Oxymoron - Short Story

Oxymoron- A short story

Vishy was a middle management level Executive in a reputed firm. His boss was rich but a bit of a dullard -a combination -which could drive any sane man crazy.  The more frustrating part for Vishy besides this already formidable combination was the fact that he was not only a very popular man in society, but the powers that be in the company held him in high esteem for his depth of knowledge!!  

The only saving grace for Vishy was that the boss was old, and was due for retirement within a few years and he was determined that he will not only grin and bear it all, but try and please him by flattery which seemed  to work quite well. Vishy felt that ironically the boss being an imbecile made his task easy.  

It was one of those days in office which was particularly bad. To suggest improvements once Vishy’s output was presented to him was one of the boss’s inspired ideas, to make an impression on the latter. This day the task was simple; a brief inconsequential letter was to go to a client and Vishy could easily handle it. The boss however made a huge song and dance about how generous he was to let Vishy handle it. But of course it still needed a formal okay from him!!.

Vishy’s heart sank. He was sure there would be mayhem; his boss would find almost everything requiring a change and his draft would look like a tsunami hit corrections in red. Well it was to be done with, and there he was in the boss’s cabin. He was not disappointed. The very first line “ this has reference to….Etc” was changed to “we refer to…” and by the time the boss was finished with similar inane corrections two paragraphs later, Vishy wished that he could just walk out and tell the old man to drown in the nearby pool.

But worse was to follow; the old man offered justifications for the amendments, and as if this was not enough, there was a call from headquarters telling him something about another similar omission by Vishy. It is best to draw curtains over what followed as Vishy was reduced to a shriveling wretch. Vishy did however manage to end this episode with a few words of flattery as to how grateful he was for having such a caring boss etc, and the old man actually beamed with pride!!   

As he was pouring out to his colleagues later, he remembered an incident some years ago which he thought would bolster up his point about his boss’s low IQ. He decided therefore that, this was a nice time to recollect this as he needed some prop-ups for his badly bruised ego besides some counter to his growing angst.

Those were early days of e-mailing etc and the boss knew very little about how to operate them except to go ballistic about how progressive his company was in terms of adapting to new technologies etc. The term “Computer virus” was therefore an absolute googly. He imagined that this was a kind of virus which affects men when exposed to a computer screen for long durations!!.

When he asked Vishy as to the probability of this befalling someone, the latter was happy to see a chance to derive some satisfaction by taking a dig at his boss. In all seriousness Vishy told him that with radiation from the computer screen, such a thing can indeed be more than that, namely it was very much in the realm of the “possible”.

He also went on to bemoan the fact that Science and technology do not adequately take care of potential dangers to health; innovative evolution with an eye on profits being the sole motivating factors. The boss -slightly old fashioned- was just thrilled and agreed thoroughly giving Vishy some of those rare moments of “sukhoon”. .  

While the guffaws that followed the narration helped easing some of the miseries of the day, the pent up frustrations of the day however re-surfaced by the time he reached home.  At home, he saw his boy of over 15 sitting in front of the laptop, reading messages from that most trivially profound sites -the face book!!

He was replying to someone’s message which simply read “yippeeee, in India gate, wish for pakoras”.

He posted his reply thus: “Hi dude! Wonderful way you described ur mood!! Envy you LOL!!!!”  

Vishy also noticed that about 25,345 persons had liked this profound “reflection of mood” kind of a great message. In office he could not cope up with his old fashioned buffoon of a boss, and home he had to reckon the modern day cool headed son who was in the company of a million faithful followers of a medium thru which inane messages are exchanged as informed and serious debates. 

He was simply unprepared for either of the two generations and by now every logic/reason took to flights and he was in a mad rage. He wanted to take an AK-47, shoot down everyone in sight including himself so that there is some peace and rest to the erupting volcano in his mind. He could by now almost empathize with that romantic bull that that terrorists are also human beings……   

He had an early insipid dinner and hit the bed soon thereafter and slept off immediately, drained as he was with his emotions. He woke up suddenly around 3 in the morning and was unable to get any more sleep. As he mulled over the previous day’s events, out of the blue a strange word in the English language flashed in his mind….. “oxymoron”. 

The word oxy denotes something sharp, and moron needs no elaboration, and together the word represents a figure of speech with apparent contradictions; like a cheerful pessimist or the earlier used trivially profound, legitimately illegitimate or a non-violent terrorist, etc.

The word somehow appeared to him as epitomizing his entire life and began to fantasize… He remembered that his birth was unusually-usual, (he was born with his feet coming out first), His music was divinely –out of context, had a penchant for serious humor, his views profoundly maverick, his arguments illogically logical, and he loved to be leisurely brisk. He found that he was enjoying this fantasy and slowly the earlier day’s mood started to wear off.

He pursued further; his life – without any shade of doubt – had been marked with a series of disappointments. Going by providential design which uncannily denied him every conceivable reasonably well-meaning desire, his life can only be summed up in a simple oxymoron – successful failure. In sync with the pattern of mood-spoilers throughout his life, this happy mood was also soon broken, by some counter thoughts.  

Like a screen villain who takes pride in capturing the hero’s dear ones, it is perhaps a providential design that one is almost invariably never single; either there is a family, or there is a society both of which can be held as hostages. The texts loudly proclaim that attachment is a serious handicap; and His game being illusively real, it is impossible to escape either filial or societal bondage without appearing cruel. Mercifully he fell asleep again without any further morbid thoughts totally ruining the mood.

He got up late, the next day and decided to skip office and do a bit of meditation and prayers to rid him of the unease. Thankfully he was able to do justice to both these and after a good meal was in a more relaxed mood to dwell on possible counters to those unsavory thoughts of the previous night.

Among the various theories that came to his mind, one that impressed him was this:

“Every attachment, be it filial, or societal, is traceable to “experience” as the root cause. That one is family or another one is part of society and to both of whom I have a responsibility kind of mindset is borne out of a desire to experience. The moment this ceases, emotions disappear; there is neither anger, nor disappointment, neither hate nor love, neither pain nor pleasure, the self just merges unto Him and that stage is beyond one’s capacity to either  fathom, or understand or describe.

Thus the only paropakaaram in the true sense of the word is helping one -self to transcend from all attachments and merge unto Him in realization. The word “para” means superior, elevating, transcendental etc, and goes far beyond the ordinary meaning of helping others”  

Though elevating, these thoughts however were far from being adequate to solve his immediate problems. To ease his mind he thought of a couple of more oxymorons; unfathomable realization (the ultimate truth) and he himself being the best specimen of an oxymoron namely the sharpest Idiot to imagine he can try and unravel life’s mysteries.

His disappointments having honed himself so adequately well, he was quick to come down to the terra-firma and ready to face the unreal-realities of the gross manifestation of the supreme spirit namely the real material world, oxymoron, notwithstanding. 

But as though to test his resolve, the first thing in the morning the next day, his boss rang him up just to fire him for some omission some time back, and to say that the boss – the CEO- was in town and would like to talk about the same subject, slyly warning him that he can expect no protection from him when the CEO asked questions. 

To add to that was his wife’s whining about some missing groceries, and a hand towel not in the right place, and the electricity going off making hot water availability for a comfortable bath that much more difficult.

Can all these manifest realities be unreal was his immediate thought.  To borrow FB phrase LOL ( Laugh out loud)  

(Hope folks you will bear with this inspired story!!)   

Vichu