2011 is knocking at the door, a mere handful of days of 2010 being left. Looking back at the whole year, what stuck me first is "I cannot remember what I did on 1st January 2010 and what was my resolution of the past year"? It seems the whole year has gone in a flash. What I did in all these 300 something work days, what I didn’t, all merged into singular hazy oblivion. Then, it comes back to me. It is about all the shifts, I have made, some major and some mundane, yet cumbersome.
First, my unit at workplace changed its destination to a new building and it is not a mater of single day. Shifting continued for weeks, and when it got completed, we were abreast with many issues of an uninhabited place, though new. Leaking toilets, jammed doors, dust, malfunctioning switches, noisy renovations. All dusty, dirty and yuk. My problem was I need to be habituated with an atmosphere, to happily work in it, a habit, I acquired from my study days. The new lab, gave me creeps for days on.
Then, my dearest father retired from his work and shifted to our ancestral home, which was on rent from the last 10 years. I took a leave of 10 days smartly, and joined my mettle with him for the shift. Unfortunately, the tenants left the house very late and we had no scope of assessing its condition, before shifting. Just imagine you return with your so called judiciously bought commodities (accumulated at various stages of life), to a house, part broken, extremely dirty and heavenly abode of rats, cockroaches, lizards and spiders adorned with a garden of knee length wild grass growing in every direction and infested with lots of not so friendly insects and snakes. My God, the first week at the house demanded extreme drudgery. The routine was dusting, sweeping, cleaning, and more cleaning. The house was small and things to be adjusted and placed in it are a lot. The placing and adjusting continued, for eternity, it seemed. Somehow, we managed it, within my leave period. Ophhhhhh.
The next month, owners of my PG declared renovation of their house. One day, I returned from work, to find my room brimming with furniture of the whole house. An Almirah and four suitcases are sleeping in my bed, A 50 something pairs of shoes, winking from below my study table with additional tables, all the utensils of kitchen including a jumbo filter, are in my cloth racks and simply, there is no space for me to stand in my own room. The next day, utensils are gone and all kind of buckets, shampoos, soaps, water drums took their position. This farce continued for the whole week.
I faced these, materialistic shifts somehow neutrally, if not happily. But the other kinds of changes look more dangerous, brinking in the horizon for me. I am now at a stage of my career, where change is absolutely needed. Change of position is welcome. Change of place is necessary, as I have reached a saturation point with the old place. But, unfortunately, that means I have to leave all my old friends and associations established over the last few years. There was a time when a new place and new challenges, allured me the most. But times are changed and I feel like inclining towards stability and safety.
The other shift, may be the most important, in a person's life is still eluding me. What I cannot understand, is how people go through this nasty system of arranged marriage. How can one know, whether s/he should marry a person by meeting with him/er once? Everybody now-a-days is singing praise for it. Even thinking about it, also compels to me extreme kind of infuriation. How men and women manage to go through it? I ask many people this question, Rather than giving me an answer, most of them say, do not worry. Just go ahead. Everything will fall in place. What if, everything will not fall in place?
I am not willing to be trapped by this system. My parents are not ready to wait and my work routine does not allow me to mingle with enough persons from the opposite sex, so that, may be, I can meet someone who aligns with my wavelength. Hallelujah.
