastic but friendly, he admired the way she jabbed with a smile, drawing blood always. Flashes of times they had together. Always food, the focus. Cooking together, shopping for groceries, more exotic with every meeting. Relaxing on her low divan, sighing after an exceptionally tasty meal. Together in their exhaustion of having had oversweet payasam, in their fiery exultations after a spicy meal.
“So hows the weather nowadays?” Lunging for neutral ground.
“The rain is as thick as the masiyal I make, the sun as scorching as that thokku you liked”
“V…”
She continued ignoring him. You were always too flexible, she thought. Naïve. Someone serves you beef stroganoff and you lap it up. Typical immigrant attitude. Too much change in you. I hope….
“I’m thinking of calling the gang over for lunch. This Sunday. You don’t have to come early to help, just be there on time.”
“…”
“I will see you then, you take care”
She got up to leave. Adjusted her dupatta, and left. He noted with a smile she hadn’t offered to pay for her meal. She hadn’t changed at all. He would go on Sunday, just in time for lunch though.
I have a long and complicated relationship with my bladder. Twenty three years ago, newly formed and all, my bladder was unaccustomed to social niceties, and so it went as it pleased. I was an innocent kid, happily peeing, unaware of the urinary restrictions placed upon us by the wider world. Strangers who lifted me often were peed upon, much to my mother’s embarrassment.
As I grew up, I learnt of the dikats. Of a concept called toilet where one peed. My mind, body, legs and bladder worked at different speeds, sometimes leading to emergency situations and sometimes beyond help. As I climbed up the ladder of age, my bladder behaved itself apart from the occasional mishap.
School was another story altogether. My school believed in discipline, the kind where children couldn’t pee when they wanted. My bladder was most offended by these new rules, but peer pressure won over pee pressure. I often used to be the first kid to run to the loo during breaks. Any requests for ‘teacher toilet’ weren’t entertained. The only way then was to say ‘teacher fast toilet’, something I learnt quickly.
Now we have reached a compromise, me and my bladder. All through the day I do as it pleases, when I sleep it won’t disturb me. Occasionally it breaks the rules and I grumble as my dreams (usually involving Mallika Sherawat, Angelina Jolie or both) are interrupted. Life goes on though.
Last week something happened that shook the very foundations of our deal. As part of a ‘drug test’ that my new employer (yes thank you thank you, big company and all) wanted to conduct on me, I was expected to give a urine sample. Acquaintances warned me not to take cough syrups and the like. Friends hid my weed. On the designated day I presented myself at the clinic.A large woman with a Mississippi accent took care of my paperwork as I set out to do the deed in a paper cup. Then it happened. I couldn’t go. My bladder refused to co-operate. I was puzzled. Usually I am the one to know where all the loo’s in a building are. I know the nearest loo from any point, in any direction, in my university. And it was embarrassing. So I had to do the unpleasant task of telling the Oprah-lookalike that I couldn’t sample, and wouldn’t be doing so at least for some more time. She gave me a look that would make most men pee in their pants, but bladderji just wasn’t in the mood. So I sat there, reading last season’s gossip, and waited. Forty minutes later I stood up, did the job and Oprah gave me a smile and said “Thank ya honey, its fresh, coz you just made it”.
Outside I slapped my forehead. Cursed myself, slapped my forehead again. Halfway home, I felt the need to pee.
Stations flashed by as she straightened herself. Soon Vashi would come, bringing along a dreadful rush of people, pressing on from all sides. She backed herself against the walls and compressed her belongings. Her umbrella by her side now was pressed to her hips and her handbag hung not elegantly from her hands, but from her throat. People clambered in even as the train slowed down and soon the train was whooshing over creek.
Mankhurd, Govandi, Chembur…
She clenched her teeth and pushed a fisherwoman away. Feeling her surroundings tentatively, she kicked. Aah it hit someone. As the offended foot backed away, she spread her feet into the crevice. Chembur next. Saroja would get in. She idly wondered what Saroja would be wearing.
Tilak nagar, Kurla, Chunnabhatti…
Saroja had pushed and managed to weave her way all the way across from the other door to her side. Time passed gossiping, cursing bosses, talking of sexless husbands and errant kids. She was in a position of minimum volume now, she and Saroja entwined like participants in a pagan orgy. Saroja’s hair strewn across her sweaty neck, with those irritating flowers she wore, her wet umbrella dripping into the folds of her saree. Her own handbag was not seen, only felt somewhere in the deep recess between her and that fisherwoman.
GTB nagar, Wadala, Sewri…
Conversation still flowed freely, like oil over a jar of mango pickle. Soon Wadala came and Saroja got off, her flowery hair brushing past and nauseating briefly. A sudden view of the city blurring outside as the fisherwoman shifts her leg. A brief look at the time. Plans for what to do in office.
Cotton green, Reay road, Dockyard road…
The train rose and fell across bridges. Plans were made, plots hatched, some discarded, some to be implemented. Gently shoving the fisherwoman away she reaches for her mobile phone and texts her daughter, reminding her to have lunch outside today. She amuses herself trying to text a romantic message to her husband. Futility and bad network conspire and in the phone goes.
Sandhurst road, Masjid, CST.
All the fisherwoman are bustling now. Some make the exchange at Sandhurst road, but the majority get off at Masjid. So do three burkha clad women. She hastily gives way for the latter. The train slowly pulls into CST. Tired, weary, crumpled and disheveled she sighs. Disembarks. A slow walk at first, a brisk trot and then a full fledged run to catch the bus, waving on the way to her train friend from the middle compartment.
I'm a parody on sanity!! Each person will have a different opinion of me..People centric yet what i enjoy most is my solitude... Am madly eccentric....predictably unpredictable....
