Notes to myself

Moving from college life to work life is such a strange transition, no? In college, you talk to who you want to, spend time with whom you want to and get to know people better, only if you want to (unless of course when you pick up gossip about someone's past/present that is jaw-dropping). At work, I've been told that I should get out of my 'shell', a description which is probably true. (But how far can I go away from Google Reader and my beloved blogosphere?) I've hardly bothered to learn more about the people I work with, given their inane jokes and and pathetic office sense of humour. Soon though, you find a couple of people who you come to know better, either because they happen to be sitting beside you and you in utter boredom resort to the self-same pathetic brand of office humour to end that dreariness or because they share your sense of sarcasm and you both enjoy biting each other's heads off. Still, there are people known as bosses and seniors who irritate you with their two-facedness and the only side of theirs, you're willing to see is the one that needs to 'QC' your work and the kind that likes outcasting you. But sometimes, strange things happen, or maybe inside this isolated cube full of cubicles full of isolated people all of a sudden faces an intrusion when reality comes striding in, and in the few minutes you spent at the cafeteria taking immense pleasure in the act of eating, your co-worker, a sometimes-too-cheery senior colleague has been sent to the hospital in an ambulance having had an epileptic fit during a meeting. You come to find your immediate senior, the one with the bad sense of humour, the one you sometimes tweet  'Argh' messages about, in tears, having remembered her daughter's skull fracture a month before and the fits that followed it, and linking it to what happened with cheery colleague, who is a good friend of hers, at least a good office friend. And before you know it, you're feeling troubled and bothered and extremely sorry, more so when you see a male senior colleague whose face is red and eyes, bloodshot. Why do we sometimes behave like we're the only human being in existence?

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A few Saturdays ago, I and cousin M had a good day out, and when we went to Brand Factory, I picked up some earrings for all girl cousins and bought a bracelet for myself. It was a pretty thing, flowers that reminded me of Noor and college notebook scribblings and I got quite attached to it. A few days ago, I looked at my reflection in the mirror to realize that one article of silver was missing (besides my ring and my watch) an was shocked to discover that the bracelet had gone... and that I had no recollection when I had last seen it on my wrist. Later, I wistfully recited, 'Inna lillahi wa inna alayhi raji'un' ('Indeed all things belong to God and to Him is the return'), that all Muslims recite when they lose something, and especially someone, knowing well that it could have fallen off my wrist anywhere of a zillion places. Blister's faith in this ayah has been well proved, she lost a gold ring somewhere between Munnar, Cochin and Calicut and Mom found it some ten days later in Baba's shoe and sis only said, rather calmly, 'I knew I'd find it. I had read Inna lillahi!'. Coming back to the present, cousin Boja and I went home this Saturday, and what does the help pick up and put on the dressing table, yes, the bracelet. And then I remembered I'd visited home, the middle of the last week to hurriedly change into a suit and had probably ended up breaking the little thing right there. So ecstatic I was, I jumped and screamed and was so grateful I'd found it.

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Quick Ammy stories #1:

Ammy sees her mom drinking water right from a bottle and insists that she wants to drink water the same way from a tiny 60ml bottle. One day, she touches the upper rim to the lower lip, instead of the lower and spills water all over herself. Sis, who's watching her says, 'Aur girao ma, aur girao', so our  little girl obediently proceeds to empty the entire bottle's contents all over herself.

#2:

Ammy loves shouting and is shouting away in babbledygook, and mom says 'Ahista bolo, Ammy' and Ammy says, 'Ahistaaaa'.

And now I should go or I"ll miss my cab home.
Take care everybody. Replies to comments soon.