Life, Laughter and Everything Else

 "An end of an era", as my colleague aptly put it. It surely felt like it. After almost 3 years of memories, the occupants of the tiny office in Hackesher Markt were to be moved to one of the big, gleaming company offices, like chess pieces in the game of capitalism. After 3 years we would all start on our own ways, an eventuality we all knew was coming, just not on such a short notice. At a corporate level, such a move produced all the right words that provided visibility and hopefully a promotion and an office with a view for someone; strategic resource redistribution, cost optimisation etc etc. Though to the ones parting, that little office was one of the few solaces in this rat race. It had offered friends in the place of politically correct colleagues, it had offered juicy gossip, offered an avenue to let out all the frustration around toxic bosses and meaningless tasks, offered song and laughter at the expense of each other and the neighbors next door. It had offered co

  There is this man I see often at the S bahn station. He sits on a wheelchair just near the stairs that lead down the train from the Hackesher Markt s bahn station. At first glance, from the state of his dressing,   you would think he is one of the many beggars on the streets of Berlin, but he is not.  He makes stars.   Sitting there, I usually see him patiently folding paper into multi-sized, multi-coloured and multi-edged paper stars that he then places around himself. If anyone buys them, I don’t know. If he intended to sell them, I don’t know either.   Though it is a sight, in a corner of the station, a man building a tiny universe, star by star, with him at the center of it.

I remember that Friday evening, fresh into my job, my manager unloading a multitude of tasks on me at the last moment while she quietly made her exit. Sitting there raging over my situation, I had came to a conclusion that perhaps Singapore was not the place for me. The country somehow seemed to possess a backwardness in thought that did not sit well with my ethos and I started making plans for my own exit. Almost 5 years later, that Friday would repeat. About to wrap up a rather tiring week, out of the blue, my Manager would assign an 'urgent' task without any justification whatsoever, a task that had me raging as it would have me chasing people I have never met to provide me information as soon as possible though I had little authority over these people, which ranks among my least favourite activities. Though this time I was no longer in Singapore but all the way in Berlin, Germany, a country that I had chosen for its reputation as respecting an employees boundaries. However

I remember pondering about the need for marriage during a certain period of my life. Partially inspired by stoicism, I saw a man as an island in a big ocean, continuously being battered by the waves and storms, but holding fort and growing strong with each test. It was also when the idea of monasticism greatly appealed to me, to leave behind, for the lack of a better work, the bullshit of society and trying to attain enlightenment.  Somehow that idea fell apart after a brief meditation stint in a monastery, but the idea of marriage I resisted. The freedom that came from being single seemed too precious to let go. Furthermore life was complicated as it is. Why complicate it further by introducing another person to that life, someone who would bring her own mannerisms, rules, habits, many that might end up conflicting with your own. However, a lot of these ideas and beliefs start to die when friends of yours each start getting into their own relationships and have no more time for you. I

 She gave me a look of deep displeasure, not very atypical of the look most members of the opposite gender gave me. “You know you can’t do that in Germany?”, she asserted with the same authority my mother used to tell me about not messing around in her kitchen.  “Yes I am aware”, I meekly responded, knowing well that any kind of argument about this would not end well, so it was better to close off the topic quietly and unlike the kitchen, I could not afford to get kicked out of Germany. She was not the first to respond with such hostility to what seemed like the most natural of things in my experience. The last one who told me the same was a teacher I had met at a party. When she sounded shocked that I was ok with it and said it was not right, I (with some alcoholic courage) had retorted, “How would you discipline them then if they do something wrong?” “I would tell them I am very disappointed with them”. I almost laughed. However, that was very much the theory of my new friend to whic