After-hours... ;-)

What is deal with people who like to sit around at office long after they have reached the minimum number of hours required at work and completed all their pending work? Beats me. This guy I know works in a shift that lasts till 10pm and he ‘prefers’ (actually is fond of) sitting at his desk until after 11pm as opposed to the other (normal) people try to get the hell out of office sooner than possible. I am sure most of you have come across such specimens in your teams/acquaintance-circles. Why would anyone sit at office without any work to complete even after their 9.5hrs/day is over? The reasons I hear the most and my reactions to them are:

1. I get bored at home. We stay far away from our families and it just gets boring at home.

• Really? What about taking up some hobby? I mean, there are so many great books to be read, so many interesting movies to be watched. You could learn to play some music instrument; you could join a gym/yoga class. You could actually clean your room.
• But then, hey, the guy I am talking about is someone who hasn’t heard/read anything beyond Telugu – and I have nothing against Telugu. I consider Telugu to be one of the sweetest sounding languages. And the fact that the guy is not well-read or well-informed is more the reason why he should start reading at least now. Better late than never, right?

2. At office I get free internet. At home, I don’t.

• You stay at office so you can watch utterly stupid videos on youtube for free? Or checking out your own Shaadi.com profile (coz trust me, no one else will, if you continue to stay glued to your computer).
• What about going home and getting freshened up and heading out for a walk? Believe me when I say the world has more things to teach you than the world wide web.
• Hell, go to a bar with your friends!

3. Hey, I get free unlimited coffee here.

• Huh? Haven’t you heard of ‘Nair Tea Shop’ which is there in every gali of every city in the world? (I love Nair Tea Shops – they are the best!!!) It is an understatement to say that I think you are pathetic enough not to spend Rs.5/- (or less, depending on the size of the shop) and rather prefer staying at office to drink free chai!
• The company pays you well enough to buy a chai/coffee for yourself, I am sure!

4. I want to read a Telugu e-newspaper.

• Hmmmm, errrr, hmmm… What were you doing since morning? Don’t tell me you worked the entire 9.5hrs and had no time at all for reading a newspaper.
• Unnoda kadamai unarchikku oru alave illaya da?

5. What the hell is your problem? It’s my wish to stay as long as I want. Who are you to ask me to leave?

• Oooooh okay, dude! Chill… It is not my problem. If it is anybody’s, it is yours. Remain the pathetic guy that doesn’t have a life outside of office!
• I pity the one you are going to get married to, though.

6. I like to stay late at office.

• Well, you got me. I have nothing to say about this. If staying late at work is what your heart desires (yuck), then so be it.
• That is one statement that makes Sandhya go mute! You have achieved it, big boy!!!

So people, just make sure you are not the guy in question. I have nothing against people staying back at office after work hours if situation demands it or if there is any pending work to be completed. But otherwise, is it really necessary for you to remain at office and not have time for your family and friends and pets?

Have any of your friends told you genuine/whacky reasons as to why they stay late at work?

Anjana - my twin soul...

I am sure everyone has their tough times and everyone cries – no, I am not talking about guys/girls who are cowards enough to say, “I never cry”. What is the deal with people that want others to believe that they don’t cry in any situation? Anyways, I am a normal person and yes, I do cry when I am sad. So, as all of you know, I have been quite down and depressed for the last one month or so – ever since I left Chennai. I have been trying to lift myself up, make new friends and stuff and to be honest I don’t feel all that lonely or pathetic now! Yes, there are those small periods of time when I still feel lonely and left out. It was at one such time that my best friend Anjana called me.

Anjana

If God decided to make a rough draft of me before making the better and more sophisticated me - sorry, Anju, I had to tell this. It is my blog, after all ;-) - it would have to be Anju. She is less than a year older than me. So, that means she’s 17. Yes, don’t ask any questions. I met Anju at my Wipro office in Chennai. She was leaving a project and I was replacing her and she was supposed to give ‘KT’ (Knowledge Transfer) to me and until then I hadn’t known KT meant sipping coffee and chatting away whatever time we got to spend at work and sometimes bunking office and going to movies or going to my home and watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Sigh… Those were the best days of my life! I mean it.

She was my twin soul. Both of us liked to watch same kind of movies, both of us liked to read books, both of us thought only dumb ones work like donkeys while the smart ones just sneak out and avoid work and still get paid the same amount of money, both of us were lazy, both of us were vegetarians, both of us liked the same kind of guys – well, I know most of you think that two girls can never be as close friends as two guys and I had the same opinion as well (I admit to that. Blame it on my college) – until I met her. She was my other half, she was my mentor, she was my friend and she got as confused as me at times and let me sort it out for her.

Our KT sessions came to an end as she left Wipro with an offer to work at Singapore. We still kept in touch through phone and internet. It was during one of my most difficult times (yesterday) that she called me and we spoke for about an hour and a half – excuse me, we are girls, talkative ones at that! At the end of it - after we had discussed which movies should be watched, which guys were hot and what business we should start once we get bored of our IT jobs - I felt so light (no, it has nothing to do with my weight. If that were the case, I’d feel light eternally) – my depression, my hatred for life, my loneliness, my self-pity – everything vanished. It was as if we were back at Wipro office, sipping coffee and talking about everything and nothing – just like one of our KT sessions. I miss you, Anju! I miss you so much!

Shades of gray...

Being surrounded by students at my place of stay has had a wonderful effect on me. Not only am I feeling much younger than I used to, but also “imparting wisdom” (now, don’t give me that who-told-you-you-are-wise? look) to the young, energetic minds. I can still remember around 2 months ago, when I was still at Chennai, I called my mom one fine day and started crying like something terrible had happened (My mom didn’t think it was that bad. But, what do parents know?) What had actually happened was, I was getting ready to go to office and was tying up my hair and found this one gray hair on my head. Just one, but that was enough to get me started. I cried nonstop for 2 hours and bunked office that day because I had a terrible headache (the same head that contained the gray hair.) Not funny, right? I didn’t think it was either!

All my friends advised me not to pluck it out because it will make the rest of the hair go gray too. And I just followed their advice. Why I am saying all this is because today I spotted the same gray hair and boy has it grown or what! (The nice black ones never grow and keep falling, but this one grows like there is no tomorrow. Sigh!!!) It’s longer and shinier than ever. It looks so good on me that me is thinking if me should color a streak of my hair silver. This idea is not without reason. For years, people have referred to me as “kutty”, “the little one”, “chhoti” and what not. Even my younger sister's friends didn't think they should call me "akka" or "didi". There have been innumerable times when I have been denied the respect my age truly deserves. (Don't smirk!!!) There have been times when I would be traveling in a train and my co-passengers would invariably ask the question, “What are you studying?” No, not even “What are you doing?” It has to be “What are you studying?” always. And this gray hair would make me look mature and people won’t be asking me what I am studying, at least. Also, I have been a great fan of Mrs. Indira Gandhi and her gray hair that I feel if I get more gray hair, I’d cut my hair short and style myself like her. Day by day, I am actually becoming proud of my only silver hair!

I have to thank the people who commented on my previous posts giving me the much needed courage and strength to hang on because times have changed and I am actually enjoying every minute here. From cutting my finger accidentally while cutting carrots to roaming around to going on late night walks and chatting endlessly in to the night, I am having the time of my life. No, it is still not as good as life at Chennai, it may never be as good. But I am satisfied – with the chillness, with the students nearby, with the fools around, with my gray hair – I am content and it may not be too late before I say I am happy and mean it and get my crazy self back.

A Request :-)

After reading my earlier post about how things are new and exciting and boring at the same time and getting a earful from a lot of friends, I decided to take it easy and chill and not worry too much and now I am kind of in a stable "this-too-shall-pass" state, which is good for me and everyone who reads this blog because in the recent past I have hardly ever written anything that wasn’t categorized under “rants” (no, not by me, duh… by the readers). Well, I totally understand that part and I decided I shouldn’t be doing it any more. Aaaah, I can see you guys nodding!

So moving on to the brighter side of things I am doing everything I can to keep myself occupied with something or the other – catching up on a few books I have always wanted to read, watching a few movies. But there is a shhumaall problem. No, don’t say, “No, not again!” The problem is really small. Trust me! The movies I have been watching and the books I have been reading come to an end. There is a huge demand for books. As for movies, I have already asked my friends nearby to deposit their hard-disks to me ASAP.

This post is hence categorized under “requests” (by me, this time). If any of you have a good collection of e-books (English/Tamil) please send it to my personal mail ID which is there in the FB link. :-)

Thanks!!!

I'm rambling again!

Here I am – in a new place, waiting for newer challenges that life is waiting to throw at me! As I had already mentioned, I am in a new phase of my life – one that is exciting, educative, fun, boring and at times outright mocking. I am now a mixed bag of emotions. One minute I am really happy and confident and have that ‘Come what may’ attitude, another I am all lonely and frightened, another I am just okay with life and tell it ‘Take me wherever you want to’ and another I simply give up and say ‘I am fed up, I can’t put up with this anymore.’ I hope that is enough reason why I kept away from writing anything here. I just did not want to spread my moody bullshit on you. (I am an angel, aren’t I?)

Now that I have made my state of mind clear (more so to me than to you), I feel very light and confident about taking up the challenge that lies ahead of me. It is not like I have lost anything permanently, not like I have lost my confidence in myself, not like I forgot how to talk (oh, I know how you wish I stop talking :-D), not like there is any big tragedy in my life – what I have got now (or rather what I haven’t got) is nothing close to being called ‘tragic’, hell, it doesn’t make it to ‘sad’. In fact I am currently in a place that a lot of people I know would envy.

My mom told me yesterday that everyone goes through tough times, everyone has to. It is not like one chooses to take the tough way (no one goes, “Hey Mr.Problem, you and me, outside”), bad time just imposes itself on us and no matter how strong or weak we are, we have to face it. There is no escaping fate. She went on to say, when you are facing any kind of hardship, always think that all this struggling will bear sweet fruits (oh, I like neither sweets nor fruits and she was talking about sweet fruits! Amma!!!) . This is what she tells me now, but earlier when I was a student, she always encouraged me to do my job (study) and not to worry about the results. When a wise adult makes such contradictory statements, what do children like me do? I have to ask her for an explanation.

One thing I am sure of is that I will bounce out of this mood swings and bounce back real fast and strong. I have high hopes on myself and the people I love and more than ever on God. Alright, now I am sounding like a priest, but don’t run away :-P
A lot of friends are asking why I chose this path when the path I was treading on earlier was perfectly smooth and more importantly, I was happy treading on the path. Why did I have to choose something that I knew would be tough; would test me; would not be something I like to do? My answer is simple – I just wanted to try this out. I can’t comment on how hard or easy a task is until I get myself involved in it. It would be like commenting on how bad Idli and Vada is in the canteen without ever ordering it (bad example? I know. But we all know whatever we order at the office cafeteria is just the opposite of ‘yummy’, don’t we?) I wanted to try this new task despite knowing it is going to be tough on me. But now that I have started involving in it, I don’t see why it I thought it was difficult at the first place!

I guess I have poured out everything I had accumulated in my head in the past couple of weeks and have (as always) confused you with my nonsense! Bear with me (as always, again). :-D

A lil' delay

Hi people,

I know it has been quite some time since I have updated this area. :-(

I have been very busy in the past couple of weeks and there has been changes everywhere around me. But hey, I am enjoying it and I am happy where I am now. As I always say, whatever life offers me, I have just one thing to say in reply: "Bring it on!" And that too with the broadest of smiles (alright, I can hear you murmuring that I need to close my mouth now)

I will update this blog as soon as everything is back to normal and my life lets me slow down a little bit.

Until then, chao! :-)