Training and a book or 3

"I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion." - Muhammad Ali

Well I'm not gunning on being a champion anytime soon, but to a training I did go. And since there was no internet access, I actually ended up learning quite a bit!

My office has a mandatory training on its product that most employees must attend. This is the FIRST time EVER a company has actually spent money, time, and resource training me on the product that I am going to work on and for this alone I really respect my company right now. They’ve got to screw up real bad for me to dislike them after this.

So I am in Semei, living @ Bit's with his wife and baby and attending trainings from 9-6 everyday. Product training is, I have to admit, a dull and tedious affair, especially if you have never worked on the product before or on anything similar to it. And it eats up brain cells faster than anything else I know!

So to replenish the grey matter, I got into a routine of devouring 3 Mills & Boons a day. My timing, between 6PM to 9AM the next morning, with enough time for sleep so I can actually learn something in the training. Thanks to Bit’s wife, who is going through a “Mills & Boons” phase as she calls it (and my good luck as I call it) my routine @ their abode runs thus:

Wake up after too little sleep because of having stayed up reading M&B’s. Put the kettle to boil and start a new Mills & Boons. Enter Bit with horror on his face, “Oh God Gugi, this is the limit, please don’t tell me you read this trash first thing in the morning!” I need to explain that Bit is the closest thing I have to an older brother and he takes his 'being the older brother' job seriously.

“One man’s meat Bit, is another man’s poison”, I reply. “There is a time and place for everything”, is his retort. Dredging up some semblence of intelligence from a sleep and M&B numbed brain, I go into attack mode, “Bit, don’t stop someone from reading, reading expands the mind, and gives wing to imagination, don’t try to stifle it.” I can see it in his face that he’s got a good come back taking shape in his brain, when a horrid crashing-cymbals-drums-and all-the-pots-and-pans-in-rathna-yever-silver-store kinda "music" booms across the living room heralding the morning news.

Bit while arguing with me has done what he naturally does every time he enters the living room - turned on the TV. So what could have been an all morning session between Bit and me (if I could have fired up my brain sufficiently) is nipped in the bud by Bit’s “healthy” habit of watching TV incessantly. So he leaves me blissfully alone to keep abreast of the minute-to-minute details of the Indian Hulk Hogan's every step in Ropad and Bhatinda, and to soak up other stale news of last night with a few more “mock” controversies sprinkled on like dhania patta on last week's subzi.

Since the class begins @ 9 and I take the bus, I reluctantly leave my book and rush through getting ready, eating breakfast, and running to the bus stop. Endure brain-numbing education and am home by 6.30, ready to be seduced... by the Mills & Boons hero, hello?

Plop I go on the sofa, with Bit’s wife on the opposite sofa across and we give each other a knowing smile – of comradeship. Of two drunkards, if you must, recognizing each other and sympathizing with each other. A approving and condoning look. We might be in the same room 5 feet away from each other but we are lost in 2 different worlds created by the highly successful publishers, Mills & Boons.

Morning book completed, I come up for a quick breath and quickly drown again in another M&B. This harmonic peace continues till it is shattered by Bit’s return from office. Guiltily I jump up and start talking rapid fire to him (lest he complain that my reading makes me unsocial). He’s not fooled. His soliloquies (on the evils of M&B’s and the degeneration of our bodies and minds in reading them incessantly, while sleeping on a couch) would put Macbeth to shame. We are not listening.

So we sit to watch TV with him. Oh so healthy I remark and suggest that he take up reading M&B's, he does not dignify my suggestion with an answer. Thankfully in approximately 10 seconds he is no longer aware of our presence. I do not lose the chance to immerse myself again into my book. So while he’s watching TV and the baby running around playing, I manage to finish the 2nd book of the day.

Dinner time and thanks to Bit’s wife’s cooking everyone is a little too full to do anything but vegetate. Am clock watching, I need to yawn and head to bed @ a decent time. Too early and Bit’s will worry me to death about running away and ignoring family to read books. Too late and I’ll barely get any sleep. So as the clock strikes 10 and Bit’s involved in yettanother IPL match, I bid my adieus for the night and the 3rd book begins!

Happy endings!