Unlikely Residence

After a hectic week with too much to do in too little time following a week of just lazing around with nothing much to do, I am back to blogging!!

Amidst the process of relocating to a new city for a new job, my thought process was irked at the most unlikely time by an unknown person! The moving company had sent two African-American guys to pick up the stuff from my apartment today morning. It was early in the morning and so I offered them tea once they were done loading stuff to the moving van and doing some paperwork. One of the two guys, Mike was surprised. He started talking about how he likes Indian Chai, but not a lot of people are friendly. He went on and on about people, behavioral science, unionization of workers, communism, Marxism, Lutherism, how USA should be under military rule, how Cuba is thriving, Chinese government and various allied facts and figures. What surprised me was not just the extensive knowledge he had on the subject, but the thoroughness of his knowledge - with proof, quoting books and people, throwing in a few dates and numbers and making it all so casual and impressive!

So much for a moving guy! He should have probably been a member of some commission or some panel at the UN or advisory committee for some government somewhere in the world or be professing at some educational institution! Knowledge sometimes does reside at the most unlikely place!!

Karma....

Other than the general Hindu beliefs on religion and spirituality, I don't have a lot to say about karma and associated fundas.

My office is located as a suite in 6th floor in a 12-storeyed building. So, we share the elevators and corridors with several other businesses. There is this snotty, 50ish, well-dressed lady who is kind of haughty and never does the usual courtesy things - smile when passing in the corridor, hold the door when someone follows you thro the door, thank you's and please's - you know - just the usual. I tried to show this lady's haughtiness to my colleague one day, and my colleague happened to agree with me. Like this one time, I had come straight to work from the airport and so was pulling my luggage with one hand and had my laptop in a case on the other - and just assumed she would hold the door for me.... its not something out of ordinary..anyone will do it.. but to my dismay, she didn't. The door just was about to go bang on my face...when someone else ran and held the door. She started to bug me from then. A few weeks back, almost a similar incident happened.. except.. this lady was on the wrong side of the door and the door went banging on her face, probably breaking her nose and causing bleeding, etc!

My colleague and I were just stepping off the elevator when this happened. So, we immediately called for emergency security and all that! But after that, I started thinking and wondering if it was her Karma that led to all this!!

What does it take?

Sometimes I feel annoyed and embarrassed when people show PDA disregarding the look in the faces of people around them. But in a few cases, I have found it to be endearing and makes me look forward (..... well, a little) to something in the future. The special case being really old couples...sometimes, someone has to push each of them in separate wheel chairs...they will still try to hold hands..or to the least, look at each other and smile fondly. I give complete courtesy to uncountable waiting times in the O'Hare International Airport ...longer the waiting time or layover is, more is the number of couples seen ...ofcourse, this is only if we look at the whole thing unconventionally and try not to ask too many questions or get into the legalities or judgements....

Like my colleague Jim and his wife - referred to as Jim Thatha.....since he is over 60 and looks his age. The first time, I met the couple (together) was during the office Christmas party last year. They looked really TOGETHER.....holding hands, smiling coyly at their age, being courteous to each other, laughing at each other's silly jokes, well.......it was nice to look at them. A few weeks later, I mentioned it to him that he and his wife looked good together... he said "we better look good...it took us so many years"... two failed marriages + three kids for him and three failed marriages + five kids + several grandkids for her and then these two ended up together...

What does it take? What does it take to go on for 40-50 years like this and still be fond of each other....keep bickering, yapping stories, never growing tired of each other's company, put in all the effort and time needed to maintain such a state, ....... I guess there's no one finite answer to all this..right?