Indifference
Whenever a drink (Pepsi or coke or slice or amul cool) has been consumed a little amount of the fluid gets left behind in the bottle. Possibly due to various reasons such as
1) Pure negligence
2) The bravado of taking the last big gulp in a flash and almost banging the bottle on the table and leaving without taking another look at the bottle
3) Being the offspring of a rich mother or dad that such things are a way of living, not just a cool drink bottle
4) The inner voice that says that it will look really cheap to be seen licking off the last drops off the bottle
Let me now start on the post.
Scene 1:
I am sitting in my room and wondering what to do. Just before that moment I had read Calvin and Hobbes for almost an hour and before that I had read a book, a fantasy novel (Eldest to be specific, the sequel to Eragon) and before that I had been watching a movie. And before that I had been studying for a test and when I was studying for that stupid test I had been cursing and fuming and fretting about me a poor little kid being unable to resist the strong circumstantial forces which had, in some past moment before the whole thing, had made me join a MBA course.
I am sitting in my room and wondering and then I decide to take a nap
Scene 2:
Michael Crichton passed away today. I am feeling bad about it. He is..Was a brilliant writer. And his genre was something that felt like he is just writing for me: science fiction that involves a very realistic extrapolation of existing technology (as far as science fiction goes). After hearing the news I log onto his website. Then I visit discussion forums dedicated to him. I am pretty..well..I suppose I cannot say “sad” because that would be a lie but I am somewhere there.
Scene 3:
I am packing my stuff for my return to the wonderland called hostel. Sorry. That was wrong. My mom and dad are packing my stuff for my return to the wonderland called hostel. My mom has already made checklist and she is ticking off on it. Dad is arranging my stuff inside the bags. And of course I am helping (mostly by not complaining about anything). Mom is asking me to take food and snacks and I am refusing to pack them all because I feel it’s an unnecessary load and already the bags are full anyway. So in the midst of arguments regarding what is essential and what is dispensable, packing goes on.
I am engaged in a very serious conversation regarding the Mumbai blasts with my friend over the phone. As things usually are, one thing leads to another and it becomes a full fledged dialogue consisting of all tones of speech: Reprehension, Scepticism, Sympathy, Empathy, Anger, and etc etc.all of them revolving around the country, its politicians, its people, and the people’s value system and so on
I am all out for separating India into separate countries. I am putting forth my points supporting it. Very sensible points too..er..ok...they were points..I am not sure of the sensibility part. My friend is telling me that the whole thing is troubling. The discussion leads to topics of death and life or more dramatically put..The relevance of life. At least death seems to escape the need for relevance. And obviously when topics such as these are discussed the next in line is the great evasive enigmatic illusionary Warlord: The Career. I am, as I always do, sticking onto my point that it’s a pity that we allow career to rule our lives and even knowing this doesn’t help. But ironically, it sure does adds on to the feeling of desperation, the feeling that what we actually want in life is going to be always out of reach or something crappy like that. Then I tell my friend a punch line “Life should not be fitted around career. Career should be fitted around life”. I have a propensity to talk like that. And anyway by this time both I and my friend have run of topics to discuss (or rather bore the socks off each other). So we decide to say goodbye and so we say “goodbye” and end the call.
I am out with my friends to what is called a Night canteen. To eat of course. But it’s more like this daily routine of an extended chat session in the pretext of dinner. The conversation can be classified as just one category: The category that cannot be classified. We are talking about everything ranging from the economy to the resolve it takes to maintain the status quo of being single when surrounded by a lot of peer pressure. But today the topic is predominantly skewed towards the sanctum of MBA: the placements. We are talking about how bad things are and how unlucky we should all be for getting to graduate out of a B school now. I am also complaining about the woes of having to wear formals which I believe to be a real pain. In between we also have a word with the server, who by the way is a kid, regarding the discrepancy of the side dish that had been served. Then the conversation goes on. As is the routine after the parathas we all decide to have some cool drink and then we start walking away after paying the bill, still talking.
The kid who served me the food is busy. He is so engrossed in what he is doing.
He is so involved in it that he is totally indifferent.
Indifferent to education
Indifferent to the economy
Indifferent to India
Indifferent to Bombay
Indifferent to bombs
Indifferent to Tata Nano
Indifferent to Pakistan’s Infiltration
Indifferent to the fact that Adiga had won a Booker
Indifferent to the fact that he is wearing shabby clothes
Indifferent to Obama
Indifferent to career
Indifferent to pay packages
Indifferent to the westernisation of culture
Indifferent to Malls
Indifferent to the lack of Pizza shops in the campus
Indifferent to the next quarter results
Indifferent to the difference between Gross and CTC
Indifferent to the fact that Daniel Craig is not as suave as Pierce Brosnan
Indifferent to the fact that he does not have a resume
Indifferent to the fact that Potter gets to marry, of all the people, Ginny
(I am cutting this list short..Please feel free to continue the list in your mind)
The reason behind this appalling apathy and indifference is pretty apparent.
He is busy.
He is carefully collecting the small amounts of the drink that are residing at the bottom of the bottles we left behind in the previous scene. He is collecting them in a single bottle. Very meticulous. Not letting a single drop flow out in the process. So proficient he is in the task that at the end he has almost 30 ml. A whole 30 milli Litres of Slice. He seems pretty smug about it. He is happy. He drinks it.
Indifferent to the fact that he could be (and is) seen doing it.
I feel slapped.
