Chronicles of a Jongleur

**With all due respect to the female gender (and I am of the unshakeable belief that the female species is infinitely superior to the male)how do you make casual conversation with a co-worker who is visibly pregnant? In my short career I have had the opportunity to deal with all sorts of people ranging from fresh-out-of-school geniuses to elderly grouchies, but this one leaves me stuttering for the right things to say. I usually shift from leg to leg in that I-need-to-go-to-the-toilet-now manner that most expectant ladies just start feeling sorry for me and walk away. What am I expected to say? “Congrats”? “When did it happen”? Or do I ask when they are going away on maternity leave? Nothing beats the time when my poor friend from Madurai started on an epic narration explaining the nuances of the seemandham to his utterly befuddled colleague.

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** Another piece that calls for worthless debate – what are your thoughts on popular web hangouts like rediff.com devoting gigabytes of server space to such seemingly inconsequential events on celebrities? Why does Sania’s Haj outfit need more coverage than the poor little children being exploited in Sivakasi’s factories? I really cant comment though – I unfailingly check out every bit of Page 3 information that ever finds its way to the hallowed portals of desi news arena. After significant deliberation, I divided people who thirst after such news articles into 3 esteemed categories. Tier 1 belongs to those who actually take the the time off to go through the six pages of photographs of Sania in various garbs. Then there are those (Tier 2) who bother to peck away a comment or too at the sad state of media covering such inconsequential bits of news on their front pages. Tier 3 is the most pathetic of them all- shamelessly picking out those elevated commenters and even going as far as writing up a blog entry and even providing a link to reflect extreme levels of hypocritical joblessness.

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**What’s it with people and gadgets in this side of the Atlantic? There is a level of fanaticism associated with the release of the latest gizmos that is beyond belief. How else can you explain people camping for days under pouring rains and torrid snowstorms just to get their hands on the PS3 or the Nintendo Wii or an Apple iPod. Granted that this is a rich country bursting with disposable income, but getting into fistfights over a pathetic video game? Unexplainable. Probably the closest equivalent that comes to mind is the thousands of fans that Vijayakanth and Ajith command on the opening days of their movies. Go Captain!

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**One of the things that pisses me off amongst the desi community in general is the attitude of some neo desis who literally start oozing superiority when they are confronted with another desi who is lower in the pecking order (It gets uncontrollable when the spouses are around). None better illustrated in the folks who work for the so called “Product” companies vis-a-vis those who work for a solutions company. How many times have you felt infinitesimally small when a desi in Oracle swaggers his way to a potluck dinner with a gang of Infoscions who have come to Uncle Sam to help Wal-Mart on database maintenance? The fact that both the jerk from Oracle and the folks onsite for Infosys probably spend most of their days documenting help files on MS Word and MS-Excel is conveniently ignored. Amazing what the tag around your neck can do to supersize desi egos.

Living in a country that has no social borders should teach us a thing or two about self proclaimed career narcissists. And in spite of all the bromide that I spit over America in this blog- I salute its spirit of professional dignity. You may be a billionaire Silicon Valley, but you are worth no more than the janitor at the subway restrooms- both take pride in earning their money- by working hard and working legally for it. There are no societal boundaries based on what you do to earn your daily bread, and your respect in society stems from how well you do your stuff- not how much you make out of it. Explains why the driver on your local town bus still wishes you good morning every single day. At 8 bucks an hour, he really need not- its just that he wants to because he is proud of doing what what it takes to earn every cent of that.

So next time you are pounding away on MS-Word trying to complete that mammoth help file, try for once not to sulk in your seat and bitch about that colleague who got a chance to do some actual coding. Just do your job -and be honest about it. And the next time the Oracle prick smirks on something that you just said, just look at him first, then your friends in Infy, and start laughing like there is no tomorrow. He’d probably  pee in his pants, hell, he’s a prick after all.