When idols break they don’t just break, they shatter into infinite fragments, each shard penetrating deep into the target and that is the punishment for worshipping them I guess.  I am in a huff, boiling, spitting mad and I make no bones about admitting that. The background is simple, the reason less so. We have a selection committee whereby staff is selected for postings abroad, said committee being constituted at the director level. Directors are picked by the higher-ups in the administrative division. The whole farce started on Friday when my assistant told me in rapid succession how the committee had offered her a smaller place (Which makes sense considering its her first posting) and given her 15 minutes to decide. She, being a SHE and the proper she at that (read conniving-knows-how-to-turn-on-the-tap-ensuring-eye makeup-doesn’t go to ruin-damsel in distress) approached someone who is on very good terms with the big B in administration with the result that said lady had a personal interview with the big man himself, someone who is not even available to officers let alone staff and got a posting to the greenest pasture imaginable.

Said scenario has steam coming out of my ears and nose so that I resemble a fire breathing dragon for 2 reasons, one professional the other personal. Professionally I feel it’s a breach of authority of the committee for the big man to personally overrule whatever decision he sees fit because of a personal application even if its on compassionate grounds. While I am all for due sympathy being granted to those in need for after all we aren’t machines but people with associate problems yet there must be SOME objective criteria to determine how and what exceptions if any are to be made. If women must be accommodated because they have special needs then allocate a quota, make a rule or don’t induct them. Furthermore, route them through the proper channel, otherwise you have centralization of power in the worst possible manner whereby you deal yet another death knell to the already tottering institution or what’s left of it! Taking decisions peremptorily on your own you also display a paradoxical lack of trust in the competence and integrity of people you handpicked to constitute the committee, unfathomable but tragically true.

Having said all this brutal honesty compels me to admit that it’s the personal reasoning, which makes me react with such passion to what is after all a common practice. Some men, you expect better from, some men you build up to be better then they actually are. You are fully cognizant of their deficiencies and yet you want them to live up to the standard nay the pedestal you have put them on. This particular man, I can forgive for the transgression of authority but what  I cant condone is him falling for female tears and worse justifying them. The least you could have done would have been to impudently assert that for better or for worse it was your decision and offer no excuse for flimsy excuse is precisely what it is.

Like I said, when the idol falls, it doesn’t just break, it shatters with all shards unerringly finding their target…..

I had a random conversation about marriage and relationships with S which got me thinking about how just because you don’t have logic to prove something it doesn’t mean your belief is wrong. We had somehow gotten into a discussion about relationships and how the current trend seems to be ‘gifts’ dictating how girls respond to you. I found the whole transactional nature of it ….offensive to say the least. He had no problems with it though why he wanted me to second his view was bemusing. I was stumped however when he equated the present with ‘hak mehar’  deeming marriage an economic transaction. While I do agree with the financial nature that is not the only defining feature of a marriage is it? It is hard to explain why he is so enamoured of polygamous relationships for lack of a better word where partying with random people who are like ships in the night while I am equally obsessed with a select few being important and having them be a permanent part of life. I am not saying any of these views are right or wrong. All I am saying is that sometimes you may not have logic to prove your point if any proof whatsoever is required but that doesn’t make them wrong. Chivalry, manners, commitment, honor….they are all ephemeral terms which lose tangibility with every minute in this fast, disposable world we seem to thrive in but and the but is the crux, they are no less relevant now are they?

Liking is weird. Some you like at first glance, others grow on you like mould only the  kind that you become habitually addicted to. I find it incomprehensible why I had nothing to talk about and was not inclined in the least either to even attempt to find something with this eligible man who was very keen to continue and yet I can skype for hours DAILY with someone a lot older whom I don’t like at all … I think I don’t like at all.

I don’t want to lapse into the clichés about women maturing faster then men and the allure of the ‘older man’ for if that is true where the heck does that leave me?

 I AM AN IDIOT! And one who NEVER learns!!!! Once, burnt forever shy has no meaning whatsoever for me!  An even life with me being indifferent to most people just doesn’t suit me. I need must go and make the most trivial of them important, important irrespective of their age, stature, wit or lack of  one or all of the abovementioned traits thereof, important to the extent that I give them power over me and then wham!!!! Then you pay the price, and you pay it, and you pay it and you keep on paying it till the next mistake…. Like I said I AM AN IDIOT and it doesnt matter how many times I say it for THAT shall never change.

Life is simple, or should be but then nothing is ever the way it should be is it? People like each other but take great pains to convey indifference, something that once again baffles me no end. I mean what’s the big deal about liking someone?  The worst-case scenario is they don’t reciprocate but so what? And why the heck does that dictate/change the way you feel? I am not advocating anything but I just find it confusing when human emotions make the headlines and it doesn’t just stop there. If the liking is established it is invariably followed by the repellently trite ‘why’ making me wonder WHY, O why must we asked such clichéd questions. I mean first of all why the hell does there even need to be a why, if one must exist why must it be anyone’s business, and were even that an absolute necessity, what in the name of hades are you going to do with/about it?

And all the liker wants is to spend sometime with the person they like, apparently that’s a capital offense. Sigh!!!!!

New phases in life are accompanied by excitement or so I see everywhere making me think that’s the normal response. People going for language or for posting are looking forward to financial benefits, career progression or if nothing else exploring a new place and yet I feel nothing but blankness bordering on desperation as I think about how yet again it’s such a blasted near miss from working with a person I like. Coming to that, its amusing, perversely so how I have gone from being completely indifferent and blasé about people to very people-centric. I recall clearly how till college I was least bothered by all and sundry as happy in company as without. Short attention span/fickleness whatever you call it was one extreme and now perversely just when I can least afford it I seem to have shifted to the other side.

The main culprit I hold responsible for the resultant dumps and more dumps is boredom, too much time without anything, repeat anything at all to engage the molding grey cells or what is left of them. No wonder I crave a career which leaves me time for nothing but exhausted slumber. Its way better to have others wait then be on the waiting end and yet I see no chance of that happening. I am so so so sick of the endless whining I seem to be infinitely capable of and yet I don’t see what the alternative is. Yet another useless, futile post coming up!

At times like now I am sure acceptance is just a fancy term for resignation. We bang our heads against unyielding walls, shout ourselves hoarse, or in more fanciful terms keep trying when in reality the child inside all of us is just having a heel thumping temper tantrum screaming for the desired object till finally we run out of steam BUT and this is the crucial bit but we don’t stop wishing. We just stop because we are exhausted and have exhausted all options we could think of , its like an interim period to renew batteries, recharge the system, rethink options so that we can start all over again. I call it resignation, others wax eloquent about acceptance. Whatever it is it is not something I choose to do, but then free will is vastly over-rated. Here is to umpteen days of resisting temptations simply because its out of reach, when o when shall I get even one, a measly singular temptation I want rather then the ones fate persists in forcing down my throat!

Sometimes the only course of action available where other people are involved is conscious inaction, to deliberately sit back and watch because there is nothing else you can do. Sucks but that’s the only course right now.