2014- Walking Down The Memory Lane

Few moments are left of the year 2014 and everyone is looking forward to welcome the year 2015. I am, however, not enthusiastic at all as my misfortunes or miseries, if you prefer calling them so, just refuse to go away; nevertheless, having said that, I must concede that the year 2014 was not that bad especially if I tend to compare it with two preceding years, i.e. 2013 and 2012. It is time to walk down the memory lane and glance at the year which is about to conclude.

I do not remember how the year 2014 began for me! It is not that I hate partying; it is just that I cannot afford partying as of now; but as they say, tomorrow never dies, and so does not the addiction of the opium which we venerate as ‘optimism’. Devoid of peace of mind and fed up of my miserable everyday life, I took refuge in the Internet, Twitter especially. But that wasn’t the sole reason for being active on Twitter. Like many fellow Indians, I too felt strongly for the BJP’s #Mission272+, a bid to make Narendra Modi the Prime Minister of India, and contributed whatsoever I could to help the party realize the mission. The first month of the year 2014 was passed in puncturing the propaganda of the Aam Aadmi Party & their associate urban Naxalites. Like every year, I celebrated Uttarayan with friends- Jainik, Kunj, and Neel. Nevertheless, I missed Karan, Arpan, and Manan amid those moments as it was for the first time they were not a part of them. For every reason the life gives us to celebrate, there always is a reason to be gloomy. Such is the life- a kaleidoscope that blends all those vivid memories! I had a fall out with Neel and that sort of stayed for a couple of months.

Then the festival of colours, Holi, came in the month of March. I was not in a mood to celebrate, yet as it happens every year, friends didn’t disappoint me this year as well. The first person to put colour on my cheeks was none but Neel. All the bitterness vanished that very moment and we enjoyed the festival of colours true to its spirit.

Now the time had come to get rid of the thorn of my life- the final year examinations! To be frank, I had had enough and I badly wanted to run away from everything. But that’s quite easier said than done, and I had to face it. I vowed to get rid of it this time and started preparing for the examination. I used to take break from tweeting and prepare for the examination. Had I stopped tweeting, I would have succumbed to the panic attacks that used to bother me in the year 2012. It was, in a way, a tradeoff between the frustration and my resolve to amend all my blunders. Akshay supported me a lot. I appeared in the examination and tried to give my best but the frustration did dominate and I couldn’t give my best shot. Never mind, I had nothing to lose anything anymore.

As the examinations were over I started pondering upon what to do next. Mother had been seeing me sitting idle at home for two long years and hence she insisted that I should take up a job to breathe the fresh air. I too thought that it’s better to step out and come to terms with the ‘real world’. And that is how I took up a job of call center executive in Ahmadabad. The first job of my life! I still remember the day. It was May 6, 2014. Everything looked so good in the beginning. I was too enthused to care even about the deprivation of sleep and too modest a salary among many other things. And meanwhile the results of the General Elections were announced. As expected, the BJP emerged victorious and the #Mission272+ had been accomplished. It was the moment of fulfillment and enjoyment. I did not sleep at all and watched the Tv till the time to leave for the office. I celebrated the victory of Narendra Modi with my colleagues in the office and not on Twitter. I missed twitter that day.

The reality dawned upon me later on and I began to experience fatigue due to the monotonous nature of the job, and the awkwardness of being an intellectually superior introvert person who failed to amalgamate with the people around him. That awkwardness, however, didn’t last for too long as I managed to find a way to interact with a few people there. Now everything seemed all right once again and my employer started behaving weirdly. Of course, it may leave you unperturbed and you may dismiss it saying that there was nothing obnoxious with it. But it was my first job and the unreasonable and unjustified demands of performance did perturb me a bit. I still tried to come to terms with the new equilibrium of the expectations that my employer had had vis-à-vis the performance of our team. In fact, I was doing well of late. Then I fell ill and could not go to the office for two days. It was the time when I realized for the first time that I wasn’t really enjoying the job and it actually was adversely affecting my health and peace of mind, but I continued as I needed money. When the daily humiliation too stopped bothering me anymore, my employer started taking ‘brief’ of the team every day at the end of job hours. He used to be whimsical during those sessions. I didn’t care about taunts and humiliation anymore but I really couldn’t spare time for his preaching for two long hours. After withstanding his preaching for two long hours, I had to wait for the bus for yet another hour, and that really exhausted me. I started feeling deprived of sleep and the frustration started brewing again. I still managed to cling on but one fine day my employer said that we were all going on a trip to Mount Abu and the company would bear half the expenditure of the trip. The remaining half would be deducted from the salary. That was the limit of my patience. I never liked the idea of holidaying or enjoying with colleagues. Earlier too, I was forced to attend a DJ party which I really didn’t like. If at all I were to enjoy holidays, it has to be with my friends or the family, and never with acquaintances. I tendered my resignation in protest. It was accepted and when I went there for the settlement of my due salary, I learned a lesson of mathematics. Nevertheless, I was relieved to receive whatever amount I could, as something is always better than nothing, they say. I got my laptop repaired and bought something for my mother and sister from that money. The feeling of buying something for the loved ones from your own money is just enigmatic.

In the month of August, I met a friend I never met before despite knowing him for more than a year. I have become friends with a few awesome people through Twitter, Mahesh is one of them. I had the privilege to meet him and know him a bit more through the conversation we had. When I met him, I was kind of unhappy with everything. I missed the opportunity to appear in a competitive examination as my result came four days too late. I did manage to pass the final year examination but the miseries refused to go away. When I went to the University to get the provisional degree certificate, I was told that it couldn’t be issued as my mark-sheet did not carry the necessary remark on it. I pleaded that it was not my fault but the plea was never heard. I submitted the mark sheet for correction and I was asked to come after a month. Mahesh heard me out and instead of preaching anything he tried to invigorate my fighting spirit which was about to be doused because of the frustration and depression I was going through. I launched a job-hunting drive but couldn’t achieve any breakthrough. Nevertheless, I learned an important lesson of life. During my job-hunting drive, I uploaded my profile on various job portals. After two-three days of updating my profile, I received some emails which said that I was called for an interview. I selected three companies and went to appear for an interview. I appeared for an interview of the post of a management trainee and I was informed that if selected I would be informed to appear for the next stage of the interview. I was sort of elated. I left the place and went to the second company. It was for a technical job. The interviewer wasn’t there and hence I was asked to leave my resume there. They said that I would be informed later on for interview, which never happened. When I came home, I thought of Googling about the company I was expecting to join. I discovered that it was a sham company and their business model was using gullible job seekers for begging money for the sake of children. This incident taught me a good lesson which I will remember for the rest of my life. I still continued the job-hunting drive. But when I realized that it wasn’t yielding any results, I applied a course correction and decided to opt for banking examinations.

The festivals of Navaratri and Diwali came and went. I celebrated those festivals on Twitter. I thought that my birthday would be ordinary this year, but someone made this birthday so memorable and special that I would remember it for long.

The month of December was the best month of the year 2014. After a long time, I met Sandeep and we got drunk together. Those were simply the best moments of the year 2014. And the very next day I was told that my provisional degree certificate could not be issued yet as it would still take some time to issue my corrected mark sheets. But this time it didn’t disappoint me much. After a few days I enjoyed Maulik’s wedding. After the wedding, I started preparing for the IPBS CEW examination I signed up for. I appeared for the examination on December 21, 2014. Everything went good, except my pathetic time management. Nevertheless, I didn’t feel disappointed at all after the examination. On the contrary, it boosted my confidence and positivity in my attitude.

To sum up, the year 2014 was mixed year for me. While it gave me the reasons to be happy, my miseries just refused to go away. I met some awesome people, and became friends with them. At the same time, I got over someone and finally moved on. Now I’m looking forward to the year 2015, hoping that I will able to make the most of it. The attitude is positive and the mindset is full of optimism. Let the game begin for one more time!