The Waiting Game

It is strange - I have spent most of my life waiting. I don't know about others, is this normal?

I don't remember since which year in school - I have waited for the holidays, I have waited for the holidays to get over and waited for another year to start. 

I have waited to get into a college. I have waited for the college exams and then waited for the results. I have waited to get an internship and waited to get a job. 

People say the best time of their lives is when they were in school and college, but I think my days have never been there. I don't remember going through a day without waiting for something. My student memories are not made up of sweet memories (in most part) but of endlessly waiting for the next event!

College over, job started -> Waiting for post graduation, waiting for admission exams, waiting for results, waiting for the scholarship, waiting for the visa. All this wait - in hindsight, must have definitely made me cranky and unpleasant to hang out with. Because I was never there - never in present with the people around me physically.  I must stick out with my wait of the 'future'. I am always waiting for things to change which stops me from enjoying what is there now. 

Post graduation - Yes it was an achievement, yes I allowed myself a bit of jubilation. And yes, it was all about post graduation for those 10 months of my life - but it was as if I am on a mission to moon - precise, practical and prudent every minute of those 10 months - not making memories out of my 'foreign' education! (Add to it the added pressure of getting married!!) Now, when I look back, or look at my batch mates I feel like I missed a trick. There has to be a middle ground where you can have fun and not compromise on the mission.

We are married, in stable jobs, living in pleasant cosy places - still I am restless, I am seeking the unreachable 'better tomorrow'! Part of me thinks (even in this reflective mode) that my want/wait is justified. It is not easy to simply ignore the wrongs and keep focusing on the rights. We try that, and have spent nearly 2 years doing so. It doesn't change anything, apart from 'getting used to'. I don't want do it anymore. I want to set the wrongs right, I want to have the missing pieces complete and I want to start enjoying the normal now - Now!!!

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas is my first Kindle book. 

So before I write about the book, a bit about the experience. Over last couple of months there has been a lot of travel in my work. Thanks to dear S I had Kindle to give me company :) Though while travelling, I rarely get a chance to read, I asked S for a book to have a fall back (nothing more boring than having to travel alone without a book!). 

The reason it was Cloud Atlas was because when waiting for our flight from Rome, I noticed the couple ahead of us in the queue reading Cloud Atlas (husband) and Capital (wife). It connected to some vague memory in my brain reminding me that I had once thought of reading this book. One of the first Amazon reviews I read for the book said not too read too much about the book before reading it & enjoy the stories as they unfold. So I took the advice and didn't research any further.

The book was loaded on Kindle and lay there unread for quite a few weeks. Then on one of those trains back home where I was alone, I started reading it. The first few pages I admit, I read rather mechanically - just for the sake of reading. But then as a couple of characters began to emerge, I got used to reading the book. 

The book is written across different time periods in history & future of human kind. It may throw you off for sometime and may seem a bit all over the place.  However, there is something unique in each part of the books which keeps you glued on to discover more. I wonder if each of the 6 stories have actually got potential to be expanded into books in their own right!!

Confession - the links between various stories are not abundantly evident (or at least to me). A couple of stories actually refer characters by name and it is clear that you have read about this person in another part of the book but what is their role is still difficult to gauge. Only when I completed reading the book I did some Internet search on it - I wanted to know what had I missed. Reading some of the reviews made the hints clearer. 

Now that I have read the book and have read its reviews the least I can say is Cloud Atlas is a challenging book. It expects its readers to pay attention to the details and then sweat themselves out in figuring the connections! It is not a casual read which would make sense even if you skip pages or read half asleep. Every line could be as critical as next!

So may be it was a wrong choice for travel/part time reading but then I don't know when would I ever pick up a book to play the tiring game of 'so what did he mean by that...' with the author!