#23. Sappy Motivation has left the building, Jan 2024
Sappy Motivation has left the building, it is time for unbriddled sarcasm
Hello!
My new year began rather dramatically as I found myself watching 12th Fail on Jan 1. It reminded me of my school teachers who tried to tell us that genius is 1% aspiration and 99% perspiration. Hard work is often considered a virtue on the highest regard, but what happens when you don’t get results ? To say that hard work is a guaranteed way to achieving success is a misnomer. Crediting success to hard work makes for a great inspirational story but also treats those who ‘failed’ unfairly. My take-away as someone who has recently turned 30, and has been at the receiving end of a lot of ‘failures’ due to no fault of my own doing, has been that the universe will do what it wants to do, and that you should do what you want to do.
Reading Corner
Never got around to reading Sci-fi growing up, and now decided to make change some things in that area. I picked up ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy’ this month, and have had a great time reading it! A lot of times, your state of mind determines if you will truly enjoy the book. I often hear a lot of my friends complain about having the time to read something but not having enough mental capacity. This time as I picked up the book, I found it rather easy to follow, easy for me to laugh, easy for me to build out the world of this Classic. I am sure most of you have already read it, but if you haven’t, read it with me this month!
Writing Corner
Target Run- Episode 3
To read the previous episode,click here.
I walk up to her, and lean in, “Hi” I tell her in an audible voice.
She turns around to smile at me, and I notice strands of grey hair peaking out from the temples of her forehead. She gives me a hesitant smile, and replies with a small voice, Hi, she says.
“I think we went to the same school - Bharti VidyaMandir, Lakshmipur.” I add, I wanted to give her enough context so that I didn’t come off as creep.
“Oh yeah!” Her face registers a sense of familiarity.
“I was a couple of years your junior". She crinkles her eyebrows together, trying to remember me.
I still remember you as Neelambari”, I add a small Haha at the end of that sentence.
On hearing this, she eases up a little, “Ohhhhhh, yeah!,” she says and mild embarrassment crosses her face.
“I am sorry, And, you are…?” she trails, unable to place me.
“Vishal” I reply and extend my right hand, mostly out of habit.
When we shook hands, I noticed that her hands were incredibly soft, the softest I had ever felt. Maybe she didn’t do a lot of household chores, she was Neelambari after all, and Goddesses weren’t known to do a whole lot of chores.
“So you live here now?” she asks me, making small talk, feigning interest in my life.
“Yes. I and my wife.” I reply as I lift my cradle of stuff resting in my arms.
“We live by Orchard Boulevard, its by the next Exit”. I complete that sentence as if when I invite her to visit, she would know where I lived.
She smiles, and proceeds to make some more small talk with me. I am mesmerized in her presence, the same radiance emitting from her, as it did many years ago, from stage. We continue to engage in small talk for some time, she tells me about moving to US, and specifically here to Arkansas. She tells me that her husband was Staff Engineer at Ceiphel, a Biomedical company with its headquarters here in Arkansas. She shows me pictures of her 3 year old son. I peppered my responses with polite adjectives here and there.
A voice calls out to her from the shadows behind her, and she gestures that she has to go.
Learning Corner
Lounge Corner
Office Hours
I'm excited to help folks out and give back to the community via Topmate. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or just want to say hi!
See you in the next edition,
Pratiksha