Sweat and Steel

There comes a time in every man's life when he looks at himself in the mirror and is not pleased with what he sees. That ever-so-slightly increasing paunch–that is attached to his body like a pitcher's mound makes him say out one of those two things that every man would have said to himself at some point of time in his life–"I need to start working out". The other thing being “I will stop watching porn”. We live our lives at a desk job where the only muscle we get to move is that of our index finger while clicking the mouse button. And let's face it - the number of keys we type while updating our status on Facebook and Twitter is more than the number of keys we have used to type a code. We have taken the term "Don't sweat over it" too seriously, the process of sweating itself is looked upon with disgust. The physical process of sweating is as manly a task as matadoring (that is if you don't consider those tight fitting clothes of a matador), thanks to these deodorant advertisements we are made to feel that men who sweat a lot need to be stayed away from.

Men are normally non-jealous creatures, he is happy with what he gets - that badly cooked lunch, his job, his bike, his low-tech mobile phone. He never looks at another man and says "Oh boy how I wish I have what he has"–except occasionally if the other man's girl is very hot. But there always comes a time when a man looks at another well-built man who flaunts around his carved body, and shows off his washboard abs that makes him wish he had one of those. If there is one place in the world that can make a man feel insecure and make him hate his very existence - it has got to be the gym. Picture this–in a room full of men who seem to be sculpted out of gold you are the only guy unevenly shaped. In a place filled with hard-bodied men who look descendants of Zeus and Hercules you look like someone whose head is the size of their biceps.

I began my stint at a gym lately only after a lot of cajoling from my father who had gotten carried away looking at the likes of Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon and Jason Statham, initially I resisted, but he still persisted. I said gymming involved too much dedication and had more chances of me breaking bones of my own than building biceps. He changed his tune and started pitching the idea of Baba Ramdev and the miracles of yoga, which made me wonder when was the last time Baba Ramdev would have gotten laid. "Mark Wahlberg and gymming it is!" I declared, hoping my father stuck with Arnab and Newshour rather than HBO and WB movies.

Talk to the hand!

My hunt for gym led me to various fitness houses that had muscular men doubling up as salesmen who tried to sell me the benefits of having bulging biceps and a neatly cut out chest. They were less convincing than a fitness-freak friend of mine who cited the examples of books and movies - those porn movies that had men with a sculpted body acting.... or performing. And the cover of any Nalini Singh novel. Almost every gym that I had stepped into either had a large board of a ridiculously muscular white man who seemed to have gigantic cuts and biceps on his body than a sculpture of Achilles or a photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger before he became a Governor whilst secretly raising a lovechild. I finally zeroed in on a gym that was pretty closer to home, which was much cheaper but way less fancier than the glamorous fitness houses that had cropped up in the city.  As I settled down in the gym during the initial few days, I could see there were men who didn’t do any exercise but just inspected their body with a pride that said “You see this! I worked hard for this. You think you can better my washboard abs?”  there were men who belonged to different walks of life, outside the gym they were just ordinary men–students, security guards, drivers, engineers, probably plagued with issues of their own, normal looking men whom you wouldn’t care to give a second look when they have their shirts on, ordinary men who were probably bossed around. But it is within the gym surrounded by all the steel equipments that they change to a different self.  From everyday men they change to men with a passion that powers them to give that one extra push-up, as they dig deep to summon that ounce of strength–that moment when the mind takes control over body making it believe that it had the strength for one final heave-ho.

There is something liberating once you step out of a gym after an intense workout, it’s not just the breeze that washes away all the sweat and the heat from your body, but much like a good book that is like chicken soup for your senses–an intense workout is that shot of drug you need to revitalize your body and soul.  One of the greatest mysteries of our bodies is to know how much we can endure, and the best way to know it is to push our body to as much as it can take in a gym.  I feel it’s always an advantage to have a good physique­– people agree to whatever you say, they give you some space to sit in a crowded train, nobody messes with you and the best part is that you feel good about yourself. But jokes apart, the sweat that drains from our face and our body and embraces the fabric of our t-shirt is a testament to the will to endure the pain that would make us feel better about ourselves. In a life where the same mundane job has left many of us questioning our purpose, and left us like rudderless boats– it’s probably within a sweaty and steaming gym that I find an answer.  Within a gym, I know what I am doing, I know what I want to be in another six months from now. I don’t just lift weights, nor do I just run the treadmill–I lift the weights knowing what I want to become, I run the treadmill knowing where I am going.

I don’t want to have a six-pack abs and bulging biceps to beat up goons during a fight, I don’t want to look intimidating as I walk the streets but then I don’t want to end up with a paunch and loathe the men with a lithe frame on the advertisements of Jockey. I just want to feel better about myself, I want to feel healthy, we all have our ways of feeling better about ourselves, finally I have found mine.  Now, when I look myself at the mirror I kinda like the face that stares back at me.

A Breakup

A Job and a Relationship

A job is much like being in a relationship; you devote all your time, energy, and every emotion to it. It asks for your commitment, you work with a commitment, it asks for your care, you work with care. Much like in relationships, there may be times when it sails smooth and there may be times when things get rough. A job is much like a relationship because you get back what you give.

In a job just like in every relationship you ask yourself:  "Is it worth giving your heart and soul to what you believe in?"

In a relationship you ask: "Is it worth being truthful to a person whom we have met by chance?"

In a job you ask yourself: "Is it possible to keep doing the same thing every day with the same level of energy?"

In a relationship we ponder: "Is it possible to love the same person with the same enthusiasm?"

In a job you ask yourself: "Where will I be in five years from now?"

In a relationship you wonder: "Where will WE be in a few years from now?"

In a job you ask yourself: "Have I been doing this long enough to ask for a bigger role? To take it to the next level?"

In a relationship you ask: "Have I been with her/him long enough to take the plunge? To graduate from being a lover to being a spouse?"

You ask your friends, your peers, other couples for advice. If the answers to the questions above are the ones you want to hear, you decide to stay committed, with a dream that this commitment (to a job/relationship) will yield big results. If the answers are not the ones you had expected, you decide to do what you feel is right. You call off the relationship. You break up.

Falling in Love

For me it was love at first sight. When I first entered the reception of my would-be workplace there was something inside me that told me “You belong here”. Maybe because it was located in one of the most hippest tech park in the country, maybe it was the radiance and the energy the place was emitting, maybe it was the reputation and the brand name that it commanded in the market. Getting a job would earn me a few brownie points amongst my peers and friends, we all want to be hooked up with the “Prom Queen” right? And why a “Prom Queen”? Because it would improve our image amongst our peers. For me the new workplace was like a Prom Queen, someone whom I wanted to hook up with, someone whom you can show off to your friends, a name of the corporation saying which would raise eyebrows and make your friends turn green with envy. I had fallen in love with the company just like I had that crush with the new girl in my class when I was an eleven year old. It was like one of those movies where an outsider is invited to attend a wedding, and promptly falls in love with the endearing and loving family, secretly wanting to be a part of it. It was then decided that I would whore myself to any level just to get through those doors. For me Neverland was beyond those doors, and my resume held the key.

The Relationship

It started out like any other relationship. I was hopelessly in love with everything she had to offer - the ambience, the pay, the people, even the stale coffee. It was a period where I could say without no reservations that I was “married to my work”, a marriage fixed by the HR managers. I was blessed with some wonderful in-laws too, in this case my colleagues. I was in complete awe of the place, but like with any other relationship where after a given timeline the excitement level starts to come down, so did it happen with my affair with my workplace. My excitement of having the perfect job was coming down; the romance in the marriage was dying a slow death. No more had I the ache of a young lover who craved to see his beloved, the aspiration within was slowly being replaced by a feeling of monotony for continuing the same rigmarole of a job. And as the interest slowly started to die, my commitment started to take a dip. Mistakes were made like it happens in a relationship, questions were asked like it happens in a relationship, long nights were spent sleep deprived trying to mend the mistakes made, trust for a brief period of time was lost, a price was paid for a slip-up much like when a guy is caught unaware by his girlfriend for ogling at another woman. An unsatisfying job is much like a failed relationship, it ends up teaching you a lot. I learnt that a billion dollar organization is much like a gorgeous looking girl- it’s got a great reputation, it has a great package, it gives you a great job, but you tend to the do same chore every day. The best thing to do when the relationship is crumbling is to go for an honorable exit.

The Exit

The exit was carefully planned, no word of breaking up was uttered until a back-up was found after whoring myself with the same fake yet desperate enthusiasm with which I had done in my previous interview. When the deal was sealed, I told those clichéd corporate words to my superior which one does while breaking up - “We need to talk”.

With the formalities of an exit on the final stage of its completion, I returned my ID cards and my access cards to the authorities. It was like I was clipped of my wings, I was a fallen general whose stars were stripped off his shoulders, my name was deleted from the employee database and all traces of me were removed like I never existed. Final goodbyes were exchanged while fighting back tears and promises of meeting up again were made with friends, men and women whom I once met as “Colleagues” had been upgraded in my Taxonomy of Life as “Friends”. I walked through the corridors for one last time, these corridors had many stories to share, stories of employees who had carved a name for themselves and were legends within the office premises. These corridors were decorated with care for many festivities, these corridors had the laughs of employees embedded in them, it was a witness to their moments of triumph, it was a witness to their moments of despair, it was a guardian of many secrets and an alibi for many revelations. Of all the things that changed within that giant organization, it was these corridors that remained the same, strong and stoic, deprived of all emotions yet with many stories of success and failure to tell.

It did not matter if you worked for a year or for a decade, employees may come and employees may go but an organization is a behemoth that breathes on forever.

In Search of Santa

As kids we have asked many questions for which we have never gotten a proper answer. Some of our questions were scoffed at and never answered, and for some we got make-believe answers which back then made sense to our docile minds that were still "Work In Progress".

When an elder relative passed away we were told "She did not leave us, she is in heaven talking to God and discussing about some big plans for you". We were at that age not molded in a way to digest the right answers, the answers given to us were what we liked to hear as kids, and sometimes the answers we got, fabricated into our minds and formed a perception that could not be erased, which unknowingly had gotten embedded in our psyche.

I recollect an instance when as a kid I had asked an older cousin of mine that question which we all may have thought out loud in our early years.

"Does Santa exist?" I asked my cousin as we were walking down the street.

"He used to in the old days... but now he is too tired, and he has retired" he said.

"Why?" I furthered my curiosity.

"Because times have changed and people have gone bad, we are fighting with each other, cheating each other so Santa feels we do not deserve his visits and his gifts" he said.

That answer has since then on stuck with me through my childhood years. As I grew up my perception of Santa had changed, he was just a guy out-of-work with a pillow tucked under his chest that made him look the part, and the trademark robe and fake white beard completing his character,  as he roamed the malls "spreading" Christmas cheer and gifting gullible little kids chocolate, making them believe that he was Santa was for real.

But then, in the kind of world we live in we need a Santa Claus. You open the early morning papers sipping your hot cup of tea, and all you read are the news of soaring onion prices reading about which would leave you in tears, so forget about buying and skinning one. We are plagued with news of rampant corruption, WikiLeaks, rapes and murders, mud slinging between political parties, and celebrities belittling each other on talk shows that seem artificial and made for the snooty.

We switch on the T.V and we feel things are no different. We get the news but with soundbytes from loud news anchors who are on a war with rival news channels to get TRP. By the time we hit the bed we realize that we are surrounded by shallow people who are in a race to grab the headlines through shallow ways.We close our eyes thinking aloud "Where'd all the good people go?"

Ironically, we are surrounded with controversies in a holy month that marks the birth of God's son, but inspite of all these controversies we keep our spirits high by spreading warmth and joy through ways which make us believe that maybe there are a few good people around us. We are in search of Santa.

Nothing can makes us feel that Christmas is around the corner like a game of  Secret Santa, a Christmas tradition where members of a group or a community are randomly assigned a person to whom they anonymously give a gift. It was a tradition I had scoffed at initially when I came to know that it would be celebrated at my work place. 

"So are you gifting anything to your Secret Santa" someone asked.

"Why would I gift something to somebody whom I don't even know too well?" I said with a cynicism in my tone.

"You are such a grinch" another one retorded.

"Call me what you want, but I really don't get this game, I am too busy to get a gift for some random person whom I don't even know that well. And besides, I don't believe in Santa either" I reaffirmed my stance.

"Its the month of God, how self-centered can you get?" 

"I got too much of work, and I am too busy to even entertain thoughts of shopping for some Tom, Dick or Harry"

It was that reply that I had got from my cousin as an 8-year old that had unknowingly settled down in the recesses of my mind. Over the years the ugliness of the world with all its hypocrisy, harshness, corruption, and partiality had only strengthened my belief that nothing good would ever come out of helping a random stranger. What is the point of smiling at a stranger when all you are going to get back is a stare that would question your sanity and decency? My thoughts were interrupted when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I looked around to see a guy, someone whom I haven't known too well except for his name, greet me with a warm smile on his face. 

"Hey man" he said as he extended his hand to shake mine.

"I am your secret Santa dude, I wish you a merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year" he said as he gifted me a neatly wrapped box with his wishes written on it.

The next few minutes was a blur, it was a mixture of amazement and embarrassment as I felt all my theories of Santa's existence slowly crumbling as I shook his hand, and embraced him in an awkward hug.

"I..... jeez .....why man? I am just... I don't know what to say.... I feel so embarrassed... I mean you did not have to do this man..." I said ashamedly trying to force words out of my mouth.

"I just wanted to man, I always took this seriously whenever it was played. I hope you like my gift" he said.

"I am just too touched by the gesture.... Thanks man" I said with an overwhelming feeling running through my veins.

He gave me a warm smile that radiated a genuine joy in his face. "I'll see you around man" he said.

"Yeah... uhhh... bye" I said wishing that somebody gave me a shovel so that I could dig a hole and bury myself in it out of guilt.

As I got back to my seat I realized that Santa was not just a fictional character, a jolly good fellow residing in Northpole. Santa was not just restricted to be revered by Christians, Santa was a character to be looked upto by every man and woman. Santa was Human. He epitomized that primitive feeling of sharing which today is lost under the dark clouds of corruption and thievery. We all are in search of Santa, we all dream of meeting him and shaking his hands and to get a taste of his bear hug and his benevolent heart, because he represents that forgotten ilk of people who believe in the joy of giving and ask nothing for it in return. I realized that I had just found my Santa.

We do not have to travel to the Northpole in search of him, all we have to do is to look within ourselves. For we all have a Santa residing within us. It could be you, or it could be the person sitting next to you. All we got to do is to bring a smile to a stranger's face by gifting them with something whose value cannot be measured - Joy.

Wishing you a merry Christmas, and a very happy new year.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Confessions of a Serial Blogger

Dear Doctor,

It all started a year back as a hobby, I just did it for fun. It started out as once a month, or at the max maybe two. But as months went by the urge started to increase, December is yet to end and this is already my seventh time in this month. I feel I have gotten addicted to it, it all started with that first one, we all remember our first time. I remember mine, after which I intended to continue this only as a hobby. But things changed as the frequency slowly but steadily increased. And before I knew it, I was doing it more than ever. It was then I realized, I had become a blogaholic.

I visited random websites and numerous blog profiles as I read studied their posts. From aping their design to their profile pictures, I had done a research on everything like a thorough professional killer who was profiling his target. I needed a reason to expand so I divulged in writing memoirs and short stories and things which affected me in some way. But I realized that I was not getting recognized, so I started spreading the word. I made new friends on Facebook where I sent friend requests to men and women who shared the same interests as I: Blogging!. I joined Indiblogger hoping that this would be a perfect platform that would help me get noticed. And it did.

And then a strange thing happened, I saw random people commenting on my blog. It was as if I were suffering from itches. The more I blogged, the more greater were the chances of people commenting on it, and more were the chances of my blog address being spread all over the blogosphere. It was much like the more I scratched at my itches, the more it spread. I consulted my fellow blogger friends who said that I had been showing the symptoms of Comment Moderation Syndrome (CMS), and also suggested that I needed to consult a doctor for the itches.

The Comment Moderation Syndrome (CMS)

Every nascent blogger when starting his/her blogging career undergoes this nauseating (for the lack of a better word) feeling when right after publishing their post they would check their blog page every now and again to see if anyone had commented on it. You know you are struck with the CMS when:


1. The first site you check every morning is your own blog page.

2. You go to every random blogger's site and post a comment that says "Hey! that was a wonderful post. I could almost connect to it. Beautifully written. Do check my posts at ishityounot.blogger.com" 

Although you actually mean 

"You call that a post? I can write better than you. Check me out at ishityounot.blogger.com and be jealous of my awesomeness."

3. And when somebody does comment on your page, you reply by typing out a lengthy "Thank You" speech to them for having commented on it and invite them to come over and read more of your posts. You play the generous host where you are kissing their butt in the virtual world.


4. You introduce yourself as a writer to all the people you meet hoping that they will raise their eyebrows and say "Ah! a writer?", although you are hardly four posts old. That is more like "I-hit-a-six-the-other-day-while-playing-with-a-bunch-of 12-year-olds-so-I-consider-myself-as-a-cricketer"


I have been through the above mentioned phase, and if you noticed my comments section of my blogs you would see that I would have tried to reply to all the comments in the same way that a best selling author would reply to e-mails from his readers. Although I hardly get more than a couple of comments. 


Now, returning to the itches. I always wanted to know where my itches were originating from. I am using the itches as a metaphor for the readers. So in a way, I am trying to figure out from the places where my comments originated. So to keep track of my itches readers I had Feedjit installed on my blog page which would keep a track of the location where my itches... ummmm... sorry readers are situated. As you can see, it is located on the right hand corner of my blog page, and it is now showing the place from where you are reading this blog. I hope you are not reading this from the loo Good Doctor.


There is a saying that blogging is for the fat and the ugly and the socially inept. Well that is not true, and it is not a saying. Even good looking and charming people blog, take me for instance. Ok, that was a bad joke. I may be deemed as socially inept, but my blog has made me feel that I am virtually virile. And if not for my blog, I feel I would have no virtual identity.

It is always every individual's dream to read their name published in the papers for what they are good at. But for a blogger it helps in two ways, 

a) People other than the blogger now would Google search the blogger's name
b) It helps increase the traffic of the blogger

But with great fame comes great responsibility, or in my case with little bit of fame came a little bit of responsibility. Thanks to the theatre group Stray Factory's novel venture in converting blogs into plays there was an alarming increase in the rise of traffic in my site once one of my posts got selected. And with the increase in readers, there came an urge to increase the posts all the while improving the content.

Yet this fetish for blogging coupled with the hunger for fame and pursuit of more readers has made me socially stunted.


1. I now live every day expecting that something blog-worthy would come out of it. I get so involved with finding a topic to blog that I forget to live the moment.


2. I remain indoors on weekends canceling out any potential plans with family and friends sitting in front of the computer with my blogger window open as I peer into the screen with my mouth agape and confusion written large over my face on what to blog.


3. And when I am struck by a concept to blog about, I find it necessary enough to write it down on a piece of paper or save it as a text message in my mobile. That is one of the reasons why I never use my brains while I am in the bathroom, thus denying myself with an Archimedes style "Eureka" moment in which, if and when I am struck with an idea for a post I jump out of my shower and run around the house shouting "Eureka! Eureka". 


The world deserves better sights and sounds than watching me running around stark naked shouting "Eureka! Eureka!".

A Blogger and his many Faces

  
A blogger is the virtual version of a Superhero. If Gotham City has a Batman, then we are VirtuoCity's BlogMan. We may not wear our underwears over our pants, we may not be blessed with the Batmobile, or we may not be as gifted as Spiderman to shoot webbings from our wrists. We possess none of those superpowers or hi-tech gadgets. 


Our superpower is the gift to communicate what we feel by weaving it into words, sarcasm and wit is our secondary weapon, and our hi-tech gadget is not a James Bond style laser-watch but an ordinary word processor. Blogger dot com and Wordpress are our playgrounds where we unite and express ourselves and the world around us in our own way. 

The blogger community has many faces. We are activists blogging for a cause, we are movie reviewers suggesting you what to watch and what to trash, we are poets whose poems you can use and pass off as your own to impress your girlfriend, we are storytellers who keep you hooked till you scroll down to the end, we are political satirists who educate and entertain at the same time, we are philosophers finding and expressing joy in every moment that we are gifted with, we are chefs who give you recipes that can lead you to your man's heart through his stomach.We are superheroes with gifts, it is upto us on how to use it.

There are two kinds of bloggers, those who never talk but blog and those who talk a lot and still blog. There may be some of us who may seem demure in person, and you may wish that they often speak a lot, but haven't you heard the saying that "Still waters run deep"? We run deep, and it is in the virtual world that we let our words flow and possibly drown you to death. And there are the second kind, it is not enough that they talk a lot in the offline mode, they even want to have their say in the online mode. It is in the virtual world where they have no fear of being cut short when they are in the midst of making their point. They seldom use the delete or the backspace key, they hate going back on their word.

The Blogger's Wall

Our greatest gift could also be our greatest curse. During the blogging life of every blogger a time may come when he hits the wall after which his blogging spree would come to a halt. He may become lethargic enough to sit in front of his computer and he would lose the will to exercise his brains to come up with content to write. The comments on his post would dry up which would further demoralize him to not write. He would plan to abandon the blog which he once looked after as his own baby by feeding it with posts. But to break the wall and overcome the Blogger's block is one of the toughest period for a blogger when he searches for a motivation to write.


But right now doctor, like the serial killer Jack the Ripper I am suffering from an insanity that involves serial blogging. And the only cure to my insanity is that I get to hit the wall.


Yours Insanely,
Raag the Blogger