Lapses of lingy…

…Saturday – The Best Day Of The Week!

It’s Saturday morning and  time to eject the office OUT of my system! Most of our clients have 5 day weeks, a small mercy for this 6-day weeker who will thus not be bombarded with unreasonable demands on a beauteous Saturday morn.

I plan to watch Spiderman this eve along with Sharad, my old-friend-turned-new-movie-buddy. Sharad works at I-Dream Poductions, a Mumbai-based film production house which produces off-beat movies. They have to their credit Monsoon Wedding, Bend It Like bekham, 16th December, Hollywood Bollywood and more.

Sharad is the executive producer on all his films and in my perspective rather good at what he does. Watching a film alongside Sharad is insightful business. The film is followed by a self-dulgent session of deciphering and discussing cast, script, direction, production values and any other aspect which catches our fancy.

On my wishlist is the jazz version of Spiderman, which sounds all svelte and  sexy. But there’s no music shop in Bandra except a deprived little place called ‘Hiro’ which houses precisely 21/2 CDs, 31/2 tapes and is strangely shut every day of the week. 

I seriously think an enterprising soul should take advantage of this deficit and set up ( music) shop in Bandra. I promise to be their no. 1 customer if they have an eclectic collection which goes beyond popular music. 

The movie is confirmed, so watch out for a review in a day or two.

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…Client Travails & Arrogance Personified

A friend has just turned client and the prospect is giving me sleepless nights. The warmth of the friendship has been extingushed by his new found ‘professional’ attitude or should I say arrogance. There’s a coldness in his voice that is most likely put-on. 

Yesterday, he demanded a favour of me. Send some flowers to a friend, he barked into the phone at a second’s notice. Who does he think I am? His slave?His private Genie? I refuse to put up with such presumptuous behaviour merely to earn brownie points with the boss or business for my company. I am troubled by the turn of events and hope to stand up to my own during any further ‘dealings’.

In a way, this episode has triggered off a new ’attitude’ in my own emotional growth. One cannot be ’soft’ in the cut-throat world of business where the shrewd and the unscrupulous survive.

Pull up your socks!
Develop attitude.
Be assertive.
Say ‘NO’ when your intuition wills it.
And a voice in my head says ‘NO’!

And at this very moment, a client sits in my office, talking at the top of her voice into her cellphone as if she owns the place. I want to pull her hair out because her high-pitched timbre prevents me from thinking straight. But instead I make polite conversation, flash my pearly whites and humour her superciliousness. Stupid bitch!

There’s one small mercy though. She’s just yelled at a colleague who ranks high on my hate list. Now why does this colleague push my buttons? Because she lacks intelligence or talent. Thus to surge ahead she MUST scheme, malign and kiss-up to those in the upper echelons. She is the Greek Goddess Of Unscrupulousness! I am currently perfecting my technique of dealing with this breed of individuals!
 

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This is my first blog entry in Xanga!

Inspired by the words of my pal Altaf, I feel that it’s nothing less than my duty to pen down the experiences of  an aspiring chanteuse-cum-writer and share them with the world.

Today is one of those not-so-effective days at work when quantity takes precedence over quality and when that happens it angers me no end…but what can I do, a mere pawn in a big bad world mired by the conniving hands of commerce…sigh!

Currently, all I want to do is indulge in a spot of creating writing…something I haven’t done in a long time…a book, a poem, an essay…!

Hari Kunzru’s ‘Transmission’ is proving to be a worthwhile read. I like his choice of words, which felicitously translate mere sentences into visual delights. He’s now on my list of favourits authors which also feature Somerset Moughm, VS Naipaul, Tom Tobbins, Shashi Tharoor, Boris Pasternak, DH Laurence and Jane Austen to name a few.

I would like to write more…but the call of duty beckons. Sigh!

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