10 Types of Careers and Relationships

Every stepping stone of your career is similar to a relationship with its own ups and downs. Here are 10 types of career moves with their relationship equals.

10. Undergrad College - A Romantic Love Affair

When all is right with the world and the birds chirp and the sky is blue and you think you've found the one and it'll take the devil himself to break you apart...

9. MBA - Non Committed Affair

When you don't know what you're doing or what you're feeling but you'd just like to go with the flow in the moment because you neither have any clue of what's going on nor any will to put the effort of figuring out.

8. Desk Job - Arranged Marriage

You didn't know what you signed up for. So better follow the social conventions and go as life takes you forward. The road might not take you where you wanted to go, but that this point you'd go pretty much anywhere.

7. Promotion - Children

Another reason to keep you where you are. And constantly you hear, "if it hadn't been for this, I'd have left long ago."

6. Conference - One Night Stand

It was a good day and a celebration of your achievements. So what if it got a little wild? After all, you deserve every bit of it after all the effort you put in.

5. MS - Childhood Love

The purest sense of your being. This is what you were born to do. This is what your life has been heading to all this while. If there is heaven on Earth, it's in this feeling.

4. PhD - Long Distance Relationship

It's frustrating for the most part. You didn't realize it was gonna be so tough when you enrolled. With time, it just feels that you're not proceeding anywhere. And yet, there's hope that one day all this wait will bring the glory you've been waiting for what feels like your entire life.

3. Artistic Job - Live-in relationship

"I'm not saying you're bad at what you do. I'm just saying what you do isn't worth doing."

2. Exchange Semester - Wild Drunk Party

The newfound freedom! The independence! No more aunts asking "padhai kaisi chal rahi hai." No caring about "chaar log dekhenge to kya kahenge." You're bound to get carried away a teensy bit. But wait, there's a paper to be submitted tomorrow? Damn!

1. Entrepreneurship - Forever Alone

Because the woods are dark and deep, but I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep...

Against Love

It wasn’t love what we had shared

that moonlit night watching the waves

when I found you in my arms

Absorbing, the moonlit sea

The blue moon stood watching

Shimmering blue water, like little pears afar

Waves crashing, eerily calming

Twinkling stars, and the two of us

The vast sky did note above

the two strangers who once knew each other

finding comfort in familiarity

but too tired with the familiar

Slowly each relationship had faded away

and people had become unfamiliar to us,

slowly, we had become unfamiliar to ourselves

realizing, relationships were what made us “us”

Moonlight shining on your face that night

I swear I don’t know a prettier sight

Desires grew I admit I curbed

‘coz what we had shared, it wasn’t love

Love seeks an aim to grow old together

love desires to wake up to a face everyday

to find the comfort of sleep, in arms

to share life, across time’s expanse

But love does not last as long as life

Inevitably and surely, love disappears

But life created together does not

yet you’re to share the journey, on and on

Love seeks to create legacies

those that are nourished with care and joy

Yet love doesn’t help in going through life

love brings together, and then bids goodbye

Life demands more than what love offers

Respect and calm and fighting with honor

It asks for unending everyday resolve

to see a face, and fall for it every time

For it takes courage to love someone as they are

to make room for someone else in your shell

to make home for someone else’s demons

in your own mind’s hell

And life does not demand love

It just seeks a long warm hug

That speaks everything the soul craves to hear

It says, “I understand. You’re not alone anymore”

That moonlit night watching the waves

when I found you in my arms

It wasn’t love what we had shared

but why does it have to be any less?

Vishal Gupta

4 Jul 2017

Anticipation

It was a casual Saturday evening

He sat with his friends at a bar

sharing stories and loneliness over drinks and dinner

just another night in the city of lights

A sharp motion caught his eye

As if the evening suddenly came alive

Paced feet walked past their table

and he noticed the slender damsel

His friends took little interest

in the rush that seemed to grip her form

As gentle curls fell just below the neck

followed by three from the hotel’s desk

She took her table with poise and turned

her face a mix of anticipation and glee

She shot her orders with smile

and was content to be left in peace

She looked outside the window

eagerly waiting on

what could it be, he thought to himself

oblivious to the chatter in his own environs

As is the nature of anticipation

her glee gave way to doubt

It did not take long for her smile to turn

to looks of longing to insecurity to ire

She twirled her phone to see

if she was incorrect in being as excited as she be

A few words were exchanged, out of earshot to him

for there were other, he himself wanted to speak

But he waited, and saw

as she waited checking window and phone

A shimmering drink was brought to her

as royal as she had been

And as he thought he wondered

if her glee had given path to ire

or if it was all in his own head

A story devised without context

to feed the austerities of the mind

Was the story of her transformation his own

For he was the one who felt it

If he had seen a girl in anticipation

or if he had seen a girl, in anticipation

Vishal Gupta

8 October 2017

Black Stallion

‘Tis a great big black horse

that runs steady and agile on a hard turf

Round and round and round it goes

Both to contest and alone

The equine bears a great load

of beauty and wealth and greatness and vain

He follows no master and hears no plea

but has no will of his own and neither is free

For our great stallion bears no sentiment for masters

nor cares for fodder or hay or water

The beast merely wishes to run and so it does

Never tiring, knowing it shall one day just drop dead

You see, that’s the thing with speed

You forget where you are headed to get there faster

Because if you do not, someone else will

And so you race, caring little for what might be at stake

The other thing you may not realize

or for that matter, society may not realize

how many breaths or air our stallion lacks

As they say, it is the last straw that breaks the horse’s back

The horse runs alone and wild

for that is the price of freedom and speed

For it might see many running along with it

But how would any stop if he did to neigh along?

Celebrations amound for faster and faster records

for why not be merry as long as the party lasts

Surely we’ll find another if this one gives away

The laws of nature says all things succumb to change

For joyous trumpets blow when the horses run

and pictures taken in days of strength and glory

And songs are sung and poems written and plays performed

For when the horses run, the bulls rejoice and the bears cry

But each horse sleeps alone at night

and wonders whether each one is as lonely

For there’s no greater loneliness

than the one found in the large crowds

And small wondrous blinking eyes follow the trails

wondering how it would be to run for themselves

But such thoughts vanish when the races begin

For legs and heads must work, and hearts need not be awake

And dreams of embraces and rains and the smell of damp soil

replace themselves with pounding hearts and strong legs

Notions of sympathy and empathy replaced with intolerance for weakness

For this turf is not for the faint-hearted, it is for large black horses

And the Earth trembles when these beasts make way

And creatures of the Earth are forced to either grow stronger or die

The horses don’t care, nor have the will to do so

for all will and all focus, need be on the race and race alone

One might see the brutality and harshness in such mindless soulless races

others, as they should, argue otherwise

For most horses are mindless beasts with no concept of “purpose”

So the mindless race fulfils a life searching for utility

Further, failure always emerges from an unfulfilled dreams

hence not allowing dreams defeats failure from life

‘Tis might be also true that no equine would wish to run,

had it been able to consider

But that gives them life and purpose,

and if they live long enough, they might consider greener pastures

They might rest a night and sing a while and eat the greenest grass

But it all comes at a price, and through the day, the horses must ride

Broken as such, many of the horses are

some have a twisted ankle, some die of exasperation

some still run but have long been dead for much else

Others still, have no soul left to be impaired

Broken some and some are dead

Others still, are hale and alive and run like hell

They’re usually young, or ones who won

And the rare few who grew old, but never gave up

For the race also offers glory and pride and larger turfs to race

Can it be called vanity? If so then their entire lives have been vain

Some say many things of the color of grass on each on different sides

But for them, the grass is green under their hoofs, there’s no grass any other side

Vishal Gupta

2 March 2018

Greater Fools

Tribute to John Keating from "Dead Poets Society", Sloan Sabbath from "The Newsroom", and my dear friend Megha Sinha

"And medicine, law, business, engineering,

these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.
But poetry, beauty, romance, love,
these are what we stay alive for."

- John Keating

The world doesn't need people like me
Strong determined individuals
Movers, who take decisions,

and are undeterred in the face of adversity
Sure, we push the wheels of the world forward
But we don't make it liveable
You do

The world needs people like you
Who find the silver linings in greying clouds
Vulnerable, innocent people who still believe in the goodness of mankind
Who embody hope and love and beauty and joy
Who hurt easy, and are vulnerable to pain
We will protect you, we promise

But we need you

We need you to give our own lives meaning
So please, stay a bit longer
I need you
So stay,

and be delusional about the world
So I might endeavor to make it worth your presence
Stay, and together, let us be the Greater Fools

Vishal Gupta
9 Jan 2018