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

I have always found it difficult to make friends. Normal day to day interactions make me nervous. And yet, I’m often perceived as very confident and outgoing. Welcome to my world where opposites co-exist. I laugh & I smile. And I find it tedious. You see, I grew up in an unconventional setup; no parents; no siblings; raised by grandparents. And at one point of my life, I was an abuse victim. Mix all that up and you have a recipe for either a socially awkward guy or a psychopath. Thank God I am the former. (Still haven’t ruled out the latter.) For a large part of my life, I have been perceived as “weird”. When I was in school, I was widely unpopular for no apparent reason. I was most nice to people but they’d ridicule me or not talk to me at all. I kept trying to get into people’s good books for a while, but when that didn’t work, I gave up. I started getting into little tiffs with people who wouldn’t accept me. But I haven’t been the violent or disruptive type so my tiffs w

I have been away for weeks. I just couldn't get myself to type a word. Have been battling with some inner demons. And the thing is, I don't think I am winning. I am stressed out all the time. Things around me just seem to be getting worse. There is just so many things in my life that seem to be spiraling out of control. Take my job for example. As usual, I am doing all I can to perform well, but nothing seems to make the bosses happy.  There's a restructuring going on in the company's operations in my territory and I am having a hard time dealing with the new people I am coming across. They might not be hostile but a few of them are strangely wily. They just keep speaking in riddles and ridicules. My girlfriend tells me that it is an issue with me, that I am letting them mess with my head. I just don't know how not to. I am a straight-forward guy. I don't understand taunts and back-handed comments. And most of all, I am bad at shutting people up. I j