Wednesday's vicissitudes

Life is full of accidents, some fortunate and some unfortunate. But when both of these inverses stamp together, they make one hell of the day, right? Wednesday was such a day. It was one of the weirdest days that I have ever experienced. It was full of emotions. Emotions that changed their phase as the day passed by. Let me share some of them with you.

The Client's meeting debacle

Wednesday was an important day for me. The Japanese partners of my office team had planned a visit that day. I was a little excited. This was my first face to face with the clien

ts (that’s what we call our business partners, yah it’s weird). So, I wake up early that morning (7 o' clk is really early for me), freshened up(everyone on this planet is forced to, otherwise, consequences can be disastrous), hurriedly took bath(so against myself) and groomed well(trust me, I always try to be well groomed) for the very first business meeting of my life.

You must have heard about JIT, right? Well for those who haven’t (I mean all of you), it’s an acronym for ‘Just- in- time’. This is something that Japanese preach and Indians loath. Japanese are known to be very particular about their timings and it’s like whatever it may take, they achieve it ‘just-in-time’. Contrarily, Indians follow their IST (Indian Stretchable time) standards. Of course no one insults the 4^th dimension of continuum as badly as we do. But urging to defy the common practice and being a wayward Indian, I left for office well before my usual timing hoping to reach there before 9 AM.

But that morning I forgot a famous adage.

Mr. Murphy had stated-

‘Anything that can go wrong will go wrong’.

I realized this when I found myself stuck in a miles long traffic jam. And it was bad. For the very first time in Bangalore, I found the traffic halting due to an accident and not due to a traffic signal. I didn’t know whom to curse, my luck or Bangalore (which is again due to my luck). None would have cruise me to office anyways. So, desperately I started wishing that my clients get stuck too. The traffic crawled cohesively and I was late to the office by an hour and a half.

Thousands of things were running in my mind. I could imagine my lead scolding me for coming so late. I could imagine the clients waiting for me (though I had nothing to present to them). My watch struck 10.30 AM when I found myself in front of my office’s campus. But just when I decided to rush into the campus, my teammate called up and said- “Ashish, due to the traffic jam, our clients have been diverted to our old office, so rush towards the old office”. Screwed, I was damn screwed. All the curiosity, all the excitement, all the thunder was gone in a split of a second. After spending two and a half hrs in traffic, my company wanted me to spend another one hr. with it. I expected a better morning than this.

My Best Friend’s Tales

Well the noon was no better either. My best friend got upset with me on some trivial issue. And me being a little senti moron, couldn’t stay normal as it happened. Now, let me admit that– ‘Women are the most talented species on this planet ’. They can confuse you on anything, they can accuse you for anything, they can threaten you on doing anything, all just with a beep of one SMS. First they recommend you to change yourself. Then when you start changing, they feel that this is not how they wanted you to be, so, if you continue to change then they will get upset and will ask you to be the same as before. Something similar to this was what my friend wanted and didn’t want from me. Complicated, right?? Girls are complicated and nothing is complicated about this fact. I bet that no guy can claim that he can understand a girl. If he does, then he is a big liar.

Even, Oscar Wilde said-

‘Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood’.

No offence to my female readers, I am not trying to be chauvinistic but that day my friend really bowled over my mood. A little series of messages were enough to piss me off. So, please excuse me for venting out my frustration publicly.

A twist in the afternoon

Money

After a screwed up half-day session, I wasn’t expecting things to get better. But call it a fluke or anything, all of a sudden the day turned green. At some 3 PM, I got news from my colleagues that we will be getting a hike this month. All tensed and grim I turned ecstatic and overjoyed in a second. The sudden swing of mood was sweet as sugar. I was waiting for it. I had enough being a mediocre for a while.

Like someone said-

‘A steady salary is an invitation to mediocrity’,

I will say –

‘Hikes are good; they keep you happy even on a screwed-up day’.

Apology

Well this was not all that the afternoon had to offer to me. At 4.00 PM my mobile beeped. It was my best friend again. But this time she was feeling sorry for whatever she had said in the morning. She knows how sullen I get when I fight with her. And she didn’t want to trouble me in the office. I know she cares for me even when she is upset with me. She is a sweetheart. I smiled when I read her apology. My mind was now a placid place again. She plucked out all the tension from it. I thought that I will give a call to her in the evening.

Perhaps she is the one best suited for this quote-

‘A best friend accepts us as we are yet helps us to be what we should’.

So, just like another bollywood movie, my ruined life had an happy ending at the EOD. But the last Wednesday was one of the few days where you get to experience both sides of the coin. For me, the coin of emotions flipped a little fast that day, making it an unforgettable Wednesday.