Eega, Eega, Eega!
Yamudi something Eega!
Seega, Seega, Seega!
Teri Jaan Lega!
I was singing that mass-rock song from Eega, with lyrics of my own creation. One thing I had forgotten, though, was that I was at work.
It's like Batman sneaking out of Bruce Wayne. Both are the same person, yes, and we, as the audience, know that. But the citizens of Gotham don't.
It's also like those old Kannada movies with double roles. An honourable mention goes to Shivanna's Aasegobba Meesegobba, where he plays Ram Prasad Sharma, the decent and loyal gentleman, and Lakshman Prasad Sharma, the young playboy. Two different personalities, two different lives, but we, the audience, know the truth.
Perhaps I've been doing something similar for the past few years. I've kept my social life and professional life separate. I don't bring work home, and I don't bring home to work. My family understands this too, so I rarely get personal calls during office hours.
At the office, I process and sanction loans, handle e-KYC, re-KYC, and whatnot. But once the branch closes, I'm back at my place, doing my own thing at my own pace. That might mean rewatching the climax of Sapta Sagaradaache Ello or watching The Mentalist for the third time in my life.
It doesn't mean I work like the Grim Reaper or something. My colleagues know a little about my life, but I generally prefer to keep it private.
So, when my singing persona suddenly emerged at work, it was an Oops, did I say that out loud? moment. Unfortunately, everyone had heard me.
I was embarrassed. I apologised, asked everyone to continue with their work, and went back to mine.
But the incident got me thinking about my childhood dream of becoming a filmmaker. Why was I here, stapling papers, stamping documents, attesting things, and doing all that, instead of making films?
It all boiled down to one reason: a lack of Vitamin M, otherwise known as money.
My father worked as an agricultural labourer during his college holidays and managed to pay his college fees. He studied on a government seat and lived in a hostel. Despite those circumstances, he worked hard to give me a good life and a college education. He made me rich enough to spend ₹30 on egg rice two days in a row!
But risking unemployment and a career for filmmaking was a bold and risky choice. So, we went with the easier PSU option, and I gave up on the dream of seeing Directed by Martin Scorsese on a big screen with my name attached to it.
While thinking about all this, I realised it had been many days since I'd written an article. So I decided to write one.
An article within an article. How meta of me! Oh, my Zuckerberg! There's another Meta joke for you.
I finished my work later, came home, and drank for some time. Orange juice, I meant to say.
And I went to sleep without eating that night. I was feeling full and dull, too.
It was all fun and games skipping dinner that night, until I woke up at 3 a.m., hungry and desperate for food.
I don't cook at home. I have breakfast at a darshini hotel, lunch at the mess around the corner from my workplace, and dinner depends on whether the branch closes early or late. So, I mostly don't plan dinner. I just go with the flow. Left means left turn; right means, "All right, all right, all right!"
I searched for anything edible, perhaps a carrot or some Marie biscuits, but found nothing. My kitchen was empty, just like my heart and, obviously, my stomach at 3 a.m.
Then I remembered that I'd bought a packet of Maggi noodles two days earlier and forgotten to take it out of my office bag.
So, I boiled water in a vessel and made instant noodles. Instant decision-saving!
There's nothing instant about making those noodles, though. It probably took one and a half to two Anirudh songs, without ads.
I ate, went to sleep, drank the leftover orange juice, and woke up at nearly 9 a.m.
Usually, I reach the office by 9 a.m., even though the reporting time is around 9:45 a.m. But that day, I woke up at 9.
I hurriedly got ready, grabbed my bike and helmet, and Tom Cruise-d my way to the office. I reached by 9:35 a.m.
Still early, but kind of late by my standards.
Some time later, everything was going well when the lights in the office premises suddenly went out at 11 a.m. The computers and a few emergency lights remained on, thanks to the UPS.
During the coffee break, someone mentioned that it was a scheduled power-outage day, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thankfully, they had supplied power until 11 a.m.
I thought, Oh, so we'd been working on borrowed energy time!
We switched off unnecessary printers, coffee machines, and other equipment, conserving power so that the backup supply would last through the day for essential office work.
Then I received a call from an engineer regarding a housing-loan pre-sanction inspection.
I thought, Oh, this is actually the perfect day for outdoor activities!
I shut down my PC, got on my bike, and headed out. I completed three pre-sanction inspections and two post-sanction inspections.
On my way back to the office, I noticed some tourists who had parked their car by the bypass road. They were taking selfies with a hill in the background.
It was less city, more nature, yet still within city limits.
I thought, Wait, this place is photograph-able?
A tourist had shown me my hometown in a way I had never seen it myself.
I continued riding and spotted another couple of tourists having tender coconut. That reminded me that I needed one too. It was a Breaking Bad-kind of sunny day, and I was breaking my back with back-to-back inspection visits.
I told myself, "Say yes to tender coconut."
I stopped, drank a tender coconut, paid the vendor, and quickly returned to work.
While drinking it, I also clicked a quick photograph for Instagram, intending to post it later as part of my September dump.
And I continued talking to myself.
Understanding Eight with a Two or a Four
Sometimes, when we don't have what it takes to understand eight, we try to understand it using what we have: a two or a four.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.
What I mean is this: when we were in high school, Ram Charan was the new hero everyone was talking about. Chirutha was a hit, and Magadheera ran for what I remember to be around 200 days. Everyone was watching his movies or waiting for his next release.
Then came Orange.
The songs were initially well received. I remember one of my friends buying the audio cassette. Every now and then, we would bring cassette packs to school and debate which movie had the best packaging.
"Boys has the best cassette cover!"
"No, Rang De Basanti!"
"What are you talking about? Orange has the best!"
We argued as though we were business salesmen showing off their visiting cards in that famous scene from American Psycho.
One thing that caught our attention was the movie's caption.
Not every movie has a caption. Sometimes it's a literal translation of the title; sometimes it tells us something about the movie's premise.
Take Salman Khan's Garv, for example. Its caption, Pride and Honour, is essentially a translation of the title.
But sometimes, a caption tells us what the film is about. Rang De Basanti had the caption A Generation Awakens, which becomes all the more meaningful when we reach the climax.
Interestingly, Orange had the caption Love in Fall.
We were Indian kids who knew summer, winter, and the rainy season. We might have known about spring because of the Ugadi festival. But autumn? Fall? We didn't know those were seasons too. None of our cousins had gone abroad and returned to educate us about such things.
And remember, these were the non-Google days.
So we tried to understand the caption using whatever information we had.
One friend said it must have been a typographical error. The intended phrase was probably Fall in Love, but the typist had made a mistake. Mistakes happen, after all.
Another friend had a different explanation. Perhaps it was about a young man who falls in love and then fails in love. He himself was love, and he was falling. Hence, Love in Fall.
And that was how we understood eight using a two or a four.
It was only when we were approaching graduation, and had learnt a little more about the world, that we realised the movie was set in a foreign location and that fall was another name for autumn.
All these memories came rushing back when I was at work one day.
There was a little boy at the bank with his mother. She was standing in line at the cash counter, probably waiting to withdraw money through a cheque or attend to some other banking work. Meanwhile, the kid was doing the Naatu Naatu steps in his own little world.
And I realised something.
We are all protagonists in our own worlds.
That mother was there to withdraw money for her family expenses or perhaps for a business she ran. I was there processing loans as part of my employment. And the little boy? He was dancing to Naatu Naatu in his head.
Three people. Three different purposes. Three different worlds, all existing in the same little space.
We are all living our own lives inside our own bubbles.
Work is one thing we do to make life possible. Fun is something we need to replenish the mental energy required to work. They have a symbiotic relationship, with each one benefiting from the other.
At least, that's how it should work.
Passion, Profession, and Everything in Between
Once, while doomscrolling, I came across a post that said something along the lines of:
If you love doing something, that's your passion. Make it your career, and you'll never work a day in your life.
Let's say I work as a secretary at a dental clinic. I'm not achieving anything extraordinary. I'm paying my bills and living on my own. Most days, that's enough.
One of the things I fear most is becoming a burden on someone else or on the government.
Now, for the sake of an example, let's say I'm interested in making fancy candles with different colours and fragrances.
The quote suggests that if I turn candle-making into my career, I won't hate my work because it is also my passion.
Sounds good. One hundred per cent.
But, as they say in chemistry, there is a law, and then there are exceptions.
Two plus two equals four. That's a mathematical truth. But three plus one also equals four, and we often fail to understand that there can be different ways of arriving at the same result.
For the sake of this example, I'm not even considering negative numbers. That's the crime world, and we don't talk about it!
The point is that there isn't always one correct way to live a life.
Work-life balance is one of those topics we keep discussing, and perhaps it becomes more important as we grow older. I'm 36 now, and the things I think about today are quite different from the things I thought about two decades ago.
Back then, we would argue about which movie would be better: a Shah Rukh Khan film or an Aamir Khan film.
Before WhatsApp and Telegram, we had an entire generation of people sending good-morning messages, inspirational stories, motivational quotes, jokes, and sometimes adult jokes too, all within 160 characters.
We loved sending them, and we loved receiving them.
A 160-character birthday message could send us straight to Swarga, even if it contained nothing more than a beautifully worded wish.
Things were simple, yet complicated at the same time.
I've seen posts asking, "If your job is so hard, why don't you quit?"
It's easy to say, but it's much harder to answer when the bills start piling up and you don't have another job in hand.
Yes, work sucks. But unemployment sucks harder.
Humans built civilisation because not everyone could hunt. So we learnt agriculture, built fences and borders, established armies, developed trade, and created healthcare systems. We divided responsibilities and built societies because we could do things collectively that we couldn't do alone.
A hundred years ago, when someone fell seriously ill, the circumstances and options available to them could be very different from what we have today. People might have depended on a temple, their community, or whatever help was available. If they recovered, it might have been called God's grace. If they died, people might have said that was what God had written in their fate.
It was a different set of problems from the ones we face today, with job markets, performance reviews, and Teams meeting notifications.
Of course, I'm not saying that our problems are worse or that the past was better. Every generation has its own struggles. We have simply inherited a different set of challenges.
And I agree that work can sometimes take a toll on our physical and mental health. If our personal lives are in turmoil, we might not be able to function properly at the workplace either.
During our school days, we had a running joke. If one of our friends scored poorly or failed an exam, we would say that the teacher who evaluated his paper must have quarrelled with his wife the previous night.
It was funny, sharp, and witty. We were taking a dig at someone we didn't even know instead of telling our friend to study harder and get better grades.
Looking back, perhaps we were onto something, even if we didn't fully understand it then. The person evaluating your paper is also a human being with a life outside the classroom.
Everyone brings something of themselves into whatever they do, whether they realise it or not.
Food, Clothing, Shelter, and One More Thing
While thinking about all this, I remembered the day I had the idea for this article at work.
Yes, another article within an article. How meta of me! That's three, if you're counting.
Employment is different from agriculture. Self-employment is different from running a business. We all have different income levels, different working styles, and different working hours.
But, in the end, it all comes down to three basic needs of humanity, as my social science teacher taught us:
Food. Clothing. Shelter.
I think the world has changed enough that we might have to add one more thing.
Food, clothing, shelter, and peace.
If work puts us under too much pressure, that pressure follows us home. If our home life is chaotic, it affects our performance at work. The two are connected, whether we like it or not.
Balancing them is an art, and perhaps we're all struggling because we were science students, not arts students.
Just a college joke. Sorry if that took us off-topic!
The thing is, I was working on that power-outage day when I stopped by the roadside to have a tender coconut.
One, hydration is important.
Two, peace is more important.
Along with food, clothing, and shelter, of course.
My work gives me money to buy food, clothing, and shelter. In return, I give my employer my time, skills, and effort so the organisation can grow and earn revenue.
That's the arrangement.
But the fourth parameter, peace, is something we have to work on ourselves.
Some people find it in cigarettes or alcohol. Others find it in family time, spending time with friends, a night out, a weekend getaway, a half-marathon, cooking classes, or any number of things.
We all have our own ways of finding peace.
And that brings me to two terms I want to use: Swami Kaarya and Swa Kaarya.
For the purpose of this article, I'll use Swami Kaarya to mean the duties and responsibilities assigned to us, and Swa Kaarya to mean the things we choose to do for ourselves, the activities that keep life interesting and help us find peace.
Our Swami Kaarya could be our job, our responsibilities as parents, or our duties as good citizens. These are the roles we have to fulfil, the responsibilities that fall on our shoulders.
Swa Kaarya, on the other hand, is what we do on our own terms.
For example, I have a friend who orders snacks for himself and the people at the office whenever he feels hungry. Eating and sharing food is his Swa Kaarya. It's one of the little things that makes him happy.
Think of Forrest Gump. Being a soldier and serving his country is part of his Swami Kaarya. But the friendships he builds with Bubba and Lieutenant Dan are part of his Swa Kaarya, the personal connections that give his life meaning beyond his duties.
Similarly, being a spy and protecting the world is Ethan Hunt's Swami Kaarya in the Mission: Impossible films. But the friendships he develops with Benji, Luther, and the others are his Swa Kaarya.
One is the duty he performs. The other is the life he builds around it.
Of course, these boundaries aren't always so clear. Our work can give us happiness, and our personal lives can come with responsibilities of their own. The same activity can sometimes be both duty and pleasure.
But I think the distinction is worth making.
It's necessary to work to survive in the civilisation we've built. That's our Swami Kaarya, as I'd like to call it.
But Swa Kaarya is equally important. It's what we do on the side to maintain our peace, to remind ourselves that we are more than our jobs, designations, salaries, and responsibilities.
We don't necessarily have to turn our passions into professions. We don't have to monetise every hobby or make every interest productive.
Sometimes, it's enough to do something simply because we enjoy it.
We can be bankers during office hours and singers when nobody is watching. We can be secretaries at a dental clinic and candle-makers on weekends. We can be parents, employees, and responsible citizens while still making room for the little things that make us feel alive.
Perhaps that is the balance we keep looking for.
Not a life without work, but a life in which work doesn't consume everything else.
The thing is, life can be messy and tangled, just like earphones left inside a bag.
Take a deep breath. Untangle them patiently, and keep listening to the music of life.
I've heard it's a great blockbuster song.
I hope peace finds you, and me too.
