The transition

Dec 2006: The beginning

Sick of everything and everyone around especially the circumstances surrounding me, I had recently taken to online chatting in those virtual chatrooms. Yahoo messenger had become a life savior and I was enjoying it immensely.There is something fascinating about the virtual...the fictional.You can be what you want to be,what you have dreamed of yourself to be...without having to be real.So there I was part fictional and part reality,having some fun.
And one late evening I log into yahoo chat and start looking randomly for someone interesting to chat with..have some fun and maybe even have an intellectual conversation with.Pops up an IM request name...'Ranveer Singh**'.Mmm....north indian...interesting.Then..the usual beginning phrases...Hi...asl?(age/sex/location)...and we proceed from there.He tells me that he is a Human Resource Manager, and lives in the same city as mine.More interesting!!!!!But till then,it was just that...an online chat,the virtual.We met online often after that as he was always online at late hours,the only hour I could be online.I asked him the reason as he was supposed to be working at that time...and he replied that he worked from home so could chat as and when he wanted. Funnnnn!!!! To me it sounded like a dream come true...to be able to work from home..SERIOUSLY???Me being a physician,I always had to be slogging hard at the hospital with no time for even breaks...forget a 'yahoo chat' break.
SO...we chatted whenever we met online,for not long though coz I was always at a shortage for time.
Oh forgot to mention something here...issues with the 'almost Ex'.I was in a relationship and as I mentioned at the beginning of the passage, the 'circumstances', there were a lot differences going on.Regular fights,arguments,raising of voices and frequent hanging up of phones (long-distance relationship). And so I started discussing my scrw**d relationship with Ranveer Singh(RS), whenever we chatted. And the point came where RS was like 'How can that guy do that to you...if you were mine I would've been so different..blah blah'(you get the hang of it,right??).One evening RS asks me if we can talk on the phone.Now,I dunno if you know about the 'chatting rules' but the foremost ones are never tell your true name and never ever exchange phone numbers.I hadn't told him my true name..it was Nitika, for the record.But I dunno what came into me and I asked him his number instead and said would call him immediately. I do not know till date why I did it...coz it was the first time I was doing something like that.I was a frequent internet chat freak but rules were rules and I broke them.
And I called.And I heard a male husky voice, tinged with a pure North Indian accent on the other side.Pleasantries exchanged and after the usual first-time conversation banter(how are you,who are you,where are you),I proposed to say a goodbye and he mutters the unthinkable...'Don't hang-up'.'Why??'.'It feels nice speaking to you'.Ha!!!!!!Am like 'Dude...you couldn't do any better?Its the worst line used on a girl EVER'.But he insists that indeed its 'feeling' nice so we should continue talking.With a smile on my lips and a feeling of warmth sweeping over me,I manage to close the conversation. Once off the phone, I am reminded of him off and on ,for the next few days.
And a few days later,we talk again.I exchange some poetry with RS that I had once written for my beau.And then one day he asks me for a picture as he still hasn't seen me.This time I am careful.I sent him the picture of a friend and he sent me some pics of himself too.And I guess,I liked what I saw.Handsome face with an equally good body.I could see he was a simple guy.Be it my instincts but I could feel whatever he told me about himself,it was the truth.At least most of it. And off and on I would feel guilty that am lying to him and hiding a lot things.
He disclosed a lot during our talks...the love of his life,who never reciprocated back and how he has been wanting to get over her and move on.And then about his parents,his sisters.I could see that I was getting involved.I was interested in everything he said,and did.And the same could be said about him....but there was something that was stopping me.
My boyfriend(who was still not my ex).I wasn't sure.I didn't know if I should actually make that move.I had been with my boyfriend/fiance for almost 3 and half years at that point of time.I was in a dilemma....huge dilemma.....

Career Decisions: Are they really scary?

The most natural response believed to work in difficult economic times is to put your head down. If you stay quiet, hope for the best, cross your fingers, so the thinking goes, you just might ride it out. Okay. It might work. Sometimes.

But this is the path of zero control. And it is your fault when the axe falls. Because you didn't prepare. Turtling is a hope for the best strategy. In fact, it isn’t a strategy at all. I know coz I have been turtling for a while now.But another word for turtling is hiding and hoping the monsters don’t find you.How I wish!

You need options. You need to have a choice. And you need a way of deciphering when it is time to stay and when to go. And here is the kicker: When you hide in your organization, you are just as likely to put yourself in jeopardy as you are to avoid it. In the act of keeping your head down, you might find yourself not adding as much value as you could or should.

Some of my earlier pics....Not too early....Ummmm!!Last year..early 2009.Wanna get back to that shape.Put these pics up for motivation!lol

What is it that we really want?

Life is such a mystery.And to make it worse..we make it much more complicated and confusing.And then comes love...I have been thinking these past days..one of the most remarkable things about American/Western culture is that you have the freedom to marry for love, to forge lifelong bonds based not on class or race or religion or the number of cows your dad can spare, but on a feeling so beautiful that poets have spent lifetimes trying to lay it on a page, that artists have endeavored to capture in one still but enduring moment. Operas and books and films and pop songs, so heartbreakingly lovely that they can steal one's breath, if just for a moment, have been written by people in the thralls of love, or the searing pain of its loss. Monuments have been built, wars have been fought, and some of the greatest happiness ever experienced by humankind has been born because of love.

You are blessed with the luxury of love, and, make no mistake, it is a luxury. I come from a culture where believe-you-me..love is a luxury and the people around you make it a point for you to know that.
Marriage at its best has always been considered an expression of love. When it's simply an institution to facilitate the continued existence of a society through the birth of new generations, it is a splendid functional legal contract and nothing more. When it's a sign of commitment forged out of love, it is something ever so much grander. It is the stuff that legends are made of.

But, with the freedom to marry "for love" come additional burdens: extra anxiety about the future, the despair of loneliness, the pressure of finding that "right person", the fear of dying alone, the frustration of not loving someone who loves you or loving someone who doesn't, the dramatic highs and lows of turbulent relationships, the disappointment in giving up and "settling" for someone who's only good enough, and on and on.

The problem with marrying for love is that we pretend that love is just one thing, some kind of amazing fairytale passion that's supposed to persist forever and ever. In the movies, we always want the characters to drop everything, even ongoing stable relationships, and go after their heart's true love. I have even done this in real life and its been nice till now. But I feel what these movies typically don't show is what happens 5, 10, 15 years down the line. What happens when there is neither passion nor order??

But the eventual cure for meaninglessness is human companionship. I contend that we'd avoid so many problems and so much existential angst if we just had more structured social support systems, including marriages that were contractual arrangements geared toward certain ends and with negotiable terms.

I mean who says love and marriage must go together like a horse and carriage? Just look at the success of the horseless carriage or the "automobile".

Love
Richa