Sunday 27 August 2017

Features of a client contract brought to you by CIK Corp. in association with MC Inc.

               Some gossip. Some swear. Some do droll humour. And those who work for CIK Corporations that work for MC Incorporateds most definitely need droll humour to cope.

A couple bad pictures - I am still Photoshop-illiterate.





If I manage to keep my job after this post, who knows, a few years from now, I'd write about this from other positions on the spectrum. Life is scary.

Sunday 16 April 2017

Two tales

               Nothing can occasion a comparison of Pride and prejudice and A thousand splendid suns other than my having read them one after the other. Also how long it's been since I obsessed over/felt depressed by a book this much. So, there.


               Spoilers abound.


              As for the titles, like Elizabeth Bennet says, 'One has got all the goodness and the other all the appearance of it'. As it turns out, one book is like an uplifting song, and the other, a fresh wound.


               The former is replete with literary merit, the latter a heavy plot.


               The former so exhilarating it takes a lot to keep still, the latter so saddening it takes anti-depressants to go on reading. Interestingly, one Tamil (yeah, I'm dropping the 'zh'; it seems like an affectation) word captures both these sensations: கிளர்ச்சி.


               With one, you wish it were true; with the other, you know it's too real to shirk off.


               While it is almost effortless to break out of the former's charm with the realisation that it is fiction, it is not as easy to shrug off Mariam and Laila as mere fictional characters. Maybe it's just negativity bias, or my pessimism, but forced marriage, domestic abuse, preference for male offspring and the pervasiveness of political unrest on everyday life seem so familiar that even the hope-filled end does very little to help with the feel-good.


              Elizabeth's eloquent rejection of the tedious Mr. Collins, Mr. Darcy's curt gems to Miss Bingley and Elizabeth's incredible verbal duel with Lady Catherine - all, in effect, Jane Austen's brilliance - make one gush with admiration. Gutless Jalil, the failed escape of the women, resignation to cruel fate (all of which remind me of Sivagami from Sivagamiyin Sabadham), stoic Aziza and the cowardice of rebels who demolish historical artifacts, on the other hand, make one tremble with outrage.


               In the gradual metamorphosis - from hatred to embarrassment to love and matrimony in one, and from a progressive father to a bad marriage, to love, matrimony and hope in the other - they are similar.


               In the ultimate reward - Jane-Bingley, Elizabeth-Darcy; dead (brutally slain) Rasheed, Laila-Tariq, a recovering Afghanistan, (can't think of a convincing one for Mariam) - they are similar.


               Guess I can no longer criticize people who discuss TV soaps with unrelenting passion, without feeling a little hypocritical.

Sunday 12 February 2017

The Gita by Swami Cloy Ant



That very ridiculous science of the relationship with the Client is today told by Me to you because you are My consultant as well as My slave; therefore you can understand the horrific aspects of this science.

That worker who is attached to the fruits of his labour and who passionately wants to enjoy them, who is greedy for peace of mind, envious of those with healthy personal relationships, impure owing to lack of time for daily ablutions and is moved by happiness and distress, is a normal human being, and hence unfit for consulting. (Refer our policy on hiring, exploiting and dealing with hapless consultants)

The whole of your time is under Me. By my will it is wasted again and again, and by My will it is annihilated in the end.

What is night for all beings is the time of overseas client calls for the consultant; and the time of awakening for all beings is indeed the time of awakening for the consultant as well, come on, obviously.

Consultant said: O Client! First of all, You ask me to go ahead with the current document, and then again You recommend frivolous changes, wording the request as if I failed to do my job. Now will You kindly tell me definitely that this document is good to go (where no one will read it)?

You have a right to perform your prescribed duty (and the duty delegated to you by my boss from the US), but you are not entitled to a personal life or weekends. Never consider yourself to be beyond my capacity for torture-by-iterations, and never be attached to my non-nitpicky side, as you will discover that it exists only in your dreams.

But those who worship Me with servility, indulging my every whim without question, to them I carry what they need - money and future business opportunities - and preserve what they have - My contact.

When your mind is no longer tempted by the flowery language of the corporate slogans, and when it remains fixed in the trance of repetitive, mundane, meaningless routine, then you will have attained Ultimate Indifference.

nirasir nirmamo bhutva yudhyasva vigata-jvarah
Therefore, O consultant, surrendering yourself to My service, with mind intent on Me, without desire for acknowledgement or praise, free from self-respect and urge to smash the laptop on my face, slog.