rants of an ungrateful bastard

I think there must be some rule which says that people cannot keep status lines which are open to interpretation. It must be very clear ones like –I hate you so and so- or –I want to kill my boss for denying me a hike- and not something like –oh so now you are happy- or –will bite head off.

Now ever since some bastards ripped open the German Bakery at Pune, I am feeling sick and miserable. I felt the same after 26/11 and the previous bomb blasts that shook our country. When I read stories about some budding footballer losing both his legs or siblings dying clinging to each other, I boil with rage. And since people like me cannot do much apart from boiling with rage, I boil with rage.

A natural progression of this anger that wells up in my heart is that I get agitated at small things and on small mistakes of colleagues and myself. A very dangerous progression still is that I start imagining slights and insults in harmless words or status taglines when there might be none.

Now a day after the blasts, a colleague had her tagline as ‘some people are showing their true colours’. Now my mind started imagining and then convincing myself that the tagline was meant for me. Why? Well you see I was offered this job when I had none and my competence in all matters journalistic was deeply suspect.

So like a dutiful and loyal employee, I went about trying to build up a team comprising people far more talented and successful than me. I used to take most of their transgressions as if nothing much happened because I was deeply convinced that I was here because of the team that works with me. So it was all fun, frolic, sugar and honey.

So now when things start getting a bit hot under the collar for the team as a whole and me in particular, I am supposed to keep quiet, take all the stress and go about my day. And have a drink or smoke at the end of the day to bring the stress levels back to normalcy.

So I with certainty took it that the ‘some people who had started showing their true colours’ was yours truly. What it meant was that I had got a little too big for my boots and my inherent nature of deceit and cunningness had come to the fore. That I had become the ungrateful bastard- you see my boss had picked me up from obscurity and given me a job- I always was, is what the tagline meant.

The only problem with all this is that it completely negates the little bit of work that I have put in here as an ordinary worker.
But then the thing about loyalty is if you want a loyal dog that never snaps, get a pug, never a Doberman.

There is another chap who has a problem with some of the taglines I keep. Like all unsuccessful people who have crossed 30, my taglines are bitter and general rants. After every blast in any part of the country, they become a bit- ok make that a lot- insensitive towards the Muslims.

Now the problem with a large majority of Muslims- like this chap- is that they can wear their designer jeans half way down their underwear and sport glares that would be half my salary and be ‘modern’ in all other ways – like saying having ten girlfriends at the same time- but when it comes to religion, my boy they are still in the Arabia of camel caravans.

So he shot me a few chats about how I am doing nothing to foster harmony among different religions. My boy, when I have done nothing to foster harmony between my dreams, aspirations and my wallet, where is the bloody question of my doing any harmony shit about something as stupid as religion.

I know all this isn’t going to win me too many friends but then someone intelligent told me long time ago that when it is time to give it, it is time to give it.

So till such time as a law comes in about taglines and their clarity, it is best to ignore this harmless trite that goes by the name ‘chat status’.

You don’t like my chat taglines, you block me out. Because life at 24 hours a day is sometimes too little for slow movers like me to make them count. So please do not giver me any additional baggage to load, when forget my seat, I’m not even sure of my train.