Skip to main content

The best good person

I was never the smartest girl, prettiest or the most outgoing girl. A lot of people call that self esteem issues, I just think that those are the facts and all my life I've always tried to remove any negative or positive connotations from those words.

Not the tallest doesn't mean you're the shortest, and even if it did, why does that make a difference?

Let's try another one: Not the most attractive, doesn't mean, you're the ugliest, and if if did, is that you're opinion or someone elses? Is it coming from a loved one who's angry or a random stranger on the road? And if a loved one, is that loved on referring to your physical attrtibutes or your character attributes...and so on

I love that my thoughts have been shaped this way, I love being able to punch in some logic to a spiralling state of mind to find a way to still balance and continue with life, stressing on my need to always be a good person, no matter what and let myself be the only one to judge me. So when I flew to Australia, for a work trip, I took this idea with me.

****************************

First things first, was the airport staff. Big Aussie smiles and the blasted heat of the Adelaide summer. No serious, it was so hot, you could see the heat waves emanating from the hard black tarred surface of the road. Bright, clean skies, with fluffy clouds... arid ground, green/brown trees fencing off the road and neat cottage houses, all almost all equipped with sprinklers. The silence of the place, in mid afternoon heat was an almost unbearable contrast to the cancophony of traffic noises that would other wise form a street orchestra in India.

But I kept in mind, that I was there on work, and I had a job to do, come the heat or the rain. I have to admit though, during that short ride to the hotel, I wondered where all the kangaroos were.

*********************

Work the next day, I had a session to do. Ahh.. the joy of having a jet lag, waking up to a 34C heat morning (and this was at 7), the first day passed in a blur of introductions, sitting in a session sweating the fact that the next day I'd have to do it myself with a foreign crowd. That sweat did not stop during the greek lunch we had or the malaysian dinner we had. I kept playing bits of the session in my head.. health and safety section, the new induction session.. and with these thoughts running through my head, it was sleep that came before confidence.

***************

Apparently it was the next morning and the sweat still did not stop. With a wet collar, increasingly sticky pants I walked aroudn the training room, trying to hold it together. I urged myself to remember to breath, remember to talk and more importantly, remember to smile.. not too much like a clown, but not too little like s strict little miss from India.

"Well, then we're now read..read.. read... " what came after? What did? I couln't for the life of me remember what came after. Visually I bought myself some time by swallowing a big gulp of water. Internally, I could swear I was going to black out, get fired, shipped back and re fired again.. In a flash of panic I imagined my whole life unravel..

It was then, at the back I found Jane. Big smile, hard nods and unrelenting gaze that told me, out of the faces in the room that didn't care, were curious, wanted a break or just wanted to get done and over with the training sessions, I knew there was a friendly face. There was support.

Mid session break. "Julie, do I sound nervous?"
"Ahh.. that's ok, you only just got here yesterday didn't yea"
"Well, as long as you've got good things to say about the session, it won't matter when I came" I added cheekily.

And with that, Jane walked me through the rest of the 2 weeks. I wouldn't call it hand holding, I would call it extensive support. And I made it, to have Jane drive me to the airport. She didn't look too happy, or too sad. I, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck yet again. This time, to leave, knowing I;d done a good job, praying nothing would rain on my parade.

***************************

Months later the project ended, and I found some time to breathe. I was cleaning out my e-mails, and found one from Jane saying good bye to all who'd she'd known for the 7 years she worked with the organisation.

Where did she go, I wondered. Got my answer a few weeks later, when the boss rolled in and the boss read the feedback she'd given. Turns out, I was trained as a replacement for her when she leaves. Except, she was told she'd have to go, because the company couldn't afford her anymore.

***************

Then I realized, that there's no such thing as the best good person.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Celebrations

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 16 ; the sixteenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton . It was a hard ground that felt like sand paper. When he started his journey, it was the soles of his feet that were in contact with the ground, but now as he pulled himself closer to the station, it was his whole body. His elbows were scraped, bloody and fresh scab peeled bled out to leave a trail of red on the wicked hot dusty ground of pain and suffering. All around him slow moving bodies crawled towards the direction of hope, all along leaving patterns of blood, sweat, skin and pus. These bodies had seen civil wars, droughts, genocide and lived to tell a tale of a people who now belonged to a nation listed as one of the poorest countries in the world. This is now, but before the list, was a struggle of massive proportions, under reported and quietly hidden

Escape

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 10 ; the tenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton . The Temple Widow A narrow dirt path, generously peppered with tiny pebbles, tiny miniatures of their gargantuan ancestors, leads to a bridge. It hangs, rickety and old. Old but not well used, old like abandoned and not frequently used. The bridge hangs low over a small stream that slowly gurgles past, happy unlike those that visit the place. The bridge leads to a temple. It is not very big, only perhaps the size of a small hut and at the most the size of an average temple hall. The temple has no deity; the temple has no one corner that doesn’t look like the other. It is clean, well swept, and empty. It has no furniture, and excepting a series of well spaced out windows, the walls remains uninterrupted. She stumbles in, the lady. She is not very tal

Time Travel

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 8 ; the eighth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton . I haven't got the memory of a vedic tantric. Neither do I ever claim to remember all. All I know is what I know, question my memory if you want to. I don't ask you to remember, I don't ask you to believe. In fact, I'm not asking you for anything at all. It is your choice to be here, to read this. So no, I don't owe you a favor. I happened to chance upon a watch, on one of my travels. Turning the dials of such a watch, could transport you to the past, to the future, to any time. But time, my friend, is not how you think it is. It is not a straight line, and you cannot just by chance hop into the world of dinosaurs and wooden weapons. It is a series of transparencies, like films of clean sheets of paper laid on top of each other. You look from above