Yo Yo - OR - How long is a day ?

Its 10:30 am now and I've just reached office...A new day ..A new start...Thank Heavens yesterday is finally over..Yeah, for me a day starts and ends with me leaving for office...So it naturally follows that some days are not as long as others...and yesterday was one of them...though I am sure those 22 hours felt almost like a week :-(

Since top management was away in Goa for their annual Strategy Planning Session, I'd decided to wake up late yesterday morning and take the 10 am shuttle. But then when man proposes, maid servants dispose. Was woken up at six am sharp and had to fight to stay awake as jhadu and pocha happened....(MOOD: annoyed) Flopped back into my bed only to be disturbed again by the stupid newspaper vendor who wanted to know if he could deliver TOI on Wednesdays (I only get The Hindu and ET door delivered while I buy TOI on Wednesdays as I leave for work) Under normal circumstances I would have appreciated his "attention to detail" and "customer responsiveness" but not at 6:50 when I was so tired...(MOOD: angry) Cursing my bad luck and wondering how the rest of the day would shape up, I switched on TV to catch up with the Champions League results of the last night. Real and Bayern were through and Man U had lost. The first good news of the day(MOOD: cheerful). Cut an apple for myself, made some tea and left for office all charged up...to have a nice vela day at work. As expected, the mailbox was empty except for my usual subscription from NY Times, Hollywood info and the lot..(MOOD: happy)

11:30 and still no one interesting had signed into YM.. The ennui was slowly getting to me (MOOD: bored) and left with nothing better to do, decided I would blog... But for the life of me could not decide on what to blog. Then remembered about the F.R.I.E.N.D.S episode of the previous night and decided to write some crap on it. 20 minutes later I surveyed the post. A job well done. (MOOD: accomplished) Twas time for lunch. Signed into MSN and rounded up junta to meet at T8. Had a loooong looong lunch where we bitched and shared anecdotes and traded secrets - so reminscent of college days. (MOOD: nostalgic)

Returned to my seat to find no mails in my inbox.. Was heartbroken....Nobody cared...People were so mathlubi...(MOOD: aggravated) Closing my inbox and resolving not to open it till 4 pm, pondered on how to while away time. Decided to revisit my usual blog list to see if people had made any updates in the last few hours. No luck. Ambled down to the library to check my GMAIL account. This was a sure sign that I was really getting desperate coz only 3-4 people even knew that I had one. And I was pretty sure there would be no mail from them since these were mostly pals I was in very regular touch with. Suprise of all suprises. There was a mail and fantabulous news in it. I'm soon to become a Godfather (not the mafia kinds but the Godfather as in Godson kinds) - was on top of the world (MOOD: Ecstatic) Read some mags like Frontline, Sportstar, HBR, TIME and flipped through Deccan Herald, Indian Express and returned back to my seat an hour later.. 2 more hours to kill...Was suddenly starting to feel a little woozy.. It was very cold for a December afternoon and I got the sinking feeling I was running a temperature.. (MOOD: sick) Maybe I could use the next few hours to clean up my inbox and organise the folder structure in my desktop.

6 pm... Finally time to leave for home...Damn...Horrible traffic jam on Hosur Road.. Reached home pretty late at round quarter past 7...(MOOD: depressed) Ordered food in but realised I had lost my appetite thanks to the sickness. My palms were sweating, my feet were numb and the entire house was so chilly..It was only 8 but I didn't think I could wait till 10 to watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S and then go to bed.. Tried dozing off but jes cudn't sleep..By then I'd come to the conclusion that I'd never felt so horrible in my life.. Maybe I was dying..(MOOD: pensive) Sat down with pen and paper to write my last will and testament.. The obvious things were settled first...I bequeathed all my VCDs and most of my cassettes to G...The children's books, comics and paper back novels went to Abhishek my nephew...Serious fiction would be safe in the hands of FF and Non fiction was more 1across' cuppa tea so did the needful.. All my savings (wotever precious little I had), of course, went to Udhavum Karangal.. My clothes could go to Annai Ashram though I wasn't sure they'd kinda like my tastes..

SA NI DHA PA..Phone call...

Damn.. I hate my ring tone.. Actually i hate my mobile phone.. Correction: I hate all mobile phones..(MOOD: irate) It was one of my good friends from Chennai.. Sensing that I was very troubled (since my contribution to the first 3 mts of conversation was a series of OH, HMM, K) he probed as to what was bugging me. When he heard about my will, without bothering to offer some comfort or sympathy, he requested for my TT racquet...Talk about friends... (MOOD: gloomy) Another 10 minutes and the exercise of even dividing my fortune amongst friends & family seemed so cumbersome that I gave up.. Popped a few pills and lay down unsure whether I would live to see another sunrise..(MOOD: blank)

Zzzzz..Zzzzzz...My mobile buzzed on vibrator mode..I woke up startled..Goddddddddd...I'd survived... It was a miracle...(MOOD: relieved) Switched on the geyser, plugged the power cord of my music system on and played the Megh Malhar series...Pt Jasraj's mellifluous voice wafted through the entire house.. It was so soothing.. Opened the door and picked up the newspaper.. Flipped it straight to the Crossword page.. Not bad.. 7 right to show for my efforts in yesterday evening's bus ride....An improvement (MOOD: relaxed).. A quick bath and a shave...Ooops... It was getting late.. 7:35 already and if I didn't leave now I'd miss EC9A and my buswaali ... Run Jupe Run...

A new day.. A new start....