A handful of thoughts

Intimate Information Incorporation

Pallavi Banerjee — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:18:30 +0000

Ms A is my friend. Well not really a friend more of an acquaintance. But the eagerness and momentum with which she keeps filing my bucket of curiosity with information whenever we meet, any onlooker would think we are the best of buddies. Notably, Ms A is actually an ex-colleague and a childhood friend of a friend. Now, the over and above everything else, Ms A is famous for her PR skills; read - her ability to collect, collate and circulate vital information about Tom, Dick, Harry, their friends, wives, brothers and sisters-in-law, neighbors, housemaid and everyone in the goddamn galaxy. She has taken it upon herself to become the Gossip gazette for anyone and everyone around her. i was always an ardent admirer of Ms A - for her enviable ability to STAY IN TOUCH with such a wide plethora of living beings. It all began with her first break up. As and when she walked out of this relationship (I dunno who dumped whom but that’s not important) she decided, she needs to keep a tab on the whereabouts of this guy. You know, stuff like who he sleeps with next, etc. But she was no longer on talking terms with him, and had deleted him from all her social networking accounts. So how could she get it done? Then, she had the IDEA. She decided to stay in touch with the guy’s housemaid. As per the gossip mill, she succeeded at her attempt and till such time that she thought was worthwhile she continued with her ‘Operation Housemaid’. Recently my friend (Ms A’s childhood buddy) complained to us that every time she tries calling Ms A, her call goes unanswered and she never calls back. So one of these days, she was chatting with her mom-in-law and asked her the courteous “so what are you doing?” And pop cam the answer - “I’m chatting with your friend A over phone” Last heard, Ms A brought us news about someone we knew long back (and subsequently went out of touch). Some of us couldn’t help the exclamatory - “Wow! You are still in touch with him!” And she said as nonchalantly as ever - “Hell no! His mom told me and said its confidential.”

Gender Discrimination :P

Pallavi Banerjee — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 07:46:06 +0000

Statutory warning: I’m about to report one of the most lamentable cases of corporate gender discrimation, which unfortunately happened at the office of my friend’s employer (but I’ll relate the story to you in first person :P). This is a serious issue and I’d like to invite some serious and thoughtful comments instead of peppering me with sarcastic remarks.

There are various things that employers pay their employees for. Playing cards on their systems, visiting social networking sites and chatting are only some of them. Add to these, donwloading wallpapers of skimpily clad (if at all) women, pornographic movies, videos and photos. And you know how the HR dept. treats such issues (just like the adulterous husband who keeps quiet fully knowing his wife is two-timing him with his neighbour). Now what happened in my office is a severe case of discrimination against women and such things I daresay have become rather uncommon in the 21st century.

Ms M (lets hope that’s her name) is the office hotbod who graces various cabins in the organisation at various times of the day. So much so that she’s sometimes brought me to believe that she has been hired by the organisation to provide the workforce with some tangible source of entertainment or the possibility of it. Some call her dumb, but I’m sure they are simply jealous. Recently, Ms M was denied any internet connectivity on her office computer despite her and her admirers’ repeated requests. I knew I had to know all about it.

One day (a few days after the fight) over an afternoon’s cup of tea I poured out all my concerns for the IT guy expressing my disapproval at the way he is treated in office by some petty pussy. And out came the story; Ms M allegedly watched pornographic movies on her office computer :D :D and therefore the HR has decided not to provide her with any internet connectivity.

But all said and done, my poor little Ms M is not the only one who does that. Loads and loads of men do the same and it never struck the HR to mete out the same treatment to them. Well I do admit that unlike Ms M they spend their days at their desks and not at others’…still, its unfair you see…unthinkable…calls for some activism this one :D

On such a day

Pallavi Banerjee — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 11:27:39 +0000

If one day on your way to office you step out of the metro and are greeted by grey clouds with a dash of silver here and there, a drunken breeze that naughtily threatens to blow your modesty away, will take the same old path you take everyday with the same old demure expression on your face and push the glass door that takes you to the monochrome world of work?

Would you not take a detour and undo old mistakes,

say that sorry you never managed to squeeze out of your lips,

walk up to that playground of your childhood where a shopping mall now stands,

walk past that iron bench where you lost your first love,

sit on those steps where you had fought over first second and third counters with a bunch of young carefree youth when they shared your age,

or arrange that day out in the rain you had planned twenty years ago but never executed,

the rendezvous with you - the quest for that young girl that has long disappeared from the dressing mirror?

May 5th, 2011

Confession

Pallavi Banerjee — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 11:26:20 +0000

I am a weak woman you see.
Forgive me, this weak and foolish woman

I have only learned to stand by you
Forgive my ignorance, my bliss and my foolhardiness
Forgive me because I never saw reason
Forgive me because I learned to rely on you

Forgive me because I see your face
When I close my eyes at the end of each hard day.
Forgive me my lord, because
I dared to dream such.

Forgive me one last time for writing poetry on you.

May 11th, 2011

Ahem!

Pallavi Banerjee — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 11:14:27 +0000

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

When three women - two married one not, get together for drinks and a night out, what do they discuss? Their mothers in law of course. Well, husbands, friends’ relationships,

roommates’ lousy dress sense and fat asses also make it to the chart but

never to the glorious position of the numero uno. And what if, one of the mothers in law in question happens to be tech savvy? I mean what if she chats with anonymous people on chat engines, shares her phone number and photos with them, go out with them on blind dates, and talks about them with her daughter in law? And what if she is still stunning at 60, has an enviable aura and grace about her and is also her son’s ideal? Well, ahem, that very simply means she always steals the limelight from her daughter in law whenever she is around. What do simple human beings do on the face of such relentless and uncontrollable onslaught? They bitch about her.

And if the persons concerned belong to that superior league of bitches, they log into the stunning mother in law’s mail id and read her chats (the D in law has the password of course :P). And let us imagine her contact list is full of middle aged men with wives and kids who keep on writing things like, “I can feel you around me”, “I wish you were here with me”, “hugs and kisses”, “I am holding you hand right now, can you feel it?” and more and more and more of such supremely entertaining stuff? What do they, these bitches do? They read them out aloud with perfect emotions, with the right pauses at right places, and laugh out aloud until they are tired. And then they analyze those chats with statements like “I’m sure he’s been writing these things to three women simultaneously” or “what do they talk about when they meet? things like I love your eyes, or I think something is wrong with me, can’t take my thoughts away from you even for a moment” and then again laugh out aloud. The laughing out aloud thing as I can imagine keeps happening at every interval.

Oh and did I tell you that in between this exercise, these women frequently keep on popping up the question - We shouldn’t do this you know, its so highly unethical. God help us.

May 20th, 2011