Cultivating the Taste Buds

Eating humble pie, like Chinese food, is a cultivated taste. And likewise, it is perhaps a useful taste to cultivate, given its preponderance in the world around us. So here I am, finding myself taking another big of the distasteful confectionery.

Just two months ago, I wrote with much vehemence about my office moving to Bombay and that being my cue to quit this lousy job and the much lousier company. And before another two months are over, I will be in Bombay with the same company doing the same job.

Sure, there are strong circumstantial reasons for me to make the choice I have. But it is still some sort of a choice, given how I love telling people that everything is a choice, and that it is not too difficult to say "no". It still feels like giving a pound of my flesh for something I don't have much to do with. And it feels like no amount of mouthwash can completely rinse out the foul taste of the pie, that no matter how fresh, always tastes like shit gone rotten.

Dark clouds tend to pour, but are also said to have silver linings. I have always thought it happens because if it weren't for some sort of an optimistic outlook at the larger level, humans would have been wiped out long ago. Not that I would mind, I am just commenting. But yeah, it is shitty situations that make us start sniffing around to catch even if only a whiff of the scent of a rose. And of course, that is when even the odourless roadside wild flower seems like the most fragrant blossom that has even been.

Anyway, I really don't mind the rain. So I am still following through with all the plans I had made for after I will quit this job. I have already started on a freelance gig, and the stage is getting set for another one to start next month. I will still apply for a PhD, and follow through with the Japanese learning. Of course, how I will manage all this while waking up at 5:00 every morning to go to work, running around banks to get a housing loan, finding a house in Bombay and shifting, and other things that keep popping up in life always, is well, my problem.

For the rest, well, the company has told me that they really need me around in a mentoring sort of role (more flattery than practicality, I think; in reality, I am just their most efficient cog in the wheel, and they know it), and is therefore being quite generous with their purse-strings to make this move to Bombay a rather easy affair for me. Despite my oft-declared lack of love for money, this is still something that I really cannot complain about. After all, one shouldn't just ignore the silver lining.