Random Gyaan...

Blogs do for me what pets do for girls. I can vent it out all here and feel lighter. But I write only when I am jobless. No, no, Tata Steel R&D hasn’t disengaged itself from my services. Far from that. I continue to be a Researcher, and apparently an above-average one at that. I keep fooling them day in and day out. The pity is they don’t seem to care. Worse still, at the end of every month they pay me too. It’s me who ends up feeling foolish. This is the biggest Gandhigiri of all time and I am facing it for last ten months.

But why am I crying hoarse now, all of a sudden? There is a reason to that. I am suddenly gripped by the fear that I might have to face this bunch of Gandhi Babas for my entire life. At least for quite some time.

I had applied for Civil Services a few months back. That is one job where I can imagine myself spending thirty years of my life. Getting in is a lot of hard work, I know but I was reasonably happy for last six months. I had something to do, something to look forward to. As it turned out, I did not receive my admit card for the Prelims. Apparently, my application did not reach the UPSC office. I am shattered, devastated. Yeah, seriously. Don’t chuckle. I know I was not really close to cracking that exam. But that doesn’t console me.

Success or failure is not that big a concern. Not yet because I know I have still not put in the hard yards which I need to. The bigger concern is I seem to have lost the purpose I had in my life. I have nothing to do when I reach home now. I have enough time. More than enough. I hate that. I can afford to stare blankly at my TV screen and surf channels even when no football match is playing. I don’t want this privilege in my life. I love running around, being busy. I love it when I have to squeeze some time out to talk to my near and dear ones. I loved my life when I had to think in the morning how I was going to fool my boss today and sneak out early to manage half an hour extra for jogging without compromising on my time for studies. I hate to admit this but I even loved studying. Even after spending ten hours at work. More than anything else I loved the fact that I was working towards achieving something, that I was not going to stagnate in this job.

A job where you don’t have to work much and you still get paid decently sounds cool; isn’t it? It is, but only to people who don’t have to go through this ordeal. The fact is you don’t work hard enough because you don’t like that work enough. When you spend ten hours a day, six days a week searching for proxy sites with weird names which can run Facebook and play Youtube videos; open TOI, Hindu websites far more frequently than they update their news; browse through your entire G-Talk friend list and read every stupid status message once every hour; keep cursing the Jharkhandi RJs of Big FM but still listen to them because there is not much else to do; boss you know you are making a mess of your life.

It is way better not to have any time than having loads of it. I prefer it that way. The only solace is I am confident this joblessness is a passing phase. I will soon go back to my earlier ways of keeping myself busy. I have to, don’t really have an option.