That ennui called life...

Sitting in office, while waiting for at least one story — of the six in three pages — to come; reading sort-of interesting and pointless updates from "friends" on Facebook; planning my weekly off day the next day and fighting off some weird flu, I think to myself: What the fuck am I doing with my life.

Boredom leads me to plan a holiday to Turkey. I make a good seven-day trip to the country — starting from packing my best clothes and virgin passport, to landing on a balmy day (it's my plan! I want it to be a balmy day) at Istanbul international airport to where to stay and what to eat (I am a vegetarian, I have to look out for things which will not make me gag) —  I realise I am about ninety-nine thousand rupees short to go through with the trip. Holiday in Turkey, of course, gets cancelled. 

I then decide to be pro-active about my life to come and think about government job options.

Why government jobs? Because their medical policy is amazing. Because I don't really have to do anything but be a pencil pusher at work, and do everything else that I wanted to do in life in my spare time. Because I will get Sundays off again (I have to fall ill or plan three weeks ahead if I want a Sunday off). Because I will be part of my family instead of living like paying guest at my home. Because, at the end of six years of pointless editing and having to walk to HR department to figure out why you weren't paid as you were supposed to, I realised that all that I have to call my own is a bank-mortgaged car and an outdated computer. Because I am bored. Because, because, because. 

Now, at nearly 28 years old, my options for government job are limited to probationary officer with centralised banks, civil service examination and IAS. Considering how bad I have been at studying, I can promptly rule out the last. Okay, also civil services: It's as bad as IAS. I am only left with bank officer as my "last" resort. 

If only I wouldn't imagine myself as the Auntyji with an ever-expanding backside who sounds like your neighbourhood banshee in that avatar...

A look at the system clock tells me it has only been fifteen minutes since quarter-life crisis hit me. Depression begins to set in as I realise most of my friends from school college, even post-graduation, have been happily married while I was defending my career from my mother. ("What career?" nags a voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like my mother's which I desperately try to drown out with humming.)

Through my meandering thoughts, I am then transported to a decade ago, when my mother used to shake me out of my sleep. At about noon. On a Sunday. Those were the days, when "chaadar taan kar sona" was all what I used to do. Now, Sunday morning begins at a relatively early time of 9 am with a dreadful feeling — I have to be in office in a few hours. The dread is intensified when on the previous night you have had to say "No yaar, aaj nahi"  to at least three of your friends who work in the corporate sector and have Saturdays and Sundays off. Those bastards. (Of course you will say this now, after six years of drudgery when you realised that well-paid job is so much better than well-meaning job. Shut up! mom.)

It's only been another five minutes in my crisis.... I wish I was a... 

Aha! I get the first of my stories — of course, it has to be a beloved crime story. On rape. Of a four-year-old. 

Such a meaningful day mine is... Ah.