What you bring to the table

May that be game of poker, talk over the coffee or upfront across the table discussion… It always matters what you bring to the table.

I’ve dreamt of pulling of bluffs and as a matter of fact I’ve pulled some off. However, real life is way different that a little game of Poker. I’ve betted high right from the three cards on the table up until the fifth one, there wouldn’t be a drop of sweat or freckle of anxiety on my face. And yeah, more often than not I’ve swept the table and walked clean with my bluff.

But, this time around am scared, not about the cup of coffee but about that across the table discussion. Neither I’m playing poker nor am I wearing my heart on my sleeves. This is about hard business. This is about results, about team work, about delivering, about initiative and it is about contributing.

This time around, I can learn a lot and take a lot out of it however; my pockets are empty as I drag myself to that table. My wits won’t help, its time to put the thinking cap on and sprint shoes on and pull the got damn socks up.

Hey, hope you listening, would love a stroke of luck…

-Empty pockets

Meeting the X

Now, I’ve come to terms with the world I live in. It is fast food, fast love, faster death. However, of all the byproducts of this jet setting metropolitan lifestyle ‘meeting the X’ is something I hate the most.

As a kid I didn’t particularly love Algebra. Algebra was the devil that introduced ‘X’ in my life. X is a variable. Something you don’t know, something which can assume different values, something when changes sides in the equation -has a potential to become positive from negative.

Days passed by and we all grew out of the books to look at the prettier things in this world. Romance read in books, seen on the 70mm screen and painted on the canvas of tender, innocent mind soon turned out to be an illusion caused due to the lack of realism.

I don’t remember when the words like dating, hook up, flirting, fooling around, friends with convenience and break up became integral part of our urban dictionary. And along came X.

We are humans, we all have needs and our journey is to satisfy them and be contented. We have all the rights in the world to make due mistakes, to take undue chances and find what we think we are looking for. In this course, we do end up breaking some hearts and also get ours broken at times. It hurts but why do we have friends, drinks, smokes and rebounces.

Problem is X remains. May it be minuscule bit of it but some traces of X remain. And there can be one zillion reasons why it is inevitable to meet X but one has to. You’ve to and she has to. Now, this factor X is crucial. Like I said, it is a variable, an unknown, something that changes to positive from negative when on the correct side of the equation. Well, I trust Gods who gifted us with grass, but I don’t trust the grass for its intrinsic properties. I trust man but not the alcohol they invented.

Well, I find peace in knowing X too stands for a cross. Perhaps the cross put on the equation that doesn’t hold true anymore.

Bittersweet symphony is this life. Trying to make ends meet, make some money and find someone and then you …

Neo

Jet plane hasn’t arrived yet…

As I impatiently wait for my jet plane,

I hear the same old boring voice of an announcer… the departure of the flight IC209 has been delayed by one hour due to the late arrival of the incoming air craft…

And I wonder, why am I never at the end of the world from where I can board this incoming aircraft for once

Or am I not destined to board the aircraft that will depart on time

Or they fool with me and all of us when they announce “Incoming flight is late”

Or am just a fool who thinks and then thinks and then contemplates and then procrastinates

I don’t know

But here comes the favorite part…that lingering wait and losing battle with my non- existent patience.

When those thoughts refuse to leave your mind

When you remember that you started with days, then hours and then minutes and now you are counting seconds down

When cramped seats at the airport and non-functional wi-fi connection doesn’t bother you

When you forget about all the hassles

When you feel alone amidst of the crowd

When you sip on the coffee and wish you had it with someone

When you look at your mobile to check if you missed any call or sign of any new sms

When you look at the empty screen, silent screen of your laptop

And for second wonder, if it could speak what might it say to you

What all you might want to say to your laptop.

Somewhere at the bottom of your heart you are grateful to it …for being there and registering all you insane emotional ranting on the flickering silicon screen.

Am I leaving or am I going to arrive?

Am I coming to what I left a few days back?

Is there anyone waiting?

Will those moments last longer than this wait?

Will I feel I belong somewhere?

Guess, it is time to board.

Jet plane has arrived. Just like the aircraft doesn’t know to let its wings loose as it has landed at home or borrow some strength to depart for unknown, I don’t know it either.

Neo