Today was my last OYD meeting in person and my wonderful team had got a really nice cake for me to cut ! First the meeting started a few minutes late as there were several trainings, a career fest and interviews happening around the same time. So we had much fewer people as well. Our regular master of ceremonies was in action in the Chennai office and the stand-in Emcee kept sneezing and coughing 🙂 finally we did start the meeting and when the quorum was reached, we interrupted the flow to let me cut the cake. I did that and picked up a slice of orange and a slice of apple (the fruit, not cake) to eat… Little knowing that’s all that will be eaten.
Then we went back to the meeting and about 30 mins later as my dear friend Lakshmi Jr moved his chair back to let Pooja come forward to speak, we heard a loud sound and turned around to see the awesome cake toppled over and face down on the carpet ! Chance reminder that the calories would have done us no good anyway. Lakshmi felt bad, everyone felt bad, but I couldn’t stop laughing – all farewells have something like this happening, making them easy to remember. Just as in Shilpi’s farewell, today’s emcee forgot to book the table at the restaurant for lunch – Shilpi will remember all the good things we said about her, but she will never forget the lunch that was to happen in one restaurant, but happened in another. Just as I will remember the special cake on the carpet as much as all the nice things everyone had to say.
Well the day didn’t just end on that humorous note, just an hour back, we realised that the gas cylinder died out at home – it’s normal, and its after nearly 90 days but the fun thing is only yesterday we gave our spare filled cylinder to our friend Seema 🙂 and my dear mom had just started to make a dosa ….. Ok the last hour has been spent figuring out different ways of dealing with this situation and my mom has been convinced that I will make tea in the morning in the microwave !! That was the only worry she had, not the food.
Things like these are special – they play the role that light plays in photography, of accentuating memories. Enjoy them and use them to hang your special memories on – all the inconveniences are life’s nails …. You can drive them through your heart or through the wall, bleed unnecessarily or hang happy memories 🙂