I don’t know if it was the cigarette or my twisted mind that lead me to start reliving the long weekend, each piece of garbage at a time. “Is this all that is left of my life”, I thought, “a black garbage bag on a Monday morning, ready to be trashed again over the coming week?” The bag more or less represented my whole life, or the lack of it.

There were three envelopes that once carried the manuscripts of a book that I had sent to different publishers. All returned unopened, marked “return to sender” with a lousy sorry note attached which conveyed a tired, mocking “Yeah rrrright!”

There was a credit card receipt for fifteen hundred bucks that I pissed off at a pub on the Friday night with people, half of whom I didn’t even know and the remaining half, I wish I didn’t know. Still I went to spend the Friday night with them just for the want of human company and to feel alive. Staying alone gives me an overdose of privacy which I need to shake off every now and then. With no real friends around, beggars can’t be choosers; you go with whomever is ready to go with you.

Hiding under it was a movie ticket stub for The Hangover. While it was by far the funniest movie I saw in a very long time, I wished the whole time that there was someone beside me in that theatre with whom I could share my laughter. There are a bunch of people I could have gone to the movie with, but there wasn’t even one in that bunch whom I wanted to be with me. So even though it was a funny movie to watch on a Saturday afternoon, it was quite depressing getting out and knowing that it was Saturday and I had nowhere to go but home. So I decided to burn some fuel pointlessly and roam around the city of Hyderabad. Those oil reserves ain’t drying up for another half a century and I have bigger things to worry about. I went around the city, and realised even though it boasts of a rich history, there isn’t much in the city except malls. Malls of all shapes and sizes, big, small, cheap, costly but mostly pretentious.

Joining hands with the ticket stub was another credit card receipt for two thousand bucks, which I blew away on a pair of sneakers that I didn’t even want, if I must be honest. I bought it while I was browsing through one of the malls. God knows my credit was touching an all time high and the market did not look good enough to expect any kind of raise. These plastics are getting to me. No matter what I do to keep them inside my wallet, they keep coming back with a vengeance and accumulating charges bigger than the last time.

“Is this all that is left of my life”, I thought, “a black garbage bag on a Monday morning, ready to be trashed?” Credit card bills, lame trips to malls, lousy weekend get togethers and loneliness, is this all that I have accomplished over all these years?”

Rolled up in a paper ball was an airplane ticket of the round trip that I took to Calcutta on Sunday. My maternal grandmother had passed away and my mom was insistent that I show up personally to pay my respects. I never enjoyed these family gatherings, happy or sad; they were always full of gossips and hypocrites. I bid my farewell to granny and was sitting in a corner waiting for a couple of hours to pass so that I could be on my flight back home. My mother came and joined me, and even in that difficult time she managed to put on a smile for me which oozed love, affection and a genuine concern. We just sat there talking about nothing and everything for the next two hours, and even though she never asked, I don’t know how, but she knew exactly what was going on in my life. It is kinda spooky the way she always reads me. Just before leaving she gave me a hug and said, “I love you son, please come and visit us in the near future.” I felt a warm feeling envelop me and in my mother’s love I found the reason for my life.

I never understood how in the western culture moms become a thing of the past once you move out. For me, my mom will always be there. That one hug, drove away all my loneliness, made me feel wanted more than ever before, and probably gave me the will to keep up the fight. I know that when I make it big, she will be there to share it with me. Girlfriends may come and go but my mom is the constant in my equation.

I ashed my cigarette butt before taking one last drag and flicking it out of the window. I sealed the bag. I watched as down in went, through the chute, taking all my miseries with it. It was a new week, and I had bills to pay and expectations to meet… so off I went to work.

Working in the software field, I face this situation many times. While working on complex codes, I always have the choice of either following the well-designed set way of programming or to be creative and challenge the accepted standards and myself. Needless to say, like most of the corporate zombies, most of the times I preferred to chicken out and stay hidden among the masses, hoping to somehow win the rat race unnoticed by anyone, and without answering any questions.

Then one day someone mentioned the story of Aristarchus, the Greek guy who had the brains to prove that Sun and not Earth, was the centre of the Solar System but not the ‘guts’ to say it out loud because the Church and its followers might not have liked it. It was on his deathbed that his genius came forward and his work was published. Unfortunately the usual set of tomatoes didn’t spare the head of the dying genius, but the point is, here I am writing about him even after a gillion years of his death! Anyhow, coming back to contemporary times, when someone mentioned this story to me, immediately the same thought materialized in my head as in any loser’s head….”Aww what a waste”… but…..yes there is big hairy “but” here….. I did something about it, unlike the other losers.

A fortnight later, I was given the task to prepare a quote for a client and was asked to use a set template, which was the standard since the CEO’s grandpa used to wet his diapers. I went about my merry way to fill out some silly little boxes in the Excel sheet and came up with a figure at the bottom. Quite pleased with my work, I was about to submit the report, when I had a Buddha enlightenment moment sitting under the glare of my computer screen. I thought of a way that might have been more useful than the current way, and in the heat of the moment, went ahead and prepared it, my way.

Sorry, to have an anti climax — instead of being appreciated for my effort (as expected obviously), I was ridiculed and was forced to do it the ‘great grandpa’ way by my manager. The funny part is, this apparent failure gave me a greater sense of accomplishment than ever before, and even after being yelled at for wasting precious time, I went home that day grinning and with a weird sense of pride. I may have failed that day but no failure is final and permanent. I went home with the overwhelming Clint Eastwood feeling of “I will be back as the final victor!”

My point is, next time you think you can challenge someone, and have the conviction in your work, go ahead. So what, if it isn’t the way world wants you to be? So what if it upsets the greasy old procedures which have been unchallenged? Set a trend, challenge them, and see how it feels.

If you feel that Einstein’s E=MC2 is not good enough, go ahead challenge the old weirdo, after all he flunked school while you completed it. Who knows, some time in the future, I will be written about for discovering that new template for quote, which modern people think is trash, and you might join my league for discovering a better formula for the mass energy equivalence.

“Oil your hair regularly son, else you’ll lose it before you hit thirty.”

“Its just a phase, you’ll figure it out don’t worry, you’re just a teenager.”

Seems like yesterday when I was eighteen and got these regular doses of wisdom from you dad. I just went with the flow, partly because I had no choice. Now I am about to hit the thirtieth winter of my life and I am wondering…what the hell just happened? My best years just whizzed by and I am….well, not really sure…about anything.

Dad, I have a career, yes you were right about it, but you know what, I don’t want it. I look at people at work who have been here for more than a decade….and I am scared to death to end up like them. They are nothing but a bunch of corporate zombies. No zeal, no enthusiasm, just a hefty pay check at the end of the month, and the only motivation to go home, if at all, is a loveless quickie with their wives, out of need and not want.

Why didn’t you trust me to make money if I had gone the way I wanted to? Yes, the success rate in the non-conventional fields is low, but I would have survived. I am surviving this aren’t’ I? No, I haven’t figured it out yet, why you pushed me here where the only thing to look forward to is the “end of day”.

Dad, to confess, I hardly oiled my scalp when you were not looking, and I still have a full head of hair. Why did you force me to have the whole oil refinery operating on my head? Why did you think that if I went around trying hair do’s and tattoos I would turn into a punk? Well, I never got to have those; all I have now is a head full of useless hair, which is frowned upon by my boss at the mildest hint of any style, that is anything other than boring. I wouldn’t have minded losing it, had I used it in time. I would gladly trade every strand of my hair now for a mo-hawk back then.

Dad, the phase is still persisting. I was reckless, I was confused, I was wild. First the teens and then the twenties whizzed by and I am still all those things. I am as reckless as I was as a teenager with money. I could never have saved my pocket money back then and I am not able to save my salary even now. I am as confused as a teenager. I never understood why I was studying the things on the curricula and now I never understand half the procedures I am made to follow in the office. I am confused as to why I am doing what I am doing. I never came around to the idea of the “career ” that you chose for me.

Dad, it’s not that I blame you, I blame myself. Maybe I was not reckless enough. I should have been more reckless and followed my heart in spite of you. Maybe that would have worked out…. maybe not…. but one thing is for sure, I wouldn’t be writing this letter to you sitting in my bleak office when I should be climbing the corporate ladder to a drab future.

You know what, it’s better late than never. The one thing that this big bad rat race has taught me is, even if I win it, I’ll still be a rat. So, I am going to keep trying to hack it in the world the way I want to. The reason for this defiance, well, there are many, but mainly because on my fortieth birthday when I come to visit you, I don’t want to write an application to someone asking for leave permission.

Maybe I am wrong, maybe I haven’t grown up, maybe your way is the way to go, but if I keep going this way, I’ll never get rid of the nagging ‘what if’. For once, Dad, I wanna tread the forbidden road and not the one ‘less traveled.’