What's the rush, baby?

I am beginning to wonder where we all, as a human race, are headed.
I see everyone around me - me included - constantly on the go, running hard to stay where we are - as if we were on a treadmill fitted with a bomb that would go off if it stopped.

The entire world is moving at too fast a pace, trying to automate every humanly (and otherwise) possible activity. I am beginning to believe one of those scary sci-fi movies my brother forced me to watch when he was a raw-thirteen - the one in which a bunch of robots take over the earth and enslave all humans - is going to come true!

What a shame! I tell myself - a professional in the high-tech tele-communications domain whose burning drive must be connecting the world! Connecting the world with what? Machines? Handset inflicted radiation known to lower grey cells and sperm count?

Sorry, there is no scientific proof for the same. But have you ever thought that by the time there is a scientific proof for the aforementioned, there wouldn't be many of us left (i.e. assuming human cloning is not institutionalized by then) and those of us who are left might no longer be cerebral enough to undo the damage.

Ouch! This conversation is getting too scientific - I had only meant this to be a womanly abreaction. Feel free to disagree with me on this. (I could use a little creative stimulation.)

Every morning we wake up, throw some form of caffeine into our bodies - the mandatory kick-start to our machinery, put on our worldly guises and rush to work. At the end of the day, we come back to our homes - spent, exhausted, sapped- waiting to stuff some ready-in-a-jiffy meal at 11 PM and sink into our beds.

Some of us, like me, have a child to come back home to. Thats usually what keeps us from slowing down during the course of the day- a 10 minute casual chat with a co-worker avoided during the day translates into six hundred quality seconds with my daughter (Ooh, you are a lot of fun to talk to baby, but I haven't got the time!), a quick 10 minute carbrohydrate laden lunch (I am famished by 1:30 every afternoon!) between two critical meetings means hopefully having major design issues taken care of before the never-closing Close-Of-Business, skipping the lunch hour walk sometimes means being able to leave for home before its dark.

There is no end to such compromises(read optimizations). So I work non-stop from 10 to 7 sometimes even 8, 9, 10 or 11 - I work like there is no tomorrow so I can get back home and take a look at my daughter's "Learn With Numbers" book. You know, she may be a bright child, but bright children can also use a little help with counting.

My smart, energetic, perfectionist and understanding supervisor is only too ready to push that "find ways to work smartly, learn time-management, multitask, improve your efficiency, leave early whenever you feel like after *, * and * is done" pill down my gullet!

Then there is that good friend called weekend - time to do an inventory-check of the kitchen followed by grocery, school homeworks, desperately waiting hair-cuts/facials (Thank God, my arms need no waxing), bed-sheets to change, scores to settle with the maid, closets to arrange, dining-tables and computer desks to declutter, drawers to cleanup, newspaper/cable tv bills to pay off, refrigerator to unload, dusting, laundry - okay! I don't do it myself but I get it done - which is technically just as hard if not harder (and I can tell you the figure on my manager's payslip to prove my point.)

And to add to the divine pleasures of a weekend is a clogged washbasin, a leaky toilet flush, a stubborn tubelight, a misbehaving gas-stove, an uninvited toothache/back-ache/head-ache or simply that ineluctable "that-time-of-the-month" visitor!

And I haven't even talked about the mandatory socializing with relatives, my 3-year old's tantrums invariably leading to unceremonious arguments with my better-half or the trip to the tailor for salwar-kameez alterations as I find myself yet another size larger. Needless to say I am wrapped in a dark cloud of depression on my way back. (Hey! have you ever noticed how these shades of gray somewhat miraculously turn into bright sunny hues when brought in close contact with the warm, seductive browns of a chocolate bar!)

And amidst all this, guessing the color of Mallika Sherawat's bikini in the latest movie promo is usually the most intimate conversation I have with my soul-mate which also is in C-O-D-E language coz' I told you I have a young child at home!

And here I am, in a hurry to finish this write-up as its 12:51 on a Sunday night (or Monday morning!?) so I can do some justice to the deep-cleansing and dark-circle-reducing facial I allowed myself the luxury of yesterday. (See, you knew I was hyperbolizing my miseries!)

I am already fantasising about the "kadak chai" my maid is going to make when I wake up tomorrow morning - groggy eyed and irritated.

I do hope my I-hate-him-but-I-love-him-more husband skips the sarcastic "early to bed-early to rise" remark and greets me with his charming smile. Because that might be the only sunshine I see all day.

Heres to walking into another Monday morning that finds me fatter, a little more irritable and a hell lot busier!

What's the rush, baby?!