Office | Senile Delusions...

Tum Karo To Chamatkaar… 2

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Almost one week later, things are no brighter.

Apparently on Monday, Mr. Senior Manager of Forde…err…For…uh…whatever, decided to complement Mr. Manager’s terrorizing effect on my sister by dropping in unannounced and asking her why she was late. Which in turn led to me being the target of frustration of the whole family, as always.

On Tuesday, she announced that her new leaving time would be 8:15 am, not 8:45 am. When my mom tried to wake me up at 7 am, I decided, in my sleep, to go to office by myself in hopes that the car would be back by 9 am. Ain’t the first time I was wrong.

As expected, both her Manager and Senior Manager don’t mind twenty minutes of make-up and other uselessly wasteful stuff. I woke up at eight, only to find her in the bathroom. Later on, when I was in the bathroom, she announced that she would leave after eight-thirty as one liability on her had been killed by my selfless decision to go by myself.

I got ready around 9:45 am, and my grandfather dropped me off. I was more than late but I could afford it as my bosses were busy with their exhibit at the ITConnect Expo.

As my luck has had it multiple times, another was no surprise: Mr. Senior Manager failed to show up. He postponed his visit by one day to…yes….today. The whole world wants to see me miserable.

My sister left this morning, again at “8:15 am”. And I being the smartest and most agile guy in the world, got ready at ten. Thinking that everything was going fine, I got out of the shower only to be verbally clobbered by my mom with a lecture on punctuality.

Got into a fight with her and after watching all my counterattacks being gunned down by her ultrasonic comebacks, I resorted to the last tactic in my arsenal: self-annihilation!

Well, not exactly. You wouldn’t call “refusing to eat breakfast” that.

This tactic worked, until she decided to use her last one as well: Call Daddy!

I fought valiantly, like a brave soldier to the last drop of my willpower and resisted the temptation of omelette and toast but her last attack made me shit my pants.

You won the battle mom, but you ain’t winnin’ the war: Daddy ain’t always home!

Now I’m sitting in office, feeling luckier than ever after being informed that Mr. Boss was inquiring into our arrival timings in the morning before leaving for the exhibit.

Someone kill me please!

06.05.2009 Me, Rants, Women 42 Comments

Tum Karo To Chamatkaar…

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

My office starts at nine in the morning. Being the most punctual guy in the world, I leave at nine. Miraculously, my sister also leaves at nine for her ACCA internship crap at Forde Rhodes or Foot Rhodes or Food Courts, whichever way it’s spelled. [Don't blame me, there are at least a quarter of a million words in English, they could've picked up any uncommon ones and formed a name. But they had to act all childish and invent a crappy one.]

According to her, she has to reach at nine-thirty or her manager manages to become a volcano (I wanted to use the word mango here but I had to compromise for the sake of comprehensibility, not everyone’s as smart as me. And if you didn’t get this one, comprehensibility is not a word as far as Dictionary.com knows). For the past week, she kept my ass on fire and started becoming a wailing alarm clock everyday as soon as the minute hand got within 60 degrees of nine o’ clock. And the magnitude of the continuous wailing was always alarmingly proportional to the increasing attraction of the minute hand to the number ‘12′.

Ali, niklo bathroom se, main chhor ke chali jaoon gi!

So I had to bear the pain of getting ready by nine everyday. Yes, this is the reason for me being the most punctual guy in the world. I mean, come on! I need time to get ready for office. And I’m always sleepy in the morning. (Well you can blame my sleeping hours everyday which are usually < =5).

On Saturday, I had to listen to her screaming and it became even more bearable when my parents and grandfather decided to contribute some. I’m seriously going to kill this manager dude someday!

Now on Monday, I decided I had seen enough wailing and got ready before nine. Proud of my acheivement, I came to the dining table only to find that my stupid sister was not ready yet. She was calmly going around, getting “ready” which is essentially wearing extremely stupid clothes with some extra-stupid make-up, and thopafying herself with so much perfume that my eyes roll back in my head from the excruciating pain in my nose!

And then I was like, “What the hell! Isn’t the manager going to lose it today?”

And she kept on thoping make-up. I was pissed! We left the house a good fifteen minutes after that.

My office is near CAMS P.E.C.H.S., not on the main road. The route we take is from Guru Mandir to Shahrah-e-Quaideen, where I get dropped off and the driver takes my sister away. Whenever she gets late, I have to get off on the main road and walk the rest of the way.

Now my anger reached it’s peak when after getting me late, she asked me to get off on the main road because SHE WAS LATE. Can you believe this?

Ain’t no way I was getting off on the main road! Hell NO!!!

I punished her by taking the car all the way to my office. It was her own fault. And apparently, dressing up for office was very important and worth getting it from the manager.

Then what’s wrong with me taking my time to get ready?

Yeh kya baat hui?

Tum karo to chamatkaar, hum karein to balaatkaar?

29.04.2009 Me, Rants, Women 60 Comments

Trip To Syria: The Lioness’s Den

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

Continued from Trip To Syria: Flying Away.

**************

We reached the hotel in Muhalla-e-Zainabia on the outskirts of Damascus. Imagine waking up from a deep sleep and then having to carry sixteen heavy suitcases to the hotel building. And it doesn’t stop at that. The room was on the third floor. Thank God for the elevators!

We were told to come down for tea. What ‘down’ turned out to be was ‘down – 1′ i.e. the basement. It was divided into parts. Ours had plastic seats and tables set up for around thirty people. The tea was served and IT WAS PATHETIC! My cook makes better tea.

Khair, not to be unfair to the Maulana Sahab cooking for us there, I think it was the tea’s fault.

We were told that the Haram was to close at eight-thirty.

I came back up and went to sleep. Woke up around six-thirty and got busy in getting ready. That usually consists of emptying myself (in this case, all the Etihad food and specially the Octopus) and taking a bath. Left at seven-thirty with my uncles.

The hotel was five minutes from the Haram and my taya (father’s elder brother) led the way through the crowded streets of Muhalla-e-Zainabia. We entered through one of the small side gates and came upon a small opening with people sitting. The place was extremely crowded. Crossing another gate, we came into the main courtyard.

The burial chamber sits in the middle, surrounded by a circular courtyard and then again by a circular building that houses administration offices and other rooms. Two tall minarets stand in the courtyard on both sides of the main entrance. The huge gold brick dome sits on top of the large burial chamber, marking the resting place of the eldest daughter of Haider, the lion of Allah. The place emits an aura of authority and fearlessness, all the while maintaining a charming elegance and attraction for millions of devotees.

Welcome to Syria, the place where the Captives of Karbala (A.S.) were brought tied up in chains, bare-footed, bare-headed, being stoned from all sides, in a state of helplessness that does not find it’s counterpart in the realms of documented and undocumented history. This was the place where Yazeed (La’natullah) ruled and the people were hardcore enemies of the Ahle Bayt (A.S.). Where the mention of Ali (A.S.) was met with curses and abuses.

Who could have thought that the stronghold of Bani Umayyah (La’natullah), the capital of Muawiyah (La’natullah) and Yazeed (La’natullah), would fall to Lady Zainab (S.A.) in such a way that nothing would remain of their kingdom and they would become the focal point of all curses and abuses themselves? That their followers would become a minority and the country would come under the rule of people who would hail Ali (A.S.), not as a Caliph, nor an Imam, not even one of the most astounding creations of God, BUT GOD HIMSELF!

And the daughter of this God “sleeps” near Damascus. Welcome to the Lioness’s Den!

I went with my phupa (father’s sister’s husband) towards the burial chamber and stopped outside the door. An Arab with whom my phuppa had become acquainted helped us read the Ziarat of Lady Zainab (S.A.) that hung beside the door. Then we went in. I will not describe what I saw inside. You will see for yourselves in later posts!

My taya had told us that it would be impossible to reach the Zareeh (gold and silver cage above the grave) in the middle of the chamber on the first go due to the usually huge crowd but we did not find one of such size. The reason being that this was the first year when all barriers to Karbala had been lifted and most Zaireen (visitors) had gone there. The gathering in Karbala on Arbaeen this year was 20 million strong as compared to only 1.7 million for Hajj!

Result: we got to the Zareeh easily.

After praying and paying our respects, we came outside and offered the Ziarat prayers. I left my phuppa with the Arab and returned to the hotel, cursing myself for not taking my camera with me.

NOTE: I have uploaded some pictures of the tour to my Facebook account and will upload the rest with each related post. You can see them there if you want.

14.04.2009 Ali(A.S.), Amazing, Captives of Karbala(A.S.), Enemies of the Ahle Bayt (A.S.), Me, Religious, World 18 Comments