Bored reportage…soldier’s death

Bored reportage…soldier’s death

Picture this-
23 year old, vivacious, willing to put everything on the line, with the sword in your hand, ready to stab your enemy through his skin..Now face-to-face with your rival-swords crossed..blood red eyes-ready to tear him apart just with those deadly looks, for having done the undoable, unforgivable, unthinkable. The kingdom you are trying to protect is under attack from the uncouth admiral Corporate Singh Dhillon. Dhillon has had the gumption to stage a mutiny against you and your people and sell your land, kill your King. He has the resources and the man power to bring you down, with a call. He can strip you off your badges of honour by calling out to your King. But you are a soldier and you would fight till death gets the better of you and justice is delivered.
You can see Corporate Singh coming at you at a pace, that makes you feel, he would pass through your chest. He pulls the reigns of his German horse, stopping at an arms length. He begins to threaten your day lights away and inflict shame and fear in your mighty justice-seeking heart. And oh, he knows it well, he will never get around with these tactics. He gets off his black beauty and removes his eye wear, to look at you directly and confront his own demon. “You bloody pesky rat of a soldier, what did you think you were doing in my private court? You thought you would go and tell your King and he would crown you the next prince for letting him into his own assassination plans?” Corporate Singh shudders.

You being made of substance that defies hollow threats, preferred refined silence over hostility. You would certainly not return his unsophisticated mannerisms in his own ways. But you have done your bidding.
At the battle field, the clamour of swords fills the air. Your swords cross, eyes stuck out, ready to tear his chest apart, you get a call from your King who says, “Ruchira, you cannot write this story. You need a confirmation from the Corporate Singh, if he actually has plans to assassinate the king. We don’t want to publish speculative stories.”

In the middle of nowhere
Not in the rains, nor under the exploding suns

Not in the dimlit corner of my mind,neither in the restless heart
Do i find myself..do i find myself
Nor in the idea, nor in the thought
Never in the prose,never in the poetry
Do i seek myself
In knowledge, and in ambiguity
In the surreal and the dream-like
I fail to find myself
in the mind of others
in the opinion of the insignificant
in the cacophony of the shrunken hearts
i find the fearful little me
in the perfect and in the false embraces
in the careless wayward lives
i find the shameful me
in weakness and decay
in folly and slay
do i find the repentant me

Work life..life at work.colors vivid colors that paint the canvas of my life

Different is the world indeed, that I am a part of, than the world I came from…
Work life is pretty much all you think of now, its where you look for the beauty and wonder. Its no more in books and flowers and mountains or in sweet company of friends.
One needs to evolve and perhaps I have been thrown into the black hole where there is no other way but to evolve.But I love every bit of it-reporting stories in shortest time possible, staring at my name in the paper every morning. There is something just sooo amazing about that. I never stop and thank all the many forces that make this event possible. But like always, this is not my destination, as much as I would want it to be. Unprepared that I am, yet to face the stark world of journalism, I perhaps need more training.
I don’t know, if I am a great reporter, though I write well. What I know is, its never too late in trying to be one, as long as the opportunity presents itself to me.
Bond markets, is not something I ever thought of reporting and covering in my wildest dreams. Other journalists say it’s a very technical beat for someone to start off with. I cannot disagree a lot. The difficulty of the beat baffles me and at the same time excites me too.
I have started meeting people who matter to my work. Initially it would be an ardous task to get over the inhibition and fear of making a fool out of myself in front of people who make and lose money in taking calls in this vast bond market, which is still unorganized.
But slowly, I have learnt about some of the issues concerning the beat and atleast I can pretend to be knowing now and get away with being street smart. I think I appreciate myself for being just superb in overcoming these jitters and trying to push myself an extra mile each day.
I have to say, I have learnt perhaps much more at work than I ever could in my entire life of education. I just realized the futility of our education system, that never has made anyone skillful or employable so to say and has never inculcated curiosity or willingness to learn and know. Workplace is the greatest school I have been to, and though sometime I would go away, the experience has changed me irreversibly.
People around me are so well versed with their areas of specialization and so precise, that initially I would feel extremely timid and insignificant. But I have met some of the nicest and wittiest people here and the kind of person I am, fallen in love with a few.
There is Nishanth, extremely naughty, and as much cheerful. You can hear him laughing from across a football field.He is tall and cute(and married). Then there is Maulik, a typical Gujju who cannot think about a girl, without thinking about her fathers’ bank balance. He thinks he is shrewd and pretends like one, but miserably fails. He can talk about the most innate things in the world and you would still find it amusing. He is obsessed with perfection and happily frustrated because of that and so is his friend,Sagar. An absolute freak, stupid but funny, but damn g rounded and prolific in work. I love his quality of being a people’s person.
Oh, how could I forget Ram, the crafty Punju, who speaks like he learnt his languages from Shakespeare himself. He talks in this theatrical fashion which gives him an air of education of etiquettes and manners. He is one of the closest friends of mine here and I totally adore him for his sense of humour. An absolutely awesome mimic who imitates this sardar who picked his nose in the local train and how he got furious when Ram pulled the book he was reading closer in front of his face. Such incidents galore and you are in splits when you have his honorable company. I have a feeling I would have dated him, had he been younger.
But now I talk about the guy, I fell in love with, and (well, only he can tell his side of the story :D)…Shailesh…the cutest guy in this office and also probably the loveliest human being here. Its amazing how I do not have anything extraordinary to talk about him, like I did about the other characters. Probably that is what sets him apart, that he is unique in just being him, just being one of the many others. He is just there waiting to help someone in need of a favour from him. Not getting quotes and stories being chopped are matters of life and death to him. I have fallen in love with men highly intelligent, highly suave, simple, good looking, sometimes mavericks. Honestly, I cannot categorise Shailesh. I love him, probably for just being an honest friend, for being someone I can talk to and someone I can be ordinary to, who does not expect me to be terrific in beauty or brains or mannerisms or conversations, who admits I am shorter than him and laughs about it and yet, somewhere just accepts me and loves me for the damn sweet little nothing that I am…

PS;I have an absolutely fun loving roomate, who I cant wait to go back to, at the end of every day..who mothers me, loves me,hates me, amkes me feel, life is not all that ruined, when she is around.she fills my world with sounds of laughter and tears of joy, even when our lives are marred with endless issues, that need resolution..and we ask life to WAIT :D