Exhaustion of Spring Cleaning

For most of us kids who are now living on their own, away from their parents and homes the onus of maintaining a house is almost a challenge. We take to the task on a war footing trying to prove that we are independent and don't need our mums for everyday chores but now only for emotional support etc etc etc

So a big part of living on our own includes keeping the house spic and span. So once in a while I indulge my house in this cleaning activity - and I do it with the utmost care and dedication. But honestly, I find the process very exhausting. Most people also at the end of a spring cleaning day will land on a couch with a thud refusing to get up - but with me the exhaustion is very emotional and mental and not at all physical. On the contrary actually, cleaning gives me a weird energy to keep going on at it because I know otherwise the emotional exhaustion will take me to another zone. 

Every time I clean my house I realize how much debris I have accumulated over the years and how every cleaning somehow only increases it - or I think it increases it because in my memories the debris becomes larger and more important. 

And even though I wanna throw most of them away, I just cannot. Every time I try, each of them brings back some random but very important memory and incident and then all of it seems like a keepsake. Its almost like these things have become living memories trapped in inanimate objects and they come alive every time you try and destroy them. These memories transport you to a world which was a part of you and a world you wish you were somewhere still living in. And none of it has to do with love or the remnants of a broken heart. Nothing like that - in fact most of them have to do with things very very far away from romance. 

For instance, I have a bag full of these notebook papers from my MBA days which has these notes scribbled on them in margins and corners - these are the side conversations I had in class with a few of my favourite people in XIMB. Some of the notes are intense and very serious while others are just making fun of most people in class or the professor and it has now been close to 7 years since I left that place - yet the dates and the class notes on those pages transport me to the exact time and class and setting that these conversations took place in. Needless to say, they also bring (sometimes in excruciating details) back all the incidents which led to those conversations or the incidents which happened post them. And in all these years I have never managed to throw these papers. They have now become yellow and the ones written in Pencil have become pale and yet I read them as my favourite novels. I laugh, cry, get angry, get embarrassed and worst of them all - get terribly nostalgic. I think it would just be easier if i threw this trash out - but I can't.

Then there are these posters and flyers from Echo - our fest way back at Hindu - I graduated from there 10 years ago. I still have 1 copy of a poster from each of the fests that we were all a part of and it brings back such amazing memories of putting them all together. The afternoons spent in the Eco corridor painting them together, making fun of each other, getting to know the seniors and juniors better and planning everything to the minutest of details. Also, takes me back to the days of the friendships which got formed during these times and of camaraderie which grew from strength to strength while doing this together. And then one can't help but feel the distance which has crept in among friends from this side and how we have all traveled far and wide across the world and have scattered ourselves all over the place.

Some things in this pile which stand out and baffle me the most are my first expense statement as a management trainee, every single appraisal letter till date, copy of the first claim i signed as an ASM, copy of the first expense statement I signed as a manager, the first appraisal I wrote for my team, sheets of paper with Xpressions schedule that we made as SEC, exam papers of Maths when I finally managed to get some decent marks, tickets/passes for all music concerts I have been for, wrapping papers and cards on gifts and not from very special people - mostly all of them............

...........and there are millions and millions and millions such things stacked up neatly and some not so neatly in different corners of my house. I wipe all of them clean of cobwebs and dust every time I clean. Pile then neatly organize them, sort them and eventually add some more debris to the pile by the end of it. 

Thus keeps growing my pile of debris and brings with it more and more exhaustion with every spring cleaning.  

Old hindi movies

Out of sheer and sometimes annoying habit of switching channels I chanced upon a really old film....Chhoti si Baat......its such adorable watch. It got me thinking about the indian cinema of that era and what it means to me personally

I of course for exposed to these movies when i was slightly older and hence my comprehension of these movies is very cognitive as opposed to movies i watched while growing up. What i mean is that i have watched these movies with a lot of concentration and involvement rather than movies just playing on TV randomly.

And something about this genre of cinema just tugs at your heart. Its real and yet its not in your face or trying to prove a point. And i really want to draw a parallel with cinema that we call real today. They all are somehow about these issues which are kept under cover or sex or corruption or even when its romance its very "what does youth of today want" - none of them genuinely manage to take a slice of life and amplify it for one to be able to watch it over and over and over again. And the beauty of this era of cinema was its strong roots in the "life next door"

It also gives one a kaleidoscopic view of our parents lives when they grew up and how their dreams and ambitions were well grounded. What really appeals to me if the pace of life depicted in these films. Its not slow - its just right. Its not cramped with 100 things and million gadgets and zillion technology points. It is however cramped with conversations and interactions and so many more smiles and so much more pleasure.
I am really proud that indian cinema had film makers like Hrisnikesh Mukherjee and Basu Bhattacharya who brought alive movies like Choti si Baat, Jhoothi, Chupke Chupke et al for our generation to watch and enjoy. 

the stories behind us....

the weekend has been rather interesting.......after years i went to Prithvi Cafe to catch up with a friend from a looong long time ago..........well as usual I was early and in my moments of just soaking in the cafe and absorbing the people around me i started thinking about a rather funny conversation i had with my team 2-3 days ago where were making fun of some takiyakalams that we all use.

and this got me thinking about where did mine come from and it was quite an amusing chain of thoughts. I went back in time and dug out from under the rubble of millions of memories the stories behind the things i say........

something i more often than not say is - "dekhoji aisa hai ki......." and those who have seen me say it know the exact hand movements and the tone of voice...........and its quite amazing from where this came from........lets go back 5 and a half years. I was fulfilling my long standing dream of being in FMCG sales.........basically main Haryana mein sabun bech rahi thi. So the story of this statement has its origins in a small city in Haryana called Panipat.........there was this wholesaler there who thought he was the king of the world..........he used to behave as if my sales system would come to a standstill. so every time we went to him to ask him to buy - he used to start with - bitiya dekhoji aisa hai ki na..........mere yahaan pe to dooor door se retailers aate hain aur market mein to rate wahi chalta hai jo is dukaan se shuru hota hai.........then sometimes it used to bitiya dekhoji aisa hai ki........aaap log to mere liye family jaise ho.........apse kya rate ki baat karni.........etc etc etc..............eventually my monthly visits to his outlets were an entertainment dose for me........in my head i could relay his dialogue word by word by word...........so that's the background of the story...........the day it became a part of my vocab was when I had gone at the end of a quarter to close his wholesale loyalty programme purchase and i was in a shitty mood and ultra stressed ............ and uski chik chik shuru ho chuki thi.........and for once i lost it with a shopkeeper - and i said - dekhoji aisa hai ki yaa to maaal utha lo ya phir apne poore saaal ke points to goodbye bol do.........usne to stock nahi uthaya but evers since then this statement became a part of me..........i still use it very often and its only on days like yesterday that i remember the story behind it........

such moments make me marvel at the lives that we have led and how some extremely small and insignificant people and incidents actually leave a lasting impression without us ever sparing a thought for them.