Am I an orthodox? Yeah I am. I mean very much to the best of my ability that I can say I am one if that’s what you call for people like me. If one of my friends, who is a girl, turns out dressed half naked then I would certainly turn around and say that you are exposing, not when she really wants to do it. If that makes people think that I am orthodox then I can proudly say that I am one. Even then there are few doubts which revolve around my mind sometimes or the other. I am trying to figure out an answer myself during the course of this post.

I have been thinking about this whole paradox right from the time I stepped into something called as a workplace. Since before that I never had a platform to experience a different situation ever before in my life, thanks to cricket. I worked for one of the biggest companies in India in fact you could say, of the world. It employed the most number of people for the last financial year in India. All I worked there is for few months but I can say I met almost thousand people in this three months time I was with Accenture. My workplace was the biggest of its kind’s in Bangalore employing about more than six & half thousand people. So wherever I went there were people, people, people & more people. People from different class of communities, societies, people from various races, religions and backgrounds-few technology, few commerce like me & few who still have to figure out their own backgrounds. This whole question of ‘am I an orthodox’, comes into picture only when you start comparing yourself to people around you. Why do we do this? Society is the answer. We kind of start thinking about what the hell will the guy who works with us start thinking about us if suppose we didn’t have a girlfriend or get drunk in a pub every weekend or maybe roam the city of Bangalore in an awesome ultra cool bike. Who the hell cares that which nobody realizes, all they think about is the way people around them think.

Before I can comment on anything I should give you a small insight into my background in terms of society. What’s a society? A group of people having a similar kind of ideologies, finances-may be, interests, etc in life. Who forms it? No one knows; it just gets formed of its own. I belong to a typical middle class Tamil iyer family. I am not biased about the religion that I follow, but I am certainly biased just a little with the kinds of people I move with. I still belong to a section of society where pani puris are preferred to pizzas. I am lucky enough that my parents don’t raise their eyebrows when I talk with a chick on phone & meet some chick on the road. But they are still worried about me getting drunk or getting into a relationship at this point of time in my life when there are other important things to commit myself to. Thought I can still say that my morals, ethics & values are in order as to the way I want it to be, there seems to be this itchiness that seems to be on with something or the other wherever I may roam. Again these morals, ethics & values differ from person to person; I am merely talking about mine.

Most of the time I tend to feel it’s this complex paranoia inside few people who are too keen in thinking about the outer circle of theirs, commonly get into this kind of trouble. These dudes & chicks prefer doing things just because some one else feels it’s cool. Most of the times I get told off when I don’t get into these silly gimmicks but thankfully I somehow know my routes & where-bout’s to avoid most of these. May be people I met in this recent trip to madras made me realise something different & good about my own community I should say. The “Filter kappi” and “Thayir sadham” has its own exquisiteness compared to hamburger and hotdog to me. “Tamil music” & “Dappanguci” has more magnificence than rock & roll to me, which doesnt mean that I dont't appreciate Nirvana & Iron Maiden. “Bharathanattiyam” is more appealing to me than Salsa, which doesn't mean that I haven't gone to disco's. I would any prefer an arranged marriage with horoscope matching to a love marriage, which doesn’t mean to say that I may not look for a girl. I still feel uncomfortable having to touch & talk with any woman. If doing & liking the former things to the latter things, as mentioned, makes me an orthodox, yes I am convinced in saying that I am one. This doesn’t make me feel convinced alone it also makes me feel comfortable & proud. That’s me! I am not a yo-man dude with a wassup attitude, though I still use wassup to ask someone what he/she has been up to. I am not a guy who wears clothes in the size in which another guy can fit into nor am I a guy who thinks having as many girl friends as possible in life makes me ‘cool’.

There was a phase in my life which I should name it Lost in transition. The so called ‘cool’ Bangalore had changed few of my outlooks towards life. I don’t know why I suddenly chose to write such a post especially after the New Year eve party where an one night stand wouldn’t have been far from impossible. Few guys at my work place thought this whole Sydney thing will make me to be “more open” in terms of outlook towards life. But somehow I am getting to feel that this is going to make me more “Orthodox”……….. my way of orthodox!!!