Queer, am I ?

I often do stand out

Conspicuously among the teeming crowd

Sticking out like a sore thumb

I don’t know if I am ashamed or proud

When the mob travels the path in vogue

I find myself taking the route unknown

The only difference being

Seldom it a choice of my own

As nature, oft plays the major role

Imbibing the parental 23 chromosomes

Making me a hapless victim

To the game of genomes

Differ I do, in all aspects of Gen-Y

When buddies rave about the Game of Thrones

I am contented with the occasional Tamil movie

The name John Snow, evokes in me a spate of groans

TV Series, I loathe at the very mention

Suits, House of Cards, Narcos or Sherlock

Not a seconds clipping have I glanced of

I'd rather gulp a cup of Hemlock

Coming to world of musical tastes

Can I left be far behind?

Hardly have I heard Linkin Park, Metallica or Eminem

Truly I am one of a kind

Weekend approaches, as friends rally around

Begging me to join a game of Poker

For friendships sake I give in, and for the beer

But hanging around like a lonely joker


Moving screens, bulging eyes and fidgeting fingers
That’s my lads playing FIFA on PS4
I never touched those ruddy things
Instead preferring a kick of the ball outdoors
 

MBA was spent in making memories

At shady rooms and many a ganja point

I had my quota of fun and craic

But sans the rolls of joint

Never an interest in girls, as

Relationships around bloomed profound

Some carnal, some platonic, as I remained

Tagged in 'Forever Single' memes abound

Hardly conformed to the Plebian Outlook

Offbeat and esoteric to a fair degree

I have my own eclectic tastes and interests

Vowing to safeguard my pedigree

As midnight rhymes and verses fizz with panache

Inexplicably I cease, fate and time collude

Queer, am I? Though I pause to contemplate

With this my poetry, I conclude

A Brief History of Two Years

Sitting at my desk, the emails I frisk

Weary and bedraggled by corporate chore

Clock winds down and Outlook closes

As I ain't got much to explore

I grab a cuppa and stroll down to the window

To stare at the wide expanse of Financial District

Offices dot the plateau'd landscape

And cars wind down roads that constrict

The mind I allow to wander

As it takes a peek into the complex past

Memories galore - some good, most bad

Time has ticked on pretty fast

2016, April the Eleven,

Join I did the ocean called Amazon

What initially I thought of as the meritocrat's heaven

With opportunities blooming over the horizon

Month by month rolled as I continued

To burn the midnight oil

Plying my trade in this ruthless business

Shedding blood, sweat, tears and toil

Taking on the variety of vicissitudes

The corporate life had to offer

I am in no mood for platitudes

For I continue to suffer

The tougher unscrupled lot marches ahead

Currying favour, as they ingratiate

Forging wrong short cuts to victory

The senior's ego they did satiate

As the straightforward and diligent heart

With no schemes set afoot

Languishes in pain and agony

Starting the game anew albeit on the backfoot

A few things I did realize,

Lessons learnt the hard way

As nothing did materialize

The cruel game I loathe to play

Quarter by quarter passes,

No promotion in sight

As plethora of unfulfilled promises

have turned daylight into night

I take the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

With nobody to pity my plight,

But I will wait for the moment opportune,

And continue the fight with all my might

Late into the night, I pack my bag

Homeward, I embark full of sorrow

To the Almighty I pray and beseech

To give me a better tomorrow

The Gear Grind Scroll Part # 1: The Whistleblowing Over-Zealous Vehicular Guardian

The Gear Grind Scroll

Everyone's brain works more or less in a similar fashion. Involuntarily all our life we keep thinking all the time of some damn thing or the other. At any point of time, a good hundred thoughts enter the cerebral cortex, are processed and let out of the other end. But writers as a class stand out from the rest by doing something different. When the cognitive processing happens, the roster is scanned, a few of them are picked, gripped by the collarbone, marshalled and finally sentenced to death. The paper is the gallows, pen the accommodative hangman and death is nothing but the output that comes out in the form of ink. 

The shrewd one of the reading lot may nonchalantly observe "The ones that don’t come out in ink, come out through speech or action". To him pace I say "My dear chappie, I never denied that. Say what you want, but we writers are still a class above the rest. I honestly don’t have an explanation to back up my claim on the written word's pre-eminence over the spoken one. Probably I fancy myself as a writer more than an aspirational humourist who wishes to jump on to the Stand-up Comedy Bandwagon that has become a sort of new cultural rage in the country, and a new career option to pursue in the last couple of years. Only time will tell if it’s a mere fad or here to stay. Anyway if you are interested to know, lie low and read below".

On this poetic note, as already promised in one of my earlier memoirs, certain unformatted ruminations aided and abetted by my panache for adjectival felicity are soon to take shape in the form of literary output. 

What I choose to pen down this time, are some of my causal irritants. Certain behavioural and habitual tendencies of Indians, some on a daily basis, that I am forced to put up with. I will take the liberty to generalize my statement by tweaking it as 'We all are forced to put up with'.  But please note that there is only a certain amount of latitude for my tolerance. Mind you once the threshold is breached….Beware. !

"What will you do if the threshold is breached, rather for that matter what can you do?" enquires another bird sardonically. Well as a matter of fact, nothing! Indians will never change. You can scream your poor heart out from the rooftop but nothing is going to change. People will be the same.

The bottomline is as simple as that. What you are complaining about now is what you will probably complain when you turn 75. Well in that case, atleast let me use this a platform to let out some of the steam, if that’s a small consolation I can derive out of it!

So one-by-one I will start offloading my pet peeves that adorn the scroll of parchment.

Chapter 1: The Whistle Blowing Over-Zealous Vehicular Guardian

When at the wheel, and nearing journeys end in the basement of an establishment – Office, Mall, Friends Apartment Complex, Shopping Complex etc. the last thing you want is to be heckled into bringing your car to a stop at a dedicated spot which is decided by the chap in charge of vehicular control at the spot. Let us take office for example. Every day when I make the curvilinear descent into B-3 or B-4 as the previous two levels are always packed to the brim with diligent office-goers and also attributable to the fact that it is well into afternoon as I work in the EU timezone, the security guy who was otherwise sitting on a plastic chair in a  sort of surfeited trance (probably after loading in his daily luncheon calories), jerks into a fit of violent spasm, as he sights my car rounding up, and nearly breaks the world record for the sitting high jump! The next thing that happens is the whistle which was hanging on his neck automatically shifts to his lips, and he starts whistling away to glory. As such I have no objection to his whistling, so I ignore it and seek the nearest open parking space and place my car. But what piques me to the dickens is what follows next. The fellow nears you, settles there and cocks an eyeball at you luridly while patiently waiting you to disembark. I don’t know if he felt insulted that I ignored his whistle, but I don’t care. I didn’t make any mistake. I see there are many open parking spaces and find one to lodge my car. So I gather my bag and get out. The mistake every amateur basement car-parker would do is to look back at him and have a word if everything is ok. The minute you do that god bless your soul! He (the security guy) will start an essay stating a hundred reasons why he (the car driver) should not park in that designated parking slot. Either he says the car behind you won't have enough space to manoeuvre itself out, or the car in front won't have the bandwidth to reverse, or that his car is a trifle too close for comfort that the passenger seat of the car in the juxtaposed car can't be opened. In other words, to me it seems as if he needs to show that he is not just a normal security guy who assists in car parking but that he goes over and above his duty in ensuring that the quality of car parking has met ISO standards. No good to man or beast. Period. In reality, the best course of action with both parties is to main an air of respectable reticence and life would go on as usual. The car behind me will manoeuvre itself out, without any issues like the way it has been doing the rest of the 364 days of the year, the car infront of you will have acres of space to reverse and tool away, and the chap going to take the honorary seat of the passenger car adjacent will probably not even notice that there is a red colored Swift next door. With experience, I have learned that the best approach is to simply ignore his presence and walk away. Es'chewing the fat', the trick helps! If you got the pun :-)