License to Thrill.

"The name is Bond. James Bond." The spy who can kill foes with his gadgets and women with his looks. Pierce Brosnan was a hunk. But Daniel Craig is Ooh la la! Matt Damon aptly played Jason Bourne. No, this not about the eye candies from Hollywood but altogether a 'secret' story.

I was reading Robert Ludlum's The Prometheus Deception and was imagining the prospects of working with the Intelligence fraternity. So very thrilling. So enthusing! You're on a mission- a secret one. You travel around the world under aliases. Your 'colleagues' know you by your field names. You as a field operative have prowess of speaking different tongues to camouflage your true nationality. Hair-trigger action, near fatal decisions, armed or unarmed- but dangerous... you sure can't plan your next move.

But being a girl, it only means limited assignments. Something like 'Charlie's Angels' and not 'Jason Bourne'. This implies not too extreme breathtaking stints. You can't expect a femme to make way into a terrorist camp even in disguise, easily. There are some more occupational hazards being a spy.

Unlike a 9 to 5 job, you can't call in sick as the whole task has been planned precociously. There is no way out once you are in. And how does it feel looking death in the eye! Interesting? Or intimidating? Surely not for the faint hearted! Also, it is very obvious you can't go telling anybody (even friends and relatives) that you are on payroll of the CIA or Mossad or KGB or M15 or whichever. Isn't it tough to keep such secret unknown from people those who matter?

So I think its okay that I'm not now being briefed about an assignment at Langley, but here writing this post without any worry of catching a special flight within the next hour and God alone knows to where.