No Billings in February

How does one enumerate, when there's finally the time and a nukkad to sit at, on a month of uncertainity? Let me begin. I decided that selling hardware infrastructure for Big Blue was depressing, and that despite the charms of blazers, Powerpoint, posh hotels, Hertz cabs and a ThinkPad to lug around, enough was enough. I put in my papers. IBM's Separation Request asked me my reason for leaving. 'Education', I wrote. I will now work as a student of life, full-time; and also, for a while, as an English teacher.

I am delighted when my cellphone rings because it's no longer about billings in February.

February! Nothing is going to be billed by me in February. See, see, the world goes on. I lean from droning steamers along the Konkan coast, and the wind, like an implacable lover, ravages my hair. I hang from listing buses, breathing Bombay. My thoughts chase me into ancient hideouts; they follow me on Bangalore's streets; I leave them there like red-eyed cigarette-stubs. I walk at sunrise in IIMB's corridors, as creepers twist around the walls; I walk by the storerooms, and touch-me-nots, green and tender, crouch at my step.

'Tender' no longer means a booklet of government-style notices, for the purpose of procurement of the aforesaid servers, for such party as shall fulfill the clauses in section 19 (ii)...

Tender is the dew, and the grass squeaking under your step. I can waken, move, mutate; I dip my hands in temple ponds where dumb-eyed guppies surge and bite and shudder back, like messengers of cosmic foreplay.

I feel like a Miss Universe on stage, shocked at victory. I thank at this moment a host of people but especially a computer science teacher of mine: I see him scratching his head, half-naked on a sun-scorched train towards a Himalayan trek, or with a copy of Blake in a bamboo grove, or brewing Komboocha quietly for us, grinning.

And of course the battle is on. Life is now not easy. But others have come here before, seeking freedom and flight. I pause with heavy bags where exhausts blow fumes in the face. I stalk autorickshaws on Bangalore's streets like a hooker, waving them down, and cursing as they refuse and move on. I feel my wallet and am acutely aware of the importance of cash, of liquid assets, of portable property. I think of my little nest egg in the bank after nine months of work. I float a secret appeal to the Finance minister not to let inflation rise.

But what the hell. May we take the sky on, may the force be with us, and anyway life is savage and beautiful.