Cheers!

Here's another short story quite different from the one I posted earlier. 
I hope you enjoy it :)

And before you read, just a disclaimer  : 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. :P


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We are drunk. Wild, beyond our imagination drunk. I never imagined drinking more than few sips of wine. That too the socially required kind of wine. But on the front porch. Suddenly, without any reason but the fact that I am hitting silver jubilee age on this planet and never did anything wild, we are drinking without rhyme or reason. Wow. And I don’t understand different levels of drunk like you do. But you mention it after every shot of whisky, ‘this is the part where it just hits’, ‘this is when you lose sense of where you are and with whom’, ‘ this is when you start slurring’, ‘this is when you don’t drive’. And its funny. I laugh. And I think it’s a drunk laugh. One that starts as a normal giggling, but then goes on, like the funniest joke ever has been said, and momentarily my conscious self tries to stop laughing to pave a way for decent mannerism, but the shots get better of you and you continue your extended giggles- that sort of laugh. And its liberating to have this moment with you of all my pals. For you will look at me in the eye and say stuff I don’t want to hear even when neither of us are drunk. Stuff like ‘this isn't working for you. You should quit.’and even ‘try harder. There’s no way you should give up on this’ or the one thing I hate to hear the most ‘don’t talk to those people, they might be good, but you are better off without them’ to which I would pointedly reply ‘you have no business saying that’ to which you would just say ‘both of us know you are better off without them.’. You are the person I choose to drink crazy with for nothing we say to each other will ever surprise us the next day. I am grateful to have you in my life. So I say it out loudly.

‘I am grateful to have you in my life.’

‘I know’ you say with a sheepish grin and I wonder in my semi conscious state how could you keep that grin so controlled when you have had as much whisky as I did.

‘What are you looking at, drunken tramp ? ‘ You say and laugh.

‘Your stupid face.’ I say and laugh louder.

I continue the laugh till what seems like a minute in my head. It becomes a little giggle now.

I take another sip and say ‘I need liquid courage’ loudly.

‘WHAT?’ you say like your mind is somewhere else.

‘I said I need LEEQUEED curraggggge’ I slur.

‘For what?’

And I hug you. I am not a hugger. I say in my head. I am not a proud hugger. I am more like a action-reaction hugger. Newton’s third law of motion hugger. I hug when someone else initiates the hug. I am scared of starting a hug I say again in my head. It’s the fear of not being hugged back which makes me such a pretentious and action-reaction hugger.

But you hug me back and I hug you tighter. I think I am hugging you just to get rid of my hugging-phobia. I wonder why you are hugging me though.

I pull back and slur again ‘why are you hugging me?’

‘You started it.’

‘Yes but you hugged back. Why?’

‘I don’t know’

‘Okaaaaaaaay’ I slur and again go back to hugging you. We sit like that on the front porch, for like 10 minutes of comfortable human closeness, in our drunken state. I make a mental note. Drunkenness relieves you of not only hugger-phobia but also the 30,000 tonne burden on your back. And makes your liver gradually useless.

‘Drunkenness is a paradox’ I say.

I feel you nod your head. You pull back and say ‘we will discuss it tomorrow’

‘Hangover’

‘Yes we will have a hangover.’ You smile like you are happy saying that and I again go back to my laughing fits.

‘No I mean the movie Hangover. Lets watch it.’ I say with a sudden zeal which amazes me as much as you.

‘Now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’ You ask dismissively.

‘I don’t know’ I say.

‘Okay, lets watch it then’

And we hold hands in our infinitely drunken state and leave the porch, the porch which will forever be the spot where two people celebrated a silver jubilee on planet earth and slurred and laughed and hugged and basically had one of their top ten awesomest moments of their lives.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wish I got to read this not knowing whats next and have a first impression, but I'll rely on your comments for that. :) Thank you for reading :)

Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar

There are few things in life which give us as much joy as listening to those magic words ‘You have won’. Often it’s not that direct. Often, it’s some form of recognition, right from a little mention of our name to people that matter, or an email, or a smile and a nod which reaffirms, which all translate into that feeling of victory. And it’s addictive. This feeling. This knowing you are appreciated for what you did. But to get there becomes the aim for most of us. No one aims to perform a mediocre job. It’s that simple. No one aims to fail. Most of us aim success, overwhelming, brilliant, shimmery, shining, success. It’s what we crave in jobs, in exams, it’s how we are wired. Success means survival. More so in today’s world. Where everywhere, everyone is competing like crazy, basic needs are no longer the priority, success is a basic need for survival. But with so many people fighting over that limited resource called success how can you ensure it every time? How can you sleep with a peaceful mind when all you think about is beating the competition? When the road to your success is simply competition, how do you even form any sane human relationship with your competitors?

There are many perceptions crowded around this concept of ‘success’ and ‘competition’ and although I don’t overthink about those, I think success should be as personal as public. It can’t be something others define for you. Not always. You can’t consider you achieved something, anything, simply because you followed a direction everyone told was right. For there is really no such thing as right direction, unless it’s something involving basic ethics. It’s more of a question of what’s right for you, rather, what path will you enjoy. Once you define your goals personally, which is a difficult job in itself, define what success really means to you, you might come to the grand realization that your only competition is with yourself. That the only person who you need to be better than is yourself. Since how can you be sure that the people outside, who you are trying to be better than are not even as good as you. Having said that, it’s not to say that you keep yourself in that comfortable bubble of oblivion, happily progressing at your own pace. But there’s that difference with being over obsessed at being better than ‘xyz’ and being aware of their qualities and learning from them. That’s when you tap the devil in you, try all sorts of mad behavior just to show them, and yourself and everyone who’s better. That’s when you introduce unhealthiness in your relationship. Which is far too common and far too ugly, and giving instances of that would really spoil this article. But to beat that, but to cope with the fact that stuff like that happens all I can say is, charity begins from home, you set an example people would look up to. Especially if one is in a position of authority, power, and wants to avoid ugly competition, you make sure you recognize each and every one for anything little and big they did. For to progress as a team, each little and big player needs to feel they are getting better. That their work matters. But it’s a hard thing to be able to see that need in people, be it people working with you, or the ones you lead, if you are too obsessed with your own goals. Your definition of success needs to overlap if not just compose of the definition of success for the people you try to lead, not just in thoughts, in actions. I mention this point here as understanding competition is not necessary at just an individual level, but at a team level. It’s about understanding that contrary to a popular proverb, not everything is fair in war.

 

 

But having said this, in all fairness, competition is responsible for a lot of awesome stuff humans do. Maybe that’s the reason why it’s an instinct. By trying to be better than yourself or others or both, everyone drives progress. At a bird’s eye view, if you were not a part of the competition, you can see how awesome it is for everyone, although often turning frustrating. Take a reality show for example. If people were not pitted against each other, would they really turn out to be better after it’s over than when they entered? Of course few would also turn bitter, sarcastic, egoistic. Yet, for the things they are competing, they set standards for everyone else to follow.

 

This is an intriguing topic and deserves a longer rant which will come when I get more perspective. Let me know yours!