I am not fond of changes. Recently, there were a few involving my work life and they were almost inevitable. I had seen them coming since the end of last year. Right now, the changes are over and I am settling down in a new environment, which is quite a different one from what I am used to. As and when I get time, I visit my old cubicle to re-live some friendships. Today, I could not. Because, I was out rock-climbing, sky-zipping, free-falling and rope climbing at a very exotic location.
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| This is where I spent the day!!! (c) Akanksha Dureja |
It was fun. I made some new friends and I missed some old ones terribly. But a whole day of jumping around left me tired in the nerves. My fingers are aching as I type. Since I can’t type a word more, I’ll let Suresh Chandrasekaran of Life is Like This fame do the talking blogging. Suresh is one of my favorite bloggers and an upcoming author (This is my chance to brag about an author doing a guest post for me and I’ll shed all modesty now.) His book, Uff Ye Emotions was launched at the recently concluded Book-Fair 2013. I was hooked on to his writing since the day I stumbled upon his blog. Suresh is one person in the blogsvillie, whose blog I hop to, whenever I feel a little blue because I know I’ll leave that page, all cheered up and happy. His ability to find humor in all situations amazes me. Suresh’s stories leave me craving for more and I remember the days when my grandfather narrated me tales from his past adventures.If you still haven’t visited his blog yet, you’re really missing reading something worthwhile. Over to him now.
A Sartorial Journey
Clothes make a man, say some. Do not look like a clothes dummy say others. Books are the worst kinds of guides to what is important in life. For every opinion you can always find a counter-opinion. In other words, for every ‘A rolling stone gathers no moss’ you have ‘A wandering bee gets the honey’.
In my case, it has always been more a question of clothes unmake a man – unless, of course, you subscribe to the viewpoint of most of my friends that any change in me can only be an improvement. There are those in the world who can look elegant in anything and the world envies them. I accomplish something as difficult – I look horrid in everything and do you think that the world admires me? Not that I can notice unless admiration is expressed by wrinkling your nose, averting your face and ducking into pantries the moment I come anywhere close.
My earliest memory of clothing as something more than a necessary evil came with a pair of electric red trousers that my fond mother bought for me. The one thing I was sure of was that I did not want to be seen dead in a ditch in them. Unfortunately, I had to parade in them for nigh on a year. I was too young then to see that they were actually a boon in disguise – anything that distracted attention from my face should have been welcomed with open arms. As I said, I was too young – young enough to think that, if only people would ignore my sleepy dull eyes and porcine nose, I looked a bit like Kamal Hassan and, if they ignored everything else but my unruly hair, I looked like Rajinikant. (Now, of course, I could claim resemblance to Vin Diesel or Anupam Kher as long as you concentrated exclusively on my scalp)
So, when I started choosing my own clothing did I do any better? The House is divided on the issue. I think I did but no-one else seems to think so. As I have had occasion to remark elsewhere, it is sheer prejudice. I mean what do people have against bright green trousers coupled with a flame-red shirt? They do not even seem to like the blue forget-me-nots on the shirt and people who do not like flowers can’t have no souls, can they?
Not that the colors on the clothing actually mattered. Within an hour of my wearing freshly pressed clothing, they turned into a shapeless mess. An author I used to read describes his character as being able to wear expensive made-to-order clothing and make them look like someone else’s cast-offs. I went him one better. I make my clothing look like someone else’s cast-off sackcloth and ashes. That accounted for my relative popularity at college. Any friend intent on impressing a girl took me along for company – in my presence he could inexpensively look as elegant as a ramp model by comparison.
After a brief stint at college of being free of uniforms, I had thoughts of getting accustomed to the ideas when interviews rudely intervened. Suddenly I discovered that schools were not the only places where uniforms were prescribed. Entering the working world entailed my first introduction to that abomination – a tie. Now what on earth possesses people to wrestle with an odd-shaped strip of cloth and tie it into an intricate know to strangle your neck, I shall never understand. The first day I ventured upon it I felt like I was about to be interviewed for the job of a hangman.
Thankfully, that was the only time I ever wore a tie in my life. My habit of pulling at it every now and then to release some air into my lungs must have so impressed the interviewers that I landed a job and was, thereafter, relieved of the need to tie myself up in knots. It is a closely guarded secret that I never tried to change jobs only because it would have made it necessary to use a tie for any further interviews.
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| Picture Credit – Jophy Joy |
Life at work was pretty much satisfactory sartorially. Having picked a public sector organization, there was scant little attention paid to how I dressed myself up – or indeed about anything else – and I happily lounged around in jeans and a shirt. (By the way, jeans became my usual attire after I discovered that people commented about the lack of a crease in trousers but never in jeans.) I would have used T-Shirts as well but I got the vague feeling that the laissez-faire attitude to dress would not stretch that far even here. I mean, it seems too much like you are on a holiday that way and, no matter how true that is, people hardly like that fact advertised. (This, by the way, is long before that sort of dress became the workaday uniform of the IT crowd!)
The problem in the working world first arose when I got catapulted into being in attendance on CEO’s meetings. Imagine a sizzling hot day in May in Delhi
I could happily come in a comfortable pair of jeans and a half-sleeve shirt but my Managing Director had to pull on three pieces of clothing over his upper torso when one was enough to set the skin burning. I tell you, all this penchant for driving up to the door in an A/c car and diving into the A/c confines of a building are all caused by this idiotic adherence to these so-called power uniforms. One can hardly blame these blokes for not wanting to walk any distance clad in clothing more suitable for an Eskimo when it was nearly fifty degrees Celsius in the shade.
That put paid to any vestigial ambition I could have had of wanting to climb the corporate ladder. I mean, they claim that the higher you go the more autonomy you get. Bullshit! You do not even have the autonomy to dress up comfortably.
After quitting working, I probably would have stuck to my jeans. The problem is that the chap who assembles bodies UP THERE seems to be Indian. I mean, the quality really sucks! The elasticity of your stomach muscles does not seem to last you much beyond your thirties and, every time you eat a heavy meal, you need to loosen the belt around the waist. When the belt is at the last notch already, something has to give – and something does eventually and in the most embarrassing circumstances.
Thankfully I had taken up trekking and discovered the benefits of the track-suits, which is only the more dressed-up version of the pajama. Bliss! No discomfort whatsoever except if I have picked up the wrong size in the mistaken impression that I am slimmer than I have been in the last decade and a half. T-Shirts are the norm for me now. Absolute sartorial autonomy and without the need to take on any work to justify it!
If there is any area at all of daily human interest where humanity has strained every sinew and ruptured every brain cell in a bid to make things as uncomfortable for itself as it is humanly possible to do, it is in the area of clothing the human form divine – or devilish, as the case may be. Thank God, I am free of the need to cater to the tastes of Society in this regard.
P.S.
Show some love and visit the official jToonz page. You’ll be amused beyond what I can explain in words. Jophy-Joy, the man behind the toon in this post is a software engineer by profession, but I am sure he is an artist by heart. Jophy is the reason behind the smiles of thousands of other software labourers and we, as a community shall be forever indebted to his talent which has made our work lives, a tiny bit easier.
P.S.
Show some love and visit the official jToonz page. You’ll be amused beyond what I can explain in words. Jophy-Joy, the man behind the toon in this post is a software engineer by profession, but I am sure he is an artist by heart. Jophy is the reason behind the smiles of thousands of other software labourers and we, as a community shall be forever indebted to his talent which has made our work lives, a tiny bit easier.
