Saturday, April 30, 2005
The Interview Game, and The Answers
Have I mentioned before my notoriety in meeting deadlines? Have I ever blogged about how one of my bosses almost had me sacked despite me performing quite well to my targets, because I would not meet deadlines? Does anyone share my inherent aversion to meeting deadlines? Is this a talent? Are these excuses enough for not having answered questions posed to me in an interview game started by dear sister Sanchez, about two months ago, and then not having answered Urdu questions put to me by dear sister AWK?
Long long ago, in a town now called blogistan, the inhabitants started playing a game called the Interview game, and following were the rules laid down by Sanchez at the beginning, and I quote:
"Here's how you can play the interview game:
1. Leave me a comment saying "interview me." The first five commenters will be the participants.
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some.) "
At my request to be interviewed, and mine being one of the tens of requests she had got, she put me the following questions:
"1.Why would you believe that you're the only one with a dark side bhai?
Because Little Baji, I am the only one who gets affected by my dark side, who has to face it every now and then, and reconcile himself with its presence each time. If others have dark sides, they seldom show it to me, and I rarely ever am at the receiving end of their dark sides. Also because all said and done my dark side will always be the darkest than anyone else's for me.
2. Has marriage changed you much? Or were you always this weird? I'm asking that seriously. Do you feel you are the same person as you were say... ten years ago? From the era of Coori and the last red note?
Has marriage changed me much? It has, if you can call gaining over 40 pounds much. I never thought I was weird, but I have always felt the world is a weird weird place, and that belief stands tall as much after my marriage as it did before the incident. Oh, and I know I am almost bald and all, but really it hasn't been ten years since we got married.
The era of Coori and the last red note was a long time ago, almost ten years now, and I think I have changed a lot since then. I have become wiser in the ways of the world, and am therefore a lot less likeable than I was then. (I am a proud self-proclaimed narcissist, so my belief, and a staunch one at that, that I am likeable should come as no surprise to anyone).
In many ways, however, I have not changed at all, in my ability, for instance, to attract Coorish people as friends - Jalali Baba is a glaring example. The hadeeth stresses that our names have a lot of impact on our lives, thankfully my parents chose me a name that means friend, and in this they ensured that I have always had the bestest of friends around. I asked wifey if she thought I had changed any, and she said I had changed loads, and she did not mean in weight terms, though she could have had. I asked Lala and Mari if they thought I had changed a lot since those days of the last red note, and they said they did not give a damn - then again I had met them in a dream. I asked Fash if he thought I had changed a lot since those days in 1996, and he said I hadn't changed a lot from those days in 1986!!!
Fash oughta know, he is the only one around, apart from my immediate family, who have known me this long. Of course, it helps me not in any way that he thinks that I am, always was, and most probably will continue to be an absolute loser!!!
3. What role does writing poetry play in your life?
You mean apart from getting me thrown out of Mushairas? At times, being under that impression - that I can write poetry has helped me a lot. At others it has costed me dearly. Take, for instance, the case when I filled up sheet after sheet of my Urdu board exams with an essay interspersed with my own "poetry" and ended up scoring almost the lowest ever marks in Urdu. For a long time, I used to trick myself into thinking that the examiner gave me such low marks because from someone who could quote such great verse, he expected a lot better on the other questions.
It was some years before it began to dawn upon me that most people acknowledged as great poets; Ghalib, Iqbal, Faiz and the others had actually written better poetry than me, and that most other people who were not acknowledged as poets at all also did a better job of it than I did. In that way, writing poetry has played a humbling role in my life. In some ways, it has provided me with a vent to get rid of pent-up vocabulary, in rare others it has been my support system, my option of the last resort to discuss matters I could not or would not dare discuss with my peers or parents.
4. What is your favorite poem?
Tough one this. Not because I am very well read, and have trouble choosing a great poem from the so many that I have read, but because I have read hardly any outside the syllabus. One of my top favorites is Allama Iqbal's ''Budhe Baloch Kee Naseehat Baite Ko" which is a fiery advice by a warrior father to his son on the ways of a Muslim warrior in the modern world, as well as a great lesson in patriotism, and one of Ghalib's ghazals "Na tha kuch to Khuda tha, kuch na hota to Khuda hota".
Amongst my own, I like "Pas-e-Iraq" and "Chal Bhaag Chalen" more.
5. Does Jalali Baba know you ate his cookies?"
He suspects, but I have him in doubt. I point to that empty box each time he visits us and tell him that is his share which he can take back this time. Satisfied, he moves on to other more important topics, himself for instance, and I manage to skittle him out the door before he can remember about the cookies. WHEN ARE YOU GUYS COMING HERE??? I can't trick him forever.
I should really get going now. Need to work on those two first drafts for one thing, the second one especially, since it elicited just the one comment...:(
But KK, Yaz and Baji... fret not, the stick is up next! ¶ 4/30/2005 01:55:00 AM
Long long ago, in a town now called blogistan, the inhabitants started playing a game called the Interview game, and following were the rules laid down by Sanchez at the beginning, and I quote:
"Here's how you can play the interview game:
1. Leave me a comment saying "interview me." The first five commenters will be the participants.
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some.) "
At my request to be interviewed, and mine being one of the tens of requests she had got, she put me the following questions:
"1.Why would you believe that you're the only one with a dark side bhai?
Because Little Baji, I am the only one who gets affected by my dark side, who has to face it every now and then, and reconcile himself with its presence each time. If others have dark sides, they seldom show it to me, and I rarely ever am at the receiving end of their dark sides. Also because all said and done my dark side will always be the darkest than anyone else's for me.
2. Has marriage changed you much? Or were you always this weird? I'm asking that seriously. Do you feel you are the same person as you were say... ten years ago? From the era of Coori and the last red note?
Has marriage changed me much? It has, if you can call gaining over 40 pounds much. I never thought I was weird, but I have always felt the world is a weird weird place, and that belief stands tall as much after my marriage as it did before the incident. Oh, and I know I am almost bald and all, but really it hasn't been ten years since we got married.
The era of Coori and the last red note was a long time ago, almost ten years now, and I think I have changed a lot since then. I have become wiser in the ways of the world, and am therefore a lot less likeable than I was then. (I am a proud self-proclaimed narcissist, so my belief, and a staunch one at that, that I am likeable should come as no surprise to anyone).
In many ways, however, I have not changed at all, in my ability, for instance, to attract Coorish people as friends - Jalali Baba is a glaring example. The hadeeth stresses that our names have a lot of impact on our lives, thankfully my parents chose me a name that means friend, and in this they ensured that I have always had the bestest of friends around. I asked wifey if she thought I had changed any, and she said I had changed loads, and she did not mean in weight terms, though she could have had. I asked Lala and Mari if they thought I had changed a lot since those days of the last red note, and they said they did not give a damn - then again I had met them in a dream. I asked Fash if he thought I had changed a lot since those days in 1996, and he said I hadn't changed a lot from those days in 1986!!!
Fash oughta know, he is the only one around, apart from my immediate family, who have known me this long. Of course, it helps me not in any way that he thinks that I am, always was, and most probably will continue to be an absolute loser!!!
3. What role does writing poetry play in your life?
You mean apart from getting me thrown out of Mushairas? At times, being under that impression - that I can write poetry has helped me a lot. At others it has costed me dearly. Take, for instance, the case when I filled up sheet after sheet of my Urdu board exams with an essay interspersed with my own "poetry" and ended up scoring almost the lowest ever marks in Urdu. For a long time, I used to trick myself into thinking that the examiner gave me such low marks because from someone who could quote such great verse, he expected a lot better on the other questions.
It was some years before it began to dawn upon me that most people acknowledged as great poets; Ghalib, Iqbal, Faiz and the others had actually written better poetry than me, and that most other people who were not acknowledged as poets at all also did a better job of it than I did. In that way, writing poetry has played a humbling role in my life. In some ways, it has provided me with a vent to get rid of pent-up vocabulary, in rare others it has been my support system, my option of the last resort to discuss matters I could not or would not dare discuss with my peers or parents.
4. What is your favorite poem?
Tough one this. Not because I am very well read, and have trouble choosing a great poem from the so many that I have read, but because I have read hardly any outside the syllabus. One of my top favorites is Allama Iqbal's ''Budhe Baloch Kee Naseehat Baite Ko" which is a fiery advice by a warrior father to his son on the ways of a Muslim warrior in the modern world, as well as a great lesson in patriotism, and one of Ghalib's ghazals "Na tha kuch to Khuda tha, kuch na hota to Khuda hota".
Amongst my own, I like "Pas-e-Iraq" and "Chal Bhaag Chalen" more.
5. Does Jalali Baba know you ate his cookies?"
He suspects, but I have him in doubt. I point to that empty box each time he visits us and tell him that is his share which he can take back this time. Satisfied, he moves on to other more important topics, himself for instance, and I manage to skittle him out the door before he can remember about the cookies. WHEN ARE YOU GUYS COMING HERE??? I can't trick him forever.
I should really get going now. Need to work on those two first drafts for one thing, the second one especially, since it elicited just the one comment...:(
But KK, Yaz and Baji... fret not, the stick is up next! ¶ 4/30/2005 01:55:00 AM
