Well, life has been spectacularly boring the last few days. Broken up by sporadic bursts of adrenaline rushes. Like the CAT. Or the Food Poisoning From Hell. The cramped bus journey home. Driving a car after a really long time.
Yeah, I was among the sea of humanity who courted The Feline in hopes of a better life. Among other things. You see, everything you wish for has to be the one thing that is going to change your whole world.
Like, in school, the tenth, twelfth board exams were going to be the "stepping stone to a great future". Yeah, we all know how that turned out. But the Illusion never really stops. It continues with the Entrance Exams ("...if I get into a great college, that's it, my life's set..."), campus placements. By this time, the Illusion has become a Hallucination. Everything is about the Elusive Dream.
"If I can get there, that's it, my life's made."
The there varies with the position we're in. When we were in college, the there was "Get into a reputed software firm. So what if they make you work for 15, 16 hours a day, you'll get paid for it." Of course you will.
Finally, by the strength of your back, and the sweat of your brow, and some ridiculous hiring interviews, you get your first job. Which, considering where you are, is a pretty big deal. The Illusion now is "Revolutionize the world with your creations". You do not exactly know what those creations are, but you know they're going to revolutionize the world anyhow.
Now the there is "Project, and then Onsite."
One year down the line, half of which was spent on The Bench, Nirvana is attained on a Friday evening, at 5.47 in the evening. The whole world is getting ready to enjoy the weekend, and you sit in your air-conditioned cubicle, paying for the sins of your past life, which have come back under the guise of a bug, that has seemingly no humanly comprehensible fix. Mails with CC to Really Important People Who Could Screw You Over are flying back and forth.
It is then that you tell yourself, "Ithokke yenth".
Roughly transliterated from Malayalam, it reads as "All this, is what?"
Simple, but at the same time eloquent. Having heard this for the first time from my CET friends during my training days, the true meaning sunk in only much later. That's all of human philosophy there, in two puny words.
As my friend Daniel likes to say "Dude, in the cosmic sense, all this doesn't matter in the least." Of course, he says that to everything. But, he's got a point.
That kind of existential crisis about The Futility of It All tends to strike between 3 and 4 AM. This usually happens when you've been sitting up really late doing something that requires minimum brainpower. Like chatting with your girlfriend. Or playing games that involves mindless carnage. And then you reach a point where you eyes refuse to stay open, and you bow out of whatever you've been doing, and lie down, and Bam!
Another thing that I've noticed about late nights is The Proposal. You see it all the time. Guy and girl talk for a long time into the night. Starts out totally platonic, but as the clock ticks, secrets spill, and Bam! Guy proposes. This is a Night-Only phenomenon, because you put the same guy and girl together on the phone in broad daylight, nothing happens. Must have something to do with The Witching Hour and all that.
Something to think about, then.
