God is one crazy old SOB! I do not mean that in a demeaning way, but in an affectionate way. Sort of like a son who looks up to his dad in army and admiringly thinks, “Man! That’s one hard nut!” He has a wicked sense of humor (God, not the boy or his nutty dad), and a wild ass way of messing with our lives and proving his existence.
I’ve realized this countless number of times in my life, and I’m sure the tradition will continue.
Just take last Friday as an example. At work, my project-manager fell sick, with the delivery deadline being less than a week. And no one else in the office knew the stuff he was working on. Since I was the next available man, it fell upon me to take his place and learn and deliver the stuff. Before one can even say “what the fu..”, I was put to chase a deadline….yet again. I had my own delivery to handle as well, of course, as well as supervising delivery of another guy and training 4 other. Things were promising to be quite grim. Coming back to home, I learned my father had a bad day and was in the depths of a self-destructing depression. He said his neurological problems are returning, his knees are weakening, and his will to live is dead. The situation at a death bed was probably more cheerful that that of our house. The political scenario at Kolkata was not exactly helping either, with multiple parties calling 48 hour strikes on Monday and Tuesday, when I just HAD to go to office. All the bad news….in a couple of hours.
So how did I handle that? Not too gracefully I’m afraid. I sweared a lot for one thing. I stayed at office from Saturday morning to Sunday evening. Tried frantically to slog my way through a piece of foreign code and completing the gaps (and there were gaps where you can put Mount Everest in). I tried talking to my father and tried to convince him to see a psychiatrist. I had about 5 social invitations over the weekend, which I couldn’t miss. So I had to rush from office to these places and rush back to office as soon as I could leave.
Things started to look up from Monday evening. It was a day of strike, so I was at home. I brought laptop and other equipments I would need from office, to continue my work from home and that was exactly what I did the whole day. At around evening, the code finally ran correctly for the first time. It was still not complete, and was moving like a new born baby giraffe, but I had something at least! And for the first time I thought maybe I can make the Tuesday deadline for the first draft. Soon after I heard that most of the political parties have withdrawn the strike and going to office should not be a problem the next day. Father said he found a psychiatrist, and he’ll be coming in a day or two. All the better news….in a couple of hours.
I’m not totally out of the soup yet though, only partly. The code is working, but it’s still very sketchy. The strike is withdrawn, but some problems are still expected. The psychiatrist has been found, but he has not started yet. So, don’t throw away you ticket counterparts just yet!
And then there’s that crazy one! The omnipotent, supreme leader of all…..no, not George Bush……the real leader…..God! I picture himself at this moment, sitting in his couch, smoking heavenly cigars, smiling at the ups and down of our lives at the slightest whim of His. The only comparison to the ease with which he can take away the smile from our faces, is with the ease with which He can put it back on! God rocks man….. He’s the coolest!
