January 19th, 2024

Today I was supposed to deliver a talk on Spend Management- but I did not show up.  I feel rather disgusted with myself. I have been meaning to atleast show up this year. No more hiding behind the bushes and waiting for a divine signal to show myself. But today was different. I had had a really full weekend thanks to a visit by a very close friend – Kartik with whom I had kind of dropped off the radar for a number of years. He, I had heard, also had gone into a shell whereby he hadn’t kept in touch with other close friends. In my case, I was a few continents away from him so it is still somewhat understandable. And there was probably some undercurrent that pushed me away as well. But I don’t want to dwell on that. Late last year, I flew to New jersey very suddenly and on literally no notice. This was to attend another musician friend’s gig- who goes by Pankaj. Hardly a good reason to most, but I chose to do exactly what I have been meaning to. Just ponder on the event for a bit- if there is any reason at all to do it, just do it. Show up. One of the side effects of this whirlwind tour half-way across the world was that Kartik also was forced to show up. When he got wind I was flying in from Dubai- he decidedly had to atleast drive up from the Washington DC area.

 It must be mentioned here that Kartik, Pankaj and 3 parts of a 6 piece rock band in college back in India. The three of us were particularly close. We were all into music and half decent at it.  We were also from the same town in India- which is a huge coincidence. And finally, we had a similar sense of humour that was either unintelligible or unpalatable or both- to most. Panka lives in New Jersey and Kartik in Virginia. I live in Dubai. So there you have it. In spite of some drift, this occasion of my sudden travel to the US over a weekend caused some much needed bonding or rather re-bonding. Particularly between me and Kartik but also slightly between Pankaj and Kartik. I spent a lot of time with him during this trip and was able to catch up for a number of lost years. Soon after I returned he told me that he was going to be in Bangalore in January and was considering flying via Dubai to break his journey and stay with me a night. Also, he volunteered to bring a Martin Dreadnought guitar that I agreed to buy off of his friend in Virginia. Overall a sound plan. And that is what I spent all of Saturday and half of Sunday doing. I also called some other mates from college that lived in Dubai for dinner that evening- most of whom I was not in much touch with. But seeing the power of an alumni meet, however small, encouraged me to go ahead with it. And as it happens it was an evening well spent- we all had a good time. Atleast 3 of us did- the other two were slightly less musical than us so may have been slightly bored by some of the esoteric discussion. So after dropping Kartik off at 11.30 AM, I had to get Tintin red for his maiden solo trip overseas- the following early morning.

In summary, I had no time whatsoever to prepare for anything to say. It also happened that I did not get a last-minute reminder call from the organizer which told me he had more than his quorum of speakers and he was not going to miss me. Nevertheless, I had not intended to miss this opportunity.

This morning, following the drop off of Tintin to the airport and the drop off of Neo to school, I did my customary noodling with the guitar prior to heading for work -except that I did it on my just acquired Martin. I recorded something after quite a while- an acoustic version of “Take On Me” by A-ha. The A-ha frontman did an acoustic version a few years ago which got a lot of attention globally. I was inspired by it but my version was a bit truer to the original keyboard-oriented epic. It was a tune I grew up with and much as I wanted to deviate from the arrangement of the original tune, especially considering I was playing guitar and not a stack of synthesizers, I just couldn’t. The interludes were too closely etched to my brain. I did three takes- was not pleased with the third but left it at that- it was better than the other two and I was getting late for work. I listened to it a few times in the car and quite enjoyed it.

The day at work was forgettable- and I wasn’t feeling 100% again. More office politics, and nitpicking by HR meant I was busy all day getting a bit demotivated. I know tomorrow could well be a different day. And I just learnt about renounce and rejoice, this needed to be put to practice. I returned home to learn that Tintin had safely landed in the Netherlands and was now settled into his hotel room with his classmates. I wondered what he’d be up to now.

Overall, and not just because I did not make it to the Spend Management talk, I felt like I did not seize the day in any which way today. There is only one way to make it tolerable- and that is to go for a swim. It is exceedingly hard to be regular, mainly because of the cool weather in the evenings. Last year at this time I was in tropical Manila, where getting into a pool was not exactly torture. This was different- I could barely take a shower before entering since the shower water was so cold. And to top it all I seemed to be afflicted with a very long drawn out cold or flu or Covid or whatever you may call it. There were reasons not to swim. There are always reasons not to swim. But there has to be a will to swim- that can swim against the tide of not wanting to swim.