The Unplucked Rose

Julia Owens was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

He wasn’t sure when he entirely fell in love with her – whether it was when she first moved in or when she started tending the roses.

The roses. They were the favorite part of his, besides Julia. The red, white, peach, pink, and yellow to his otherwise black and white existence. He loved the fragrance that followed him and the way the pollen dust covered his clothes all the time.

She moved in on the twentieth of April, exactly five months after his wife’s death. They had never talked, never maintained eye contact, but he watched her every day. She moved with an ethereal grace and had a smile that could put a thousand suns to shame.

He was in love, there was no doubt. But he couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t even be in her presence.
He didn’t think she knew that he existed until he found a yellow rose on the top stair of his porch. His wife’s favorite color was yellow. He didn’t leave anything in place of it, everything seemed too frivolous and she deserved only the best.

The days flew past and every once in a while, there’d be a yellow rose waiting for him on the porch. He always remembered to look out for it, in case he stepped on it. The stutter of his heart when he saw the rose was worth the disappointment on the rose-less days. He had to leave something. He remembered his wife reading word-of-the-day in the newspaper, so he began writing it down on a piece of paper and replacing it with the rose.

He loved her and he didn’t tell her.

It was on the third of December that he found a note beside the yellow rose. ‘Happy Birthday,’ it said. Sweet and simple; just like her. He had forgotten his birthday. The missed call from his mother was a daily occurrence and he scrapped up the two missed calls from his dad as a mistake on his dad’s part.
He wasn’t the only one who had forgotten, it seemed. His entire office had forgotten. There were no cakes, no candles and certainly no streamers. He wasn’t sure if it would feel better if they had remembered.

A year after her moving in and he still didn’t tell her. He had entertained the idea that she was the rebound after her wife, but certainly feelings for your rebound didn’t last a year. He should tell her, he knew, but he couldn’t.

Nonetheless, he observed her move around the garden. Petunias had taken the place of the roses and they were just as beautiful. He had been allergic to pollen dust for years and his wife had never kept flowers but it seemed that he wasn’t allergic anymore (“I’d have a huge garden if you weren’t allergic,” she’d say fondly). He didn’t know what he would do if he was still allergic. He would probably never tell Julia. He couldn’t even tell her he loved her. Though, objectively, love certainly ranked higher than the knowledge of allergies.

He tried catching her eye, one brave day. She didn’t look up from the shrub, instead she hummed along. He had heard the haunting tune before but he couldn’t place it. It was only as he settled to sleep that he remembered which song it was. ‘You’re My Sunshine’. It had played at his wedding.
Thirteen days later, he realized that he had never seen her talking to anyone on the block. Granted, he never talked either but it was odd that her sunny personality hadn’t caught anyone else’s eye. It had been his wife’s gregarious nature that still garnered the sympathetic looks from the neighbors. He sighed every time he found an errant note tucked within his newspaper. They didn’t feel the same as the yellow flowers. He was in love with her, though, and love warped things.

Another fifteen days and he wondered why loving her didn’t feel like a betrayal to his wife. He knew why. Somewhere inside, he knew why but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Most days he was so close to the answer but it flew past him just as he reached for it. A year and a half after his wife’s death and he prayed to her for help. She always came through.

He soon forgot his predicament, settling down to coveting Julia from a distance. Julia. Each syllable was precious; like her smile, like the crinkle of her eyes. She didn’t look like she had aged a day. He sighed, fogging up the window. She was like an angel. If he looked hard enough, he would see her wings. Maybe that was his answer. Maybe she was sent for him; to take care of him. It didn’t feel like the correct answer. It felt as though he was staring right at the correct answer but couldn’t make it out.

The world seemed better with a lone yellow flower – always different nowadays – in the vase in his hallway. He should tell her. It had been long enough.

It was three years after his wife’s death, and he finally found the courage in the crevices of his aged body. He stood right in front of her, as she tended to the flowers. It was as though, they spoke to her; following her as she moved, blooming fuller as she smiled. He found a smile creeping on his face. It was almost painful how beautiful and pure she was.

“Hi… I-uh. Hi!” he started, clearing his throat.

She didn’t even move, just continued to care for her plants.

“Hello?” he tried again. “Julia?” She never looked up.

She grinned brightly at a purple azalea. It seemed as if the flower responded by gazing back.
“Julia?”

No response.

He frowned. Was she ignoring him or was she deaf?

The second he stood in front of her, right in her line of view that he understood something. The grand answer.

Strange women didn’t plant flowers in your garden; they didn’t leave flowers for you. They didn’t know your birthday and undoubtedly, pollen allergies didn’t cure themselves.  Strange women didn’t just appear one day. The entire apparition unraveled. All the flowers, the smiles, the days, the seconds, the minutes, the years. All lost.

It was like a dream. He was here but he didn’t know how he had gotten here. He couldn’t remember where she lived; couldn’t remember why she started planting roses in his garden. He couldn’t remember which house was even empty on his block. He didn’t know who had told him her name. When he started looking, he couldn’t stop seeing the blue eyes of his wife, the blonde hair, and the crinkles around her eyes. How hadn’t he noticed that she was the spitting image of his wife…

She finally looked up, her smile soft and loving.

He couldn’t tell her he loved her because she didn’t exist.

                                                                                                    ~~~ Gargi Verma

                                                                                                              IIM Bangalore

Guest Writer

2 Pinoy Months

Internship – we had been hearing this word in its various forms, from various sources – friends, PGP2s, Professors, parents for over a year. Coming into IIM Bangalore as a Fresher, I did not quite realise how it would be a life-changing experience, till it actually began.

Beginning with a gruelling placement week, interviews, group discussions, resume submissions and a mix of black and white attire, Term 3, now in hindsight was the calm before the storm. I had been able to get into my dream company and a dream role for the summer internship with P&G, Brand management, but little did I know that the uncertain and unknown would go more profound with time. I was given Manila, Philippines as the base location, a country I had never visited but had friends in. As the date for joining came closer, I received my project.

It started with a new country, continued with a new brand and new product category – Fabric Conditioners, which does not quite exist in India, a new culture – with a French guide, Filipino Sponsor and an Indian manager, at a new and my first ever real job as a fresher. Moving to a new country for 2 months, I was determined to have an experience that would give me time to think and introspect about everything I ignore in the daily bustle of life at IIMB.

As a company, P&G made sure that we were well taken care of. The first day in the office, I do not know what took over me. Probably the corporate environment or meeting people who would decide the course of my career – the stakeholders for my project or maybe just the fact that everything and everyone were new. The whole day, I was so overwhelmed with everything that I did not know whom to reach out to for asking where do we get water from. As funny as this might sound, it is a little difficult to gel with people you do not know and barely connect with, despite the amazing support system. This is all really in your head!

As I began working on the project I realised that Brand Management is like doing multiple jobs at once. From coordinating with Sales (P&G being one of the only FMCGs who have Sales as a separate department), understanding the consumer insights from CMK, analysing the TV commercials from the Media team and learning 3-4 software programs together from the IT team, every day was jam packed with absorbing all the information that came my way. From nature of the consumer to pricing, sales channels and market, everything was new and I had to learn them from scratch.

Apart from work, I realised that relationships are what you take with you wherever you go. I had never imagined that friends whom I met in a 5-day conference in another country, would become my support system in times as crucial as the internship. They made sure they tell me about those unheard, native Filipino experiences I should not miss. From trying out the flying trapeze, to street shopping, Filipino food to snorkelling when I cannot even swim, the internship was an experience to get over the fear. The fear of a new job and corporate life, fear of heights, fear of water and fear of uncertainty. Snorkelling in the ocean was one time I realised that there is very little that we can do as humans. The place where you cant even see the base of the ocean, the current so strong that it can sweep you away and you cannot swim. That is when you realise that we try too hard to do things which are beyond our control. That day on, each moment I live in control has become so important and the fear of losing control has been fading away.

With this internship, I learnt how it was to be responsible for everything on your own. Despite having an 11-12 hour work day, if you get lazy when you get back home, you neither get dinner that day nor lunch the next day because you need to get all the groceries and cook each meal for 2 months, each day. The internship helped me explore a new country and their culture, new lifestyle, new cuisines – Japanese, Taiwanese, Filipino, Greek and Chinese and a new side to myself. My sense of achievement came in only at the end, when my guide said that I delivered strongly at the end despite all the variables of food, currency, language, culture and nature of work. These 2 Pinoy months have taught me so much more than I imagined and has given me such amazing people for life. As they rightly say, its always more fun in the Philippines.

Finally, #procterized.

I am a woman. Whom do I blame?

I am sure as you read the title of this blog you are wondering- "oh! Another 'help me I am a woman', or 'sympathize with me' or 'feminism is in my blood' kind" article is here. Let me tell you, this is not. 

Today, I pose an important question to your grey matter. The question that has been haunting me for days nay months and years. The question, I have found no answers to, yet. 

I want to ask you, today. You wake up to a news of harassment on any given day. Your reaction is subjective. Either "oh another one" or "when will all this stop". But I have a deeper question.

As a woman, every day I face inequality and no, this is not a "please sympathize with me" story. It’s a fact. I am told not to go out late night, not to go out alone, not to travel in trains alone, not to go out in the dark, not to dress a particular way, not to raise my voice against a reckless driver on the road, not to take an Uber alone, and believe me this isn’t even half of what all I am told not to do. But whom do I blame for this? And this is the question I pose to you. If I, or any other woman today is facing a suffocating set of don’ts, she is being punished. If she is being punished it has to be for someone's mistake, because obviously that's how Karma (or whatever synonymous jargon you give it say balance of energy) works.

 

So whom does she blame? The mother who gives her this list of don’ts because the mother spends sleepless nights when the daughter is in another city? Or the father who has, at any point in his life, heard how cheaply a few men/boys look at women indulging in any of the above don’ts? Or the society, who despite years of evolution and civilization has not been able to humanize its entities completely? Or those parents who unknowingly failed in rearing humane kids? Or those animals who have zero control on their hedonism despite education and a sane human mind?

I don’t know whom do you blame. I don’t know whose mistake it is. I know I have fought with my parents for no fault of theirs but concern of my well-being. I know I have consciously debarred myself of certain wishes for the sake of being safe. 

But, I, and every woman, need an answer. I am a woman. Tell me, whom do I blame?
                                                                                                                                               ~~ Palak Marwah

The Future of Politics

Future of politics seems to lie in the dirty game of identity-politics, through world leaders effectively sensationalizing that it is a zero sum game where their own country will win only if all other countries lose, pitching one against other. The rise of ethnic nationalism will be an easy cause to blame for all what goes wrong in the country, fueled by promising greater development of inhabitants over immigrants over current woes of people across the world making nations more homogeneous. Gaining a political stranglehold will hence be easier, functioning on the Shakespearean principle – a mob has a heart not a mind, defeating the efforts in democracy and globalization.

The onset of globalization in the world was a welcome change, where countries began to see themselves as inhabitants of a global village, sharing and transferring more than just goods. Opening up borders however unveiled inequality of benefit distribution. Countries, once forerunners of globalization, developed resentment as they saw themselves to be superior to other countries and felt they were being discriminated against in the distribution of development, receiving a smaller share of the pie due to rise in number of stakeholders - the immigrants. The feeling of age old nationalism which had led to pre-globalization wars, saw new light and a few countries, driven by power hungry leaders, headed towards protectionism, anti-globalization and from collectivism to individualism spectrum of the Hofstede model of global culture - reversing what we, as a world, achieved so far.

Taking cues from the present, Trump won by majority, promising to make America great again, banning Muslim immigration and building a wall on Mexico border, communicating that all problems faced by Americans are due to immigrants, Brexit covers the hidden agenda of safeguarding national interests, ISIS based its growth on safeguarding members of their race and in China, Xi Jinping established that providing legal advantage to people with Chinese ancestry has helped the Chinese economy and multiple such events in Turkey, Egypt etc.

Taking cues from the impending danger, Marine Pen in could be French president based on her Frexit promise, safeguarding interests of original French, in India Modi led BJP government is showing signs of religion-based politics with appointing a saffron clad Hindu fanatic as CM of a state which has a considerable Muslim population and was able to get out of caste based politics and nepotism after decades.

Identity-politics is the scary future unless we, the shapers of global agenda, choose cosmopolity over extremism. 

~~ Palak Marwah, Sourabh Kishanpuria

For the first time, I have co-authored a blog post with a friend with a crisp 400 word limit. I would like to introduce my friend Sourabh - a current affairs' enthusiast, a national rank holder CA, CFA Level 3 and a Finance demi-god just begins to define him. It was wonderful co-authoring an article with someone so bright and aware of what all is happening around the world. Cheers to the first co-authored article on my blog, looking forward to more such articles! ☺