Lighter side...

Mr.Stinking

2012-01-25T19:28:00.007+05:30

Not all of us are the same. And thank God for that! Thank God, not all of us are creepy idiots who have the IQ of a cabbage.

I will abort the child if I come to know it is a girl.

Imagine that from a well-educated (a professional degree holder from a decent college), IT professional who I happened to work with. The nerve he had to tell me that, without the slightest inkling of sensitivity or respect for the life of a child! All I wanted to do at that moment was to just punch him in the face and break a tooth or two in that mouth of his that uttered those stinking words.

But fortunately for him, it was within the office premises and I was in no mood to get fired for physically assaulting a colleague. Believe me, I am physically and mentally capable of killing that mosquito (oh, have I given out too much about the identity of the person already?)

I mustered up all my patience and asked him, “What if your father had thought the same way? You wouldn’t have had a sister who you love so much today.”

You’d think that would have reached the non-existent brain of his or at least strike an emotional chord with him. He coolly turned to me and told, “Sandhya, I am talking about getting my wife to get it aborted; not you.”

I don’t use expletives (at least not in public forums), but that fucking asshole actually said those words to me!

He continued, “Where I come from it happens all the time. Hospitals there help the would-be parents determine the sex of the unborn baby and they get the “problem fixed” too.”

What the hell is wrong with this country? If it happens as often as he says it does, what are the police doing there? Is our law just something to laugh about after breaking it? Well, I know most people break the law, but I thought we had grown out of hatred towards the female child, at least in our so-called educated urban youth.

That the guy is not even married yet is another problem. But God help the poor girl that agrees to marry him. Oh wait, maybe where he comes from, the girl’s opinion is not sought while “fixing” her marriage with Mr.Creepy Creeperson with a mind narrower than a strand of his hair.

I personally know so many couples yearning for a baby in their lives; and then there are people like this one that makes me wonder why God created these infinitely stupid beings.

Should I just go and report this to the police? Will there be any action? You know, like checking if there are hospitals that do this?

The story of a...

2012-01-03T19:27:00.004+05:30

My name is Ton. That’s right. Even I have always thought, “What did I do to deserve a dumb-ass name like that?” But I could do nothing about it, really. That was my name and I had to live my life with it. I was born into a big family with a lot of siblings. Our house was always full of people. Happy people. Whoever saw us, their faces lit up, much like our own.

I don’t remember the day I was born; but I distinctly remember the day my brothers and I were shoved by unknown men into a dark room that was surrounded by strange noises. It was suffocating in there. All of us were young and adventurous, and fear was not something we were familiar with. But we couldn’t wait to get outside and play.

In the dark, we couldn’t see each other’s faces. But we could all feel each other’s strength. That kept us alive and sane. We held each other when we felt low. No matter what happened, we all had each other for company, after all.

Then one day, as if by magic, a small ray of light entered the room and a few of my brothers were freed from the darkness. We were hoping that they would return to free us and describe to us what the outside world looked like, if it was really as brilliant as we had heard in stories that our parents used to tell us. But they never returned. Although most of us were worried sick about what the world would have done to them, I was plain furious.

How could our brothers leave us in distress and enjoy outside? Bloody traitors. They ought to have come back to free the rest of us.

My mood was as dark as the room itself.

Suddenly, there was some noise from outside the room. We heard men talking.

“I spoke to her all night, machi”, one was saying.

“You only spoke all night, no? Let me guess; you called her, right? If she had called the call would have been over in a matter of minutes”, said the other.

“Minutes-ah? Machi, she gives only missed call da. He only calls her back”, said another and they started laughing.

And here we were thinking that these guys could save our lives. We tried to get heard. “Help! Help!”, we shouted. And again, magic happened.

The door of the room opened ever so slightly. My sister Pinky and I were taken outside the room, as if on a joy ride. Amidst all the happiness and excitement of actually getting to the outside world, I turned to her and told, “We should come back to free our brothers. We will NOT become traitors.” And she nodded.

But as luck would have it, the man who had rescued us almost immediately turned me over to another one. Pinky and I were separated. I was worried; more about her than about myself. I was petrified; I was alone with nobody to hold on to, nobody to share a laugh with. I wanted to cry. But I had to be strong. I had to put up a fight. Even if I went down, I’d go down fighting. I won’t let these men get away with what has been done to my brothers and me.

As much as I hated to admit it, the new guy who had me was my “master”. My new master owned a small wine shop outside the city. He was a stinking pig of a man. He sweated a lot. His teeth were yellow with red stains from years of smoking and chewing tobacco, I think. His breath always smelt of cigarettes. It was a smell I can never forget for as long as I shall live because, he kissed me now and then. Every time he did that, I felt like vomiting my gut out. I felt humiliated, molested. And because I was so small, I couldn’t fight back. I wanted to spit in the idiot’s face, but I was too afraid that he might hurt me, to do so. Every time he would see me, I saw pure lust in his eyes. His lips turned up in a sadistic smirk, he would look at me as if he wanted to eat me up.

I had a lot of free time and my thoughts went back to my brothers who I despised and called “traitors”. Now I don’t hate them anymore. Who knows what they have been through, what kind of masters they have had! And to think that at a point in time, I had wanted nothing more than to escape the darkness of that little room we were all together in! What would I not give to go back there now!!

The stinking pig finally gave me away to a pretty girl – a girl who welcomed me with the brightest smile I had ever seen. Maybe it was her braces that shone in the sunlight.

Had I finally gotten into good hands? Maybe she will listen to my story and help me rescue my brothers from captivity.

She seemed genuinely happy to see me, but never tried to kiss me or anything. I felt safe with her. I could not believe that such a nice girl would have anything to do with that demon.

The girl took me with her wherever she went. On that fateful day, she took me with her to a park. A young man came to meet her there. I hated him from the moment I set my eyes on him. There was something about him that I thought was cheap.

He came close to her and promptly planted a kiss on her forehead.

“How was the day?”, she asked.

“It was alright. How have you been?”, he asked. But there was something missing in his voice.

“It was ok. Have you thought about the weekend?”

“Not yet. By the way, have you brought what I wanted?”

She turned me to him and said, “Here you go.”

What the hell! She is giving me away to him? And this would be my new master? “Woman, what are you doing?”

I thought maybe he was a good man. After all, he was her boyfriend. And then, I saw him smile the biggest smile I had ever seen in my life. Never had I seen someone’s eyes getting any wider. Ever. His mouth was now running from ear to ear.

“You know this is not enough.”

“But that is all I have.”

“You and I both know that is not true.”

“That is the truth. I am sick of having to pay you. It is as if I am paying you for using your services. I feel as if I am paying a gigolo.”

Ouch. That should have hurt. I had to control my giggles.

The guy got so angry that he squeezed me hard and threw me to the ground. He stamped me, looked at her intensely and told, “I am not your boy-toy. I don’t need the money you give me. Fuck you!”

He turned around and went away.

She bent down, picked me up and looked me closely. Then she frowned, said “tsk tsk” and threw me back to the ground. “What a waste!”, she said and walked away, leaving me there alone, battered and bruised.

I was still confident that someone would help me. After all, people were always happy to see me and have me. But as time went by and it became dark, my hopes of being helped diminished. I had to fight to keep my eyes open; I was too tired to yell for help. But I also knew that no amount of shouting will fall into the deaf ears of the world around me.

They need me only when I am intact. When I am torn and dying, nobody was going to help me simply because I am of no use to them torn. I am a thousand rupee note, after all.

Bangalore Traffic

2011-12-13T13:12:00.004+05:30

Almost a month after I went to Mumbai, it is now time for me to tell you what the hell has been going on since that fateful day. So I reached Mumbai, found my way to the hotel at midnight, made it to office the next morning on time. Everything was going great until two days I got a call from the husband back home at Bangalore telling me he wasn’t feeling well. Now whether he was sick because he was missing me or he partied too much and ended up falling sick, I can never be sure of.

So I got back to Bangalore to take care of him and have been here since then. So my Mumbai dreams came to an end in a week’s time.

Never to be the one bogged down my unexpected turn of events (I can almost see my mom’s lips curling up in a smirk and saying, “Yeah, right!”) – I have embraced my Bangalore office with a never before glee. Trying to cheer myself up by doing a things that I love doing – reading and writing. Not that I am making much progress in the latter as is evident from the (lack of) updates on this blog.

Another major event that has happened is that, much to the horror of my mom, I went ahead and bought for myself a Scooty to commute to office. It happened after a bad day in BMTC buses when I had at least 4 X 100 kg aunties falling on me. It is just ridiculous. Either there should be more buses in that route (wait, that’s not possible. Because there is just NO ROOM in the road for any more buses) or all companies should give 100% work from home option to their employees. Save some fuel for the next generation too.

That Tin Factory – K R Puram stretch is the one that is the most amazing bottleneck. It takes a full 20mins to cross that 1-1.5km stretch. That said, simple things done by BBMP can make the situation a lot better. The road right outside the railway station is a mess – which leads to the vehicles slowing down to make the impact of the bad road lesser – this at an already ridiculous bottleneck of a place! There are open sewage drains along the road (on the right hand side of the road). Can’t they be closed with cement planks so that they seem like an extension of the road providing the much needed space for at least the motorists? Also people should not be allowed to alight/board buses/cars right on the main road outside the railway station. And how difficult would it be to have an overhead bridge built for pedestrians to cross the road?

And the BBMP is not the only party that can change. There should be co-operation from the people as well. Most of the cars I see are occupied by one person only. In some rare cases, two. Why can’t people do car pooling? That way you save on fuel AND you get to travel in lighter traffic and reach your destination earlier.

Companies could have flexible timings to accommodate people arriving office early/late to avoid peak hour rush. Company shuttles and cabs could be provided at different timings to reduce time “wasted” in travel.

Simple solutions to complex problems; problems that take at least 20-30mins of about 2000 people’s mornings; time that could be used for more productive work. Will the solutions work? Hell, yes. Will they be implemented? Hehe, we all know our city corporations and ourseleves better.

Firsts

2011-11-15T09:17:00.004+05:30

They say there is a first time to everything - anything great or trivial has to start from somewhere. And when I was chosen for an assignment that required me to travel quite often, I thought I have to start traveling without complaining, start packing by myself (else it has always been Amma/Sabal packing my bags for me - and I had to admit, I had a minor "Up In The Air" George Clooney feeling), start meeting new people with new cultures and different languages - it all gave me a whiff of excitement. But the negative thing was that is what it was - a whiff. If you have to survive in a different place for 12 or 14 weeks, a whiff is generally not enough.

But this assignment filled my life up with a lot of firsts - my first traveling job, my first assignment with a French team lead, my first month-long visit to Mumbai, my first long stay in an hotel - with so many exciting firsts, I also had a first that virtually my butt kicked by my mom.

I missed my flight – a first. It was the first time I had missed a bus or train or flight and it came at the most critical time ever. I am supposed to report at work at 8:30am tomorrow and my flight is rescheduled for 9:35pm from here – I would probably reach my hotel by midnight, if I am lucky. Phew!

Bad timing. But I have to hand it to myself – I have been most calm and positive through the whole thing. A far cry from my usual “analytical mind” that worries about everything and gets all worked up when things don’t go the way as planned. That was a first too (but it was probably because I wanted to show to my mom and others that I was in control of the situation to escape the aforementioned butt-kicking). Or maybe, just maybe, I am growing up and becoming more mature person, or something!

So, off to some awesome vada-pav at the awesome Mumbai!

PS: This post was written while waiting for the gates to open for boarding @ Bangalore airport and posted later.

Hangover

2011-11-07T15:04:00.001+05:30

Disclaimer: This post is written in a state of heavy hangover caused due to my release from Philips. Although I had decided quite a while ago that I have to leave, now that it has happened I am unable to cope up with it. But like everything else, this too shall pass.

Things change and how quickly. It feels like yesterday that I stepped into Bangalore, knowing nothing about the city (not that I know anything substantial now), got into a new job, in a new office, with a new team. Two years have just run by. Two beautiful years – the years that saw me grow up (not physically, no), get married and all…

I have learnt a lot of things, had a whale of a time with a great team of colleagues, and now all that is part of my past. I have moved back to Atos, away from my team, away from Philips, all set to move to Mumbai on an assignment (although it is only for a few months).

A wise man once told me that when many years pass by and you wake up one morning and think about your past, you remember only the small things that gave you momentary happiness. Those are the memories you cherish, the memories that are part of your sub-conscious,the memories that will be with you always.

I am sure my stint at Philips is one of that sort – when I think about the last two years, I can see my team sitting at the cafeteria, laughing out loud amidst a lot of glares from the people in the other tables. I can see all of us pulling Krishna’s legs, asking about his (non-existent) girlfriend to his would-be wife. I can see all of us having coffee in the break-out area, laughing at what someone said. I can see all of us huddling at one of our desks trying to resolve an issue; I can see us walking around the campus with not a thing to worry about. Sigh, HOW things change!!!

It is very difficult now to sit and think about a new team, new people, new city, and new project. I wish I were with Philips still. Below is my rather philosophical good-bye email that I wrote on my last day.

"Permanency makes me uncomfortable. Change keeps me excited. Time has come for a change in my work.

So, today is my last day here in Philips. The last two years here have taught me a lot of things – in the technical area and in not-so-technical area.

It has been a fun experience being here in Philips – my sincere thanks to my team which has been very supportive and co-operative. Thanks to Krishna, Naveen, Vishnu, Lokesh, Raktim and Amit for making my time here easy and enjoyable.

My sincere thanks to Jack van Nistelrooij, Niek Schelhaas, Adrie Aertse, Ganesh Joshi & Rajkumar Jain – the senior managers I worked with – I have learnt a lot from each one of you.

Special thanks to Richard Ijzenbrandt, Maarten van der Poll, Ruben Zwetsloot, John Bastiaansen & the rest of the technical team – for being very patient with us when we asked them a million (dumb) questions.

Thanks to Sabareesh Kurup, Narayanan Sundaresan, Devendra Prasad Bolusani, Deepak Gidwani, Reetha & Srinivas Ganesan for providing all the support for the Atos team here.
I have made a large group of friends in PIC, I will miss them – Vijay Yogimath, Yogesh Babu, Deepti Rokde, Sapna Jain, Farah Shaikh, Balachandar, the list seems endless.

I am moving back to my parent organization (Atos) to start a new career with Lean Management – something far from the technical work I have done so far in my career.

It has been a tough decision because Philips was such a cozy nest. But if I stay on enjoying the warmth, I might never learn to fly."

That was what Philips was – a cozy nest. But I have decided to fly and I am out in the open – it is cold and my wings ache. But I will fly. Ok, this has become too philosophical now.If I talk any more philosophy, I run the risk of being considered drunk.

An excellent post this

2011-10-04T12:51:00.002+05:30

A very touching post by Vidyut. It takes an amazing amount of courage to write about one's own experiences this way - *respect*

Domestic violence is not just about a drunk husband hitting his wife. Mental and verbal abuse is just as awful.

To all those women out there putting up with abusive husbands, YOU DON'T HAVE TO. You deserve to be happy.

http://aamjanata.com/my-experience-with-domestic-violence/

Mind it!

2011-09-26T09:21:00.001+05:30

That Bangalore traffic is as shitty as working on a weekend is a known fact. Come monsoon season and it gets worse – with the roads resembling the land surface of the Moon or Mars, so much so that we can safely conclude that if people can survive in Bangalore, Mars should be a walk in the park, quite literally. Last week’s rain really did drive home the point – the service road outside of my office (Manyata Tech Park, Nagavara) was looking as bad as the roads in Kerala during monsoons that I had experienced not too long ago.

Traffic was diverted to an even more treacherous route; one that meant I had to go at least 5 extra kilometers to reach my office. All while listening to the ‘Amit’s in the cab making Rajinikanth jokes. I was thinking about what the Dutch/German colleagues who were visiting Bangalore must think about our country. They are people who find traffic on Outer Ring Road crazy. Imagine a small lane with really bad roads and a Tata Sumo traveling at about 50-60kmph in front of a school with kids giving squat about the cars before running across the road. They must have gotten a taste of the real India – and no, it is not Chicken Tikka Masala.

Apparently, one of the Amits in my cab was talking to his German colleague over chat and was asked, “India is such a rich country. Then how come there are so many poor people in India?”

Amit replied, “Welcome to India”, it seems. Had it been me, I would have said, “Theriyalaye pa theriyalaye…” and put that “tonta tonta tonta ton, tonta ton” music also from ‘Nayagan’.

I also came to know that there exists a number of palatial villas within the Manyata Tech Park campus – which is supposed to be an SEZ (correct me if I am wrong). Is it actually ok to have residential property within an SEZ? And the cars that were parked in front of these houses - *big sigh to emphasize my incapability to own one of those babies*

I also happened to hear that the houses (and, needless to say, the cars) belonged to popular politicians. I don’t know how true the information is. But if it is true, I can do nothing about it, can I?

I could understand that the road was so bad that the traffic had to be diverted. I could live with the extra 5 kilometer car ride (after all, I am not the one sponsoring the fuel). I couldn’t care less about what the Dutch or German colleagues would think about Bangalore roads (it is no secret that they are shitty). I could even brace myself to hear 5 extra minutes of advertisement on 94.3FM (what else do they play, anyway?) What I could not stand was the Rajinikanth jokes. How dare these Amits!

I bet not one of them has seen a Rajini-KB combination movie. I bet they have no idea about how damn hard working he is. I bet they have no clue about how he had to suffer before he became a superstar. All they know about is the Rajinikanth who can fight 100 men at the same time and get out without as much as a scratch and dance around with girls who are younger than his daughters – I am not denying that. But in order to be loved and respected by over 6-crore people, there has to be something in the man.

Dei, you don’t have one superstar like Rajini means, you guys will talk whatever comes to your mouth-ah? Always remember, there is a Rajinikanth hidden inside every Tamilian – don’t wake that guy up. Else we will fire one bullet, throw a knife at it, cut it into two pieces and kill two of you, mind it!

God's Own Country

2011-09-14T19:58:00.003+05:30

When I had to take a few days off from work to go to Kerala to be with my in-laws and visit a few temples and relatives, I jumped at it because I badly needed a break from my work (ok, I hate my work. Any chance to get away from it is like an invitation to a party where your company is paying for the booze). So off I went to God’s own country; amidst nonstop rains which in Bangalore would have caused unimaginable traffic chaos… Wait; that is not something new. So here I was traveling from one village to another by bus, auto or train – marveling at the lush green landscapes, wondering about how many fucking shades there were of green, listening to my favorite songs, getting “is-she-mendal?” looks from co-passengers for mouthing the lyrics to the songs and moving my head as I did it.

Temples in Kerala have poojas at unbelievable hours, which meant not enough sleep for the little baby that I am (stop smirking!), and every now and then I’d fall asleep during the bus journeys, only to be duly woken up by the bus as it went through potholes in between which some road peeped out. But I wasn’t complaining because I always woke up to breathtakingly beautiful sights that, as I mentioned, took my breath away. Lot of puttu-kadala and pazham-puzhungiyadu (Dear Mallus, you could eat bananas even without boiling, you know?) later, I was standing in the Guruvayoor temple beside the elephant there and had this amazingly heartfelt conversation with him. Then there was this little cat that was playing within the temple that purred so nicely when I was petted her, much to the disapproval of the mother-in-law. Mother-in-laws exist. Even in God’s own country!

By the end of my stay at Kerala, I couldn’t wait to get back to work. The place was right out of a post-card, but I had had enough. I needed to be back in a city that is polluted and traf-fucked where I had a manager to bitch about. But ever since I came back to Bangalore (and to work), I have been hating it. And as often, I want to run away to a far off place where I know nobody. I want to live in a new city, explore it, make new friends, work there in a cross-cultural environment, not think about what to cook after reaching home every night, not worry about eating out all the time – spend a few months with not a care about anything. The wild cat inside me threatens to get out.

Somebody find me a job in Spain. Mallorca to be precise.

Home, Work And Everything In Between

2011-08-18T21:21:00.002+05:30

Four months away from my beloved blog – what led to it and what kept it there is beyond the scope of this space. Wait, did you just believe that? There is nothing that I wouldn’t write about in this space, except about annoying team mates and ass-holic managers (wait, did you just believe that too?) To say that it has been a very challenging and a busy time at work would be a blatant lie. Let me just get it out in the open – I was suffering from ‘Writer’s Block’ (ok, stop smirking now). Too much of tweeting has taken away my ability to write anything beyond a couple of lines; and the constant butler-English of my teammates doesn’t help either.

I have grown to be much more restrained in expressing my anger and patient in handling, let’s just say, mosquito problems at work. It is amazing how a socially-challenged guy with no personal life whatsoever makes it his advantage simply because he has more time at his disposal as opposed to normal people who have a life outside of work (that it is filled with monotony and cribbing and long crying sessions is a different story).

Under such testing circumstances, one morning, I was on my way to work in the office cab. After picking me up, the driver picked up this Telugu guy (my love for the language is no secret). When someone speaks Telugu, I am automatically all ears – it is such a sweet-sounding language. There were two other people in the cab and they had ear-phones plugged as tight as possible into their ears.

This Telugu guy (TG) receives a call on his cell phone. I am all ears because I was hoping he’d speak in Telugu. Instead, he started off in English. It was probably a call from a survey agency or a matrimonial site or a gym, I don’t know. And I could only hear one side of the conversation, so I had no idea what the topic of discussion was.

TG: Hello.

TG: Yes. I did it for 7 minutes.

I got curious.

TG: I was doing it for the first time.

At this point I was almost giggling.

TG: No, I haven't tried it that way.

I was like, what the hell… Technology has improved very much-ah?

TG: Yes, I'll recommend it to others.

Why is nobody else listening to this? People, take those earphones out of your ears. This man is making history here ;-)

After this, I couldn’t really concentrate on anything he was saying. I was controlling my laughter so much and I wiping away tears from my eyes, my stomach hurt.

That was probably the only happy day I spent at work in the last four months. One day in four months, you say? Well, I at least had one day to boast about in a line of work I not-so-secretly hate. All you people hating your work, in your faces!

But love it or hate it, life goes on. Work is a part of it – probably the worst part of it. But it goes on. You need people to make fun of, people to crib about, people whose head you want to chop off, basically people you hate – but you need people to hate so you can appreciate people who you love more. Too much philosophy is not good for health. So I stop now.

Daydream On!!!

2011-04-18T14:29:00.004+05:30

When you are bugged out of your wits sitting alone at home all day while the husband snores off to glory, and the IPL matches don’t evoke the interest the World Cup did (oh, you want to argue with me about that? Nobody I know watches all those mid-numbing IPL matches except maybe Sidhu), and the cooking and the eating of it is over and a couple of coffees have been drunk and with all the caffeine in your system, dozing off is not an option, what would you do? Well, here is what I did. No, I didn’t watch a movie or read a book – that’s what I do every other day. I didn’t want to spend yet another Sunday evening doing just that.

So if you don’t want to do the normal stuff, here is what you could try.

Spin a coin on the glass table and heard the chime. What? You haven’t done that? It has a strangely tranquilizing effect that puts those Chinese chimes to shame. Well, that is at least what I thought after the first few spins. After that it gets irritating. So irritating that at one stage, I actually preferred listening to the husband’s snores. Trust me.
Drink a lot of water. That it is summer now is all the more reason you should. (Well, why a fruit juice didn’t work for me is because I had just had a couple of coffees and I didn’t want to mix them up. Water is always the safer bet. The elixir of life, after all.) Wait for some time. Spin the coin meanwhile, maybe. Go pee. Come back and repeat the process.
Take photos of sleeping husband; especially when the sleeping position resembles that of a drunken frog. It might be useful in the future for blackmailing purposes.
Go out of the house (only if it is after 17.00hours unless you want to get roasted, grilled and fried in the Sun) and have paani puri and come back.

I know I could have done whackier things – like play a prank on a friend or update a status on FaceBook or a tweet on Twitter that would start a wave of responses (ok, that is not so whacky), or simply invent newer ways to wake that sleeping husband up (pouring water on his face or singing to him have already been done to death – the death of the husband’s sleep, that is). Also life could have been much simpler if I had read a book or watched a movie or a friend to catch up with. I had the option of doing all the three of them. But they looked like boring options. Just for a change, I refused to do the obvious and the ordinary and did something different (errr, that different was the mokkai-est anything can be is another story). But I did invent the coin-on-glass chime.

Apart from the mokkai things I did, I also day-dreamt a lot (that being my favourite pass-time and all) – about participating in the Amazing Race, about playing with snakes (which is possible only in my dreams), about butchering a zoozoo (Zoozoo lovers, please don’t forgive me because I am not apologizing), about shaking hands with Sachin Tendulkar, about finally having the guts to give up what I am doing now and start doing what I want to do, about FREEDOM. But then the husband woke up and asked for a status update on the Dosa and Pudina Chutney. Off I went, relieved at the break from my boring evening, appalled by how much I had begun to enjoy it – so much so that I felt bad at having to get up and do some work.

God, my life will never be the same again – when afternoons were filled with fights with my sister, asking paati to make this or that, going for “rounds” on my bicycle around the neighbourhood – I wish I had never grown up. I know it is such a cliché, but can’t help it.

By the way, any better ways to spend a boring Sunday afternoon (apart from doing the usual stuff - like reading a book or watching a movie) are welcome!!! :-)

10 Things I Wanna Change About My Office

2011-03-23T17:29:00.006+05:30

It is no secret that I hate the profession I belong to. Well, I don’t exactly hate it; it just annoys me so much. Maybe a few changes at the workplace that could make it a wee bit better?

10 things I want to change about my workplace:

The annoying teammate a.k.a ‘Kosu’ Read about him here
My office timings – from the current 11:30am to 8pm to an early morning shift (say from 6:30am to 3pm or so) – just so I can leave office early while the rest of them still have a good 6 hours to slog. Yes, I am sadistic like that. It would also work because that way I’d have the entire evening to myself to do what I enjoy doing like going for a run or something as simple as having a plate of paani puri which my late evening shift doesn’t allow me to.

More works of fiction than just the boring techie books at the on-campus library. Seriously, there are people who read books other than the tech-whatever stuff. God, I don’t even know what they are called.
On-campus classes to learn a foreign language (read: Spanish). I don’t know why, but I have taken a huge liking towards the language. Maybe my sub-conscious mind is so obsessed with Rafa or something.
We should totally have beer vending machines instead of these coffee vending machines. Let’s face it – it improves productivity to a large extent, you know? Ok, on second thoughts, let’s not do completely away with those coffee machines either – sometimes you need to stay awake. Sometimes.
A strict dress code for women who carry those extra pounds. Dear ladies, it is ok to have those extra pounds if you love having them. If you are trying without success to get rid of them, keep at it, you will lose them some day. All the Best for that. But please, please stop wearing those ‘S’ sized t-shirts. They are for people who are small. ‘S’ = small, you get it?
That hot girl should be fired. That way, that hot guy who is so smitten by the hot girl will be smitten by me. Ok, sometimes I am over-confident. Over-confidence is to me what dark chocolate brownies are to other women.
We SHOULD have a place where the employees can bring our pets – a) the pets can socialize and b) we can pet our pets in between work. And I will be the first person to apply for the job of the pets’ in-charge. There is NOTHING better than playing with dogs and cats all day AND getting paid for it. Really.
The salary should increase by 10% every month. You heard it right. EVERY MONTH! Ok, some might call me greedy but hey, I am asking for only 10%. Also, THIS should be the first point in this list.
Men should not be allowed to wear sneakers with formal shirt and pants – that is so uncool. Also, no floaters to office please. No, floaters and socks is not ok either. That’s just yuck. #Kthnxbai

I am sure you have thought about such things too. Anything more to add to this list? Leave a comment and I will implement it (if and) when I open my own company! ;-)

I am Number Four - What I thought of it

2011-02-28T12:01:00.006+05:30

After a rather long wait, I finally got to watch ‘I am number four’ yesterday at Inox, Garuda Mall, Bangalore. And surprise surprise, contrary to what I had heard from friends that it was a movie with aliens and special effects and all that, ‘I am number four’ is actually a high school rom-com, and a disconnected one at that. It has all the stereotypes in it – the pretty girl, the bully, the new good-looking guy (who needless to say is the hero), the geek – makes you think it is pretty much an ordinary high school drama that you might watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon on TV when there is nothing better to do. What makes ‘I am number four’ different is the alien twist to it – oh yes, there are aliens in the movie and all; actually two different species of aliens. Now beat that!

The best part, no, the only good part of the movie is the first two minutes – number three getting killed in the middle of a forest in Kenya. It was a great, racy start that deserved a better movie to follow it. The scene then shifts to a beach where our hot hero is surfing and swimming with a hotter girl and he gets a new scar in his leg – signifying that number three has died and the Mogadorians will come for him next because he is number four. It is later revealed that he is from Planet Lorien which was invaded by the Mogadorians (see, I told you there were two different types of aliens) and he and eight other children were brought to Earth by their guardians. Both the Loriens and the Mogadorians have a human-like appearance. But to make the dumb audience know who is good and who is evil, the Loriens are shown as super hot while the Mogadorians are shown having a shaved and tattooed head and marks on their face as if they had some ring-worm related infection.

Under the name John Smith, he and his guardian Henri move to Paradise, Ohio and he gets enrolled into a school there. This is where he adopts a dog (which is actually a big lizard that turns into a dog behind a bush – don’t ask me how), meets the girl, falls in puppy love with her, helps the geek (who happens to be a pseudo-astronomer’s son whose father went missing after finding out an alien rock), and beats up the bully with his superpowers – doing all the hero stuff. But his real test comes when the Mogadorians sniff him out and come after him. But with all his Rajinikanth-like powers, a super-hot Lorien number six and his dog-that-changes-into-a-big-dog-like-beast, he is able to kill all the Mogadorians and drive off into the sunset with the geek, his lizard-turned-dog-that-turned-beast, following number six – the skintight cat-suit wearing Lorien, leaving behind his girlfriend and the bully (who like Desi movie villains turns a good Samaritan in the climax). He also says that he will come back for his girlfriend which means there is a sequel planned. Well, that’s scary!

I should admit that the movie was a visual treat not just with all the special effects that an “alien” movie warrants, but also a super hot hero (Alex Pettyfer – I am in love with you) and an equally hot number six (played by Teresa Palmer) who my husband wouldn’t take his eyes off. Also as I said, all Loriens are shown to be super hot – that includes John’s guardian Henri (played by Timothy Olyphant) too. What was actually missing in this movie was the emotional connect the audience usually has with a super-hit movie – even when Henri, John’s dad-like-guardian dies, I didn’t feel bad. Now you have to remember that I am the type that cried my eyes out in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Titanic, et al. The only time I probably felt bad was when the dog gets injured while trying to save John from the big freaky Mogadorian beast and come to him limping in the climax.

Looking back at it, I wished I were number three – that way I’d be dead even before the movie started.

Of the unlawful and disorderly

2011-02-07T11:54:00.003+05:30

It is disheartening to see to what extent the protectors of the law of our land (yes, the ones that wear Khaki uniforms) go to make that extra buck. In the past, I have heard stories from friends about traffic constables taking as low as Rs.3/- to let go of a helmet-less motorcycle rider. I thought they were exaggerated or made up. After all the law and order of a country that is as diverse as ours is in the hands of possibly the most powerful department in the country and of course they won’t be and can’t afford to be as cheap as my friends make them out to be. And how naïve of me to think that! No, I am not saying this without reason. I had the misfortune of dealing with a couple of young Police officers (well, I don’t really think they were decent enough to be termed ‘officers’, but I would just go with the term used worldwide) and what a harrowing and humiliating experience it was!

My husband and I were traveling from our home (at Kammanahalli, Bangalore) to our friends’ house (at Koramangala, Bangalore) at around 10:30pm by an auto-rickshaw for a routine Friday night get-together. We normally stay over at this friend’s house and return by Saturday afternoon, so I normally go there in a T-shirt and 3/4^th pants which are comfortable for the night. Since the wind was getting pretty cold, I took my husband’s jerkin and put it on. I also put on the cap part of it and tied it up below my chin so as to keep my ears covered against the chill. Little did I know that in those 3/4^th pants and covered head, sitting beside my husband, I looked like a young call girl!

As the auto sped along the inner roads of Koramangala, a couple of young (25-30 year old) Police “officers” rode their bikes parallel to the rickshaw and asked the rickshaw driver to pull over. As soon as the driver pulled over, they both got down from their bike and walked towards us. It was already close to 11pm and I was so hungry I could eat a whole Biryani by myself. But what happened next made me forget all about food. For the sake of the non-hindi speaking readers, I am translating the conversation to English.

“Can I see your ID card?”, asked the shorter of the two.

My husband replied, “I am not carrying my office ID card with me.”

Meanwhile I took out my office ID and showed it to them.

“Do you have any other photo ID?”, asked one of the officers to my husband and he took out his PAN card and showed it to them.

“Where are you from?”, he asked me.

“Coimbatore”

“And you?”, he asked my husband.

“Palakkad, Kerala”, he replied.

“What is the relationship between the two of you?”, the taller pitched in.

That was when I realized that I was being suspected to be an “item” as they call it. I took out my “thaali” (Mangal Shutra) and showed it to them and told, “I am his wife.”

Both of them stood there speechless. They couldn’t believe it. They thought we looked too young to be married (although that is under normal circumstances a compliment, at that time of the night and all that hunger, it only infuriated me).

“Do you want to see my PAN card or Driver’s License or Passport?”, I asked.

“No, ma’am. You can go.” And with that they got lost.

Then the auto-rickshaw driver told us that they were looking to make some quick bucks by trying to “catch” us. I was flabbergasted. To think that our Police force is trying to take a bribe (and it has become so common that it no longer is spoken about as a crime) is bad enough and to top it off, why would we pay them anything? What was the mistake we committed? I mean, even if we were each other’s boyfriend and girlfriend (like until a week ago) why would they seek money from us? Is traveling in an auto-rickshaw at 10:30pm a crime? Or is wearing 3/4^th pants? Or is wearing a jerkin and a cap to protect myself against the cold?

Isn’t it disgusting to learn the cheap ways our honorable Police officers (well, there are a lot of nice gentlemanly officers whose names are getting spoilt because of such cheap ones) just to make a few extra bucks? And do they have the rights to stop any auto-rickshaw on the road and harass and humiliate decent citizens?

These are just my views. Correct me if I am wrong and do share with me any such bitter experiences that might have faced.

Wedding Bells... Err, more like Wedding Blues!

2011-01-25T14:08:00.005+05:30

Well, this is my last post as a bachelorette. And what a happy 25 years it has been. Finally, the time has come to take the plunge and put an end to my carefree attitude towards life and start taking the heat of a married, working woman. Needless to say, I am so much more comfortable about the working part than the married part.

And for a few ‘different’ souls like me, the wedding is a bigger problem than the marriage itself. There is so much emphasis on looking good for your big day, acting like a lady, smiling constantly and talking everything with a heavy sugar-coat – it gets a lot irritating to a practical tomboy like me. And I am sure there are a lot of you who think and act like me. First of all, we DON’T WANT TO BE LADY-LIKE. Secondly, we DON’T KNOW HOW TO BE.

All this is fine. What I can NOT take is the scores of relatives and neighbors that think talking about what a poor creature the groom is to be getting married to you, or pulling your legs in an attempt to make you blush (without having the slightest clue that you are incapable of blushing) – that is SOOO annoying! They come to you and tell you that you will not belong to your mom anymore, you will belong to your parents-in-law (as if you are a cow that is getting sold), they are more likely from the older generation where talking to the groom before getting married was a big deal – so they come to you and ask if you spoke to the “him” (that “him” with a wink), and some more courageous aunties giving “tips” about the First Night (expecting you to smile and blush) – oh God, how I wish I could run to a place far far away when that happens! Anyway, through this post, I want to give a few tips to all those nervous would-be brides to fight back their nervousness.

I made the biggest mistake of my life by extending my leave plan by 2 days (from the initial 3 day plan to a long 5 day vacation) to come home earlier, thanks to nonstop pestering by my Amma. So, the first tip is – NEVER COME HOME ANY EARLIER THAN ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED. And NEVER STAY BACK ANY LATER THAN ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED – put the blame on an imaginary manager that didn’t approve your leave plan.

The moment you step into the house, there are relatives who come in early for the wedding that love talking about exactly what they have come for – THE WEDDING (can’t blame them, that’s the sole purpose of their visit). The word “Kalyanam” (the wedding), or the equivalent in any language gets told more number of times than the total number of words Barkha Dutt rattles off in her show. If nothing else spooks you, then that ought to. Too much of talking about the wedding only makes you more stressed about it. So you have to come up with some idea to fight these words from being processed by your brain. You give your brain something else to process – TAKE A BOOK YOU ENJOY READING; WATCH SOME MOVIE YOU LIKE; WATCH CRICKET/TENNIS (I am so glad I had the India tour of South Africa and the Australian Open going on).

Another way of keeping other people from scaring you with all the wedding talks is to get WORK FROM HOME for a couple of days. You can always say you have to attend a very important meeting and get some time alone and away from all the tension.

Although a lot of friends call you up and write on your facebook wall about how many days remain until the BIG day. You should learn not to get agitated by this and keep your cool – ALWAYS REMEMBER, YOUR FRIENDS WILL GET MARRIED SOMETIME TOO.

Try escaping from the house on the pretext of GOING TO A BEAUTY PARLOUR – nobody will say ‘no’ to that. They all want you to look good for your big day. Choose a parlour with a gym attached to it. Go, get a massage, work out in the gym, chat with those girls that work there, while away some time there and go back home if and only if you are feeling hungry.

And to all those brave-hearts that are planning to bombard your facebook wall with “Aunty” messages, please LET YOUR MIDDLE FINGERS DO THE TALKING.

I must have fallen sick after being subjected to so much of torture but thanks to Rafa and his practice of removing his sweaty t-shirt on court and the numerous cameras that cover every bit of it, I am still alive and kicking. Because trust me, this is the time when office and the problems that come with it, including tackling lazy colleagues and irritating superiors, seem a far better deal than staying at home even though you get to be with your mom and have the much coveted home-food.

I love you, Rafa!!!

2011-01-12T16:52:00.003+05:30

I was just watching the Wimbledon 2008 Men’s finals match – yes, it is the same historic 5-setter between Rafa darling and Fedex the great that I am talking about. I was watching probably for the millionth time and even today my fingers were crossed in an involuntary action. Talk about reflexes! What a match it was! The two best Tennis players of our generation fighting it out on a surface that one of them was already a champion of; while the other had come so close to becoming champion on it for the last two years. Undeniable masters of the game, both of them. And watching it, as much pleasure as it gives me as a Tennis lover, it also makes me think.

It is not the first time this thought has occurred to me, but this is the first time I am attempting to pen it down. Blame it on my lazi-ass-ness (although I prefer the term “writers’ block”). There are two ways to be a winner – fight for every minute until you win (the Rafa style), or fight only when it is needed (my style). For example, Rafa goes after every point, hits the ball to win the current point irrespective of what the scorecard reads. In order to be able to do this (or even attempt to do this), you need to be extremely fit like Rafa. I (or any other lazy ass like me, for that matter), wouldn’t do that. I will always have the scoreboard in mind. I wouldn’t even play for the point when the scorecard reads 40-0 against me. There was no point in sweating it out for 3 more points and get to deuce and then get 2 more points (note: these are all consecutive points to be won). I would rather give up on that game and move to the next game where I will look to dominate from the first point. This way of working makes more sense to me. It makes me feel like a smart worker, but then it is certainly not the sign of a true winner. A true winner never quits – no matter what the stakes are, no matter what the scorecard reads, no matter who the opponent is – he would always go for the kill. In that sense, Rafa is a true winner. A true champion. A great role-model.

That is one of the many things I want to learn from Rafa and incorporate in my life – the others being maintaining that level of humility even when he is #1 in the world, maintaining such an enviable body and being physically fit throughout the year, holding his nerves and not losing his cool even when he is playing the most crucial of points, giving his everything to his game (a lot of us don’t give our everything to our work, do we?). I consider him to be a role-model for our generation. Well, now don’t argue with me as to why I did not write about Sachin Tendulkar as a role-model to our generation. There are two reasons:

I was not watching cricket when it occurred to me that I should write this. I was watching Tennis.
I can’t write that God is a role-model; I need someone who is more human than divine. Let’s leave God out of this!

There is so much to learn from a 7 minute youtube video. And obviously, I am quite smitten by Rafa to say the least.

Dear God,

Please let me be like Rafa. Make me strong and happy in whatever I do. Make me a winner. Let me meet Rafa. Let him fall in love with me. Let him propose to me. Let us get married and have a bunch of kids and live happily ever after.

Yours sincerely,

Sandhya

Ayyayyo… I wanted to write something else altogether. Rafa always does this to me. Sigh… What started off as a things-to-do ended up as things-I-wish-happened.

PS: I know my sister will kill me for the title of the post. In case I get killed, you know who was behind it! ;-)

Where is "Ponniyin Selvan"?

2011-01-03T16:05:00.005+05:30

Yet another year has born without any additions to it (except for the number called ‘age’ that all of us like to forget about). This year is going to be big, no… huge for me (actually, make it bold, capital letters preferably Red color). I am getting married in 26 days. There is all this tension – no, not about life after marriage, but about the arrangements for the wedding. I am probably one of the few morons that thinks the wedding is the tough part, not the marriage. Is it that I don’t like dressing up? Oh hell no… I love dressing up. But when it comes to my own wedding, not so much.

What is it that makes me feel no matter how much effort I put in getting dressed up for my own wedding, I won’t look good enough? What is it that makes me so low on self-confidence (especially when I need it the most)? Why is it that I am unable to relax even for a minute? Is it normal for all brides-to-be? Oh wait, the very word ‘bride’ gets me all worked up.

Here I am on a lazy Sunday afternoon at Garuda Mall sipping Iced Tea after some leisurely shopping at Crossword for books. By the way, did you know Crossword does not have a single Indian Language book (at least at their branch at Garuda)? Disgusting is what it is! I would have been happy if I had spotted at least one Kannada book (not that I was expecting to see a Tamil book) – I am sure there are a lot of classics in Kannada as well.I am devastated by such a big bookstore’s not having a single Indian Language boo. Just to make sure, I asked a sales girl, “Do you have any Indian language books?”

She replied, “You mean Indian authors, ma’am?” As if I was being silly.

“No, I mean Indian languages – like Tamil or Kannada.”

She gave me a weird smile as if I was asking for 1kg of onions at her bookstore to mean “whoever reads such crap!”

If such high-end bookstores whose target buyers are from the younger generation don’t have our own classics on their book-shelves, it means only two things.

- Our younger generation does not buy Indian language books.

- The bookstores don’t encourage them to.

Back in the good old days in Chennai, Landmark had a separate section for Regional language books – they had Tamil, Telugu and even Malayalam work (if I remember correctly). I cannot even begin to fathom the idea of my son/daughter growing up in a place that mocks our culture; a place where “Ponniyin Selvan” is not on the book-shelves of major bookstores. I am stocking up my own library with Tamil classics collection from now on so that by the time my son/daughter is old enough to read and write he/she doesn’t have to roam around the town searching for good books (and come back dejected and discouraged to read anything). Appreciation of one’s mother tongue is most important for any child’s growth.

But thanks to this episode, I had forgotten all about my nervousness and the wedding for a short while. Now that I have poured my angst out to my mom, my sister and my friend (through phone) and my dad (through thoughts) and wrote it out on paper (yes, I wrote this using paper and pen – a million dollar experience that I bought for less than 50 rupees) – my wedding-related jitters are back on. From what sari to wear to what to accessorize it with to what I would do with my unruly hair – it is all coming back to me.

Before the world closes in on me, I should escape to a different world by opening one of the four books I just bought – that would help me stay in control of my nerves. Or so I think!

Reflections... Or whatever!!

2010-12-31T17:53:00.003+05:30

Well, it is that time of the year when people talk about how good or bad or disgusting the year 2010 has been (really people, stop bitching about a year even before it is over. You would never understand it unless you are a year yourself); the time of the year when all blogs are filled with posts about 2010 and what they expect from 2011 (as if ALL our expectations ever materialize!); the time of the year when people invite suggestions for New Year Resolutions (how lame is that!); the time of the year when people invite suggestions for New Year Parties (that’s even worse); the time of the year when our intelligent and oh-so-sensible media is specializing on who-wore-what-where in 2010, and celebrity new year resolutions and what a huge super star Rajinikanth is, and whether SRK and Salman Khan will become friends in the next year, and whether Aishwarya Rai will have a baby in the coming year. And of course, what else is more important than all these topics?

Well, it is always better than thinking about what one did in a particular year than thinking about what the year did to one. I have noticed that it is an Indian thing to always blame others/other things for our sufferings. Even our language is formed that day. For example, we say, “Kaal-la mullu kuthiruchu” (A thorn poked my leg) while in English is actually said, “I ran up on a thorn”. Even for a simple mistake like running up on a thorn, we blame the thorn as if it predicted that you would be walking through that path and positioned itself to give you maximum pain.

So back to what I have done in the past year – it was an average year; no big achievements (I did have a small business trip to Holland in the middle of the year; I choose not to count it as an achievement), no major milestones (except I got engaged), no horrors (except my grandma fell down and broke her leg), no sorrows (except for a few broken relationships) – I have been more or less the same this year (except for a welcome increase of 2kgs in weight). I didn’t read quite as much in 2010, but whatever little I read has inspired me to become better at my work and as a person. I realized that no matter what I do, I should be the best in it. I have worked hard to achieve that level of excellence and I still strive to improvise with every small task I undertake.

In 2011, I hope to read more – take a week off and read “Ponniyin Selvan” for a third time, read more of Ayn Rand, start reading more Tamil classics. In 2011, I am also taking a major step in my life – I am getting MARRIED. I will go from a spinster to a married lady (or ‘Auntyji’ as my teammates have already started calling me); I will have additional responsibilities – as a daughter-in-law and as a wife. The good part is that I will have my better half to support me in undertaking these responsibilities and my mantra (Sign your work with excellence) to inspire me to be my best in whatever I do. The bad part is that the timing is bad – these responsibilities could have come my way a couple of years later. But the more difficult the problem is, the more alluring it is. I hope I do a good job of it ;-)

At the same time, my struggles with Kosu continue. He has been and continues to be the single most irritating person in my surroundings – so much so that I feel like beating him up with a baseball bat. Ok, I am off to kick some mosquito ass. Until then, I wish you a very Happy New Year 2011.

Lonely Eaters Club

2010-12-10T15:23:00.002+05:30

It amazes me how time could change everything and everyone. Time heals wounds, time makes a good person better, a bad person worse or a good person bad and bad person good… ok, now that you understand how disastrously awful I can get (which means this blog is NOT to be taken seriously this time around too), let us move on to the actual reason why I wrote the really stupid first couple of sentences. I have been very different in the past. Well, who hasn’t? We all used to be smaller (let me tell you, I know I am small now too) and more innocent and possibly more intelligent (until Education made us dumb); but we are not going into the details of that. This post is about neither innocence nor intelligence. Now I should really get to the point.

There was a point in time where I was dependent on others – I needed people to be with me, to appreciate me (which I still do sometimes), to accompany me to eat, or for a trip to the loo (trust me) – I always needed (not wanted or liked, but needed) to be around people so much so that I hadn’t known how enjoyable being alone could be. Yes, I have been lonely too. That was painful. But this is not about being lonely. This is about being alone. For a funny person like me, I have always taken it for granted that I am at my best when I am surrounded by a bunch of people laughing and talking. I thought that was what I enjoyed the most. Never really gave being alone a shot.

I still remember my words from the past to my friends, “I can never eat alone. I always need company while eating. Because somehow at the back of my mind there is this staunch belief that people who eat alone are miserable losers with no friends, no sense of humor, nobody to love them – basically that’s pathetic. I’d rather not eat if I have to eat alone.” And I have foolishly stuck on to that stupid stupid thought for all these years. How or when or why that thought was formed in my mind is still a mystery. I was even part of a forum (of ‘Lonely Eaters’) in my older company.

But nature and time have their own way of teaching things to us. Nature did it by making me feel hungry way before my teammates were. And time had it that they were unable to accompany me owing to – a) writing down lyrics of songs they want to practice singing, b) reading a forwarded email making fun of IT organizations, c) work (ok, that was just the geek of the team), d) talking over the desk phone to a girlfriend or e) checking FaceBook. Initially, I tried waiting for them to finish their tasks so that we could all hang out as a team and have lunch while talking and laughing and pulling each others’ legs (incidentally, that is also what we do at our desks, but whatever). But hunger got the better of me.

I decided to go alone to the cafeteria and get something to eat. As soon as I entered, I felt as if all eyes were watching me, as if asking to themselves, “What is this utterly gorgeous girl doing all alone in the big bad cafeteria?” or “She’s eating alone? What would I not give to be sharing that table with her?” but most of them were not even looking at me; it was my bloody illusion. I went, bought my food, sat in a table at the corner not wanting to gain any attention (you see, I am kind of a celebrity at my workplace). I ate my food and got up and left the cafeteria as if I had never been there. No big deal. I didn’t feel unloved or like a miserable loser or pathetic. I just felt hungry and I had food. It was that simple.

But what I didn’t mention is the fun in being alone (if you can control your giggles, that is). What happened with me was that as I was eating, I was watching the others in the cafeteria – guys laughing out loud with food in their mouth (I know that’s gross, but it’s funny when the person is not sitting on the same table as you), a gang of guys checking out a gang of girls (dude, won’t you people ever grow out of college?), a guy checking out another guy (hey, I am not against it dude), a girl sitting in a corner table with her phone glued to her ears (Déjà vu, I used to do that back in college), the hunk and the hot girl sitting at the same table talking (probably) about diets and work-out routines (pfff, yeah right!), the over-weight guy gorging on Fried Noodles (way to go, man!). As if these weren’t enough, my mind starting dubbing for people sitting at the other tables (ala Vivek in the movie ‘Badri’) – running wild with imagination.

At last, it took me 24 years to appreciate myself. Hell, I could be fun too. I took an oath that day that I will have some “me” time everyday for at least about half an hour so I can be at peace with myself (which is by making fun of others within my head) and feel better about myself.

Stressed out!

2010-11-23T17:40:00.003+05:30

More than a whole month away from my beloved space – I don’t think this has ever happened before. Why, you ask? No, you wouldn’t bother so much, I am sure. Well, whether you ask or not, the reason is that there is a certain block in my mind. Words just won’t come out. On my way to work, or when I am just sitting doing nothing (mostly at office. Oh wait, you know that already!), or when I listen to a certain song, or when I am walking around the campus, or… you get the drift, right? So when my mind is not doing any serious work-work, there is still a background train of thoughts that keep running (ah, girls’ brains can NEVER be idle). So this background train of thoughts keeps giving me more than enough topics I could write about – topics ranging from a short story to funny incidents with friends to innovative ways to mess up your home to how to become friends with your neighborhood’s stray dogs. But then there was something blocking me from opening MS-Word, in the normal world it is called laziness. Something blocks my mind from forming words, now that - I don’t know what it is.

And now that I have fought laziness and have started typing my mind out, words fail me again; which is why I am taking so long to finish this post. This has never happened to me. It has always been Open MS-Word, start typing, finish typing, read once (not always), open blog, login, copy and paste from Word, Publish post – Done. The process of actually writing the post has never been so taxing, it has always been a free flow of words, no thinking involved whatever. Now I am thinking, stopping, deleting, re-writing, re-phrasing, phew!

The last few weeks have been quite stressful – at work and otherwise. I have gotten engaged – I am feeling very happy and am confident that my marriage will be successful. The two of us have talked and seem to agree on the freedom and individuality part of it (which was a major concern for me, oh, you know that already). Although I feel happy inside, I don’t feel like sharing it with the world. I should be shouting it out from the rooftops, but I feel like it is no big deal. I got engaged, so what? And with the engagement comes a whole bunch of wedding-work. I have been running around like a squirrel to get things done for the D-day and trust me, there is so much pressure on the bride and I am not so good at handling it. Work-wise, kosu tholla innum theerala. In fact, it has become so worse that I have actually started counting from 10 to 1 out loud.

Perhaps all the stress got together and formed a mental block, crippling me from writing anything, but it is not for long. I have to work on getting this block removed (oh yes, we have been having problems with plumbing and this talk about removing the block and all could be a reflection of that) which is why I started writing this post. This is again just a state of mind, being of no real use to anybody (nor are any of my other posts, but come on, cut me some slack – I am the bride after all). I hope this too will pass and I will be back to normal and will write much easier.

Sometimes in Life...

2010-10-29T21:45:00.004+05:30

Sometimes in life, you don’t get what you deserve. This is one of those moments. Well, to tell you the truth, such moments are part of daily routine. It is like bad luck chases me down the street, sits beside me, greets me, hugs me, and finally digs my grave. And before I know, I have made a wrong choice. I have made a choice that deprives me of what I deserve. I have made a choice that would make me doubt my capabilities; make me think whether I actually deserve what I thought I do. After a long time, after I have convinced myself that I do, in fact, deserve what I missed, remorse sets in. Why did I have to make that freakin’ decision?

What makes you decide on something anyway? Your mind? Your rationality? Your train of thoughts? No, no and no. It is more your environment, your surroundings, your peers, your parents. There is always the induced thought that makes you decide. At the end of it all, there is nothing original about you. But what matters is that you have to go through the consequences yourself. You are the one that receives the flak, the one that gets hurt, the one that gets humiliated, the one whose life you are not even a small part of, the one who doesn’t get what one deserves.

Well, if you are asking if I am cribbing about how life has been unfair to me, the answer is yes. And I should not crib out loud on a public forum? To hell with that. I have always written what I saw, what I thought and what I felt here in this space and this time is no exception. Now who got something I deserve and what it was that I not get is beyond the scope of this post.

Leaving all this aside, what would you do if you came to know your stint on this stage called ‘life’ is coming to an end? What if your character is being written off? What if you are one of those that is very close to an ‘eternity of nothingness’ (from “The Invention of Lying”)? What can you do about it? Nothing, right? You knew very well that one day or the other you would have to go off. But still when that day looms closer, you freak out.

In Tamil there is a wonderful dialogue; “Saagappora naal therinja vaazhara naal naragam aayirum” (if you know the date when you are going to die, the days you live will be hell). What would you do if you were one of those chosen ones and you know “the date”. Say you have about 6 months left. What would you do? What can you do?

Some of you are crazier than I; so I am expecting a lot of crazy responses to the question above. :-P

Note: This post is written in a very depressed mood. Do NOT take anything written here seriously. I have just gone crazy again. That also explains why the blog doesn’t make any sense. Ok, now don’t ask me when my blog has ever made any. I know it hasn’t. :-)

Echoing his thoughts

2010-09-20T17:57:00.006+05:30

Disclaimer: Except for Echo, all events and people mentioned in this post are imaginary. This is just a thought on what the pets really feel about their owners.

I was brought to this place about a month ago. When I came here, I saw two people in the house (I hadn’t realized that it was to become MY house) – a girl and a guy. They kept saying, “So cute. Looks like he is hungry.” Which I was. And gave me a bowl full of milk. I was hungry. I drank it all up. Oh by the way, I forgot to mention, I am a dog. I am now 10 weeks old – so technically, I am a pup. I was 4 weeks old when I came here.

They named me Echo. For almost the first one week there, they kept shouting ‘Echo, Echo, Echo’ whenever they fed me. Boy, human beings ARE a crazy lot. I understood by the end of the second day that my name was ‘Echo’. I wanted to tell them, “Ok, I get it. My name is Echo. I know I should look at you when you say ‘Echo’. Now stop the bullshit.” But these stupid human beings don’t understand my language. I also came to know that the girl’s name was ‘Di’ and the guy’s name was ‘Da’. At least that’s how they called each other.

Another thing I learnt very soon is that girls are crazy about pups like me. Whenever I wanted something (anything) all I had to do was remain silent, tilt my head a little bit and look into Di’s eyes. And she would go, “Oh, my poor baby. You’re probably hungry. Wait.” And off she would go into the room where my food and treats are kept and bring me a treat. But I had to endure all her kisses and hugs before she goes off to get my treat. Even if you are a very very good-looking guy and have a lot of girlfriends, you have absolutely NO idea how tight a girl could hug you. Ask me. I almost had a fracture once. I thought I gave too cute a look to Di. Sigh. Another trouble I have with Di is she keeps interrupting my play time with all her cuddling. She wants to cuddle me whenever she is at home. And she keeps forgetting my name. She says, “I love you, baby doll.” Hello, wasn’t my name supposed to be ‘Echo’?

I have learnt so many things from Di. Like, whenever she says, “Good boy, Echo. Good boy.” And she puts her lips to the space between my eyes; it means that I will get a treat soon if I wag my tail a wee bit. Whenever she comes with two bags in her hand, it means she is going to cuddle me and say, “Bye” and she will be back after my sleep time and play time and another sleep time. I miss her sometimes during my play time. In fact, I miss her hands – they are so damn yummy. Ok, that did not come out well. It just irritates me when she wants to cuddle me when I am playing or sleeping.

Da is from a different league, I could totally say. He thinks he is a commander. He is always the one giving me the orders. Just because he is a human being and is taller than me, he thinks he can boss me around. He has no idea that when I grow older, I will be stronger (oh yes, I heard this from a small black box in the house), and I will be big enough to push you down and bite you into pieces. Oh man, I am supposed to be a dog in a few months. I am a pup now, remember? I am supposed to be loyal to my master. And Da is one hard task-master. The freakin’ idiot takes my food bowl in his hands and makes me obey to his ‘Wait’ command when I am so hungry I could eat him up. Di isn’t that bad. All she needs is that cute look. It is amazing how stupid a person can be given she falls for it every single time.

Once in every 5 or so days they take me to another guy’s house or have other guys over at my home. Oh yes, by now it has become MY home, alright. And they bring big big bottles with them and some nice smelling food. Somebody has to teach them some manners about sharing their food with others. They never give me one piece of what they eat. I don’t understand why none of my cute looks worked with Di when it came to her own food.

And it gets crazier as they finish drinking from the bottles. They take me and squeeze me in the name of hugging (Di’s hugs are so much better compared to this agony). Then they take my front legs in their hands and make me walk with only my hind legs. What the hell!!! Isn’t the Animal Rights Commission listening? And that is not all. It only gets worse from there. Too much of sound emanates from the above mentioned small black box and they all start moving around in the name of dance. They mess the place around so much that they lose all rights to yell at me when I pee or poop anywhere in the house. I am only a little pup. They are all such grown-up adults and they behave much much worse than me. Sigh.

Such is life!

2010-09-01T20:30:00.001+05:30

This happened at Coimbatore Railway Station. I was waiting for my train back to Bangalore. I was about lunch time. I was carrying a heavy bag and had just put it down on a bench on the platform. There was this little girl (of about 10-12 years of age), her head shaved, thin, with dark lips and sharp eyes. She had with her a box of railways’ food (which most of us despise because it is utterly tasteless).

She asked me, “Akka, where will the train go?”

I asked, “The train that is going to come on this platform?”

“Yes.”

“It goes to Bangalore.”

She asked, “Akka, will there be buses from there to Ranipettai?”

“Ranipettai? Why? Do you have to go there?”

She nodded, “Hmmm.”

“I am not sure if there are buses to Ranipettai from Bangalore. But there are buses from Chennai.”

“Chennai? Will the train go to Chennai?”

“The train that is going to come doesn’t go to Chennai. It goes to Bangalore. There will be some other train in some other platform that will go to Chennai. Ask somebody which platform and get into that train.”

She thought of something and nodded and said, “Ok.”

There was something about her that made her look very vulnerable. It was probably her dress – it was a very old, dirty, cotton dress. Or probably because she was bare-footed; I felt very bad for her.

I added, “If you get into the train to Chennai, get down at Katpadi Junction and go to Vellore bus stand. You will get buses towards Ranipettai from there.” I had known this information because I had been in that route a couple of times while visiting a friend’s house in Andhra border. Otherwise I wouldn’t even have known that a place called Ranipettai even existed.

She was trying to grasp the words. “Katpadi? How far is Katpadi from here?”

“6 hours in the train that goes towards Chennai.”

“How will I know when Katpadi has come?”

It was then that I realized that the poor girl might not know to read boards. I told her, “Ask somebody to tell you when you reach Katpadi.”

“Will it be night when I reach there?”

“It will be around 7:30 in the evening when you reach there. Then go to Vellore bus stand and get a bus, ok?”

She nodded, but didn’t speak anything. I wanted to know what was wrong with her. Why was she alone in a railway station when she doesn’t know anything? Where were her parents? Has she run away from her home? I couldn’t stand it.

I asked her, “Who is there at Ranipettai?”

“My mother and my one big sister and small brother. My father passed away, no?”

“Ohhh, then how did you come to Coimbatore?”

“My mother didn’t have any money. She sent me with my uncle to work here. He was a very bad man. I came out of his house without his knowledge. I want to go back to my mom.”

And then she showed her feet – there was burn marks on both her soles. I wondered how she managed to go through such torture at such a young age and what an impression the world has left on her fragile mind.

And then she said she was hungry. I asked her to eat the box of food that she had by her side.

She said, “This is for my mom. She wouldn’t have eaten anything too. I am taking it for her.”

It killed me. She herself hadn’t eaten anything since morning (and it was already almost 1pm) and she was taking food for her mom whom she will meet very late that night (if she manages to go all the way without any further obstacles).

I told her, “The food will get spoilt by the time you go home. So don’t let it go waste. You eat it. You can buy something for your mom later.”

“But I have only 10 rupees.”

I was shocked. She didn’t have a train ticket, she has to take the bus from Vellore to Ranipettai after that and she had only 10 rupees and a packet of food in her hands. I didn’t know what to do.

At that time, the lady who was cleaning the platform came up to me and said, “This girl has been here since morning. I feel so bad for her.”

I told her, “Please tell her when the train towards Chennai will come. But she doesn’t have any money with her. How will she go?”

She said, “She is a small kid. She can travel without a ticket and even if someone asks, she can say she has come out of her house and they will understand. They won’t harm her. There is a train to Chennai at 2:20pm. I will put her in that train.”

My train was just pulling into the station. I knew it will stop at the station for 5-7mins. I had to find my compartment and board into it. I had 5mins to do that. I started walking towards the place where my compartment was most-likely to be when the train stops. But my mind was with that little girl – that helpless, powerless kid who has seen and been through what she was not supposed to at that tender age. I realized I wouldn’t have any peace of mind if I left her there, knowing I could have helped her.

I could not go back and wait for the Chennai train to come or go and buy a ticket for her – I cannot miss my train to go to Bangalore. My train had already come to a stop and I had to walk a little further to my compartment. I turned back and walked in the opposite direction towards the girl. I took out a few bucks from my purse and gave it to her and asked her to keep it for her ticket expenses and asked to get some more food for her.

Those few bucks will probably remain the best-spent money of my month. I felt a lot lighter. It was as if that one paper was weighing my bag down and now that I had given it to her, it felt lighter and easier to carry. This is not exaggerated one bit.

I am still worried about her and now, at work, I am thinking if she would have indeed reached her home safely, met her mom and I hope she is not sent to such filthy uncles in the future.

Questions of a confused soul

2010-07-29T23:48:00.001+05:30

There is so much that I want to write, so much I want to pour out, so much I want to change, so much I want from life, so much I don’t want to be doing. And I am only 24 and I can’t even decide what to have for dinner tonight and my relatives want me to get married already. Give me a bloody break!

Alright, I agree that it was me that wanted to get married until two months back. And it was me that took the efforts to get talks underway and it was me that convinced and threatened and did-what-not to make this possible. Now that it is all becoming reality, it is scary. It is so damn scary and now none of them would understand why I am talking this way. None of them want to take a U-turn apart from me. None of them understand what I am going through. Sounds like development of cold-feet, doesn’t it? I thought so too. But this is much more than that. I cannot put a finger to what exactly is the reason behind my backing out of the “plan” (which, incidentally, was made by ME)! How are the others supposed to understand it? The point is: I am scared. I am scared as hell to get committed. I am scared that I would have to give up my freedom. I am scared that I will have to do what the others ask me to do. I am scared I cannot be what I am. I really don’t understand the whole point behind getting married. I want to run away from everything to a place far off where nobody can find me. Talk about cold-feet. I probably have the “coldest-feet” in the country.

The point is, by running away from all this, I might come across as the most selfish person that ever walked on the face of the planet. Also, that would make me a coward. There is a problem and if I choose to run away from it instead of hanging on and fighting for myself, it would make me a loser. I am NOT a loser. But the problem doesn’t end there. If I choose to continue fighting, I would for sure at some point of time hurt someone I love. I don’t want to hurt the soul that has been living for me ever since I was born. I love her too much to do that to her. But, I WANT TO LIVE MY LIFE.

I feel as if I am striving so hard to live up to others’ expectations that I have ultimately forgotten what I really want and now I want it so bad. I want to life MY life and not worry about what the others have to say or think. Either I stay back, doing what the others want me to do, sacrificing my wishes and letting the choice-not-made haunt me for the rest of my life. Or I go after what I want, live my life the way I want, let the world know what LIVING is; but in doing so I would be hurting my beloved ones, feeling guilty for failing to live up to their expectations. It is a very difficult choice to make, especially when you are from India, more so if you are a girl. A girl that is going to married within the next 8 months at that!

What is it that makes me think so much (with that non-existent brain of mine)? Fear. The fear of losing all the freedom I have, the fear of having to be bound to the rules of a society I have grown to hate, the fear of having to give up my choices, the fear of having to give up a lot of things I love, the fear of being forced to love things (and sometimes people) that I despise, the fear of having to compromise a lot, the fear of my intelligence being dismissed just because of the fact that I am a girl, the fear of losing ME and MY SPIRIT! I am nobody if you take that spirit from me. I am nobody if you take my thought-process and my decisions from me. I don’t want to live in (or as) somebody else’s shadow. I am too proud to do that.

Now whoever told me a marriage will take away whatever I have and leave me to be just a body with no soul? Nobody. It is just my intuition. I could be wrong. I am not marrying somebody I don’t know at all. In fact, I have known this wonderful person for five years and it was MY decision to get married so soon. But why am I backtracking now? I have no idea. Why am I so afraid of the entire process now? I don’t know. Why do I think I will lose my individuality now? I have no clue. All I want now is to flee off from everything. Selfish? Individualistic? Call me whatever. I want to be my own master.

If any of this crap made any sense to you and if you choose to voice your opinions please do leave a comment. I would like to know what you think.

What I wanna do

2010-07-23T23:45:00.002+05:30

If only anyone would pay me for sitting in the last row, by the window, sleeping half the time, sending text messages to those innumerable friends (whose faces we still book sometimes) the other half without the knowledge of the lecturer, making rockets with paper, life would have been so much cooler. But no sir, nobody shows you the cake AND lets you have it. To be frank, I have never really understood the whole concept behind being in a job. Apparently, you can’t live with your parents’ money forever. And no, it is NOT funny to say, “I can live with their credit cards.” It is not appreciated (experience teaches you an awful lot).

There are many other things that are not appreciated. So I could not be a bicycle rider because I was in India; not in the Netherlands. I could not join the Army because all my friends laughed it off when I said I wanted to do it. I could not become a spiritual Guru thanks to the likes of Swami Premananda/Nithyananda types. I could not be a teacher because according to my mom, I was made to become something better. I could not be a journalist because my cousins were all pursuing their engineering courses. I could not be a news reader because my cousins were all planning to do their M.Tech/PhDs. Oh my God, why did you come up with the whole concept of cousins? They were all my dream jobs at one of time or the other. And they were all brushed aside because I was too young and too naïve to make my own career plans. But nevertheless, they were a very important part of my growing up process.

Currently, if given a choice, I would like to be a writer. It is something that gives me satisfaction, makes me feel as if I have achieved something great. But on the down-side, there is something that we all like to call ‘Writers’ block” that affects me every now and then. I sit in front of my computer, I have some thoughts in my mind, but they just refuse to come out as words. But there are days when the words just pour out like Champagne. Finding a balance between the two AND making a career out of it is no easy task.

Another career I am fascinated about is that of a behavioral skills trainer. I like to teach and from whatever experience I have gained from being a silly IT professional over the last three years, the average Indian IT professional lacks basic manners – from emailing to eating – it shows in everything they do. Since customer facing roles are on the rise, most companies would need their engineers to put on their best behavior while talking or emailing or chatting with their clients, which is where I would come in. I have a flair for making good communication (now, don’t you start rolling your eyes, if there is anything I do well, that is TALK. Don’t take that away from me!) And I like teaching. So what better than to combine the two things I like and make a successful corporate career out of it?

I am also good at organizing events and shows. So event management is an area I could dwell into. But I am not really sure about the roles and responsibilities there and so I cannot comment further on that.

Another career that I find very interesting is in the Advertising field. I like advertising and have always taken part in such events at school and college level, but I am sure that is not how the field works in real life. I would, for sure, love to be a part of an advertising campaign. Also there is some very good money involved in it!

But if there is one job that would supersede all the above and be “the one” dream job, it has to be the one where I am allowed to sit in the last row, by the window, sleep half the time, send text messages to those innumerable friends for the other half without the knowledge of the lecturer, making rockets with paper…

This post is an entry for a contest in Blogadda called MY DREAM JOB. This contest was an initiative by BLOGADDA and Pringoo .

Dream on...

2010-07-20T14:10:00.004+05:30

Never give up on your dreams, no matter how far-fetched or silly or impossible they are to become reality. Who knows; it might work out some time – by working hard towards it, by luck or by sheer power of thought. I was having this discussion with a colleague of mine about what we wanted from life. Our thoughts were quite similar – we both wanted to go outside of our respective countries (he is from Holland and I am from India), both of us want to work in Spain, but are too scared about what we have to leave behind or lose if we did what we wanted to. But we keep talking about the idea – what can be done to make it happen, giving up because there was no realistic way we could do it, then dreaming about starting our own company there, our roles in the company, whether Rafael Nadal can be employed there – all silly thoughts, that would just remain thoughts and nothing more.

But then the insane mind starts working, it starts thinking that moving to Spain (throwing whatever I have got here down the drain), with nothing but our own stupid minds and thoughts, no plausible idea that would help us earn our bread whatsoever – and I start liking the thought more than ever before. The very fact that something is impossible to attain makes it more exotic. The unpredictability factor is the most intriguing of them all. I am still thinking about it because I want to do it someday or the other, against all odds, sacrificing quite a few things and then say to the world, “See, it was not impossible”. No, it is more of proving to myself that it was not impossible than to the world.

It is so hard to let go of what we have and go after our dreams for fear of failure, fear of whether we would get something better, fear of having to lose what we have and fall flat on our faces – but that is a choice we have to make. We have got to leave something to gain something. Only in this case, you might end up losing what you have and not gain anything at all. Too risky, but too tempting. But every time I think about it the urge to do it is so overwhelming.

I mean, we will never know if we made the right choice or not without actually making it. Life is not something that could be simulated in a Test environment before being moved to Production. (Ahh, I should probably take a break from work). May be I should take a break from work and go to Spain. And do what there? I don’t have a clue. You get the drift. This is how my mind works. Whatever I think of, will eventually lead to Spain. And then stop there because it hits a dead-end – I don’t know any further.

It sounds crazy. But I believe completely in the power of thought and I have an intuition that I will someday be led towards that by destiny (ok, now I am just talking crap about destiny and all), but now I won’t be afraid to take the plunge when opportunity arrives. It may lead me to failure but I should still be fine because I was the one that wanted it. It was MY idea, MY interest, what MY mind told ME to do. No reasoning required.

Yet, it is true that you have to think about how your decision impacts others’ lives. But if you keep thinking about it, you are going nowhere – just staying in the same stagnant water as millions of others. You should have the courage to do what you want to do and be proud to do it because then, you would be one in a million and trust me, no matter how bad the consequences are, you would be proud enough to shout it out from the rooftop just because you had the will to do what others can only dream of.

Too preachy? Well, this is what I am telling to myself – like a self-realization thing. Sigh… I hope I have the courage to follow what my heart wants. Ok, now it just sounds like a stupid candy-floss Bollywood movie. Pardon me for that!

Eindhoven Times

2010-07-19T12:14:00.003+05:30

Ok, so where do I start? With how crazy the place became when Netherlands won the semi-final match against Uruguay? Or how there are separate cycling lanes in all the cities? Or how punctual the buses/trains are? Or how I saw a few guys cry when Netherlands lost the final to Spain? Dressed in all Orange, blowing the vuvuzela thing, drinking beer by the barrel, the people are, needless to say, crazy about soccer – it is almost the same in India with cricket. I can totally relate to the madness.

I have been darn lucky to be in a country during a gorgeous summer, when the country’s national team is in the finals (after 32 long years) of the most celebrated tournament around the world, working under a really cool manager! And to think I was going to come here in January (that was the original plan) when it would have been freezing cold and no world cup was going on. I just love the people here (yes, it also includes hot guys who don’t care to wear a shirt ;) because it is too hot here – come on, anything beyond 35 degrees is impossible for them – which is one of the reasons summers are soooo good.)

While at Holland, I also go to do what I like to call “exploring the wilder side of me” (like I wasn’t already wild enough) – I spent a few sleepless nights exploring Eindhoven, having a barbeque dinner at my manager’s home, playing in the beach with friends, tasting some fine wine, watching the FIFA world cup semi-finals and finals at the city centrum, having a crazy dancing night with a total stranger, partying until the wee hours of the morning, listening to a live band perform, taking a lot of photos – I did all of that! I know a lot of you are really jealous of me now (as I could gather from the FaceBook messages I got). I admire the style in which they enjoy their lives – they work for nothing more than 8 hours a day, go promptly on their vacations, concentrate completely on their work when they are at office, enjoy totally once they are outside office!

I think I had the best manager one could ask for (no, I am NOT saying this to be on his good books, but because that is the truth). He took us to downtown Eindhoven for the semi-finals match and along with his friends took us to a party later that night. Then he invited us to his home for a barbeque dinner, introduced his family – his wife and his really beautiful 15-month old daughter, served us some really good food – I needed vegetarian food and they had made some corn and mushrooms and potato salad (it felt absolutely great that we were being taken care of so well). Then again he took us out for the finals match and not once did he talk/ask about anything related to work when we were outside the office.

It was a great learning experience too – well, I am not referring to the KT sessions here; I want to leave work out of the entire post. I learnt that people like it when you are honest and are not faking your actions, I learnt that there is one person who is crazier than me in posing for photos (Believe me!!!), I learnt to be patient, I learnt that you can hit it off with a total stranger and end up having one of the best night outs ever, I learnt that I am going to make a great wife (well, how and why is beyond the scope of this blog), I learnt that I have more energy than I thought I did (although I lived on one meal per day)… All is well that ends well. It ended quite well J

And here I am, on my way back home to appreciate paani poori more than ever. And I will not complain about Bangalore food anymore. Talking about food, I am already hungry now. My flight is 7^th in the line for take-off from Istanbul airport and I will post this in about 7 hours when I have reached Mumbai and had a couple of samosas/vada paav (I can imagine the faces of my friends in Holland turning red with jealousy). But come on, I deserve so much!

Smile costs nothing

2010-07-05T14:26:00.000+05:30

If there is one thing that people all over the world have in common, understand and reciprocate, irrespective of where they are from, what color their skin is, which God they worship, which language they speak – SMILE. This simple gesture is so versatile that it could convey anything from a polite ‘hello’ to a naughty ‘How you doin’?’ to a shy ‘Excuse me’. It amazes me as to how so many of us have forgotten to smile or greet another person when we meet. If you ask, “Why in the hell in should I smile at a person I have never met earlier?” it means you have forgotten the very fact that you are a human being and you are the only species to have been blessed with the power and capacity to smile at others. Put it to good use.

I am on a trip to the Netherlands now and I had a transit at Istanbul for a few hours before I could catch my flight to Amsterdam. I do not speak Dutch or Turkish. But language will never be your concern if only you knew how to smile at people. Being friendly has got nothing to do with knowing the language. Sitting across me is a middle-aged lady with eyes the color of the Sea. She is very pretty for her age. I don’t have to go and tell her she is looking very good. A smile would do. Next time you are asking for change in a shop, do it with a smile on your face. Don’t worry if the smile is not reciprocated. It just means that the person you thought was human was not that human, after all.

If you forget to smile for some reason, trust me, you would end up looking like a severely constipated gorilla; like the guy sitting opposite to me just did. May be you are not happy about something, may be you fought with your girlfriend/boyfriend, may be your boss shouted at you (which boss doesn’t is another story), may be you ARE constipated – but you cannot expect the others to understand your problems. You are expected to be friendly by default. An angry face and a dull response is enough to turn away people from you.

It is perfectly ok to think I have gone crazy. It is perfectly ok because there is absolutely nothing interesting about this post (as if my other posts were interesting, duh…). This one got a little too preachy. But I had to write it because I am seeing in front of me a person who looks like smiling is taking too much of his time and energy. It irritates and frustrates me; but maybe I shouldn’t expect him to smile. Whatever… But sitting in an international airport and exclaiming, “Everyone is sooooo white here!” is a little too much by anyone’s standards, don’t you think?

Ok, there you go! I cribbed, yet again. But when two people who are worlds apart in thought and taste are forced to travel together such things tend to happen. I only hope the objective of travel (which is learning, basically) is achieved. Meanwhile I will continue my ‘smile’ campaign when I meet new people (I am going to meet a lot of them) over the next two weeks and silently continue to thank Appa for giving me the interest and the encouragement to read about other cultures and making me a friendly person.

Ok, now I am going to have to stop being such a preachy pain in the you-know-what. And keep smiling, people! Even if you are called ‘Illicha vaai’ by your friends, it’s ok. ‘Illicha vaai’-ngaradhu ellam oru thittoda setha? Pona vaaram un machan unna eppidi thittinaannu yosichu paaru ;) Oh, I miss talking in Tamizh already.

I am also writing a travelogue (in a diary, because I enjoy writing with pen and paper) – I am not really sure how interesting it will be. So I am not posting it. Or may be I should?

My 100th post

2010-06-29T20:12:00.001+05:30

This is my 100^th post and it has taken me 2 years to come to this point. Looking back at the time I started writing in this space – I was a fresher in a big, tough world called ‘I.T.’ fighting it all by myself, armed with only my power to talk and nothing else. I was on bench which gave me ample time to write as much as I could. I had no readers. But this space grew in content and so did I and the number of readers. And now I am at this place where I feel like an old lady already. A lot of people know me (by ‘knowing’ I mean knowing my emotions, my actions, the changes in my life, what makes me laugh – everything there is to know about me) through this space and it makes me proud of myself to have achieved it in 2 years.

This started off as a personal blog – kind of like an online diary where I would scribble, crib and pour out anything that came to my mind (which used to be a lot). This was mainly because nobody used to read it. Later on, as people started reading my posts, I had to filter out a lot of what I thought, simply because it would scandalize a few of them – I had to keep readers’ feelings in mind before I put down anything that I felt/experienced. A few of my friends told me that I was losing my freedom as the number of readers increased; but I had a moral responsibility. I stayed away from a lot of hot topics for fear of being considered rude or judgmental.

Now I have learnt to strike a balance between what I want to write and what the readers may want to read. I wrote my first short story (for which I received a few bouquets and a lot of brickbats). In between, I got the courage to start with my first novel (which is still in its infancy due to my laziness). It is amazing how there is a learning process in everything we undertake. Blogging is something I started for personal satisfaction and now I have learnt so much about a whole new world, made a few awesome friends – friends who are ready to guide and help and appreciate me.

Blogging gave me an address – a door to a soul that was unknown to the rest of the world. It made me popular. Being an Arian and a girl, I enjoyed all the attention I got (and am still getting). Now I have an online diary of the past two years of my life – how much my little world has changed and how much I have changed! But one thing remains – I still go about doing my work (yes, I do work sometimes) and living my life (the happy and the not-so-happy moments) with a broad smile pasted across my face; that hasn’t changed and I hope it won’t ever.

I hope I get to the 200^th post very soon. It will happen when I have interesting things going on in my life. And the next one year looks like it will easily become the interesting year of my life! It includes foreign travel, change in work (not the company, though), a wedding (perhaps?) – looks very promising and exciting. Need your blessings and wishes!

Semmozhiyaana Tamizh mozhiye...

2010-06-20T22:51:00.003+05:30

This time around, I am at Coimbatore to attend my friend Arch’s wedding. The city has been decorated as nicely as a bride-to-be – all for the Tamizh Semmozhi Maanaadu. The flyovers have been painted, the roads widened, new traffic signals, a lot of police at the Railway Station, a lot of traffic police deployed – all this for just the next one week. Lot of Tamizh cultural art forms are going to be performed at different venues in the city. I feel proud to be a Tamizhian. The schools and colleges in Coimbatore have been asked to declare holiday for the next one week. How I wish I were in school now! All city buses will be ticket-free. There is no need to buy bus tickets for the next one week. Food festivals are being organized. Now is the best time to be in this city; well, if you like crowded places.

I miss my dad now. He would have really enjoyed this Semmozhi Maanaadu – being a staunch Tamizh-patriot himself. He would have forced me to take a week’s leave and taken me to all the programmes and lectures and made me listen to the glory of my mother tongue. I can almost see the pride in his face when someone praises Tamizh.

But the city has lost a lot of its trees in the name of road-widening. The programme will last for about a week or so, but the city might never get its climate back. Sigh…

Although so much is being done to ‘improve’ the city and its infrastructure, the people of the city still remain the same. They still talk with so much respect, throw rubbish on the streets, wait for TASMAC (wine shop) outlets to open in the morning and form a queue in the counter there, the auto-drivers still demand exorbitant amount money from the people, the city hasn’t changed one bit in its character.

But no matter what happens to this city, no matter what the people are like, this will always be my home. This is the city that I have grown up in, the city that has made me what I am through the school and college I studied in, through the innumerable people I have met; it is my favorite city (ok, next to Chennai). Chennai is still my most favorite J

I have a couple of good news to share with all the kind people who visit this space. There will be an announcement in a few days’ time (if all goes well). Pray for me, people!!!

My First Crush...

2010-06-12T13:42:00.011+05:30

The day I saw you first, I was amazed by the color of your eyes. They were a clear bottle green. It was then that I remembered that I had not listened to your name correctly. It was so embarrassing. I didn’t want anyone to know that I had a crush on you and I didn’t ask for your name again. I had never been like that before I met you. Though we were classmates, I had to bring up every ounce of courage inside me to even look up to you in the eye. The toughest part of it was to hide it from others; mainly you. I fell for you again when you smiled – although it was not at me. What a kind smile you had! I fell for you totally – from the color of your eyes to the color of the clothes you were wearing. When I came to know that you needed help in understanding a few lessons, I volunteered to share my notes with you. When I knew that you hadn’t completed your laboratory record, I volunteered to write it for you. When I knew that you lacked attendance, I spoke to the professor (being the teachers’ pet) to set this alright for you. But still all this was overlooked by you. I was furious when I saw you chatting up to a pretty girl and exchanged numbers.

After those initial days of adoration where I was bowled over by your personality and your eyes and your smile, I started observing you much more. It was then that I realized that you were human too and not flawless. I noticed that you had a Himesh-like nasal tone to your voice, a little too short to my dream-guy (not that I am tall or anything, but you did not match up to my expectation), your green eyes were in fact fake (you wore contact lenses), lacked the IQ that I wanted my guy to have, a little too slow in grasping things, no knowledge whatsoever of the books I was referring to – all in all hopeless to have a future with. But still my heart wouldn’t listen. Whenever I saw you, there was that familiar drum-roll in the place of the heartbeat, that involuntary smile popping up on my lips, that tiny corner of my heart wanting you to come and talk to me, to hold your hands, the jealousy when you spoke to other girls – all that was still there, only for a moment though. Because the very next moment, when my brain started giving out instructions, it started emphasizing on the flaws in you and I saw you as someone not worth all my attention.

Now all that is gone, it has been a long 5 years since that first day. I don’t think about you every day now. I have grown out of being that silly teen into a busy professional. I simply don’t have the time to reminisce about the past or to feel bad about having missed your company for so long. You are not on my Orkut/FaceBook/Twitter friends’ list. But I still do visit your page and think about how different it would have been if you and I had indeed gotten together. The very reason I am writing this post is with the hope that you would visit my blog just the way I visit your pages and know that I still think about you and even now for a moment my heart beats twice as fast. But as you can see, I am very happy with my life and you are nothing but an occasional, distant, drunk thought. Nevertheless, you are my first crush and will always be special to me.

Oh, how confused I am! One minute I say I still want to be with you and the very next I say you are like one of my pets that I grew when I was younger. I guess that is just me or are all first crushes like this? I would never know. But I am not worried about it. I am happy with what I have and the occasional visit to your pages that remind me that you are alive in some part of the world.

Cheers!

This post has been published for a great contest called My first crush! organized by pringooand blogadda.

Remember those times?

2010-05-18T16:14:00.003+05:30

Life cannot be any better for me. Now, at this particular minute I am writing this, I am happy. I am a very happy person now. Finally, life at Bangalore and this office are becoming something to look forward to every morning. Until last week, Bangalore could not give me the kind of happiness that Chennai gave; my present office and my office-mates can never compare to the awesome friends I made at Wipro, Chennai; I couldn’t go to meet Baba here. And all that has changed now. I have made very good friends here at Philips Innovation Campus. Now, I can say I have a gang – as in a bunch of really cool people with a great sense of humour – that I can hang out with. A big welcome to my new friends to this blog and to my life! And now I am back to my normal self. I plan my weekends during my weekdays and write about my weekends on this space. I have got a bunch of friends to go around with now.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks now at work with trainings and meetings all day long. But otherwise it is so much fun here. Last weekend, I and my friends from work - Rama, Barath and Sreekanth - had been to Nandi Hills – a tourist destination about 45km from Bangalore and enjoyed Saturday afternoon there. We went there to see the sunset from atop the hill, but forgot about it as we sat there chatting and looking at the mommy monkeys carry their lil’ ones.

On Sunday, Sabal and I went to Forum and met up with Dhinu, who I was seeing after almost 3 months. He had been to Norway on an official trip. Then we went to Dhinu’s place and just as we were about to leave his house, we saw the most amazing black clouds ever. And it started pouring. It was one of the best rains I have ever witnessed and needless to say most of the roads on our way back home were clogged. Our cities NEED to be planned better! The auto in which we came had a radio and we listened so many of our favourite songs, singing along loudly and time just flew by and we reached our home back.

The day wasn’t over yet. It was Sunday and I HAD to meet Baba. Barath had come by and he took me to the temple although it was raining. There was not much crowd in the temple and I met Baba, spoke to Him for a few minutes and came back home. The weekend, unlike the umpteen boring weekends I have been having ever since I came to Bangalore, went off in a flash. For some time, I felt like I was in Chennai with my gang, hanging out and laughing and playing and simply jumping up and down with as much joy as the time when India won the World Cup (remember 3 years back, when Sreesanth actually used to bowl well and caught Misbah ul Haq in the T20 World Cup Finals against Pakistan? That’s what I am talking about). Sigh… That was a long time back, indeed!

I never thought I would pen this down!

2010-04-29T17:10:00.004+05:30

I have always been a happy girl. I guess I have had a great childhood and was exposed to a pretty good lifestyle and education and had great parents. I was loved so much and was given so much freedom and knowledge by both my Amma and Appa. Amma insisted that I learn Hindi, while Appa was dead against it. But Amma had her way in this matter and both Gayathri (my sister) and I took to learning Hindi as our second language. So Appa somehow wanted us to learn Tamil and I was given comic books in Tamil to make me recognize letters and improve my reading speed. He also introduced me to the world of books, being an avid reader himself. He was an inspiration. He taught us to play Chess and taught us the rules of Cricket and Tennis and Football and Hockey. In all those school-going years, neither Amma nor Appa ever forced us to ‘sit and study’. Those were the happiest years – no tension, no worries, no idea about the financial situation of the family and in my case, no worries about tests and exams as well – I was a good student, duh… The biggest worry was eating – Amma and Appa and Paati and Athaipaati always forced food down my throat and well, it never stuck to my body. I was always underweight, still am.

Nobody’s life is full of roses. We all have our share of bad days. I have mine too. No, I am not going to start cribbing about kosu again – I guess I have grown used to it and am slowly learning how to tackle this. As my Gurudev Swami Chinmayanandji said, “This too shall pass” and I totally believe in his words. Now more than ever before! My point is, in order to understand where you stand and who your real friends are and who is trustworthy and how tough you are, you have to go through the dark patches of life. I went through a couple of them. Well, right now, I don’t actually remember the first one. But hey, I am sure it was there. I felt bad; maybe I was too young to comprehend it or something. But the second one, I remember quite well.

I was in college. Right now, nobody will believe me if I said I was more of an outcast there. I was popular – hugely popular would be more appropriate – but for the wrong reasons. Now what reasons they were and why they made me popular is beyond the scope of this blog :D (Effect of reading training documents, you see) Well, to be frank, now it makes me laugh and I feel like an idiot for worrying so much about such a non-issue. But yes, back then it made me a bitter person – I went into my own shell and refused to come out of it or allow anyone inside it. Well, to tell you the truth, nobody wanted to come inside, hold my hand and take me out of the darkness and the sadness. Everyone was busy too with their own lives to find out what went wrong with me or to verify the facts and simply stuck to listening to made up stories. There was no one to listen to me. I thought how true these lines were,

"Iruttinile nee nadakkaiyile, un nizhalum unnai vittu odi vidum;

Nee mattum dhaan indha ulagithile, unakku thunai endru vilangi vidum"

(When you walk in darkness, even your shadow deserts you. It is then that you would realize that you are your only companion)

My only strength was my studies. No matter what happened, I never let it affect my studies.

I was all alone inside a dark room for so long and finally when light came, I was afraid of it. I was starting to be afraid of being happy. But slowly, the light grew on me and I started enjoying my day in the sun. It just felt right. I started feeling so light (NOT weight-wise) and slowly started becoming the same girl that I was during school.

I got into Wipro – 2008 was one of the happiest years of my life – my project at Wipro’s Chennai One office, my (rather big) gang of friends, weekend trips to Vandalur and beach resorts with the ‘gang’ – each day was filled with so much laughter that I felt that God was giving me the laughter that was long overdue. 2009, too, was a very happy year. I enjoyed my new project and the early morning shifts – the only time when Chennai’s heat was bearable :)

I still consider my college days to be the most productive years. I went through so much of trauma, but I came out stronger – much stronger than I ever was. I kept on telling myself, “God is putting you through it, because you are one of His favorite children and He wants to make sure you come out strong and tough. And don’t worry; He is doing this to you because He knows you will overcome it successfully. He is just trying to build your confidence.” Now I am happy and strong and know who my TRUE friends are and who is trust-worthy. Behind all that suffering was a learning process. :)

Kosu Tholla...

2010-04-21T17:09:00.002+05:30

Four days of rest and relaxation at home (not to mention made-by-Amma food) is a bane. No, I haven’t become any fatter (in fact, becoming a little plumper would make me extremely happy). It is a bane because at the end of four days, I have got to return to this city which is very similar in climate to Coimbatore, but horrible in terms of water, food and most importantly traffic. But return I did and stuck I got at work. And it does not help that I have a teamie who can’t see through a prank and escalate it to all managers (yes, I have multiple managers… sob, sob). It is certainly not easy for a small (read: shummall) girl to handle all this. I just turned 24 for crying out loud.

Just when you think it can’t get any worse, life bowls yet another one of its bouncers (IPL effect, you see) and says I will have attend a training from 10am to 7pm everyday for two weeks and then do the support activities from 7pm to 10pm. WTF!!! And any training is bound to put you to sleep. Don’t you lie to me that you have always been awake during any training you have attended! No? Not even during the post-lunch sessions? Then you are either a compulsive liar or an alien. Now is a post-lunch session and I am terribly sleepy.

I haven’t read a book in months, I haven’t read the newspaper in 3 days now and I don’t have time for anything besides work. It sounds nothing like me. I have always been the person that gives more importance to personal life than work. My priorities were and are and will be this way for the rest of my life. But I have to go through this for the next couple of weeks and I will have to put up with. There might not be further updates in this space until May. I hate me for quarantining myself from the outside world. I hate this job. I hate my work. I hate myself now!

My teamie (who I disgustedly call “kosu”) is getting on my nerves and is hell-bent on getting everything from high priority issues to pranks I play to his digestive disorders escalated to equally incompetent managers (when have we ever accepted that managers are competent?). He manages to piss me off and irritate me and make me want to pull the hair out of my head – ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Now I understand why Goundamani said his infamous dialogue “Indha kosu thollai thaanga mudila da Narayana… Marundhu adichu kollungada idha” – the same dialogue that I have been using for quite some time now and had mentioned the English translation in my previous post. As I am writing this now, kosu is showing off in front of everyone how resourceful he is by running up 4 floors to get different color markers for our trainer. Hold on a sec… that is the job of the Admin/House-keeping department staff.

Before exiting the door, he asked, “Do you need anything else?”

I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Some coffee, perhaps?” And everyone (including the trainer) burst out laughing.

What pleasure he gets out of asking questions that in our domain are as dumb as, “How is 1+1 2 and not 11?” (The same dumb question multiple times and still not understand…) beats me! I have heard God helps those who help themselves. That explains my need for all the Tortoise/Mortein/Good Night/All Out. Hayyo Hayyo!!!

Happy Birthday to Me...

2010-04-09T20:16:00.001+05:30

All of us go through different phases in life. And when we are passing through one, we keep saying a particular thing frequently – a particular proverb or sentence or movie dialogue or humming a song. Most of you know what my most frequent dialogue was. Well, for the late-comers, it is “I am soooooooooooo cute”. Okay, now don’t close this window. I know it was quite indigestible, but hey, so is seeing Sudeep Tyagi being in the playing XI for the Chennai team. After receiving numerous requests and warnings and threats from friends and others for refraining from saying that sentence, I stopped it. In fact, I got a better one!

This time it went, “I am the best in the world” (said like drunken SRK in OSO in his baatli award acceptance speech) and needless to say it annoyed people around me more. It was something I said to cheer myself up when I was down and no, I didn’t give a darn about what the others were thinking. These were my dialogues when aal waas wel… But it is not so any more. Aal izz not wel. I hate it here now and my current dialogue is: “Indha kosutholla thaanga mudila da Narayana, marundhu adichu kollungada idha” (This mosquito is annoying me too much, somebody spray the insecticide and kill it). Well, who this mosquito is and why it was annoying me is not good enough to be written here; kosu does NOT deserve so much.

But apart from kosuthollai, life is great. My birthday came and went and the day passed off too quickly. I missed being with Amma, Kiya and Paati. But still, I had great fun that started with cake cutting at midnight (the result of which devastating because it made me want to take bath at the middle of the night), Yals had come to my PG to wish me, I wore new sari and went to the nearby temple with Sabal in the morning, came to office, cut the cake at office, went with Sabal for a walk, had paani puri and aalu chat for dinner. It was just perfect J

But still, “Indha kosutholla thaanga mudila da Narayana, marundhu adichu kollungada idha”!!!

Mokkai...

2010-03-23T15:07:00.001+05:30

It was one of those rare days when I had nobody to be with. I am the kind of person that cannot live without being surrounded by friends constantly. Loneliness kills me. I mean, I am a normal girl. I don’t like to be left alone and I love talking and that’s why I need company all the time. Last weekend, Sabal wasn’t here in Bangalore. He had gone to Ernakulam choosing a get-together (read: free beer) with college friends who were going off to Dubai (that is where most Mallus go, right?). It was supposed to be a farewell party kind of thing and off he went without any reserved tickets. How am I supposed to fight with “free beer”? I, in fact, told him I would buy him unlimited free beer in a bid to make him stay back. But he earnestly said, “You know I won’t drink much.” (Oh really?) “I am going because I promised the fellows that I would be there.” (Poda poda, rascala)… At that time I didn’t realize how lonely that would leave me for the whole weekend. It was probably the first time ever that I felt bad that I didn’t have to go to office on a weekend.

I made it a point to catch up with friends. I watched Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya with Vinod. Thank you, Vinod for a pleasant evening. I really enjoyed it a lot. About the movie, what can I say? I felt that Gautam Menon hadn’t clearly made up his mind as to whether the boy and girl live happily ever after or not. Very confused and even more confusing. I really loved the Cinematography and of course Rahman’s music. Oh, and also Trisha’s saris (I am a girl, after all). It has been a long time since I saw a movie without any bloodshed and violence and villains. However, VTV was too mushy and romantic for my taste.

On Sunday, I slept like Kumbhakarna. Semma thookam! By the time I woke up, it was evening and I remembered I had promised Yals I would visit her place. We met up and walked up and down Brigade Road (buying nothing much except two plates of Paani puri and some coffee) and it was like old times again. Talking about mutual friends, careers, relationships… what you would call typical girl-talk – it was about everything and nothing. For a couple of hours, I forgot I didn’t have anyone to go back to. That is why they say, girls should always stay in touch with their girlfriends… Thank you, Yals for being there for me.

Somehow the weekend passed and Sabal is back from his trip and here I am back at office wishing it was weekend again. Namma dhaan thirundha maatome!

What can I say...

2010-03-18T20:12:00.000+05:30

After 7pm is the best time to write blogs – that is when the office is almost empty (there are not many losers like yours truly, you see). I like the calmness here. My desk has been shifted to a place far away from my managers and far away from all the people that make the maximum noise. I generally love being surrounded by loud people; I myself am a loud person and now I feel left out and lonely. Literally lonely because there is nobody here; nobody to see what I am doing – I might as well watch some movie, but I prefer reading something/writing stuff to bore you all. I have a strong feeling that every time I write, I get worse. I am probably one person that challenges the proverb “Practice makes one perfect” – the lesser I write the better is what I feel about myself.

All that apart, I have made up my mind to mokkai pottufy and there is no sparing you. I have learnt so much from blogosphere. It has certainly given me great friends like Satish, Chan, Vinod, etc… and has improved my confidence a lot. Not that I was ever low on confidence. I have been a pain from the beginning. Or that is what Amma says. I wish she writes a blog ala Chennaigirl – kiddie talks. I used to talk a lot. Amma says I starting talking very young and started off with full sentences instead of words and never had that ‘mazhalai pechu’ – she says I started talking like a big girl. She and Appa used to feel very proud of me – I was their first child and they probably thought I was a genius because I started talking earlier and clearer than their friends’ children. Now Amma is feeling “Appo aarambichava innum nirutha maatengarale” (She started so early and has not stopped since)… Well, I am proud of it. Ever since I have been paduthufying Amma with my nonstop nonsense.

I have always been a talkative person and my friends can’t agree more (please read my testimonials in Orkut if you are THAT jobless). It is like a gift. At the same time, I have ended up creating a/being in the middle of a mess ever since I can remember. I once went and told my teacher (when I was in sixth standard), “You are being very partial towards G (a girl in my class). It is wrong. You are a good teacher, but I don’t like this.” Years later when I met that teacher she told me that I had told her something like this and I didn’t even remember the incident. To say it was very embarrassing would be an understatement but I really felt ashamed of myself for saying something like that to one of my favorite teachers and at the same time proud of myself that I had the guts to speak my mind to someone way older and respectable than me.

Ippidi palappala saadanaigala pannitu vandhurukka indha Sandhya… Enna poi velai ellam panna sonna, kaduppaagaadhu? Enna nenachutu irukkanaga? Oh God, let someone understand my genius (no, before that let me recognize my potential) and appidiye ennoda life-ahye maathiranum. Hayyo hayyo!!!

Lazy me!

2010-03-17T20:28:00.002+05:30

Why oh why is hard-work so important in life? Why do Amma and scores of others keep telling me that the only way to success is hard-work? Why isn’t there a ‘fotcut’ or a ‘chota fotcut’ that I could take? Well, the reason I am asking you this is really simple. It also explains why I have been writing lesser and lesser here these days. Laziness. Yes, I have been THIS lazy since birth.

Once when my mom asked me how I managed to be so lazy, I replied (thinking I was really smart) “You should ask yourself that question Amma. Why did you give birth to such a lazy baby? It is a manufacturing defect.” How smart that ended up to be was revealed last week when the epitome of “Nunalum than vaayaal kedum” (yours truly) asked Amma a variant of the same question – “Why did you do this manufacturing defect? It is entirely your fault. Because of this defect people are branding me as lazy and useless (as usual, you think? Fine by me!) and I just don’t feel like doing any work.” Amma gave me a one-liner – “Sorry, warranty period over. Goods once sold cannot be taken back.”

What a P.J. that was! You don’t know what a P.J. is? P.J. means Poor Joke. Was that a P.J. as well? Yes? Wow… I am the Lord of the P.J’s. But hey, I am far better than a few Bollywood movies that have released in the recent past and no, I am NOT going to write a review on any of them simply because I don’t spend time and money to watch such flicks. I prefer watching Balachander classics over and over again than watching the newly released, watch-me-if-you-have-the-IQ-of-a-cabbage movies that bore me to death. And now I understand completely what my blog does to you. I think the last Hindi movie that I loved watching was Ishqiya – way back in January.

Talking of movies, did you happen to watch the Filmfare Awards ceremony this year? Seriously, how much cool do SRK and SAK think they are? It was over-rehearsed and over-done and so long that it bored me to death. The only good thing about the function was Shahid Kapur’s tribute to Michael Jackson (drool drool). Well, it is no secret that I love Shahid, is it? And yes, I am very disappointed with the jury’s decision too. Shahid (darling) slogs it out at the gym and works so hard (and actually acts) in ‘Kaminey’ and who do they give the award to? Amitabh Bachchan. There is no taking away any credit from the hard work he has put into ‘Paa’, but I somehow liked Shahid’s performance better. Perhaps it is because I love him, but what the heck, this is MY blog J

God's Gift...

2010-03-08T21:14:00.000+05:30

This time around I have a very sensitive issue. A friend of mine has a notion that women are inferior to men and should always listen to men and that he can never accept that women are equal to men. Well, that was a bold statement to make in front of me on any day – and he specially chose Women’s day for that. Needless to say, I and another female friend of mine gave him back nicely. He was left battered and bruised. No, we did not get violent; we believe in Gandhiji’s words – we explained that is NOT how it is with the maximum amount of patience we could muster. But he went on with his bullshit about how women should do all the household work and husbands should be their Gods. WTF!!!

Now I agree that women can’t do everything that men can. But what my dear friend had to understand was that similarly, there are (more) things that women do that men can never do. He also went on to say, “Girls who work in the IT industry are always looked down upon by the society. The society respects only those that are teachers or doctors or IAS officers.” Really, that was more than necessary to get on my nerves. No amount of saying or arguing was going to instill any sense into his non-existent brain. The reasons he gave for his filthy mind-set were:

I cannot accept that women are equal to men. They can never be equal to us men. (Oh yes, that is a very valid reason).
Most IT girls have bad character. They don’t deserve/get any respect from the society. (I understand it is because we are educated and independent and are able to support ourselves and our families).
Women should stay at home and do all the household work and men should go out and earn for the family – that is how God intended it. (Oh really? God told you what He intended? When did that happen?)
Men do hard work. Women are inefficient. (Oh yes, you do hard work? Like plough your land? Lay a road? Dig a mine? What?)
I cannot accept that women are equal to men. They can never be equal to us men. (Was it the first point all over again? Yes, that’s what he said – again)

When would men like these understand that women are individuals and they need their space and freedom where they could do whatever they want? Finally he said, “I would keep the girl I marry very very happy.” I just burst out in laughter and said, “The only way you can ever keep a woman happy is by staying away from her.” That was true in his case.

But for all the men out there who want to keep their mothers/sisters/friends/girlfriends/wives/daughters happy, this is how you do it. THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE A WOMAN HAPPY IS BY LETTING HER DO WHAT SHE WANTS TO DO. That is simple, right? The next time your girlfriend asks you, “When can we meet?” try telling her, “We can meet whenever you want to” and live up to your words. The next time your mom asks you, “What do you want for breakfast?” try telling her, “Whatever you want to cook” and then see how truly happy and touched she will be.

Understand that women are delicate and fragile and yet stronger and more courageous than men. Women are precious and without them, life will not be worth living. She can make your life heaven and hell – it depends upon how you choose to behave with them. She is truly God’s gift to the world.

Praise her, celebrate her presence!

Chennai is the warrast?

2010-02-16T21:06:00.000+05:30

There is something that I have to ask you. One of my friends says, “Chennai is the warrast (worst) city in India”. Do you agree? My friend has not made that statement without reasons. There are a few reasons he has listed out and he is more than willing to give “hundreds… no thousands of reasons” to prove his point. He was also curious to know what the others are feeling and in fact, insisted that I write about it on my blog. Please do go through the reasons he had mentioned (and pardon my language, support projects do make your communication so formal that you end up talking like the E! news guys who talk about celebrities’ hook-ups and break-ups like it is the most important news)

Reason #1: Chennai climate – it is the warrast climate. It is so damn hot.

My thought: I have got to agree with him on this one. Chennai is hot; but I liked the heat and he didn’t.

Reason #2: Chennai people don’t know how to behave. They are harsh and rude.

My thought: Ada paavi makka, Chennai makkal are the warmest (well, not as respectful as Coimbatore makkal) and very friendly. They are a little conservative, but that is the best part about it. It is a modern city with traditional values.

Reason #3: Chennai’s dirtiness and ugliness.

My thought: Well, I am still contemplating what he meant by ‘ugliness’; and if he expects any city to be ‘clean’ by his standards, he would have to travel to Singapore, I guess)

Reason #4: Chennai’s drainage system – big open drainage lines running all over the city (in front of major IT parks too)

My thought: The other Indian cities are no better, Krishna! Chennai is a city with one of the best infrastructures in the country.

Reason #5: Chennai people can’t speak any other language – not even Hindi/English.

My thought: Babu, when YOU visit a city, YOU should learn the local language and NOT crib about the people there. And do NOT expect the locals to learn a new tongue in their own city. Also, Tamil is a simple and beautiful language, try learning that! When God gives you an opportunity to learn a new language, grab it. If you get an onsite opportunity and go to France or Netherlands to Spain wouldn’t you learn French or Dutch or Spanish? Or will you forgo the opportunity and demand that your client learns Hindi/English? If you can adjust in a phoren country, why not do it in your OWN country?

Reason #6: Non-Tamil movies (by this he means Hindi movies) don’t release in Chennai. If they do they are released in very few theatres and they don’t last for more than a week’s time.

My thought: Really? This point proves how little you know about Chennai. During my stay there, I watched almost all the Hindi movies that were released. From Hit to Flop, I saw everything there.

Reason #7: Auto-walahs are very rude. There is no meter system.

My thought: I agree there is no meter system. But not all auto-walahs are rude. They respond depending on the tone and attitude with which you ask them. Give respect, take respect! :-D

Reason #8: I went to Ponnusamy hotel. I had chicken, mutton, and everything and I ended up vomiting. Chennai’s food is bad.

My thought: I couldn’t stop laughing at this one. Nadakaradhu, odaradhu, parakaradhu, neendharadhu ellathayum ore time-la vettina, vomit varama? Sinna pulla thanamala irukku? Team lunch-na ippidiya kattradhu? Oru limit venaam? Oru self-control venaam? But anyways, it is just not acceptable that Chennai is the warrast city because Ponnuswamy hotel provides bad food.

Reason #9: Chennai (Marina) beach is the warrast beach (compared to RK beach in Vizag)

My thought: Payapulla, compare panradha vuda maatiya? May be Marina is not as clean, but I am sure the life in Marina is something incomparable. The kids, the kites, the sundal, the wind, the under-the-boat-lovers – it is just out of the world. Instead of enjoying all that, if you choose to concentrate on the cleanliness aspect of it, you are the loser.

Indha maadhiri palappala reasons sonnar avar! I think that you should enjoy whichever city you visit as long as you are there. Try learning the local language, use public transportation to explore the city and I am sure you will have a nice time. What say people?

A February Saturday in 1998

2010-02-08T13:04:00.003+05:30

Feb 14, 1998

Thank God, it was a Saturday. That meant my mom had to work only half-a-day and therefore left office before 3pm on that fateful day. It was 12 years back – 1998. It was when people came to know Coimbatore as the ‘Bomb Blast’ city than as an industrial city. At first, when we heard the news of a bomb blast within the city, I was scared – Amma hadn’t returned home after office and there she did not carry a cell phone in those days and she was practically not reachable. After what seemed an eternity, she reached home. After that, we were kept updated by friends and colleagues (of my parents’) about the various bomb blasts and the riots. It all sounded so unreal – there was no way so many people could have died, there was no way anyone could have planted bombs in the Govt. Hospital (no one was THAT insensitive), there was no way people could set fire to shops in Town Hall and loot stuff from burning shops, and there was absolutely no way there was a 3kg RDX bomb right in Amma’s office building (that was diffused later). I was 12 years old. I thought the world was full of nice people. And villains who murdered people existed only in movies (this was when I was ‘innocent’ as I claimed in my previous post). All the same, I was excited too, because schools declared holiday until a car bomb was diffused and that took around 4days.

The fact was that over a hundred people died (although the official figures claim that it was only one-third of it), and so many were injured and the incident changed the image of the city in a flash – suddenly, people were more unwilling to come and work in Coimbatore (even though it is a beautiful city with a great climate and awesome water), Real Estate prices hit rock bottom (of course, I didn’t realize it then), and business slumped and it took half a decade for it to come back to normal. And for the first time in my life, I felt unsafe. I felt afraid to go out; little did I know that such attacks would become a way of life in the years to come!

I think that is enough and more reason why, as a Coimbatorean, I won’t celebrate Valentines’ day – the day that made my city weep and bleed. To me it is a day of mourning. Celebrating is the last thing that I would do on February 14^th.

Nothing in particluar

2010-02-01T14:11:00.000+05:30

Well well, the only thing I took seriously after I wrote my previous post was to learn Spanish (in hopes of meeting Rafael Nadal someday and him falling hopelessly in love with me ). Sigh… And I am being taught Spanish by Google as well as a few native speakers. And I must say it is a very nice language to learn. By now, it is no secret that I am a huge chatter-box and can’t stop talking and I also love learning new languages. So the next language on my hit-list was Spanish (maamiyaar, maamanaar-ah impress panna vendam? Not just that – Rafa is also Peter-la weak) and I am so excited by the opportunity I am being given to learn a new language which sounds great. But bad news is that Rafa is injured (yet again) in his right knee (yet again) and has pulled out of the Australian Open – I was hoping to see him defend his title and reclaim his #1 spot. Oh my God, I am really in love with him!!!

Ippolaam ennavo theriyala, I am beginning to enjoy Kuthu Songs – from Nakka Mukka to En peru Meenakumari to Aathichoodi – full time I am singing these songs and this irritates everyone around me. Obviously, I have come a long way from my Bhajan and Bhagwad Geeta Chanting to this and it really makes my family angry. They still expect me to be that little girl who was innocent (hey, nejamma… believe me, I used to be innocent – once upon a time) and the problem is I have grown up and they haven’t! Indha ammakkale ippididhaan pola…

My sister has gone to Mumbai with her friends – Industrial Visit-am. Engalukku theriyaadhu, indha I.V.-la enna pannuvaanganu? All ore kuttai-la oorina mattais dhaane? With her around it is easier to handle maamis who want to marry me off like it is the purpose of their birth – at least I had someone to laugh it off with. It will be really nice if gets married first and no one seems to agree with me on that. Enna vaazhkayada!

I wanna be a...

2010-01-25T17:37:00.002+05:30

When I listen to some songs, I feel I should have taken up singing more seriously and continued those Carnatic music classes. When I watch Shahid Kapur dancing (and not trying to be SRK), I feel should have taken those dancing classes that my sister used to take and have something to talk to Shahid when we meet (Sigh…). When I watch the Australian Open matches, I regret not having gone for those Tennis Coaching classes that few of my friends attended; now what the hell am I supposed to talk about to Rafael Nadal when we meet? Oh, I should learn Spanish first for that, you say? Okay; that I can start even now. Well, my point is, everyone is good at something or the other – some are athletes, some are singers, some are painters, and some are trivia-freaks – each one has his/her own hobby – something they have been good at or trained in right from childhood.

I am good at nothing – I sing well enough to wake people up from sleep (so much so that few are considering my songs as their Alarm Tunes), I dance as if I am having one of those epilepsy attacks, I just can’t paint (never have and never will), I can’t even beat my 35+ years old colleague up a flight of stairs. And I am doing something I hate for a living. Sigh… Each passing day makes me feel more like a loser and hopelessly pathetic. In Chandler’s words, could life be any worse?

I need to figure out what I am good at (no, I don’t take, “You are good at nothing” for an answer). I need to contact the right person to channelize my potential. I need to take it up seriously without giving way to my laziness like I did with singing. I need something that would keep me sane (if I have not already lost my sanity) and kill my boredom and make me a better person. I am sure I will be good at what I do if only I were doing something that makes me happy. To excel in something, I have got to enjoy it. I am also sure that there are so many of you out there, stuck up doing something you hate but sticking on to it because there is no other go, praying for relief from the monotony, unable to enjoy your work/chosen field of study – simply because it was chosen by someone else.

I guess that is enough ranting for now.

Sparing you from a boring long post (read: before you choose to kill me)…

What have I gotten myself into!!!

2010-01-21T12:59:00.002+05:30

Don’t do anything you can’t own up to. And that goes for all you back-stabbers out there. You have a problem with anyone, tell it to the concerned person or don’t tell it out at all. What is the point in complaining to a third person? That would make you a fool if the other person and the person you are complaining about are friends – did that thought ever cross your mind? No? What a hopeless idiot you are! I am sorry, but I really hope you read this blog!

Now, venting it out to a third person is totally different from complaining. What I am doing here on this blog is venting out. You got a problem with me? Come talk to me… Let’s talk and sort the shit out. Don’t be a coward! I don’t know what you are more of – a wuss or a fool. And frankly, I don’t give a damn about you. From now, it is full-on war, baby! And you are going to cry and regret your actions and run away. As Chandler says in F.R.I.E.N.D.S, the messers now become the messies… You messed with me? You messed with me? And you thought you could get away with it?

I am just miserable, aren’t I? Sigh… I need more energy than ever and I don’t even have time to eat anything. I am losing so much weight that soon I am going to go invisible. And this messer is like the worst thing that could happen to me at this time. I feel it is too cowardly to say “I quit” and get the heck out of here; I feel it is too much stress to take upon myself; I feel I am talking too much nonsense (and I am sure you agree with me on this one).

I believe in God. Is it okay to give it right back to the person (because he/she totally deserves to be hit back at) or should we leave it to God and let Him take His own sweet time to do the needful? Because for now, I am sure He has His hands full with people from Haiti and may not find time in the coming days to resolve my problem. Is this nonsense too? I need help… Any professional psychologists out there?

Confused and shattered,

Me.

Help me escape!

2010-01-13T12:18:00.001+05:30

I finally find some free time after so many days of hectic work. Yes, I have work and yes, I am (have become) hard-working and yes, that is what kept me from writing more frequently. Trust me! On top of all these, whenever I am home, I am inundated with aunties asking me when I am going to get married – and by aunties, I mean every woman who is 30+ years of age, ranging from blood relatives to distant relatives to neighbors to I-just-met-you-in-the-bus-but-I-don’t-at-all-feel-it-is-inappropriate-to-ask-you-to-get-married-soon types. Seriously, WTF is their problem? Is it:

“Yaam petra inbam, peruga ivvayyagam” (Let the world experience all the happiness I experience; this expression is used generally in sarcastic comments) or
I am so bored with my daily mega-serials and I just want to mess up somebody’s life and who better than you or
I cannot digest the fact that how you are so carefree and independent or
I have a relative whose son is a loser and I just like making his life even more miserable (with a typical mega-serial villain-ish grin) or
I just want to while away some time (eating your head) during this insanely boring bus ride.

What is it? And how long do they exactly expect me to reply with a oh-so-fake smile on my face, dismissing all the urges to reply with a killer one-liner, controlling my temper and refrain from shouting out to God to forgive the aunties and take them to heaven (immediately)! And what angers me even more is when my mom finds it alright to the extent of being natural. When are they ever going to understand that when and who I want to marry is my choice and the random-aunty-I-met-five-minutes-ago-in-the-bus does not have a say in it? Just leave me alone, aunties!

Next time onwards, my reply is going to be any one of the following:

(With the most innocent look you have ever seen) Aunty, I am not sure who you are. (And run like crazy in the opposite direction)
Amma said there is something terribly wrong with my horoscope and I would have to wait for five more years before thinking about marriage.
I don’t want to consider marriage before at least one onsite trip (I am sure that ought to shut them up – Iyer aunties are so impressed by such ideas; on the down-side, I may never get married ;-) )
I want to take up brahmacharyam (and give them an hour’s lecture on giving up material desires and karma and moksha until it is their turn to escape from me).

Any other ideas are welcome! :-)

Idiots... All of us!

2010-01-08T19:58:00.002+05:30

How many idiots! I went to watch 3 idiots (no, not in a multiplex that would have drilled a big hole in my purse) and it was worse than what I had expected. Before you conclude that I am a moron not to have liked the biggest hit movie of last year, wait till you hear more – not that it is going to change your perception about my being a moron, but at least, it will be postponed ;-) Talk about living in constant hopes! ;-)

I had shelled out 150 bucks (per ticket) in a single screen theatre (don’t tell anyone, I bought it in ‘black’) and it was after we entered the theatre that we came to know that our seats were in the very first row of the theatre. First row! And apart from a really smelly guy in the next seat, I also had to battle neck pain and oh yeah, bugs in the seat! Was the movie worth all this? There seems to be a lot of talk about the movie in the media. But if it was a promotional stunt for the movie, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Rajkumar Hirani and Chetan Bhagat are better actors than Aamir Khan, Maddy and Sharman Joshi and we are bigger idiots than anyone associated with the movie for falling for this nonsense.

All of a sudden Andhra Pradesh is getting all the media attention with KCR’s fasts and bandhs and students turning mobsters and the inimitable Tiwari-ji. Don’t be shocked if more than 20 other girls come out in the open and claim that they had been with Tiwari-ji; that is what happened to the ultimate role-model sportsperson of the last decade – Mr. Woods. Talking about Sports, Justine Henin-Hardenne is making an awesome comeback, just like compatriot Kim Klijsters did last year. Way to go!

Just a few minutes ago, I saw a very disturbing video of something that would haunt me at least for the next couple of days. A sub-inspector of Police bleeding and begging for help as the Ministers of Tamil Nadu keep watching, without even getting out of the comfort of their cars – possibly irritated that their journey is getting delayed. And whatever is the f’in problem with the media personnel who were more interested in shooting the entire episode to make ‘sensational headlines’ than in saving a uniformed officer at duty, forget that, a fellow human-being! The whole time I was watching it (it was only a 2 minute video clip, but it felt like it was forever), all I could think was about the family of the officer – his children, wife, mother… They all would have seen the video and saw their loved one begging for his life – how worse can it get? I feel sick in my stomach; imagine the plight of his family. If a video (most part of it blurred out because it was on a national news channel) had so much impact on me, the impact it made on the on-lookers over there must have been exponentially high. Despite that they failed to help him. Why are we so insensitive?

As usual I have poured my mind here.

Pondering Pointlessly

2009-12-30T12:27:00.003+05:30

An idle mind is the devil’s workshop. We all have heard that a million times, especially from our parents, more especially if you were as lazy as yours truly. Like how the “best bad massage award” would be called ‘The Monica” (you don’t watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S? You should!), the “laziest person award” would be (and should be) called “The Sandhya”. I can visualize my mom nodding her head twice faster at this. That is me. The best thing to do, for me, is just sit and laze around and stare at the ceiling. Or may be read a book or watch a movie – but those things are to be done only when I am really really bored of well… staring at the ceiling.

And when I don’t have any book to read or movie to watch, and am still bored after my tiring stint at staring at the ceiling, like anyone else, I think. No, don’t laugh. I do have the necessary apparatus up inside my head and believe it or not, it is in perfectly good, working condition. And if you had read about my Analytical Mind, you would know how it works. I mean, how good it works.

A gazillion thoughts within seconds all inter-connected (or so I think) in some peculiar way which is totally back-traceable. No? Lost me somewhere in the middle. It happens. It happens to me, for crying out loud. There is so much I think about – should I have a cup of coffee now or half an hour later? Gosh, the weather is so good; I should ask paati to make bajji or bonda. This Paulo Coelho book is so boring; I have to finish this one soon and start “Atlas Shrugged”. I should never have left Chennai; I feel so cold and lost here. Wow Chennai, what a city! Those were the best days of my life – beach, Blur, Inox, Wipro, bajji at the beach… Hmmm, bajji… “Paati, sooda bajji pottu thaayen.”

You get the drift. From a casual coffee thought to bored to remorse to memories to well, coffee (and bajji) again – all within seconds of each other. These thoughts make me. And now I am sure you don’t find me lazy given the amount of thinking (?!) I do. Tell my mom so!!! Meanwhile, I am going to think about New Year and how ridiculous these ‘New Year Resolutions’ are. HAPPY NEW YEAR, folks!!! :)

My first...

2009-12-08T16:45:00.002+05:30

She felt suffocated. As if she was stuck in a dark room without any doors and windows; as if the sky was closing in on her; she couldn’t breathe. In fact, she couldn’t do anything without his permission. His – her husband’s. It has been just 2 months since they had gotten married. Everyone from her married cousins to her friends had told that her that the first couple of months after wedding were the most romantic ones. Whenever she thought of that, she laughed at herself for being so naïve and believing in what they had said. Either God has been cruel to her or they had all lied to her. She also knew it could be worse – it was not like her husband was a drunkard and beat her up each evening or raped her or her mother-in-law was constantly finding faults with her or they were torturing her with dowry demands. She knew that a lot of women went through that every day.

Her case was different – she was suppressed. She wasn’t allowed to go to work; according to her husband, a man who makes his wife work is incompetent. It always left her burning red with anger because her mother was a working woman and her husband was indirectly pointing it out that her father was incompetent. And it was not like he hated her or treated her with contempt; that would have been so much better. He was indifferent to her.

“Will you be late from work?”

“Don’t know.”

“Hmmm, I was wondering if you could come early and we could go to the beach.”

He just shrugged. She didn’t know what to make of it – his silence. What was she supposed to think if he answered her questions with a shrug?

“Can you buy me a book while coming back? I get really bored at home.”

This time, nothing – not even a glance at her direction. He simply got up and left to fetch himself some water. That was the end of the conversation, if you could call it that. He wouldn’t even ask her to get him some water; he just avoided any interaction as much as possible.

He didn’t complain if the food she made was bad and neither did he appreciate if it was good. He didn’t notice it if she wore a new dress; he didn’t speak to her unless it was utterly necessary. He was not rude to her; he didn’t respond to her with anything more than a nod or shake of his head or a word or two at the maximum; and he definitely never smiled at her. That was what left her astounded – how can anyone, all of 27years of age, forget smiling? He didn’t seem to have any friends – none visited them. Was he like that only towards her? Was there something wrong with her? Was he in love with some other girl and was forced by his parents to marry her? How happy her life was before two months? It all seemed so long ago.

She had just finished her engineering degree and was waiting for her call letter to come. There were rumors that the MNC in which she was placed from her university’s placement drive was not honoring the offers it had extended, citing the recession as reason. She had always been a sincere student although not as hard-working. Her parents were both working and had always encouraged her to ask questions and to disagree with them. She was smart and they were supportive and she thought there was nothing more that she could ask from them – they had educated her well, they had always been there for her when she needed them, they had never forced their wishes on her and her dad treated her like a princess. She had, as a result, grown up to be an independent thinker and mature for her age and to her friends, she was the rational one always knowing right from wrong.

It was when she was reading the newspaper that morning (during those endless months that she waited for her company to ‘call’ her) and her parents were getting ready to go to their offices that her father came to her and said, “Chinnu” – that was what her dad called her – “I have to talk to you about something important. There is this guy…” And when her dad finished telling her about the guy who was well-educated, tall, handsome, from a good family, in a nice job, she didn’t feel anything - except that she was a little too young to get married – she was, after all, barely 22. She was in a currently boring but soon-to-be-exciting phase of her life. She had her dreams – of working in an MNC, getting used to the corporate culture, being financially independent and making new friends. But now her dad wanted her to get married? It was so out of the blue. She had never thought her parents would do this. It was not that she was in love with someone; she could have and would have certainly told her parents if that was the case. She could have plainly told her parents that she wasn’t interested in getting married right now, that she is too young and not mature or responsible enough to handle a family. But she didn’t do that either because she was curious. She wanted to know how it would be to live with a guy she didn’t know at all, how they would become friends, share the house-hold chores and fall in love. That apart, she also knew that her parents were very impressed with the guy’s ‘profile’ and to put them off is something she didn’t want to do.

Now sitting in the sofa in her in-laws’ place, sipping coffee, she thought of how life had changed. At her parents’ it was always fun. She loved the independence she had there, particularly the freedom of speech part that rendered her a hopelessly talkative girl specializing in arguing and debating. She could do what she liked to do – watch TV, read books, and laze around – whenever she wanted. On weekends, the three of them would go to movies or the beach or temples and had dinner outside. All the while she would keep talking, asking questions, suggesting movies, or arguing on some topic.

She knew perfectly that things wouldn’t be the same at her in-laws’, but she didn’t think it would be this different. This house was as silent and boring as it could get. Her in-laws talked rarely. Some days a ‘Good Morning’ and a ‘Good Night’ was all the conversation she had with her mother-in-law. The entire family was indifferent to each other. They just didn’t care how the others felt on a particular day. Her husband, the one who was supposed to make it easy for her to gel with his family, was the most aloof of the lot. Whatever she did, whatever she said, didn’t matter to him. And she was not supposed to leave the house unnecessarily (‘unnecessarily’ included her visits to her friends’ houses, just a walk down the road, to the temple and of course, to her parents’), she was not supposed to apply for jobs – after all, he was the man of the house and didn’t want her to work – he either had ego issues or felt insecure about the fact that she would be working with other guys (of her own age) – she would never know, she was not supposed to wear makeup (this, she was okay with – she was never interested in makeup anyway, but she now had that overwhelming urge to wear makeup just to show him that she didn’t care, but suppressed it because she felt too tired and weak to protest and also because she didn’t exactly know how to), she was not provided with the books she wanted to read which was the worst possible punishment of all (she could not remember of a day at her parents’ that she didn’t catch up on reading before going to bed), she was not allowed to watch TV much, she didn’t have a cell phone to contact her parents (even if she had one, her husband wouldn’t pay the bill) – all she could do was sit down in a corner with her thoughts. Thankfully, they hadn’t found a way to stop her from thinking. It was at moments like these that she felt suffocated.

Then the telephone rang. She ran to it to pick it up. She was reminded of the time at her parents’ when they had first gotten their telephone. She used to run up to it and pick it up. Now she was running to pick it up because it would give her a break from her seemingly never-ending stint at ‘sitting idle’.

The caller-id said it was from her husband’s cell phone. She was surprised. Her husband never called during the day. He didn’t have anything to talk to her in person, for crying out loud, and he certainly wouldn’t call.

“Hello.”

“Hello.” It was not her husband’s voice.

“Yes, who is this?”

“Madam, do you know someone called Mr.Sathya?”

“Yes. I am his wife. Who is speaking?” Wife. A word she has grown to hate over the past couple of months.

“I am very sorry, ma’am. I have bad news. Your husband met with an accident and I am afraid he is no more. They have taken the body to the G.H. for post-mortem. Could you please come here at once?”

She didn’t know how to react. She knew she should be devastated to have lost her husband within two months of marriage. But she felt at peace, relieved and guilty at the same time. She didn’t cry; she couldn’t bring herself to. Instead of being shattered and not knowing what to do or cry hysterically, she thought – she had gotten so used to just thinking that she couldn’t do anything more than that. This time she thought about her future. She may, after all, get a chance to go back to her parents’, join her MNC that might call her very soon, study further, fall in love and live life the way she wanted to. She felt guilty at her disability to cry. She had to cry now – no, not for herself, not for venting out her grief – there was no grief at all, but for the world – the world that might question her marriage if she didn’t cry, the world that has the freedom of speech that was denied to her, the world fearing which her mom and dad had gotten her married much before it was due, the world that had prying eyes that only found faults with others.

She cried. But inside, she was smiling convinced that she deserved it.

Vote for me!!!

2009-12-02T13:07:00.006+05:30

Hi,

This blog has been nominated for the 'Best Personal Indiblog of the year' by Indibloggies .

If you think this blog deserves the award, please vote at http://multivote.sparklit.com/web_poll.spark/21900 - the blog is titled 'The ha ha called lyf..." (that is how my blog was named earlier)...

To vote, you have to enter your email address in the textbox provided and then go to your inbox and click on the link in the mail that you would get from 'CONFIRM VOTE'.

Thanks!!!

Fell in Love - Part 2

2009-12-01T16:14:00.001+05:30

It is the one place on earth that is close to my heart. It is a place that has seen it all – my happiness, my craziness, my sorrows, my confusions, my stupidity, my anguish, my fears, my adventures, everything. It is the place where I was born and brought up, the place that has taught me to be talkative, a place that has offered my solace when I was depressed, and confidence when I was confused. Coimbatore. I know I have written so many posts about MY city but still I can’t help but write more as I find myself loving it more and more by the day.

It is a place which is surrounded by mountains and is a treat to watch during the rainy season. And when it rains, it doesn’t rain like it does in Chennai where in November and December somebody from upstairs is pouring down buckets and buckets of water for over 3 days continuously resulting in flooding - rain water + sewage water + urine + spit mucous (ewwww). In Coimbatore, it drizzles ever so lightly, not even enough to get you wet. When it does rain heavily, it doesn’t last for more than 2hours, 4 at max. And some summer showers bring in small pieces of ice which we used to collect in jugs as children.
It is a place where people are so warm and friendly and treat you with respect. Oh and the language – it is so sweet to hear. No wonder I am a lot more talkative when at Coimbatore. I just talk so that the other person would respond in that wonderful slang and I would keep listening. I am just used to addressing my Amma in singular (without the ‘nga’ in after each verb, or in cases after each word), I address my neighbors with full respect – so it is not “Illa, aunty”; it is “Illeenga, aunty”. Otherwise, it is considered rude.
The city is a paradise to trekkers. It is at the foothills of the Western Ghats, what did you expect? There are a lot of different treks for trekkers of different stamina and skill.
The water in the city is among the tastiest in the world. The Siruvani river flows through the forests where a lot of Amla trees exist and since the water touches the roots of these trees while flowing, it tastes super-good. I have seen the water flowing in small streams and it is so pure that you can see the sand and pebbles underneath it very clearly. And that water tasted great.
The people of this city have unique, unmatchable sarcastic streak. The ‘Coimbatore Kusumbu’ and my talkative nature have combined together a lot of times and made me speak and gotten me into trouble big time. But I am proud of my kusumbu!!! :-)

All these reasons apart, Coimbatore is so good for me because it is HOME to me. That is what it is – HOME :-)

After-hours... ;-)

2009-11-26T18:36:00.003+05:30

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...

2009-11-24T15:00:00.002+05:30

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...

2009-11-17T19:21:00.003+05:30

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 :-)

2009-11-11T20:49:00.000+05:30

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!

2009-11-09T19:40:00.000+05:30

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

2009-11-04T21:37:00.002+05:30

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! :-)

Miss me, won't you?

2009-10-23T11:08:00.001+05:30

You would miss me. Miss me big time. I am sure!

Wouldn’t you miss me when you over-sleep and reach work late because you don’t have me waking you up every morning?
Wouldn’t you miss me when you walk through the same roads we walked on everyday without my hands to hold?
Wouldn’t all those small road-side tea/juice shops remind you of the times we had coffees when it was raining?
Wouldn’t you miss me when you have no one to talk to or when you are alone at home?
Wouldn’t you miss me whenever you see the stray dogs I used to pat when we went on our late night walks?
Wouldn’t you miss me when you go to the beach?
Wouldn’t the Baba Mandir remind you of me?
Wouldn’t you miss all the heated arguments we have about everything and nothing in the world?
Wouldn’t you miss holding me and saying ‘Good Night’ every night before going to sleep?
Wouldn’t you miss shouting at me asking me to get inside the house to stop me from getting drenched in the Chennai rain?
Wouldn’t you miss having hot lunch prepared by me?
Wouldn’t you miss sending me off at and picking me up from Central station once in a month?
Wouldn’t you miss me when you see people walking hand-in-hand anywhere?
Wouldn’t you miss all the good and not-so-good times we have shared?

Please don’t let me go because I sure should not ask you to come with me where I am going.

I know you would miss me like crazy. Please do NOT move on. No, I can never grant you freedom and I can never let you move on.

Love Hurts

2009-10-14T12:44:00.004+05:30

It is my last couple of weeks in Chennai now and I am growing increasingly paranoiac with each passing day. That I have fallen in love with this dusty, sweaty, over-polluted, hot and humid city is no secret to you all. And the more I write about how nice the city is the angrier few of the readers (especially those who hail from the North Indian states and don’t want to be called ‘Northie’) get. So I shall refrain from writing out my love for this great city and go back to writing what I know about – manager bashing, may be. But hey, I did that in my previous post and there is only so much I could crib about a bad manager when I know there are worse.

A couple of days back I was talking to this friend from my school days and as we were talking about life and career and stuff, I told him how much I hate this freaking IT job and how I am not tech-savvy and how awkward it feels when I am supposed to pretend to be an expert at something that I don’t know head or tail of. And then he asked me what my passion in life is. I was tempted to say, “My passion in life is to eat, sleep, read, write and shop – in that order. If anyone is going to pay me to do any of these, then that is the kind of profession I am looking at.” But he was not the kind who would appreciate my pathetic jokes. In the end I said something and he went on to give a lecture about how ‘passion’ is something that ‘doesn’t let you sleep’ and how it ‘keeps you charged’ all the time. After an hour or so of lecture, he hung up. But I had started thinking – is there anything I am really passionate about? Something that I keep thinking of all the time? Something that I want to do for the rest of my life? Something that is not eating, sleeping, reading, writing or shopping? After a couple of hours of thought, I gave up. May be I am not old enough to have a passion as yet. Well, who am I kidding? I should have a passion by now; I should be on my way to excel in it. Although I am so not Sidharth Mehra from ‘Wake Up Sid’ who lives life carefree, happy to be spending his father’s hard-earned money, I don’t think I am any better than him in realizing my potential or at least in knowing what I want to do with the rest of my life. Anyways, I am not going to write about finding my passion either.

By the way, the big fat ticket inspector from the MTC (to know more about this character read this) has made it a habit to harass everyone from school children to construction workers. I see him almost everyday sitting on his bike with his entourage of ticket checkers who I am very sure receive a part each of the “collection” and what am I doing there? Well, just standing and watching and writing about it on my blog. Sigh…

Well, finally what I want to say is: I love Chennai. Yes, despite such foul-language speaking MTC ticket checkers and even worse auto-walahs and the dirty beaches. I love this city and it kills me every time I think I have to move away.

Enna koduma sir idhu...

2009-10-09T08:48:00.004+05:30

The last two weeks have been most eventful. And I’m a lot wiser now. Really. Not buying it?

I have interacted more with managers in the last two weeks than I have in the last two years and learnt how to talk to them – the choice of words in an email, the tone of your voice in a telephonic conversation, to be persuasive in a subtle way – I am well on my way to become a manager myself. :-P But then God help those who become my subordinates! :-P

It is so funny when you go and stand in front of your manager and tell him,

Me: I just came to remind you that I’d be on leave next week.
Manager: Which days, Sandhya?
Me: Hmmm, three days and the other two weekdays are holidays.
Manager: What? The whole of next week?
Me: No, just three days.
Manager: But you won’t be at office throughout the next week?
Me: (Silly fellow, isn’t that obvious?) Hmmm, yes. I’m planning to go to my hometown, you see.
Manager: Why didn’t you inform me earlier?
Me: Actually, I did. I informed you three weeks back that I need three days leave and you actually approved the leaves.
Manager: I did?

It’s so funny when managers try to think hard, you know? The look on his face made me think that he badly wanted to answer nature’s call, but somehow nature wasn’t calling him as often as it has to. :-P And needless to say I was controlling my laughter and had to rush out of the ODC to a nearby conference room to laugh it off.

And then I headed to Coimbatore – to spend an awesome week there with Amma and Gaya and Paatti. As usual, the city was at its enchanting best - not very hot, not very cold, chilly wind and the slight drizzle and the magnificent hills surrounding the city - they are all still there. The city is just soooooooo beautiful. Since it was Navrathri time, we had visitors during all evenings to see the Golu. My cousin Nithya had come with her two daughters, aged 4 and 2 to see the Golu and the elder one – Harsha – sang devotional songs so beautifully (with actions) as her teacher (who was also my teacher when I was in school) and I couldn’t stop moving my hands in action just like her (although I stayed away from singing along for good).

For years, it has been me who stayed back while the others said ‘bye’ and left and come November I would be the one taking off – away from Chennai, away from my work, away from a lot of great friends I have made here, away from the beaches, away from my extremely patient roomies, away from a great team at work, just away from life as I have known it for 2 years now. And I do hope everything goes on well post my ‘bye bye’ from a city I have grown to love.

But of course, ‘Lighter Side…’ will still be alive and I will continue to post here – all the details about where life takes me and what it offers. And yeah, I will be available on Orkut, FaceBook, Twitter, etc. So, I don’t really think I would be missing the gang of friends I have made in the cyber world. :-)

Bad, Bad World...

2009-09-24T14:28:00.002+05:30

I knew I said I wasn’t going to fill up this space for some time – I didn’t know why exactly I said that, I just felt I had lost it in me to write anything beyond boring official mails; but now I am back and have quite a few incidents in the past couple of weeks that have made me think and respect life and disrespect and loathe few people and to start writing again. I went through the recent posts in my blog and found that I have been doing nothing but cribbing and getting senti (I know it sucks…) for a while now and vowed to go easy on the cribbing part but I have now found that it is almost impossible for me not to complain and crib – don’t blame me, the world is so bad. You know that already, don’t you?

Well, last week was a tough one. I had problems with my friend, team mate and a lot of people on the road (If you are thinking, “who doesn’t?” Welcome to the club!) Now, without indulging into the causes of each of these tiffs, I would only write about the after-effects of these, thereby denying you the chance to judge me! (I am smart, you see ;-) )

I had a problem in respecting a friend of mine for a mean thing he did and therefore walked out on my group of friends while we were hanging out. It was already 9pm in the night and without thinking twice, I walked to the beach (Thiruvanmiyur beach, at that) and sat alone to think about what I did and whether it was worth the being-alone-late-night-at-unsafe-beach after all. I sat alone and watched the people there – a bunch of guys playing volley ball under the flood lights, a little girl sitting with her mother and playing in the sand, a girlfriend punching her boyfriend playfully and smiling, 3 girls talking and giggling, a father holding his little girl’s finger and walking, a husband walking with his pregnant wife – no one was alone. Wait, there was a dog there – he seemed to have no company, just like me! :-) I smiled at him thinking I am not the only lonely living thing there. Then the dog’s friend dog came and they both walked off together too. That day, I learnt to hide my feelings. I thought I’d never say this, but it would stand you in good stead if you learned to hide your emotions and sugar-coat your words and be the (sickeningly) ‘sweet’ person that everyone likes.

As if to reiterate it, I had a tiff with my team mate (I have got to remain confidential about this one, but what the heck…) who accused me of ‘manipulating’ him and urged me ‘not to play games’ with him and it was at that moment that I realized that my only mistake was that I had been cordial to the extent of being friendly towards him. Had I been not as warm and as friendly, his words wouldn’t probably have had the kind of effect on me as they actually did.

More than these two incidents, I had a never-before experience – I saw (from close quarters) an MTC ticket inspector grabbing a 13-14 year old guy’s wallet from his pocket and taking the money out of it after the boy and his friend threw the bus ticket after buying it. The little guy started crying and the following conversation took place:

Big Fat Ticket Inspector (BFTI): Give me your mother/father’s cell number.
Little guy gave the phone number and it was apparently switched off.
BFTI: (In a mocking tone) Enna thambi, the phone is switched off.
Little guy: Sir, my parents must be on the plane. They are coming back from Hyderabad today evening. That’s why…
BFTI: Flight-laya??? He he… Romba vevarama irukkaye... Give me your house key and go (and put his hands into the guy’s pocket and took out his house key).
Little guy: (Crying even more) Sir sir, sorry sir. Please give the house key sir.
BFTI: But you traveled without a ticket (like it was a gruesome crime). How much money do you have? Aaahh, look at this! You have a 50 rupee note in your wallet.
Little guy: Sir, that is all I have. I have to eat from outside. Please, sir.
BFTI: Are you going to eat for 50 rupees?
What the hell… Agreed, what the guys did (albeit playfully) was wrong, but does it justify the inspector’s act? What were even worse were his humiliatingly mocking tone and his words. I didn’t know what to do. I felt so bad for the young kid – now he would never have any respect for ticket inspectors (he would have fear, alright; but not respect) Will the Government officials stop misusing power? What should a common man do to stop getting ridiculed and mocked at? How do we show our protest? Before you answer that, would we all come forward and stand together and protest against such officials? So many questions to ask; nobody to answer.

Taking a break!

2009-09-14T13:06:00.000+05:30

I never thought I would say this, but I am taking a break from blogging for a while. I just don't know why, but I will be gone for a while!

Cheers!!!

Kandaramanickam!!!

2009-09-09T16:21:00.002+05:30

Well, I came back from Kandaramanickam after attending Nitsy’s wedding and what a wedding it was!!! I mean wooooooow…. I have rarely been to a wedding that is not a typical Tamil Brahmin affair and if I had been to one, I don’t seem to remember it that well. This one was just out of the world. Although the wedding lasted for a much lesser time period than a Tamil Brahmin wedding, the rituals were just as interesting and meaningful (now do not come back asking what is the significance of the ‘Oonjal’ thing that we have in our weddings. I seriously don’t know. If you know, you could write it in the comments section).

The wedding rituals started with a ‘Nitchayadhartham’ – the official engagement ceremony on Sunday. That day, they also did this ritual where in they bring few small, tender branches of a banyan tree and tie it to a very long pole and fix it to the ground. I asked a relative of Nitsy’s what the significance of that is. She said, “These branches would be removed after the wedding gets over and would be planted in a different place. And the saplings would start growing there. It is similar to our girl – she is being taken from a big family and given to another place, to a new family. When she goes there, she would be a part of the new place and grow there and help their family to grow, just the way the saplings do!” I was amazed by the amount of thought their ancestors have put into the ritual (Now, somebody please tell me the significance of our ‘Oonjal’ ritual).

The next day was the day of wedding. Early morning, Nitsy had gottena red ribbon and a yellow rope tied around a piece of turmeric – together called a “Kaapu” on her hand. Unlike our weddings, “Maapillai Azhaippu” (inviting the bride groom and his family) happens on the day of the wedding. Once the groom came, he was also made to tie the “Kaapu” in his hand. This “Kaapu” is supposed to be removed after the knot is tied around her neck and she becomes a part of his family (again, unlike in our marriages, Nitsy is allowed to eat well even when she has the kaapu ties. Our brides are poor things; they don’t get anything to eat until well after 2pm – main reason why I am NOT going to get married!). After this, the guy ties the knot around her neck and in a matter of less than half an hour, she is the groom’s wife and from that point onwards she is bound by the rules and regulations of her in-laws and they would take all her decisions for her.

I can’t forget how they all cried – Nitsy, her mom, dad, sister, grandma, grandpa, Kavi, Divya – when she was leaving home, to be officially inducted into the bridegroom’s house (Another reason why don’t want to get married). It was so painful to watch her go.

More than all the rituals and the colorful dresses and the warm people and even warmer climate, one thing I enjoyed the most was the food. I had authentic Chettinad food for 2 days. For a person who gets hungry once in every 2 hours, the place was heaven. Whenever I met anyone, the first question they would ask is, “Saaptiya?” If you thought I’d shamelessly have told, “Not yet” and went for “pandhi” after “pandhi” of pure bliss, you are wrong. I had two “close” friends (close pannama vida maataanga) – Yals and Kavi who were always beside me reminding me, “Sandy, control…” And now, a full meal at our office cafeteria isn’t enough to fill my stomach!!! God, what is with me?

Alvida, Nitsy!

2009-09-04T13:21:00.001+05:30

Come Monday and my roomie and one of my best friends will be a married lady. Feels like yesterday when we attended Engineering counseling at Amrita on the same day, same time slot, joined the same course, sat in the same (last) bench for four years, studied together for every semester, saw movies together, shared books and study materials, got placed in the same company, left Coimbatore on the same day, stayed in the same hostel for 6 months, moved to a 2BHK together and lived in the same house for almost 2 years. She has always been there to cheer me up, to wake me up from sleep and force me to have dinner, to offer a shoulder to cry on, to be an older sister I never had – all this despite the fact that I yak nonstop and she is patience and silence personified. I know all this is already written in the testimonials she has received. But I didn’t want to write this there – because I am not writing this for her, I am writing this for myself.

Tomorrow night I am leaving Chennai for Karaikudi - a small town in Southern Tamil Nadu - and from there to a small village around 20kms away. I know the place is going to be enchanting given the active monsoon at this time of the year and I will be meeting my best pals from college there, but still I feel like a part of my life is being torn off me to be given to another fantastically lucky person. Although there is some consolation that she would continue to live in Chennai and would continue to work in the same office as me, I feel like I am losing someone whose preciousness I was fool enough not to appreciate when she was with me.

To my dearest Nitsy,

Thank you for being there for me whenever I needed a friend – you have done everything from being a class mate (who made extra-ordinarily detailed notes) to a teacher (with too much patience) to a sister (who has truck loads of love to give away) to an amazing friend. You are simply the best of us all! I wish you a super-happy and successful married life. Take good care of yourself and your husband ;-) I love you so much!!!

To everyone else: Sorry I got a little too senti; but the thought that she is getting married is too overwhelming to control. I had to vent it out and as usual, this is my way of doing that.

When the going gets tough

2009-09-01T16:47:00.002+05:30

It has been a hectic day at work with my on-site folks demanding to know the status of tickets that are pending with me, and at the same time my offshore manager asking me to work on creating a knowledge base loading me with technical jargons like cloud computing, knowledge base (yeah, right!), Drupal and a bunch of other stuff that most certainly did not sound English. At the end of half an hour of hearing such words, he goes on to clearly mention that my on-site manager should not come back complaining that project activity is getting spoilt because of this internal work. The next few days are sure going to be tighter than the t-shirt that few of the girls at work wear.

Now, to those of you who ask what I do apart from cribbing about work – I don’t do anything much, I say. Effect of watching Quick Gun Murugan, you see. I thought the movie would be out and out funny – instead it turned out to be a very loud, repetitive affair, although there are a few funny moments; like the one scene where Mango Dolly (Rambha) says she failed to win a beauty contest, QGM responds, “It is not IAS. You can try again.” And if you consider that funny, God save you!

My room mate V came back from California after an 8 week stay there and told me the storyline (or the lack of it) of Bruno. Well, to most conservative girls (I know nobody is going to accept I am either conservative or a girl, sigh!) the movie sounded sick and she said she couldn’t understand why people were ROFL for such cheap comedy. She told more about how she saw so many people kissing in public – let me tell you that this was the same person who changes the channel during a kissing scene in any movie. Well, what can I say? Time changes, people change…

Good news from work – we have finally gotten our porcelain cups back at the pantry and done away with the paper cups that were brought in last month, in a bid to avoid the spread of swine flu. I wonder if swine flu is really gone (or is in its receding phase) or we all think it’s gone because the media is not creating frenzy over it these days. If latter is the case, haven’t we all become puppets in the hands of the media?

Of God, world and everything in between

2009-08-28T18:10:00.005+05:30

I was just sitting at office this afternoon with nothing to do (as usual) when my team mate called me to his desk and showed me a few photographs of a yet to be released movie – ‘2012’. It is about how the world is going to end in 2012, which is what has been unanimously accepted by all religions and has been predicted by the Mayan calendar (that is what the mail claims; I am not sure how much of a fact that is) – the stills were amazing. Please find a few pics below from the mail I received. Click on them to view them bigger and better. Now I don’t want the world to end so soon. I want to live for another 100 years (minimum)…

It was then that my team mate started telling me about Islam (he himself is a practicing Muslim and therefore I trust his words on whatever he quoted from the Koran), Christianity, Jesus, Moses and Jews and a lot of other things. Then he started telling about how idol worship is wrong and how you should worship the creator and not what got created by Him, while referring to Hindus worshipping idols and the Sun god and cows and snakes and explained how illogical it is. Whatever he told was totally convincing, although a part of me failed to agree to it – blame it on my Tam-Brahm upbringing. I like my Pullaiyar and Murugan and Krishna.

I believe in ‘Anbe Sivam’ – Love is God. I told him that my idea of God is very simple – whoever helps you when you are distressed is your God at that point of time. Example, to a man who has not eaten anything in 4 days, a plate full of food is God; it is as simple as that (according to me, of course). Am I an atheist? I don’t think so; it is not as if I don’t believe in God.

I don’t even know why I am writing this. I just felt like it. How many of us are religious? How many of us are spiritual, but not religious? How many of us are not spiritual at all? How far have we gone with our idea of God? Is there someone sitting above us and laughing and crying over our silly and disgusting actions? Is there someone who created us? Are we all just mere evolved scientific creatures? Is the world going to end? Is God going to destroy the world? Is nature going to give us a taste of our own medicine by bringing on some serious destruction? There are so many questions in my mind and I just had to vent it all out. Please feel free to write in your thoughts on possible answers to these questions in the ‘Comments’ section.

From Sivakamiyin Sabatham to Calvin and Hobbes

2009-08-24T16:54:00.002+05:30

All was fine during the last week and the weekend. I read ‘Sivakamiyin Sabatham’ and finished it and became crazy. What a plot! What characters! I pity the non-Tamil folks for missing one of the best books ever written. I became crazy because I could live each of those characters starting from Mahendra Pallavar to Paranjothi to Sivakami to Maamallar to Gundodharan! Didn’t Gundodharan remind you of Aazhwarkkadiyan?

I had gone to Coimbatore for the weekend, spent a blissful (read: lazy) couple of days, participated in the Ganesh Chathurthi Pooja, ate kozhakattai (modaks), sundal – all of which mom fed me while I was happily sitting and watching TV. I didn’t have to move a thing around! Now, that is what I call life! I couldn’t go for the procession because going for the procession meant I’d miss my train back to Chennai (which I would have done whole-heartedly, but Amma wouldn’t let me). So I had to come to Chennai, away from Amma (sounds senti? I know…), Gaya and Paati, away from the pollution-free atmosphere, away from affectionate neighbors, away from Siruvani water (Gosh, haven’t I written about all these earlier?) – In short, I felt as if I had been thrown out of a protective shell, all alone and vulnerable, into the cruel world that has even more cruel managers (no, not my immediate manager, but the big shot snob who is… well, a big shot).

Back at work in the afternoon shift (which is when work is a little more hectic) I somehow found time to remind my manager about a request pending with him for approval. That **** calls me up and says he is not my manager and he hasn’t interacted with me and all sorts of crap. He was the one that did my appraisal 2 months back. WTF!!! The worst part was the way he talked – humiliating me and almost accusing me for the “crime” I committed. Agreed he is a visionary, agreed he has served the organization for over 10 years, agreed he is intelligent and all that, is he a good manager? Doesn’t half of your managing ability lie in the way you communicate and your choice of words? Perhaps he was pissed off at someone else for some other reason, but does that give him the rights to talk to me the way he did?

All I have got to tell him is, “Thambi, I know where you live.” :-|

And yeah, any stories on your managers are welcome at the comments section. After all, we all have each other to cry to. Poor managers don’t even have friends to rant to.

I’m now reading Calvin and Hobbes – and rolling on the ground laughing – in a bid to forget silly managers!

Swine-flu alert: Wash your eyes before and after reading this!

2009-08-18T08:47:00.003+05:30

It has been an awesome week and an even more awesome weekend. The week, as it is, was awesome not because I achieved something great at work or anything, just that I didn’t mess up anything big time.

My week goes something like this – Monday and Tuesday – I think and re-think about how I spent the weekend gone by, what I shopped for or what movie I saw or where I roamed around or what I ate and think about blogging about it. Wednesday – I start making plans for the next weekend; after all it is now only 3 days away. Thursday and Friday – I work hard to implement the plans – calling up friends, convincing them, booking tickets, arranging accommodation (if need be)… Phew!!! God, I wish I were as organized in my work!

Throughout last week, I had an additional fear too – the fear of the flu. Agreed it is a pandemic, agreed it is fatal, and agreed it is tough to control the spread of the virus in a country like India where it is crowded everywhere – but the media didn’t have to blow it up so much. For 5 days all I could hear, see and read was swine-flu related deaths. If I didn’t open any newspaper’s website (just to stay from all the swine-flu news), my super-intelligent friends would send me mails after mails telling me how many times I should wash my hand everyday and how I should use a tissue paper while sneezing/coughing (!!!) like I didn’t know that already! And what is with all these masks? My office had made it mandatory for the cafeteria folks to put on masks. On Friday, I was munching on a sandwich early in the morning and choked on it and started coughing to relieve myself. A member of the cleaning staff asked me to put on a mask while coughing. I just choked on some food, for crying out loud!!! What the hell… As Vadivel would say “Nalla kelapparaingayya beedhiya”…

For the weekend, I and 3 of my friends had gone to Yelagiri hills - a not very-well-known hill station in Vellore district – about 4 hours drive from Chennai/Bangalore, not as spectacularly high as Ooty or Kodaikanal, not as many places to see, but it is the nearest getaway for people who love being in the hills. The best part was the trekking trip on Sunday. It was an 8km (up and down) trek to a temple on top of a hill and offers a nice view of the villages and farms downhill. The worst part of it was the steps – whoever asked people to build steps (with slippery rocks) all the way to the temple! It made the trek very boring – it was as if I was climbing the steps to Marudamalai temple. But yeah, it also made me realize how unfit I have become. For the amount of trekking I used to do when I was in Coimbatore, this one should have been a walk in the park for me. But sadly I was panting barely half a kilometer into the forest. One person I am sure who would have actually had it easy would be my Paati (grandma). At 87, she is still the most energetic and active person I have seen! Touchwood (I don’t know why my hand went to touch my head almost involuntarily when I said touchwood!)

After the trip, I had to bunk office yesterday to think and re-think about the weekend and today I am blogging about it. So my work for the day is done! This week, I don’t have to plan for the next weekend because I am going to Coimbatore. So the plan is just to eat and sleep – during the rest of the week and the coming weekend. Until then, chao!

What the heck...

2009-08-11T16:55:00.002+05:30

I really need a break – a break from work and this away-from-family life. I want to go to Coimbatore and live a lazy life for one month. I just don’t want to think about work or anything related to it for one whole month. But after one month, I want to come back – to this same project, in the same company. Is it possible?

I want to leave my job, go to a small hill station and start working there (the job description does not matter) and live there in a tiny house with a fire place. That is it. I want to be away from all this pollution, tension, stress, heat, sweat and all the bad things that are in the city. As much as I love this fab city and the city life and the friends I have made here, I want peace of mind. Everyday when I get ready to go to work, I feel like I am getting ready for some kind of cruel rat-race that has no finishing point. I feel like I am being forced to run the race whilst I prefer sitting at home and watching TV – well, who doesn’t prefer that to work, you may ask. But shouldn’t we all be doing what we like to do? Shouldn’t we all enjoy what we are doing instead of cursing our managers for dumping us with work? If we were ‘passionate’ about the field we are working on (Oh my God, I wish I’d at least like my job) we wouldn’t be cribbing and cursing, would we?

How many of us are stuck in the wrong job – any job that you don’t like to do is a wrong job with respect to you. I am sure I am. I know I have already cribbed about this in my earlier posts, but hey, my manager just gave me another bunch of issues to resolve and I am still stuck at my stupid ol’ job. I promise, once I move out of this job and start doing what my heart desires, I’d stop writing such boring posts. Until then, you could find a job that suits me best (only if you have already read my earlier posts and know which field I belong to).

I know it has been really boring for you to read – it was just as boring for me to type it out, but I had to vent it out to someone and I chose you! ;-)

PS: Written in a very confused state of mind

Smooth sailing!

2009-08-04T12:11:00.001+05:30

It was on Thursday last week when I was traveling to work by a share-auto from Thiruvanmiyur to Sholinganallur (which is about 12 kms) that I started thinking about how we completely fail to notice the simple things that would make us smile. Whether we are too held up with work or we are too busy getting played around by life or we are just plain lazy or we are just the kind that takes things for granted – I am not sure. But it has got to be one of these – different reasons on different days, perhaps.

This is why I thought like that: The share-auto driver anna (Tamil for brother) was a man in his late thirties (or so he looked), tall, with a big, round belly, curly unkempt hair that had started graying, looked like he hadn’t shaved his face for nearly a week – he was very cheerful (whether it was just on that particular day or if he was like that on all days, I don’t know). As usual, I had the headset of my music player plugged to my ears and was listening to Khabali hai khabali. The auto driver started playing some song loudly on his own music system (!!) and I removed the headset and had no choice but to listen to “Pethu eduthava dhaan ennaiyum thathu koduthuputta” (an old sober Tamil song) which was like the perfect opposite to what I wanted to hear. But anyways, what followed it was simply too good. He started singing along and even started swaying his (huge) body around in his seat. I was amazed by how little he cared about what the others would think of him and prayed to God to give me an attitude like that. He was simply happy and singing and dancing – I mean, I am sure he has his share of problems, but still he found happiness in such trivial things.

Then I started noticing small things that gave me joy – a couple of young dogs playfully fighting with each other over a rubber ball, the bright yellow flowers that have bloomed just to make the place more colorful, a group of school boys who’s shoes had so much dust deposited on them even before they reached school, a cow feeding her calf, school teachers walking with a wooden scale hidden in between the pages of their books, an IT guy carrying “Ponniyin Selvan” to office, a father buying a kulfi for his son – so many things that make both the involved and the onlooker happy; but still we don’t notice these things.

Life is beautiful and beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and what you see is what makes you. Please do take a moment to appreciate these simple, small (maybe even silly, to a few) and joyous things around. Keep Smiling!

By the way, I saw ‘Love Aaj Kal’ and found that the movie doesn’t make you root for Jai-Meera the way we rooted for Geet-Aditya. The Veer-Harleen track seemed to have more life than the Jai-Meera track and I feel Deepika can’t act to save her lives (wasn’t she better in OSO, although it was her debut?) The Brazilian model who has played young Harleen breathed more life into her character than Deepika (that too without any dialogues, just with her eyes and expressions). And one more time I hear an older man in the movie tell the hero to “Go and get her” /”Follow your heart” I am going to go on a hunger strike!

All in all, it was a nice week!!!

Mahabalipuram

2009-07-28T14:09:00.000+05:30

I have a bad news… I have to shift my work location from one office at Sholinganallur to another one (well, at Sholinganallur)… But I soooo don’t want to shift. This office is close to the bus/auto stand than the other one and I have just made some really good friends with the pantry/cleaning staff. Another shift, another routine of making new friends, another new system and desk – it is going to be tough. But as most of you are going to say, “Change is the essence of life”; anything and everything has to change some day or the other. I am someone who is open to change and pretty adaptive; but I prefer staying in one place to keep shifting like a nomad – specially to a place which is less accessible from the main road.

In other news, I, Sabal and Rejith had gone to Mahabalipuram last Sunday afternoon and had a whale of a time there. The pictures are up on my Orkut/FB profile. Do check them out if you have the time and patience! And after seeing the pictures, I am sure you would admit that I am stuck in a wrong job and ‘Modeling’ (not the modeling in IT terms) is what I should be doing. ;-) For people who disagree, I would like to inform you that you are eligible for the quota for the visually-challenged.

Of Hari Sadu and the rest of us...

2009-07-23T18:18:00.000+05:30

2 years of working in the IT industry has taught me a lot of things, besides writing really confusing emails, even more confusing self-appraisals (which I like to call self-aapu), where to keep my mouth shut (yes, I do that sometimes) and some stuff like that. But more than all these, I have learnt to observe people – you do not have much choice when you are on bench for almost a year before you get your first ever project. But hey, I am not complaining. I, in fact, liked the observing part so much so that I wish I was on bench and there was no recession ;-)

There are different types of people in the IT world. There are a few similarities – they all have the dog band (company ID card) around their necks, they all wear formal clothes (although a lot of them look funny in them), they all are good at staring at their computer screens (work or no work) and they all are in the process of losing their sense of humor (if you didn’t at least smile to yourself until this point of the post, I bet you are a part of the great Indian IT field).

And yet, there are so many different kinds of IT professionals.

The “Visionaries”: These are the ones that always think, feel and breathe their projects. You can usually find them sitting at their desk with their heads so close to the computer screen that you think he/she has a romantic affair with the monitor. At the cafeteria, they tend to sit alone, have lunch (while replying to business emails through their blackberries/laptops) and leave - all without attracting much attention from anyone nearby. Chances are these people were toppers in their colleges. Chances are they are already/soon-to-become project managers, who expect/would expect their subordinates to be like them too. They are well on their ways to become “Hari Sadu”s (for people who don’t know Hari Sadu, you are already becoming one. So please watch more TV and catch the naukri.com advertisement or at least google ‘Hari Sadu ad’)

The “Friends”: These are the people who like to spend time with their friends so much so that that is probably the only reason they come to office. They do complete their work on time and efficiently so (although they seem to hardly do any work from the outside), but would rather hang out with friends after work hours than romance their computer screens like the Hari Sadu’s. They are very good team players and make friends with everyone around them very easily. At the cafeteria, these people make the largest group, taking a lunch break of over 2 hours and a tea break of 45mins (twice a day). Chances are these people were the most popular guys/girls in their college. And there are lesser chances of them becoming project managers; although they could consider taking up a job at the Human Resources.

The “Snails”: These are the kind of people who are extremely hard-working and sincere in their efforts. In fact, they work as if the company’s profit depends on just what they do, but are not fast/ efficient enough in their work. They also, like the Visionaries spend very little time at the cafeteria and slog for long hours and still end up working during the weekends. They were probably not very bright students in their colleges either. Neither do they make good team players as their speed slows down the team. Tough luck, people!

The “Kids”: The freshers. They are just out of college; they think their managers are “cool” people (oh puhleeeze); they think their company is the best (oh puhleeeze, again); they are hyper-active and enthusiastic; they are generally found lunching/taking a break with their college-mates (who are still in the same location) and sending Good Morning, Good Afternoon and Good Evening and other equally dumb forward mails and make complete use of the internal email portal. They are forever online on the internal communicator and have at least 3-4 chat windows open – in short, they are still kids and think IT life is actually like how they show it in the movies. They have a long way to go before their eyes open up to face reality.

The “Players”: These are the ones who are eternally on the bench. Your truly was a part of this group until April 2008. But then, I had to start working (big sigh…) Anyways, the only things that interest this group are blogging, surfing the net pointlessly and downloading small flash games (remember Copter, Bow and Arrow, Beat Him, Sudoku and the rest). I can hear a lot of you saying that this is exactly what I still do at work, but hey I am in a project now and there are no complaints on me (really, ask my PM)…

I am sure there is the whole “Others” category – people who don’t fit into any of these or are a part of more than one category. But this has been a long post already and I should probably save my words for a next one.

Update

2009-07-20T14:09:00.002+05:30

It has been a really long time since I wrote something in this space. It was simply because nothing was “happening” in my life. I simply had nothing to tell the world because I have been away – away from this world, at heaven. Yes, I had taken a week-long break from work to be with my family at a time when they needed me by their side. Also got to meet Yals and Shivasu – we hung out at a place Ammar had suggested (Man, Am I getting in touch with my college mates or what!!!)

Coimbatore was a beauty. She is still the same laid back, small, enchanting city but is getting closer and closer to heart with each passing day and I miss her so much now (Love and distance between yourself and your beloved is always inversely proportional). The hills surrounding the city, the sweet Siruvani water, the friendly people (my regular auto-driver anna asked me to eat well and take care of myself after he dropped me at the Railway Station) – huh, I just can’t get enough of it. But hey, I am back to Chennai and guess what, Chennai has gotten herself a nice weather too – not too hot, not much rain and plenty of wind – Chennai has never been this perfect!

As for work, it is going great guns (I don’t know if I have the rights to say this after being absent for a week while my team mate had to manage all the work alone), but work is going rather well. My last night at Chennai before I went to Coimbatore was spent at the hospital – yours truly was down with “Acute Gastroenteritis”/ gotten food poisoning or something – which meant 2 days of Rasam saadham and Thayir saadham even when I was at Coimbatore.

My house at Chennai has only 3 of us living there now (A got transferred to Hyderabad) and will not return and we are confused as to whether we should shift to a PG Accommodation or to a cheaper, smaller house or to add more roomies in the same house. As they say, time will tell and I hope it does soon…

Shop shop shop...

2009-07-06T21:59:00.000+05:30

It is not until you are at work, with nothing much to do (apart from staring at the monitor for endless hours and tweeting and reading 5 newspapers everyday) that you tend to remember that it has been quite some time since you last updated your blog. So here I am, in the morning shift, half-asleep (which accounts for all the junk I write, I write only junk, but whatever) and hungry and frustrated (about not having anything to do).

My last post about how my friends were all going to moving away and the need to find another apartment has started becoming reality. One of them has traveled to California for a 3 month assignment (which may get extended) there. Before we know, a couple others would be married and my life isn’t moving an inch forward (in either direction)… People who follow me on twitter/on my gtalk list/on orkut/on facebook must have noticed the weird status messages hinting upon some serious, irrevocable depression.

It was mainly due to the feeling that my life is standing still and I have nothing that is a wee bit challenging or exciting about it. I wake up, get ready, come to work, and sit through the day (without much to do) go back home, eat, and sleep. Seriously, how long can you go on like this? There is a whole lot of time I spend thinking what I should do next – as in which newspaper to read first, when to go for a tea break, what to tweet – I mean, if you don’t have anything to share what do you blog/tweet about?

I should say I am feeling much better now. Last week, I was so de-motivated by the whole I-have-nothing-worthwhile-to-do feeling that I didn’t even cut my nails. I know it sounds like a really bad excuse to be dirty and disgusting, but you have to be there to know how it feels. A couple of days of "intense" shopping with my friend (who went on-site) and a whole lot of assuring and supportive words from friends kept me going. And by weekend, a new set of clothes and a pair of shoes that I shopped for got be back on track.

Shopping works even when words, hugs and kindness fail!!!

Bye bye, people!

2009-06-26T18:10:00.003+05:30

No,I am not closing this blog down!

Everything around me is changing. The surroundings, the people, the weather (which has become a little pleasant in the past couple of days), the relationships I share, everything!

All was fine until June 24th (Wednesday) night. On 25th morning, my roomie announces that her marriage is fixed and the date ahs been finalized and the date is less than 2 months away from now. First shock! That same afternoon, another one of my roomies mails us that she has to report at California on Monday (29th) and she has to stay there for 2-3 months. Another one of my roomies says she might get transferred to Bangalore. That same night, the cute-guy-next-door says he has got a super offer from some company in Singapore and he’d move there in a month’s time! What the heck! Why the heck is all of this happening too soon? Why haven’t we been given some time to cherish the million memories we have?

It has been close to 2 years for us in that house and we have had so many nice experiences being there right from our owner who can’t hear to Brinda’s lip-smacking food to dirty paan-spitting neighbors to cute-guy to learning Bengali from the newly-wed girl next door, it has been an amazing ride. And it is getting over!

We all knew we had to part some day; that all the fun would finally come to an end one day when all of us have to go chasing our careers/married lives. We knew it right when we became roomies. But now that it is happening, it seems so hard to digest. And before we know, there will be farewell hugs and we would not be roomies anymore. God, I hate the thought of it.

P.S: My mom has finally permitted me to stay alone. When all my friends leave me (that sounds so senti, I know), I would have to find another (affordable) house for myself and stay there. It would be a new experience and I don’t know whether I would enjoy it or feel awfully lonely, but I want to give it a try. We will see that works out. So, finding an affordable house in the same area is a mighty task and I have to indulge in that routine for some time before I find a suitable house. I know this paragraph is a little too long to be a P.S. but bear with me because I feel really whiny and depressed now!

P.P.S: MJ passed away. Isn't there anything that can go right in my life??? (the way Ross whines in F.R.I.E.N.D.S.)

Nocturnal? Not me!

2009-06-23T19:47:00.001+05:30

Last week I had to work in my first ever night shift and I was as nervous and excited as my friend when she was ponnu paathufied - the traditional “seeing the bride” ceremony before a marriage where the groom’s immediate family (of at least 30 people) visit the bride’s house and ask the bride to do everything from sing to dance to even code a bug-free Java program (God, I am never going to get married) to climb Mt.Everest (That, I may be able to achieve). Anyway, I had a longish weekend from Friday evening to Monday night. And finally, as with all weekends, Monday (night) too came too early.

And I was at office sharp at 8:30pm, waiting for my first ‘ticket’ (To know what this ticket means, read: ITMARK me!) with all the curiosity of a little pup in a new home. And then work started flowing my way and never stopped until it was 6am the next morning. It was as if I was bowling the best I could, but I had an in-form Jayasuriya batting; with my captain shouting (swear words, obviously, duh...) at me at regular intervals. Talking of which I am thinking of the Indian Cricket Team’s performance (or rather the lack of it) at the ICC T20 WC, which I shouldn’t be unless I can afford my posts to contain really objectionable words.

2 nights passed by without any major hitches and on the 3rd night, it was a little less hectic and I was a little more hungry than usual. At around 2-ish in the night, my stomach started making these strange noises, not unlike Barkha Dutt does on her shows. Also, I realized it was as empty as her head. I then understood what they meant when they said “Empty vessels make more noise.” However, I was prepared for such ‘situations’ and had bought a bag of Potato Chips (I could actually use a lot of calories, you know) for the night and started munching on it like I’ve never seen food before. I felt quite full at around 3-ish (actually, the chips packet had become empty) and I headed to the pantry to have some tea. On the way to the pantry, I was startled by a hyper-active frog and almost fell down (which was so not funny!). Apart from the frog thing, there was nothing much eventful that night.

The next morning, I slept till 10:30am and then got up to have breakfast (No sir! No matter what, I never skip food) only to find my stomach turning and twisting and before I could know, I was puking all over the place (quite disgusting, yes!). But still, I went ahead and had some curd rice and was about to take a bath when I heard the water pipe farting big time; there was no water in the tank and there was no power to switch the motor on – which also meant no sleep during the afternoon. We (I, the cute-guy-next-door, his roomie, another neighbor) did everything we could from bringing an electrician to calling up the EB folks and nothing worked (I could actually understand how helpless Dhoni felt during the WC matches).

That night, again I was at office at 8pm and called up my PM, who has been extra-ordinarily kind and gracious and supportive (I hope he reads this before writing appraisal comments) and told him (actually, reminded him) about India and power cuts and took leave for the rest of the week and bunked night shift. Now I am back in the day-shifts and am sleeping through the day at work (which is not very unusual), but unable to sleep during nights (and that is killing me). And I feel so bad for my BPO friends. May God give them the strength and courage to go through with it. :-)

Fell in love!

2009-06-15T16:17:00.003+05:30

Something is wrong with my net connection at home. I have Reliance NetConnect using a USB modem and it has not been working since last week. Now, that is what has been keeping me from blogging (much to the relief of readers). This morning, I called up the customer care and they said something about a credit limit. Ridiculous concept – they give you a USB modem, tell you that you can download/upload up to 2.5GB and that your monthly bill would be 850+taxes (unless you go beyond 2.5GB of usage) and then your internet doesn’t work (even after you have paid your bills well before the due date) and they say, your credit limit is only 500 bucks and you can’t use more than that. What the heck!!!

I had gone to my home town (Coimbatore) for two consecutive weekends (some thing that I rarely do for fear of tiredness throughout the following week). The first weekend of June, I landed at Coimbatore North railway station at 6:30am and it was drizzling ever so slightly – a drizzle that could wake you up from sleep, but not make you wet, a drizzle that is like the droplets of water that hit you on your face when you are walking beside a waterfall. In the distance, I could see all the hills surrounding the city – the hills and the drizzle and the fresh, unpolluted air and the serene city (so far away from the rush and madness of Chennai) and was interrupted by, “Enga ammini pogonum?” – a burly auto-driver who, for some reason, reminded me of Teddy Bear and I fell in love with my home town all over again. The people here are, by far, the most respectful of the lot. Even fathers address their sons with respect – eg., instead of “Enga da pora?” (Where are you going?), they ask, “Engainga thambi poreenga?” The majesty of the hills (the elephant hill right behind my college, the Western Ghats where we used to go for summer camps/treks), finding virgin streams of delicious nectar (siruvani water), taking bath in small waterfalls which requires quite a few kilometers of walk into the forest and the amount of greenery (there are two institutions that keep the city green – The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and The Forest College campus) both within the city limits! All these (combined with the piping hot Chennai during the following week) seduced me into going there for the second consecutive weekend.

During the second weekend (yesterday and the day before), there was no slight, cool drizzle, in fact, the sun was out and although it couldn’t be called hot, it was warm outside and we (myself, my sis, and a couple of my coolest cousins) could roam around the city. We went to the zoo (I know what you are thinking right about now) and then to Pizza Hut – initially we decided to order pizza from home, but I decided against it because of this. :-) Anyways, we had pizza and fun and quite a bit of yelling from my mom who had cooked lunch for all of us and all the food had to go waste! :-)

Here I am back at Chennai and all the heat it offers. I guess the next weekend is going to be a visit to Pondicherry (with friends) or Kumbakonam to a few temples.

Happy Birthday!

2009-06-03T20:16:00.001+05:30

I know I wrote a post just yesterday. But I had to write another one now to tell this...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RAFA...

Here is wishing u success in the next 5 French Open tournaments!!! You are a champion and will always remain one! :-)

ITMARK Me

2009-06-02T09:20:00.000+05:30

The past weekend was one that made me extremely happy – a weekend filled with hugs and kisses from my family – mom, sister, cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents – it made me very happy to meet so many relatives after a long time. I had a great time – cousins pulling my legs, talking about everything from movies to cricket to hot gossips! It was the perfect weekend…

When everything is going great guns in my life, there were a few moments which made me go “What’s wrong with me?” All such moments were because of my work place practices. It amazed me to know how much it has changed the real Me.

Things to prove I am an ITMARK (IT equivalent of AGMARK) software engineer.

1. I was at the ‘Sadabhishekam’ of my grandparents and there was so much smoke coming from the homa-gundam; I started wondering why the smoke-detectors work only during fire evacuation drills.
2. The other day, when I returned home from work, instead of inserting the key into the key-hole and turning it, I reached for my ID card to swipe it to open the door and wondered where the swipe machine went.
3. I stay far away from my mom and always talk to her over phone. Now she is in Chennai and for calling out to her when she was in the kitchen, I shouted “hello amma” instead of “amma”.
4. I write “Pls do let me know if there are further concerns” in personal mails.
5. My idea of flirting has become, “Which technology did you say you are working on?” (No wonder the cute guy next door runs like crazy in the opposite direction when he sees me walking towards him)
6. I am in a Production Support project wherein we resolve any ‘ticket’ raised by the user when they face any issue with the data in the database/in the application. It made me nervous when my friend said, “I have ‘tickets’ for the concert”. I started thinking about how to resolve it.
7. My roomie was looking for one of her DVDs and asked all of us to search for it and I said, “I’ll google it right away” without thinking. I was glared at by all of them.

God help me!!!

Aaarrrggghhhhh...

2009-05-28T09:09:00.000+05:30

I caught a severe cold from my friend and have been making strange noises (read: like a frog during mating season) for almost a week now and no amount of milk with turmeric powder and pepper has made it any better. I have become the butt of so many jokes that my room mates are planning to publish a collection of such instances.

The house I stay in is a big one divided into 6 portions – 3 in the ground floor, 2 in the first floor and 1 in the 2nd floor. I and my friends live in the ground floor. One of the other houses in the ground floor is occupied by 6 Telugu-speaking guys (hereafter referred to as the “guys”) and the other ground floor house has a Bengali husband and wife (21 yr old girl, just married, can speak only Bengali, no English, butler Hindi). The house owner stays in one of the first floor portions. The motor switch is inside the owner’s house and my owner aunty has a big problem with her hearing (she has a hearing-aid, but I have never seen her using it).

Now, our house and the guys’ house are separated by only a thin wall and we can hear whatever they are singing (which is not very pleasant to hear, trust me). During the IPL, they were staunch supporters of the Deccan Chargers while we were supporting Chennai Super Kings. On the day of the first semi-final – between the Deccan Chargers and the Delhi Daredevils (in which Gilchrist showed no mercy on any of the DD bowlers), I had a chat with one of the guys. He was obviously very happy about Gilchrist’s form and told me DC will win the cup. I was super confident about Dhoni and Co. that I told him, “No way, CSK are gonna win. Last time we came so close. This time we are not leaving without the cup.” Sigh!!!! We didn’t even make it to the Finals. The next day (after Chennai lost to Bangalore) when we met again, he gave me a sarcastic smirk. I should have been furious, but I didn’t coz, let’s face it, the guy was cute!!! ;-)

My room mate is travelling to the U.S. for a couple of months and we wanted to make her feel how much we were going to miss her, so we decided to treat her and let her pay the bill (ok, I can hear that “idhellam oru pozhappah?”)… We decided to keep it simple (month-end, you see) and agreed upon ordering pizza. I was given the task of calling up Pizza Hut and placing the order.

Pizza Hut Guy (PHG): Hello, Pizza Hut. I am Nixon, how can I help you?
Me: Hello! I am Sandhya. I am calling from Tiruvanmiyur. I wanna order pizza for four people.
PHG: Could you please repeat your name again?
Me: He can’t even get my name right. OMG, how am I gonna tell him what Pizza, what toppings and everything? I am Sandhya.
PHG: Ms. Sandhya, can you please give the phone to someone else (veetla periyavanga yaaru kittayavudhu phone-ah kudu paappa)
Me: ?!??!??!?

:-( :-( :-(

Happy days are here again...

2009-05-19T18:46:00.000+05:30

After getting a bit too senti during the last week, which included my reluctant travel from Coimbatore to Chennai and my home-sickness and the gazillion questions I asked myself and you and a lot of physical tiredness, I am happy to be back to my normal self again and write a post – trying to be funny as usual.

While at home, I spent a lot of my time watching the TV series “Full House” in full swing on my laptop (got the DVDs of seasons 6, 7 and 8 from a friend of my sister’s). I had not watched Season 7 or 8 before and it was very nice to watch it and relive those days when I used to come home running from school to catch the episode of “Full House” on Zee Studio. It was still as funny, but I thought there was quite some time spent over imparting gyaan to either of the family members in the show.

After a tired and dull week, I was happy to start off my Monday with a bang – quite literally – when I banged my head on the door early in the morning when I was still half-asleep. I wanted to make it to office early as I had quite a few things to catch up on. I got ready for office and caught a share auto and reached office in record time while listening to Dev D’s songs all the while. Must say Amit Trivedi has rocked the album. Apart from Dev D, I have also been listening to “Khalbali” from RDB a lot of times; I feel it gives me the strength to struggle throughout the day with a lot of people-who-claim-to-know-everything.

Reading Archer’s latest “Paths of Glory” at office and by the looks of it I guess not many people at my office approve of it – no, not the book, but the fact that I am reading during office hours.

Yesterday, the news of Prabakaran’s death created panic all over Tamil Nadu and we were advised to leave as early as possible to avoid any mishaps (if any occurred). I called up the Primary at onsite and was advised to leave as personal safety comes before anything else. Whatever happened to our beloved leaders (who write letters to the Prime Minister when it is regarding Sri Lankan issue, but travel all the way to New Delhi when it comes to getting ministries for their kith and kin) – I feel cheated and disgusted coz. of the reaction (or rather the lack of it) from TN politicians.

Finally, yesterday Kolkata Knight Riders managed to defeat Chennai Super Kings and what a match it was! Kolkata deserved a win, but they could’ve defeated any other team. But it was a great match and I cheered for KKR although I am a CSK fan.

Have been bunking music class for almost a month now. Got to kill my laziness and wake up early from tomorrow and make it to the class (which is really a long shot)

It has been a pretty long post already. I sign-off now (so that all of you can breathe a sigh of relief that it is all over).

Confused...

2009-05-14T16:57:00.000+05:30

Lot of times, the people who you think loved you the most prove by their actions that their priorities are different, with you being in the lowest rung of their priority ladder. They cry out from rooftops that they love you, would do anything to keep you happy and promise you the universe, but when it comes to the part where they “act” upon these, they are shaky. They try to convince you that they have something else that needs attention; if that doesn’t work out, they say, “You would understand my position if you really loved me” – thereby putting the blame on you; if that doesn’t work out, they try giving you the silent treatment. But in my case, it was entirely different. There is this person who was born around 4 years after me, laughed and cried with Harry Potter more than she did with us and never really cared about the family she was a part of.

Putting all that in the back burner, I have just come back to office after a week and a half and there is so much more to catch up on and to continue from where I left it. My inbox was flooded with 2500 mails (90% of which were unwanted mails that needed nothing more than shift+del). The leave I took has made me feel a lot detached to everyone; made me see everything from a distance; analyze people and events without any sense of belonging; to be nonchalant and most of all, not loving anyone.

Lately, I have had so many thoughts and every time I sit and think about something, I tell to myself that I'd capture the thought-train and post it on my blog; but later when I sit to write a post, words fail me. I forget what I had thought or what triggered the thoughts. I have always been proud of my ability to remember events and dates and numbers with extra-ordinary ease and now this!!! Eppidi irundha naan ippidi aayiten...

I know this post has become a lot senti and many people who know me/read my blog regularly might me wondering what is wrong with me or if I have gone nuts (I know most of you think that already!) or if something tragic has happened to me. I really don’t know what is wrong with me people. If you know, please let me know in the comments section.

At home!!!

2009-05-11T18:00:00.001+05:30

Life couldn’t get any better. Here I am at my home town with my family (which comprises of really interesting and weird characters); with my mom taking time off from work to be with me and I guess that explains why I haven’t written any posts for quite some time now. A lot has been happening here and the lesser I write about my health, the better.

Talking about health, I need a lot of rest now (which explains why I am still at my home town) and there seems to be no way I could get some. Elections are coming and campaigning is on at full swing. I was sleeping the other afternoon and suddenly I was woken up by a loud noise, asking all the “wise men and women” (how else do I say “periyorgale, thaaimaargale?”) to vote for ‘Gas Cylinder’. What the heck! I wanted to run to the street to ask the people to cut it out which was when I realized that it wasn’t even the candidate who is yakking and seeking our votes, it was a pre-recorded message. Just then my cell phone rang and I came running inside and picked it up only to hear the pre-recorded message from “Amma” (J. Jayalalithaa, I hope I spelt it right, I am not sure how her name is spelt given her zest for numerology) asking us to vote for “Twin leaves (Irattai Ilai?)” I mean, these people are everywhere – TV, Radio, Newspapers, Cell phones, Internet (I wonder if any of these are on Facebook or Twitter). Thanks to IRCTC, there are no tickets for 13th night to Chennai, so I am leaving on 12th night without casting my vote. Is there any way to vote online?

I am in love with this new series of Vodafone ads (with the zoo-zoos, isn’t that what they are called?) – Totally funny and effective and cute and far better than paying SRK, SAK, Kareena and the likes, the way Airtel does.

There is so much more that has happened here, but I guess I’ll have to sign off now. I’ll save the rest for next week when I feel better.

Just not my day…

2009-04-30T14:29:00.000+05:30

The alarm in my cell phone rang and I woke up at 5am (I work in morning shift, why else would I wake up in the middle of the night?) and I tried to stop it from ringing because my roomies were sleeping in the same room and I didn’t want to wake anyone else up (I am an absolute angel, aren’t I?). As I reached for my cell phone in the dark (yeah, my eyes were unwilling to open up, yet) it accidentally fell down from the bed and I had to search for it (it was hard enough to open my eyes, leave alone making it adjust to the darkness of the room) – and found that it was lying in three parts – the battery had come out and I had to put it back into the phone and switch it on to see what time it was and yeah, the whole process took a good 5 minutes and I had to hurry.

After brushing (no, don’t raise your eyebrows at this) I went into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and found that our refrigerator had gone into “defrost” mode sometime during the night and there was a pond of water in the middle of the kitchen and yeah, I stepped on it and almost fell.

I came into office on time (thanks to an amazing MTC bus driver) and logged in to see that I had a very important task to be completed. And I had little doubts about proceeding with it. I called up the person-who-knows-everything to get them clarified. The person-who-knows-everything started blasting me for not having practiced it beforehand. I didn’t speak a word (after being in the project for over 3 months, I have learnt to be passive to the “archanai” I get from people-who-know-everything) However, the task was completed successfully, but I have my regrets – it is not just about today, not just about this task or even this job.

Is it really worth it to be in a job that is not very motivating, not something you want to do with your life and something you are stuck on to only for the money it gives? Here I am working in a job I despise, skipping my breakfast to get the task done (I never skip breakfast otherwise, I am a health freak! Trust me!!!), trying to be as sincere to my work as possible and someone shouting at me over no mistake of mine??? What the hell…

P.S.: I don’t care!!!

Nonstop nonsense (as always...)

2009-04-17T18:52:00.001+05:30

These are some of the random thoughts/incidents that have happened over the last week.

1. I was traveling by Cheran Express from Chennai to Coimbatore on April 9th night for a 5 day weekend which included Vishu. I was allotted side lower berth (a berth which I hate – I mean, I always hate lower berths, I prefer sleeping up high above the rest) and the comfort-seeking me approached the guy who had that upper berth and asked him if he could switch his upper berth for my lower one and he readily accepted (he was a young chap and could have easily climbed up there). I smelled something fishy right then. But then I said to myself, “Ha, I’ve got the berth I wanted and nothing else matters.” Later, I took my laptop bag, my handbag and another one of my travel bags to the upper berth and lied down and I really smelled something fishy (I mean, in the literal sense!). I turned around and saw a bunch of 3 (rotten… yuck) bananas which had become a jam and I almost puked because of the smell. (Photo of the rotten banana to be uploaded soon). I asked the TTR to get it cleaned (no, I didn’t shout like Anniyan Ambi to call him); but he said it was highly impossible because the train is already moving and that the next station would come only at 11:30 in the night and that the train would stop there for a mere two minutes! Poor me!!! Then I climbed down and had to share a side lower berth (like in the case of RAC tickets with one of my oh-so-gracious friends till we reached Salem… phew!!!). It is high time Indian Railways began keeping their trains clean!
2. One of my best friends did NOT wish me on my birthday because his girlfriend doesn’t like him talking to me. Ufff…. What is with these people??? That is why I said special people have special rules!!!
3. I met up with a schoolmate of mine when I was at Coimbatore. Now, this guy is with the Air Force and was telling us stories of how life there is and what his role is and how he is expecting a transfer to Leh (yeah, the one with the snow-capped mountains at the background) and how much politics happens in there. As fascinating as it was, I felt I could never imagine being a defense personnel (yeah, I know I wouldn’t even pass the physical test, but hey, just in case…) – I silently thanked God for making me smart enough (??!!?) to pass engineering and be in a job that is safe (no, am not talking about job security – from that perspective, his job is more secure than mine, it being with the Govt. of India; I am talking about the safety of our lives)
4. I finished reading the book “PS, I love you” by Cecile Ahern and yeah, I cried (think all you want, I am emotional), although certain conversations in the book sounded fake. But otherwise it was a nice read and I finished the book in a day. It made me feel great because I had already reached a conclusion that my reading speed is not even half of what it was when I was back at college and now “I am back!!!”
5. For some people nice things just happen and for some (unlucky ones like me) things don’t seem to happen no matter how hard we try. Why this partiality? Or is this all a part of Chaos Theory (in the sense that someone else screwed something somewhere some time back and we are paying the price for that) or Karma (our past actions having a say on our future). Whatever it is, I don’t think I have done anything good ever (that explains why my appraisals have been so bad forever); but hey I am proud of myself and I think I am the best and ultimately that is what matters, isn’t it?
6. Well, there was more to write that I can’t seem to remember (old age brings with it a bad package that includes loss of memory; dude, I am 23!!!). Also, there is a limit to boring my readers and I know where to draw the line!!! Hee hee…

Birthday blues!

2009-04-08T17:50:00.000+05:30

I, for one, have had a lot of time to kill today - a lot of friends called up and wished, team mates had bought a cake and made me cut it (although they couldn't make me eat it - I told 'em I was on a diet!; yes, you could go ahead and kill me for that!) and we took pics (which I shall upload shortly) and yeah, am now all set to go to the beach with a bunch of friends - more pics, I guess! So all in all, a pretty good birthday so far generally - but it is the worst birthday ever for me.

And here is why... Ever since I was a small girl, my mom and dad always made me feel like a princess (not just on my birthday); more so if it was my special day. I was their first daughter - a talkative, little, adorable thing that had made their life a heaven (until I started talking too much too early!) So now that I am living far away from my mom and sister and even farther away from my dad, I am feeling lonely (although I have awesome roomies and colleagues) and left out. It just didn't feel like it was my birthday...

But yeah, I guess I have to learn to live with it. I mean, a birthday is the day when the person needs maximum attention (I am an attention-seeker even otherwise) because he/she already worried about having to write age := age+1 in their algorithms and about the huge hole the birthday treat is gonna leave in their pockets. I wanna be happy - I haven't even treated my friends yet - but am not.

Guess it is the age factor!

As an update to the post(written after 2 days, in response to one of the comments), I'd like to mention here that I did get a few presents and a few hugs later in the day. My best friend actually took me to FabIndia and bought me an awesome dress! So yeah, kinda fighting on against the blues, I should say!

One lousy programmer!!!

2009-04-02T20:12:00.001+05:30

He who programmed us is having fun from above us. We are nothing but machines; pre-programmed (God is not a great programmer; all His programs have bugs!), helpless and vulnerable to attacks that other programs may cause us. And the programmer instead of working on fixing the bugs just sits up there and keeps writing new programs! I am alarmed to know that is no sign of User Acceptance Testing whatsoever.

The program environment is mind-boggling enough – so many interdependent programs, so many joins, so many mutually exclusive sets, so many undeclared variables, dangling pointers (enough, that is all the technical terms that I know!!!)

Whoever His PM is!!!

After reading about my analytical mind, am sure most of you think I am one of His programs, which was intended to be sent to the Recycle Bin/Enhancement phase, but by mistake was delivered to the world.

This post re-emphasizes the same thing – with an illustration of the bug. All of you who read about the complex flowcharts that my mind draws when faced with any kind of situation, here is something that tells you how much I hate being unprepared. To me all the situations that could happen should be prepared for well in advance. I noticed how I have reached the heights of this “being organized” thing.

I can’t ever put my mp3 player/mobile/winamp in ‘Shuffle’ mode. I HAVE to know what songs are going to be played and in what order. I can’t take it if a song that I don’t want to hear is playing – even if it is just going to be for 30 seconds before I change the song.

I also noticed that I always keep my mobile and my hair band above my head before sleeping. I can’t take it if I don’t find them in their respective places in the morning.

My folders in the PC at work should always be arranged in one particular manner. If I don’t find a file in its place, I get so very angry.

My clothes should always be arranged in a particular manner in my cupboard. Casuals on the left, skirts near them, salwars/chudidhars in one pile and stuff like that… If something is misplaced, I panic (yeah, I don’t just get angry, I panic)

Finally, now you tell me, why has He programmed me this way? Do any of you have such weird habits? Just curious to know if it just me or if I have company!!!

Don't know what to say about this!!!

2009-03-28T16:12:00.001+05:30

Came across this interesting website and wow... I resemble so many A-list hollywood celebs!!! Ahem ahem!!!

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Family tree chart - Ancestry search

At my 'analytical' best

2009-03-20T07:06:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: Reading this post is not advisable for confused/easily confusable souls like yours truly. Go ahead and read this iff (if and only if – discrete math… No? Forget it) you are sure you would remain as sane as you are (:-D) before reading this. And I may ask too many questions here, but I am confused, people, help me!!!

As mentioned above this post is a series of questions.

How often have you faced an internal conflict between what your brain (Note: My mokkais about you not having a brain are not a part of this post, ‘coz. this post is “serious”. Trust me!) says and what your instinct says? I am sure we would have come across this kind of a situation at least once on our lives (No? Not even while answering certain ‘ambiguous’ objective type questions? Even in college? Then I’d advise you not to continue reading this post.)

During such conflicts, which one would you follow? Would you go by what your brain instructs you to do or would you just go by your instinct? From your experience so far, which one has proved to be more successful?

Once you have thought of an answer to the previous question, try answering this simpler one (one which makes you think I have gone completely nuts, if you don’t think that about me already). Is it wrong to be too analytical? Should we be prepared for Worst-Case Scenarios before every decision point of our lives or should we just chill and wait for problems to come and then think about it?

I, for once, have become too analytical these days. For example, I always think of my future as a series of decision boxes (the rhombus shaped ones in any flowchart) - I think like, “scenario1 may result in scenario2 or 3. So what would I do if I land up in scenario2 and what would be my course of action in scenario3? If all goes well in scenario2, I’d be in scenario4; else I’d be in scenario5. What would I do if I am at scenario5? Similarly, I left scenario3 in the middle. If that is going to result in scenario6, 7, or 8, what would I do in each of these scenarios? It is like an extra-deep nested- If construct. Get my point? Lost me somewhere in the middle? Now you understand why there was a weird disclaimer?

If you got up to this line, you are as sane as I am (take it as a compliment). I think so much that, these days, I feel there is nothing I do other than thinking (I mean I am not even acting upon my thoughts). I get so tensed while thinking about certain unfavorable scenarios that I feel depressed for rather long periods of time. Is there a way to be a little less errr… insane???

ANSWERS PLEASE!!!

First date with tea shop!!!

2009-03-17T16:03:00.001+05:30

Coming in morning shift is something I am yet to get used to and I had to work in morning shift this week. So, Sandy woke up at 5 in the morning (yes, I did!!!) and got ready and left home at 5:50am to reach office before 6:30. Since all my roommates where (lavishly) catching up the last few hours of sleep for the day, I didn’t have anyone to make my Horlicks (errrr… I drink that everyday and yes, I am 22, ok… 23). By the time I got out of the bus (I use MTC bus to commute to office coz I hate the office cab – it is stuffy and suffocating!) and was walking towards my office (There is nothing like a good brisk walk early in the morning) with headphones plugged to my ears, listening to “Emosanal Attyachar” and I had over 20 mins for my shift to start. I was hungry. But there are hardly any shops that are open at 6:10 in the morning. Suddenly I heard “Kandha Sashti Kavacham” blaring from a shop. I turned around and saw that it was a tea shop (the kind where guys go for a tea and a ‘dhum’). I saw that there were no customers at the shop and I was badly in need of a steaming hot coffee. I decided to walk in and have a cup of coffee (although one part of mind kept warning me about the cleanliness of the place)… The “tea master” (I was awestruck when I found out he was not a malayali – nair tea shop illatha naadu undo?) was equally awestruck because that was probably the first time a girl visited his shop. Nevertheless, he made my coffee in less than 2 minutes. It was nothing but hot water with a little sugar. I had to gulp it down, however it did wake me up!!!

Chennai rocks (again)...

2009-03-09T20:30:00.001+05:30

Pardon me for loving Chennai so much. I just can’t seem to hate the place despite the bad water (I am sure Coimbatoreans would agree with me) and worse climate!!!

In a comeback of sorts, Sandy started learning carnatic music again. Yes, I have restarted my stint with music (I just can’t leave anything alone for good, can I?) after a rather long gap of 12 years! I attended my first class this morning. Is it just for time-pass or am I really passionate about music - is not something I have an answer to at this point of time.

Last Saturday, I visited Dakshin Chitra with a group of friends and had a lot of fun. For people who are not familiar with places in and around Chennai, Dakshin Chitra is a place along ECR (about 20 kms from Chennai) where there are model traditional houses from each of the four South Indian states.

The place also offers an opportunity at kindling your creative side through activities ranging from basket weaving to pottery to paper art. For the women, there is a pretty good crafts shop with a decent collection of clothes, books (about India), posters, jewelry and other stuff. I, Anjana, Mohamed, Bala and Seems had a great day, although it was too hot for my convenience!!!

On Sunday, I had gone to Chennai CitiCenter mall and saw a mad rush at the various stalls put up by The Hindu for Women’s day – stalls from mehandi to caricature drawing to cookery – you name it. Not to mention women in bright costumes and even brighter make-up!!! Sunday also marked my first visit to Abhirami Mega mall at Purasaiwalkam – is it far from Thiruvanmiyur or what!!!

All in all, I had a rocking weekend, spent time with lot of friends and roamed around the city like crazy and found one thing that I’d like to repeat forever – Chennai truly rocks!!!

So what do your stars say?

2009-02-25T14:15:00.001+05:30

Some stupid astrologer told my mom that I have a very rough period ahead in my career and life in general… Well, let me rewind my recent past (1-2 months)…

Well, my previous project got over (again that is no secret to regular visitors) and I took a 15 day break when all my friends from here called me and said that the ‘situation’ is BAD and asked me to cut short my vacation and come back to work asap. And I was not willing to do that. I earned the wrath of few of my colleagues who were kind enough to let me know the ‘proceedings’ here. But then, I came back 15 days after New Year and within a week, I got into my next project which is a cool one. A change of location (my previous location was 5-6km away from my current location) – maybe I was not very comfortable here during the initial days; but now everything is fine, made a few good friends here! So work-wise, I couldn’t have asked for better – yes, there are people who have had to change work locations (in this case, transferred to cities other than Chennai!!)

The project too is nice – am working in shifts – morning and afternoon shifts during alternate weeks, but yeah, then again, there are people literally living in their workstations. Again, I am happy I don’t have to!!!

Apart from that, I have watched 3 movies in 3 weeks now – Luck By Chance, Dev D and Delhi 6. Delhi 6 was awful (Guys, I wasted 140 bucks for the ticket, please don’t watch this movie!) – The music is awesome, no doubt; but you’d rather listen to the songs on your iPod. A R Rahman truly rocks!!! (2 Academy Awards – am so proud to be living in the same city as him!!!) Maybe some astrologer even told Rahman he’d win 2 Oscars! Net net, entertainment-wise, I am a satisfied soul…

Valentines’ day came and went by – nothing special other than a Fastrack watch that I got as a gift… And I am at the pink of my health – no fever, sinus, nothing!!! I even managed to put on a little weight and am looking and feeling great…

In the negative side, there are only two things – 1. I haven’t cleared the mandatory assessment yet and 2. I lost my wallet… Actually, I have gotten it back also, so I wonder what “rough period” the astrologer guy was talking about… Anyone here believes in that crap???