Do you hear strange voices..in the middle of the night?

“He said that she said that he told her about how he is now officially broken up.” A long winded relational theory more complex than the relativity theory of the last century, landed upon my head in the middle of an unsuspected (and, I am presuming, unsuspecting) coffee. I met TwitterBoi after a long absence. With our work and whatsname, we have been playing some sort of a intercontinental version of Catch-Me-If-You-Can the last six and a half years, always escaping (unintended choice of word) meeting each other.
However, this time, with my prolonged stay in the galaxy of towns, we finally collided, like dwarfed planet being struck by a passing meteorite, and met over coffee. Meeting TwitterBoi is like suddenly getting acquainted with the intimate workings of a whole lot of people by proxy. You feel like you are suddenly caught in a J.C. movie, the world sinking around you, and lots of people you have only vaguely registered in your romancing, are suddenly talking to you and fighting with you and making the most of the dramatic encounter. I pointed out to him, when he made the revelation that his girlfriend’s brother told her that he heard from his drama partner that she had heard from her cousin’s wife about how a common friend we had known eight years ago in grad-school has broken up with a woman I didn’t know at all, that I really didn’t know any of the people involved in the story. At that point, he simpered and giggled and announced “Of course you know them all… Anyway, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know them… because they know all about you. I talk to them about you all the time.”
I suddenly felt very naked and violated at the idea that there is a whole gene pool of people who know me, who know of me, who apparently hear other people talk about me and can claim bonds of familiarity and friendship with me. As things are, coming back to Galaxy is claustrophobic enough, with people meeting me everywhere and claiming acquaintanceship and demanding my cell phone number- at late night cafes at one thirty in the morning, at movie theatres and multiplexes in the early morning cheap shows, at picnics into far beyonds, at parties where I sometimes don’t know the hosts, at marriages and funerals, at the park where I go for my walk, at the gas stations where I am getting some fuel, at the ice-cream parlour where I have walked in my pyjamas for a late night binge, at the karaoke bars and dramatic performances, at book shops and cyber-cafes… these being the instances where I was surprised by people I vaguely remember (sometimes I don’t remember) stopping me and saying hello, claiming acquaintanceship through knowing my parents, my family, my friends, my cousins, my college, my school, my drama club etc. It is a very strange and warm feeling that so many people should remember me or even take the time out to stop me and reacquaint themselves to me but it is also rather cumbersome to know that there are so many people in the world and that I know them (or pretend to anyway).
I wondered if all these people talk about me to somebody else. I also wondered why a completely non-glam undramatic life like mine would be of interest to anybody who did not have immediate claims of affection, money or lack-of-choice. And most importantly I wonder what they talk about when I am not there. Do you ever wonder about it? What would people be saying when they don’t know you too well but still think that you are talk-worthy? What would they be saying? What? What?
Question: Do you know what your favourite animal says about you?
Me: What? Behind my back?

What is success?

I have been doing some deep thinking and right now I am writing down what came to mind as my definition of "success".
Achievement of my aspirations. And what are these aspirations?
1. to do good to my work, in all honesty, to the best of my capacity.
2. to do good to my family and loved ones, to the best of my capacity.

The latter is easier for most to understand because one way or the other everybody does the same- it is natural.
The former is trickier- because it is acquired, and it changes contours according to the place I am , the situation, the organisation, the people who work for me, people I work for.