making 6 - part III

And then the next day ..... oh well, that's a story for another day ....

Today's another day and so the story continues.

Now that the dust has settled on the chaos in my life the past month, I can enlighten you all. There shouldn't be a part III to my story. Some stories have a twist, some don't. Fortunately or unfortunately, this one does.

So the next day, I get to work and I was laid off. Yep, laid off! Seinfeld has a theory about breaking up : "You should just do it like a Band-Aid. One motion! Right off!" And that's pretty much how they chose to break up with my colleagues and me. I was out of the place in an hour. This includes clearing my desk and stuffing all my so-called valuables in a plastic bag. You know how you find junk while packing when you have to move to a new place. It felt the same. I found so much junk and I only worked there for a year. Imagine the number of bags I would need if I had gotten laid off after 10 years or something! So in principle, all I lost was some storage space ... In principle, I've also lost my head a little ... But that's not the reason I didn't have a job then - I was laid off. It's like a UFO - no one can explain the science of it, it just is. UFO's are real because! I was laid off because! .....

On the way back home, it was snowing, the first snow of the winter ahead. It wasn't snow actually, it was like little, solid dots of ice, just pelting down - very odd. This could be a very long winter ....

I didn't know how to react to it all. I certainly didn't see it coming, it was a surprise. Despite that, I was pretty cool about it, unlike some of my other colleagues who were also let go. I'm good at being calm. I pride myself for it. I remember, a few months back, my friend Deepti was visiting the US and she forgot her passport at a Dunkin Donuts. She realized a couple of hours after and she freaked out. I guess, rightly so. I mean, who am I to say you can't freak out if you misplaced your passport. Just because I wouldn't doesn't mean you can't. So my other friend Saurabh, who in normal circumstances can make anybody laugh, gets all serious and starts reassuring her that we'll find the passport. I, on the other hand, want to turn up the volume on the car radio because I like the song (I think we were listening to Dodgy - http://music.yahoo.com/track/44754047). Oddly enough, it pisses them off. But it's all forgotten because we did find the passport. Why wouldn't we??!! The Dunkin Donut employee was kind enough to keep the passport she found lying around. Who wouldn't do that?!! I would!

Anyways, this feeling of getting laid off is one of those that sinks in real slowly. Little by little, day by day, you grow into this idleness of unemployemnt. I've been through this before actually. Not the lay-off, the unemployment. I didn't feel an iota of shame then. So why now? In times of idleness, one does a lot of thinking. One must. It struck me that I could actually make a profit out of this lay-off. If I found a job quick enough, say in a month, I'd actually have more money than while being employed. Amazing innit? See? This is what idleness does to a man. So I thought what the hell - let's be positive! And as luck would have it, I do have another job now.

This is supposed to be part III of making 6, my first short film. I couldn't quite stop thinking about the irony of it all. The day after I submit my short film I get laid off from my job. Is this a sign? It's like I was waiting in line at Mcdonald's and someone pulled me out of the queue and said "sorry, you can't be doing this." Somebody tell me it's a sign!

I had all the time in the world to follow the reactions to my first short film. Refreshing the page every minute of my waking hours, I'm waiting for the next comment. But alas - there aren't any comments. Nothing good, nothing bad, nothing. It wasn't like it was trashed. It just didn't seem to get any reactions, which was a little disappointing. One guy found it "wacky but underdeveloped", with which I agree. My friends liked it - what are friends for anyways? Well, it's not like the end of the world. It never is.