Season's Greetings

Yesterday, I put up a Christmas tree at home. My first.
While Divya unpacked the made-in-china ornaments with undeserving reverence, mom served us hot tomato soup and I unfurled the leaves of a beautiful evergreen tree that at 5 feet was a riot of furry plastic branches. And just as I was about to pick up the first ornament that came to my hand and hang it up on the branch nearest to me, I heard Divya go 'waaaaaaaait!' In the next ten minutes with Monica-like precision she lined up all the little ornaments on a chair grouping together similar ones. Out came a camera and an infectious sense of enthusiasm that soon had all of us at home (including my very blasé brother) hanging up the first ornaments and trying not to pose.

And as dad put up the little red stocking we gave him, he told us bout the time he wanted to buy us this lovely Christmas tree he saw when posted in Sri Lanka but which was a stretch on his Army Major's salary. And mum recalled the time we baked a cake with enough rum to cause a hangover! And as we talked, I thought about Christmas, as I knew it in all the years that we had celebrated it.

Thanks to friends who are Christian by birth and warm hearted by choice I have the nicest memories of Christmas. It was in all their homes that I watched all the little ceremonies of Christmas come together to create an unbeatable holiday season of tradition, anticipation and togetherness. I've seen some beautiful antique tree ornaments go up on the branches of a real Christmas tree and soaked in the smells of flour, fruit and rum melting into each other in the oven. I've seen the tree angel put up with much ceremony and tasted my first sip of ginger wine. I've reached friends' places early in the morning to help with getting their home all spruced up and stayed until night watching guests come and go, talking over glasses of wine and juggling brightly coloured gift wrapped boxes.

Growing up temporarily changes some of this quaint festivity when the wonder of a kid gives way to the brashness of a teenager and Christmas is reduced to Boxing Day dance nights in the club. But my favourite mental picture of Christmas is of Sid (my brother), Nikhil and me sitting on the sofa in his house next to the tree warm in our winter nightclothes tearing away at gift wrapping while our parents looked on and Nana set up an early morning snack of milk and cake.
The anticipation and excitement of waking up on Christmas morning to see if Santa had indeed managed to find the exact thing you had asked for was unbeatable. And since we didn't have a Christmas tree we'd have to troop off to Nikhil's house to find the gifts kept under his tree by our parents. Lego toys were sometimes replaced by Funskool building blocks and Peaches and Cream Barbie was substituted by a humble My first Barbie. But these were insignificant details in the larger canvas of an eagerly anticipated time of the year.

As army kids living in a random-dot-on-the-map place like Bhuj in the 1980's there was little or no Christmas-in-the-air feeling that big cities with bright serial lights and brighter sale signs have. But this was more than made up for by the elaborate pre-Christmas preparations…picking raisins and pistachios off kilos of dry fruits chopped up and soaked in an obscene amount of rum…intense debating and decision making as to which toy we should ask for followed by letters written to Santa and then checked by mum and dad who would then promise to pass it on…all in all it was a 'hectic' holiday season. :)

I especially remember this one time when Santa came 'army style' in a helicopter landing on the mess lawns and kicking up quite a storm. His sack stuffed with gifts bought by our parents. Even after we outgrew Santa and exaggerated kiddy Christmas parties, it still remained a special festival. I loved to watch Rajesh uncle put up ornaments on the tree and neatly wrap little bars of amul chocolate in glitter paper to hang as tree gifts. I especially liked the serene tree angel he used to lovingly put right on top of the real fir tree.

Images of so many many Christmases came back to me as I put up my very own tree and it occurred to me that so much of what a festival stands for, is ceremony. Little traditions that we might or might not know the origins of but that are even today a wonderful way to make small actions and times memorable. Besides the special joy of putting up my own tree I now have an even more special memory of doing it with people who made it so much fun. It made me see that festivals and occasions are not all about religion. In today's world maybe it's a little simpler if you just see it as a holiday, a break from the routine to do things you wouldn't otherwise do. Make your own tradition to carry forward the next year and add a coupla more pictures to the already overfull hard disk on the computer.

That simple act of putting up a tree made me want to bake a cake, buy little gifts for people I know and throw a small party with some wine and food and before I know it, I am thinking of having a real tree next year…and party games...but that's far away, for now I am jus happy to turn on the lights on the tree and watch the glow light up the serene face of the tree angel and savour the thought of a holiday, family and friends, the smell of baking and the sight of the lights on the tree and the whole special sensory experience that a festival brings.

In defense of us…

People sigh when they hear me spout forth on something that's on my mind and then they say 'something is seriously wrong with your generation…you have it all and yet you are all deeply unhappy" As the self appointed spokesperson for the group of people born after 1979, I hotly defend 'my generation' as we are collectively referred to and I wonder, if there some truth in what they are saying.

'Theirs' was a generation of contentment. Educated, upright, disciplined and restrained they shelved themselves and did what was expected to be done, I think the other word for it is 'mainstream'. While 'our' generation in turn is best described by one word - deviant!
But isn't that an evolutionary step?

Between the old world and the new, there is a nebulous twilight realm of transition. Living in this world is a tribe that was born into the old and are growing up with the new.

When I have children, they will in all probability be digitally documented and preserved in bits and bytes right from their first lusty cry as newborns. They will see themselves mirrored in camera LCDs and talk to their grandparents over skype. They will learn motor co-ordination by playing with a cell phone and probably leave me voice messages at age 3 to tell me about what they are up to. Compare that to Doordarshan and the once a week serial, the slow and momentous progression from the VCR to the VCD and eventually the DVD, the 286 processors to the 2 kilo laptops, and you will know that 'my generation' has walked a long path with admirable patience and endurance.

Nope! we are definitely not a generation that has it all. What we really are is a deluded bunch of guinea pigs for the digital revolution! While convincing ourselves that we are on the cutting edge of technology we are left grappling with the memories of a simple childhood that is often brought up only to tell us how little we had and how spoilt we are now 'cos we have so much more. Not because we asked for it but simply because a rapidly changing world simply thrust them upon us.

How many of us knew as fifth graders that we could grow up to be career backpackers, exhibition designers, wine and coffee tasters, game testers and colour forecasters? We weren't born with the promise of these choices, we jus' grew up unwittingly in a world that sprung a gazillion options on us the minute we showed faintest signs of decision-making ability.

Piano lessons or math tuition…Tennis classes or IIT classes…Hindi or French…and to top it off advice from all and sundry AND 'parental guidance' for good measure. Hey! How about giving us some credit for growing up in difficult times!

How are we as 10 year olds supposed to weigh the relative benefits of a future career in translation v/s being a dentist? And if you say, that's exactly why we're given advice, how are we as 10 or even 15 year olds expected to know the difference between objective advice and unfulfilled parental ambitions thrust on us? I couldn't tell the difference at 25 and I doubt if I will be any wiser at 35. But by then it probably won't matter anyway, cos I will be dispensing some advice of my own.

Twenty years back it was a little simpler, math, science, commerce or arts? Translated that meant, engineer, doctor, lawyer or wastrel? In an intolerant time that defined success in narrow parameters like the respectability quotient of a job, (if you don't know what I am talking about, ask your dad if he could have imagined being an alcohol taster for a living) and how many years you mulishly stuck to one job, choices were a precious few and decisions were easier to make. The right path or the wrong…failure or success…the academic or the entrepreneur…intellectual or plebian…

But meet the average specimen of my generation and you will find they are a little bit of everything. Sure, that means not much depth in any one area but little interest in a lot of areas made possible by living in a more tolerant age where being a gazzetted government officer at the age of 21 is not the Holy Grail of achievement. And yes, if you ask us what is the millennium's holy grail of achievement, we don't know yet. But we are looking. And a state of searching is by no means a state of contentment.

Walking the middle path between a world that has made material success so accessible and another world where new age gurus ask us to just 'BE', we search for careers, homes, hobbies, holidays, partners, love, acceptance, fulfillment and meaning. Unwilling to put ourselves on the backburner we refuse to give up today for the promise of tomorrow. And that's who we are.

As 50 year olds we may not sigh with resignation and say we sacrificed our dreams for our children, but then again we will have a different set of regrets that we don't of know of yet. We might never know the contentment that comes from stability but we'll know the joys of having lived it up every moment of our lives and being true to ourselves. In the end we are no happier or unhappier than any other generation in the history of mankind. We have just lived lives different from those before us, made different choices and know that after us there will be another generation, another quest, another grail, another set of cribs and another criteria for happiness. And hopefully we'll have become wiser enough not to look at them and say, 'you really have it all and yet something seems to be wrong with the lot of you!"

Inspired?

Is it too much to ask to be inspired and charged at work every single day? When someone asks me what I want to do in life, when I don’t say travelling, photography and being a bartender I say I want to be inspired and enthusiastic at work every day of my life. And that about sums up the height of my ambition! Which of course leaves me with the onerous task of finding a job that fulfills that criterion.

And have I tried or what?

Four years of working and six jobs later, I am still looking. And I am’nt any wiser than when I started. Sure, I have a long list of jobs I will never do again (only three of those six jobs I did even figure in my resume!) but I am no closer to finding the job that I makes me spring out of bed and get to work by 9.30 and industriously stay at my desk long enough to even feign being tired. As a fresher I figured this malaise was part of being plankton in the organizational food chain. But an impressive post grad degree and an even more impressive move up the ladder in the most impressive of all corporate houses has done very li’l to change what has now become status quo. I quietly pad into my cabin at what I call a sane hour to get to work - 10.45 a.m and switch off my cabin light and shut my laptop at 7.45 p.m sharp (the half an hour preceding this appointed time is spent switching off the light and shutting down my laptop)

Now, most corporate aspirants reading this might wonder what I do for a living that involves so li’l work and exactly who employs the likes of me. Suffice to say that in an office full of busy buzzing people (half of whom are only jus buzzing) I have a job that lets me work half a day while I spend one quarter of the remaining half writing articles like this and the other quarter switching off lights and laptops among a host of other such fruitless pursuits. But that is not everyday.
Some days at work are wonderfully rewarding, challenging even; when I get here at 9.30 a.m (and even the security guys look at me in askance) and proceed to then buzz around the office, issuing instructions, looking into work done, taking ‘command’ decisions in my li’l department, planning for the week/month ahead…and generally feeling like if efficiency had a human face it would look quite like mine. And then there are days when I have this mental picture of the work that needs to be done gathered in one big pile that eventually starts to resemble a fluffy mountain of paper with a comfortable plateau on top. And in my mind’s eye, I am sitting right there on that plateau, typing away on my computer about stuff that has nothing to do with what I am sitting on!

Appraisals, gentle admonishing, the promise of higher rewards…nothing, quiete nothing has the effect of making me the corporate energizer bunny on red bull…raring to go and not stopping at anything. Before you think that what I need is an energy rich meal and a tablet of revital, let me assure you that this has nothing to do with my physical state. Ask me to jump and I will ask how high, drive a hundred and sixty five kms and back jus’ to have lunch in a French place I jus discovered in the neighboring union territory, but ask me to work with sustained commitment and consistency and I will fail miserably, while looking at you with an expression of scornful condescension that says “that’s for those born before 1980's!”

You see, I believe that it is not jus’ me alone who is afflicted with this. While I might be an extreme case, I have seen scores of other not so vocal but equally miserable co-sufferers.

How else would you explain why a generation full of people who descended from fathers and grandfathers who derive their sense of identity from the company they ‘served’ for thirty odd years cant seem to stay on a job for more than 2 or 3 years? My father walks ram rod straight, is a stickler for time, eats with a fork, spoon and knife and can still beat a 19 year old at a game of squash. An army officer for 21 years of his life, its not his job anymore but an identity he cannot hang up when he hung up his olive green uniform.
If you have ever seen that light of recognition and filial pride in the eyes of those men who have spent their lives as an anonymous exec in a gargantuan organization, you’ll know what I’m talking about? While I envy the sense of belonging that they seem to have for an organization, I cannot help but wonder what is it in our DNA that has mutated to the extent that we don’t identify leave alone aspire to know such single minded devotion to a job.

We listen to the same kinda music for years and wear the same pair of jeans for as long as they fit us and even carry a torch for the same person for decades but mention that kind of single mindedness in relation to a job and our sensibilities take a U-turn. In a life full of choices and a world full of opportunity, to borrow a line from Don Mc Lean, '...are we all in one place, a whole generation lost in space, with no time left to start again? ...' And jus’ when I am about to answer with an emphatic ‘yes!’ I see the odd 27 year old designing low cost tents for tsunami victims or a grad student studying the effects and alternative cures for Alzheimers and then I know that it is not a generation thing. Like most other things in our lives, its an individual thing.

No doubt it is harder for us. We are spoilt for choice. Unlike our ancestors (both alive and posthumous) most of us don’t have to worry about where our next meal is coming from (at least for a few weeks); and when the wolves of necessity and hunger are not knocking on our doors, we can afford to experiment until we find the jobs that give us satisfaction, intellectual stimulation and enough challenge to keep us coming back to work even on those rainy days when all you want to do is curl up on sofa in front of a tv or with a book and some coffee.

But, how many of us are looking, experimenting, searching? Not many that I know of. Most of us seem content to stay on in jobs that are secure, situations that are familiar and pay checks that are fat only to crib to any sympathetic ear how bored, unfulfilled and downright pathetic our jobs are and how given time, opportunity and the right opening we would transform into the most creative, world altering and dynamic people we know.

So, note to myself here is, quit cribbing. Continue looking. Everyday, tirelessly with the same unwavering faith I reserve only for my mother, that I will find the job that gives me all that I am looking for. And truly believe that I deserve nothing but the very best!