2006..on a quiet Sunday evening, the husband and me decided to take up an exciting offer in Chennai and move from our comfortable cocoon of an existence in Mumbai..yours truly had to be brought to the city literally kicking and screaming..I consoled myself that this was a short term thing and we would soon get back to the city of our dreams.. Fast forward...2012...a baby and several ups and downs on life later, we are set to return. But this time it is my turn again to kick and scream at leaving this city I have grown to love so much!I have metamorphosized into a die hard Chennaiite over the years. From learning to wear the kanjeevaram to speaking fluent Tamil.from making perfect Dosa batter to enjoying Kolaveri..from enjoying balmy summer evenings to waking up to piping hot filter coffee. Chennai is me and it's hard for me to imagine being anyone else.. Chennai has this magical quality. It is a place where contemporary meets modernity. You can turn up in a kanjeevaram for a Page 3 party. No one would bat an eyelid if you wore a strand of fragrant jasmine in your hair for an important meeting at work. Life here is not just about work..life here is about the finer things, about the small things that make it beautiful and about family. I will surely miss my adopted hometown but the thing about Chennaiites is that no matter where you go, no matter which corner of the Earth you inhabit, you will always remain one. You carry a little bit of Chennai in you wherever you go. And hope that the day you come back is not far away.

Got a chance to finally catch the much talked and discussed about 127 hours last night and must admit was blown away..I was a bit anxious at the beginning, what with people comparing it to everything from the Blaire Witch Project to the Wrestler and a host of others fainting and having a heart attack. I steeled myself mentally to cope with any gore on show and with a heart of steel, settled into the comfy seats at PVR.
What stayed with me even after the movie was though, definitely not the gore but the mental turmoils of a man faced with imminent and slow death. While with my infinite girth there is virtually no possibility of being trapped between a rock and a hard place and definitely not canyoneering in any sense of the word, the often psychedelic hallucinations that the protagonist experiences is something that could be related to. He apologizes to his mother for not returning her call, he rues over the fact that he didn’t share his plans with his co-worker, he chides himself for buying a cheap, China-made knife thingy and for not bothering to look for his Swiss knife enough, he dreams of getting a final sip of chilled beer and even humorously remarks that his pee would settle in a few days and begin to taste a bit like Sauvignon Blanc. Despite his adventurous, wild child ways and free spirit, the protagonist at heart remains like a lot of us. And as with a lot of people, only when faced with the prospect of losing his life, does he realize its true meaning and what are the most important things to him-his family and his loved ones. There is a moving good bye message he records that will definitely choke you up.
And like a light bulb , he finally comes to the conclusion that everything in life happens for a reason. Every step he took, every breath he took and every decision he made in life was done so that ultimately he could end up with his hand wedged beneath the boulder. And it was the divine purpose of the boulder, ever since it was a tiny meteorite that fell from the sky millions of years ago, to wait till he came along, looking for the Blue John canyon, to fall on his hand. This philosophy has guided me throughout my life, giving me hope when things have been bad. Aron Ralston, at his moment of realization, finally learnt to see the big picture and lived to tell the tale. How many amongst us have the luck to gain that kind of wisdom and live an entirely productive life by it? Sad, that some of life’s best lessons are learnt only when death stares at you in your eyes.

Not much of a corporate veteran myself, many of the lessons I have learnt have been the hard way. I consider myself fortunate that God gave me the opportunity to work with some of the most horrendous and evil people that walked the surface of the earth. As a junior level consultant I had worked with seniors who have not only been callous and selfish but have also resorted to every nasty and mean trick in the book in order to get ahead in their career. Often, the lowest person in the rung becomes the proverbial scapegoat and safe to say, I have adorned the position on more than several occasions. What prompted this posting was the emotional outburst of one such goat yesterday. She was obviously upset at the bad treatment meted out to her and needed a shoulder to cry on. And that’s when I offered her my two bits on how to survive the wham-bham of the corporate world.
1. Repeat to yourself-my colleagues are not my friends, they are just people I work with. This must be the mantra that guides every interaction in the office space. Getting over friendly or too sympathetic towards a colleague is just not called for. You don’t need to trust them with your secrets or the fact that ‘the last week when I had the flu, I had just been to goa on vacation’. Too much information is not good information.
2. Learn to not take things to heart. People will do anything to get ahead. You just happened to get in the way. Don’t take it personally.
3. Don’t expect people to like you-You aren’t their spouse, parent, uncle, aunt or child. Not even the indulgent grandparent. Unconditional love and worse, friendship, outside of these relationships, is only an urban myth.
4. Love yourself and be confident-Nothing matters like confidence. If you don’t take yourself seriously, no one will. It is not a mere coincidence that the office bitch is usually your boss.
5. Keep your eyes and ears open- Helps to understand people, especially when you are new. Also helps to identify weaknesses and play to them.
6. Never display emotional weakness-if there is one category of people who get massacred in an office environment, it is those who have displayed emotional weakness. Sobbing or worse having an angry outburst is fodder for gossip and perpetrating a less than desirable office image.
7. Blend in- This is vital. Try to blend in as much as possible, be it in terms of dressing, behavior or work ethics. Being your own self is fine but as long as you are not viewed as the resident jack-in-the-box.
8. Network- Absolute essential. Be it your boss’ secretary, the sweeper, the IT guy or the other vertical’s boss you met in the cafeteria. Networking ensures visibility and visibility equals top of the mind recall during appraisals. Being friendly without being too familiar is an art that takes a lifetime to perfect for some and comes naturally to others.
I hope the few points on top would help at least some of the other lambs out there who are trying to get a foothold in their professional careers. Roughing it out in the first few years is vital to ensuring that you come out unchanged and values intact. And above all, it is important to remember that neither does your professional self necessarily define your personal life nor is it required to be an extension of you. You spend over 80% of your time with people who hardly matter in the larger scheme of things. It is just what you do to put food on the table and a roof over your head. Remember this the next time you have a bad day at work.