A Bowl of Elusive

I remember all of us sitting in the dining hall at our place in Sambalpur. I wasn’t more than five years old at the time. My grandfather was seated in his usual wooden recliner, with my grandmother by his side in a matching chair, while my father sat at the dining table peeling mangoes for everyone to eat. I was on the floor fiddling with some toy of some kind while my father was entertaining his parents with anecdotes from his time in the armed forces. After a while, the conversation shifted to me and how I was such a big responsibility, especially since my father was raising me alone. My father looked at me with pride and announced that I’d become “a doctor or an engineer” when I grow up.  My father’s plan was to be hands-on with my upbringing and to a large extent he was. But it was short-lived, as just five years later, he died of kidney failure and I came under my grandparents’ care. They were good people and their style of parenting involved giving me a wider berth to grow creati

Measuring the degree of how much I want something has always been a challenge for me. I do understand the difference between yearning and obsession but I'm afraid my definitions may vary a little from the societal norms. You see I tend to be a little intense with my feelings. It usually plays out well for me because there's not a lot I want in life. But sometimes it becomes painful, especially when I have no control over the causality of things. That happens when its SOMEONE I'm yearning for. Because the way of the heart can be treacherous and all consuming. If I like you, I like you. There's not much in my control after that. I don't just get infatuated easily, only to be disillusioned later. I often know what I want and when I come across it, I'd pursue it through heavens and hell, through good and bad, through suffering and joy, because it's worth all that. But there's another side to it. An ugly one. I have never had things easy. And

Ted and I spent the summer of ’09 in a small cottage by the beach. The rent was reasonable, the cottage was cramped and we spent 14 to 16 hours a day slogging at the Marriott Resort nearby. Summer Internship a.k.a Industrial Training, since we were 2nd Year Hotel Management students. Ted and I had been friends since the eighth grade and we stuck together till college. We got along very well in spite of being quite different from each other. He was universally liked and I was universally despised. He drank & I was a teetotaler. And that kind of sums it up, ha ha. We started out with our internships, all excited to be there. Posh hotel, flashy uniforms, big presence in the industry, we thought it would be LEGEN- wait for it -Dary!!! But soon, we realized that none of these things matter to the people getting into the premises from the staff entrance. A reasonable shift for an employee at an Indian Hotel is 9 to 10 hours, which includes breaks. But India being India, labor