Silent Eloquence

Hang in there

2012-01-26T21:48:00.000-08:00

Hang in there, little one. i can hear you. Are you doing the salsa inside to cheer me up and lift my mood, to calm the head that has a never-ending list and forgotten to comb?

It is another 5 days, and 10 things to complete, but i know, i must. The list is made. It is only about striking them off and enjoying the feeling. When i am down, suddenly you kick and let me know that you are bursting with life, and give me reason to stay calm and hope, hope for everything that is beautiful and sweet. Longing to hold the little fingers and forget all pain. So for now, hang in there, little one.

flying again

2012-01-25T01:34:00.000-08:00

This New Year has been the most eventful one for me. i am flying again to the U.S. If i do not travel now, i might just be the next lady to appear in the papers for delivering on the flight while crossing some ocean or something. i want to be famous, but not for this. i have been setting up the house thinking S would be coming back, but we decided suddenly that it would be better if i do not work for sometime and be with him. My management has been very supportive at work that i feel terrible having to go.

Anyway, i had to get my broadband cancelled. BSNL exchange near my house just vanished. Me and my big brother went to 4 offices of BSNL to finally get my broadband and landline cancelled. My to-do list has never ended after that. i feel that even when i put one foot on the flight, i would still have something to finish before i leave. i put up ads and got a tenant for my flat, but 3 days after moving, they wanted to move out as the guy's office is shifting to another end of Bangalore. i don't know why it was happening to me. Living on my own during pregnancy was not enough, i had to pack, move house, find another tenant all over again. Now, the agreement process for rental has also changed and you need to get the docs Franked in the sub-registrar's office. Frankly, i didn't know what was Franking until now. i have got another couple now, and still have to do the rental agreement with them. Then my doc said, i need to get the fit-to-fly certificate only 48 hours before the flight. i fly on the 1st of feb, so i have to run to Columbia Asia, Hebbal all the way from the city center. Tried sending my two-wheeler home, and there too, i had to prove my foolishness by giving all the keys, and original docs to the guy. Colleagues chided me, i lost sleep and ran behind that guy to give me back the original docs again. Typing the events out is much easier than what i actually went through. i am yet to get the NOC from the RTO, and wrap up many more things before i leave Bangalore. i am in my 6th month of pregnancy now. The baby has been kicking too. i guess i am supposed to be feeling calm, listening to good music, eating good food, and relaxing. Other than the eating part, have done none of the above. i have only been praying that i reach the husband safe and sound. Don't want to end on a negative note. So, for some cheer, i have an amazing boss and very good colleagues. Imagine my plight if it was an evil boss behind my neck to finish a lot of work in the office too. My responsibilities have been eased. i get work-from-home option for many days a week, and colleagues support me in many of the things that i listed, with their know-hows and contacts. Sulekha and Commonfloor have been amazing sites to rent out my place. i couldn't sleep the night my newly found tenant told me that they are moving out. They were themselves very upset as it was announced suddenly. And at 2 am, i still couldn't sleep and sang out loud, "Zindagi ka safar hai ye kaisa safar" It was apt for my situation.

that mail to Femina

2012-01-22T22:43:00.000-08:00

i saw my mail to Femina when i visited the parlour a few weeks back. Was pleasantly surprised that they had highlighted the mail. i had a bad experience with how they handle the winning letters and do not feel like mailing them again, but i managed to click a pic of the mail for record's sake.

my true colours

2012-01-18T04:54:00.000-08:00

The idea of a life without a child did not scare me one bit. i was OK with or without it as S often said, we could do much more for poorer relatives and under-privileged children that way, and we could roam the world. However, the accident changed everything for me. i hit the ground on my butts and the impact left my lower body in so much pain. i don't know from where, but the fear that i may in fact, never have a baby appeared to me suddenly. i remember being rushed to the nearest health center first. i was almost delirious and asked for a gynaec to see if everything is fine. My colleagues came rushing. Looking back, i am quiet embarrassed at how i cried and told them, (many of them males) about my fears and how i had summoned a gynaec. i was not as much bothered about how many bones were broken, but whether anything was wrong inside. i did not even get the word Uterus, but told the doc that my vagina and everything around it is paining. How embarrassing! how embarrasing! i was shifted to a good ortho hospital and there too, i made the Director of my department ask the same question to the doc.

Well, then S travelled. i asked him to get me pregnant before he left when i could barely stand. Obviously, he refused. :-) So, my main intention when i went to the U.S was only to get pregnant. Like many bloggers who disclose only after the baby is born, i wanted to do that. But i guess that is not my personality. i have been managing the past 5 months of pregnancy on my own and if i do not disclose it on my blog, where else would i? i have bouts of depression and frustration at times, but i am extremely thankful to God and all my colleagues and friends who have supported me in these months.

On a funny note, when i met with the accident, i thanked God that i wore nice panties. i wondered if i had worn boring ones, how embarrasing it would be had i died and they had to conduct a post-mortem. Also, my Line of Busniess lead took them out for me, and the director of my department (both ladies) put it back as i had to take x-rays of the fractured hip bone. Some lucky panty i say! Should frame it up for sweet memories
:-)

not the right post for the new year

2012-01-05T21:50:00.000-08:00

They say, writers are very lonely people in the head. i think i qualify that. Even in a crowd, i can be very lonely, though as a person i seem quite chirpy. My inner self is dark, very dark. i had every intention of deleting every post i had written so far. At a level, they seem so unrelated. what pleasure i would get out of it, i don't know. it is not even to begin life anew by deleting what is old, it is to lament in self-pity that something is gone. You may say, i can hurt. Yes, i can and i can hurt myself the most.

“They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars—on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.”

― Robert Frost

oh!

2011-12-26T20:29:00.000-08:00

oh, how would it be to roll in the snow with gay abandon!

The maintenance staff

2011-12-21T01:07:00.000-08:00

The maintenance staff of my apartment complex is amazing. We pay a certain amount every month. They however charge for things that get replaced, and a service charge over that, which goes to the plumber or the electrician. So, it often happens that whenever you complain about anything, the automatic reply is that it needs to be replaced. I am seeing this pattern over all complaints that i made. The sink got clogged. S and i used to remove the pipe from below and clean it up. This time, since he was not around, i sought help, and the suggestion was that i need to change the pipe. One pipe on the geyser was leaking. i checked the pipe and saw it was in the joint and nowhere in the pipe, that had to be replaced. On top of that, he left two more holes in the false ceiling. Looks like my geyser is looking down on me through the holes or wearing spectacles. The water was leaking in the toilet. Again his suggestion was that the pipe has to be replaced. This time, i did not buy it and told him to tighten the valve in the edge and lo! it is working fine. We have an owners' forum where we mail our experiences and it seems to be the same everywhere. Sometimes, we even joke over this. So, ideally i am paying maintenance only for the beautiful complex, and everyting inside my house goes from my pocket. Staying in a huge complex has its sour points i say. Should my new year resolution be to learn plumbing?!

Tired

2011-12-19T21:12:00.000-08:00

Tired- Physically, mentally, and emotionally.

And they say it is Christmas and there is cheer all around.

Downton Abbey-Super like

2011-12-12T00:41:00.000-08:00

Watched the day slip away, and as the night unfolded, plonked myself on the bed and watched the second season of Downton Abbey in one shot. If drama is for you, if you like classics, if you like romance, if you like period movies (this is a series and even more reason to watch. The story starts at April 1912), if you like ladies in gowns and corsets, flowing dresses, the works... emancipation of women, chambermaids, servants, family titles, Earl, Dukes, Countess, good storyline, and some class acting, please please please watch it. It starts in the early years leading to the first world world war, with a family's quest for a male heir to protect the family title and fortune, and i can't get enough of it. i almost starved myself watching it. Slept at 3 am and looking like a zombie now. Don't know if anything that i have written here is making any sense at all, but it is so nice...

who is the most lovable of them all?

2011-12-08T01:20:00.000-08:00

i have many nieces and nephews from my 3 other siblings.

Ankita somehow seem to be the sweetest among them all. It is not even her nature or looks, the fact that she is the eldest and the first child of the next generation perhaps, has to do with it. My parents say her younger brother is the more sensible one and he talks and does the right thing, while she is very naughty. Yet i seem to like her the most. Yes, the rest of them came one after the other from the rest of the siblings and i did not really see them, but i did not see Anki either for long. When i think about this, sometimes, i do wonder if parents do love all their children equally. i think it is possible for some parents to have a favorite child. Perhaps, they do feel guilty to admit it. Mom says parents love all kids equally, but worry constantly for the weaker one. i don't know. Perhaps, she is right. Perhaps, i am wrong.

honey, where is the sofa?

2011-12-05T08:06:00.000-08:00

My long distance marriage has been going on for almost a year now. Before that, S travelled for a couple of months. He came back and was asked to travel again when we just shifted to the new place. He said 'no' as i was not well and we were winding up the interiors and monitoring the wood work day in a day out. His tickets were booked the next time around, but i met with the accident just two days before his travel due date and he had to postpone again until i could stand on my feet. i had become very popular with his management and clients alike. However, he did go and it has been almost a year now. Time for us to take stock of things and decide what we want to do. P.V Narasimha Rao, i think, had famously said in his book, " the decision not to take a decision is also a decision." Well, i lived this for a year and it was never an easy thing. No doubt, he never looked happy in any of the pics that i saw of him on T.V while he was the P.M.

When i went for the two months vacation, i didn't know S wanted me to weigh the options and see for myself how i liked the U.S and if we would wish to stay there, or want him to come back. Emotional as i am, i never expected myself to love my job so much. i tried being a house wife for the two months, burnt my fingers while cooking, cribbed and cried and made sure S take over as the official cook, and came back. i am pampered silly by my husband and i am surprised that i can still stay away from him. Anyway, confused mind leads to confused post and this is not going to end in a proper way. Instead, i will share what i did while coming back to india. Without asking him, i packed the lava lamp, brought it to India, forgot about the voltage difference and the moment i inserted it on the plug point, the power tripped and darkness prevailed. It was nice and pretty in his apartment. Now, it is wasted and repairing it doesn't list even in my to-do list. i also carried candles, picture frames, and a lot of stuff for the house. S did tease me saying that if i could, i would have packed the sofa too in my suitcase, which is actually true.

Coming back to the U.S, it was not possible not to be bewildered the first time i saw the country. Most of my friends, and half the world have already travelled or are settled there, so i did not shout it out loud. It was mind blowing at times. I did travel a lot. The most thrilling experience was the south-rim walk at the Grand Canyon, where we stood small and admired mother nature in her vastness, mystery, and beauty. Vegas was amazing too, and i lived every moment to the fullest in the brightest spot on earth. Rest, i flew up and down meeting up with childhood friends and family. The icing on the cake was the business class from Atlanta to Paris on my return journey. i had been crying until i reached Atlanta for leaving my hubby behind, but i cheered up when i saw that i was getting business class in an economy ticket.

Why am i writing all these only now when i had actually come back in the end of August? This is how i live through my separation from the hubby, re-living each moment we had together as if it happened just today morning. The months have somehow passed and we are trying to be together again.

gaata rahe

2011-11-21T05:27:00.000-08:00

The 3 months young little one who just promoted me to grand aunt has started looking at people for a long time, and she smiles a lot these days. She also makes a lot of noise. The other day, she was in my arms and i sang to her. She seemed to enjoy. As it is, it is difficult to get an audience these days, so i belted out one Lata Mangeshkar number after another while she was enjoying. Hola, she slept off. I lost my audience, but it was a very peaceful moment. :-)

growing up

2011-11-13T23:54:00.000-08:00

Wearing the red sleeveless top for my sister's wedding, i felt on top of the world. Mom suddenly looked through her bifocal lens and insisted i wear another red, with sleeves. Both the tops looked similar in my eyes as we had to wear a shawl anyway over it, and been away from home for a long time, i was also shocked that someone could actually be strongly opinionated about what i should be wearing. ( i mean the past 10 yrs, i had roomies saying, "this might look better, but you eventually wore what you wanted and nobody mined.) i said, "i am not going to change". Well, the talk moved away from clothing to how we are brought up and how we rebel because we stay away from parents. Mom got all emotional. i found it funny, but eventually changed and made her happy. i wore the top of her choice, which no one noticed under the shawl.
.............................

Another time, dad and mom came visiting Bangalore to meet with S before we tied the knot. i fought with dad over something. it was lunch time. it was over the way he spoke to mom if i remember correctly. i was so pissed that i said, "i am not having lunch." (yeah, like you did in childhood and wait for your parents to threaten or coax you at least three times. :-)) Suddenly, mom took dad's side and told me, i shouldn't be doing like that as they have come to my house. i didn't know when parents became so emotional and started saying your house, my house. i guess parents are sometimes insecure in their own children's homes.

umm, you can't be that kid forever with your parents, nor can you be all grown up in front of your parents.

think, thunk, thong

2011-11-10T03:29:00.000-08:00

"i thong, therefore i am"

pomfret-tomfret, babies and antakshari

2011-11-09T00:29:00.000-08:00

The husband called up from the U.S of A (Those of you who asked if i am in the U.S. i was there, i sat pretty on his beautiful couch, and came back. No, wait. i travelled too, a lot actually.) and asked how to cook Pomfret. i found it so sweet that he expected me to know a little more than him about cooking. (shows how well i have bakrafied him before marriage. :-) ) i always give expert advice in that department. Well, i know how to eat Pomfret, but i don't know how to fry or cook one. So, i was shooting in the air trying to act as the Pomfret Consultant. He caught me obviously. Then i gave him the expert advice and asked him to Google it up. To overcome the embarrassment, my new year's resolution this time is to learn how to cook Pomfret. Be it from the husband.
..................................................
i am staying at my niece's place right now. i am about 2 yrs older than her. She has given birth to a baby girl promoting me to grandma or grand aunt, so to say. Well, the little one is very cute and is about 3 months old now, but she cries, especially when you are trying to sleep, and i am now seriously scared about having a baby. i see my niece sitting up the whole night with the little one in her arms. Her husband tries to help her and then struggles to get up in the morning to reach office. i am starting to think that babies, esp those in the frequently pooping, peeing, crying age group, look better on T.V and posters more than 50 metres around you.
..........................................
And this time, we did win the Antakshari competition at the office. Last year, i had to go for the visa interview and missed the show. i remember writing about the debacle the last time i participated. Our team has always been reaching the final round. Ending the post with something to cheer. yay yay yay dhing chak dhing chak...

I am scared

2011-10-24T03:09:00.000-07:00

I am at my relative's place these days. I am scared to tread outside the house. I am afraid SRK and his Ra.one banner will just appear out of no where. He is chamak chalo-ing on every channel, every show, and every ad and thank God, I personally do not own a T.V. I work from home these days.

when a woman wants to be a mother

2011-10-13T03:18:00.000-07:00

If you are under 18, go and read something else.

When I wanted to buy a microwave oven some years back, I saw a print ad with the image of Lord Ganesh on the front panel. I wondered how it could be possible for a microwave to have Ganesha on the face. I realized it was the ad of a digital camera but I wanted to see an oven so, I assumed it to be one. When I wanted to buy a house, I saw only ads of flats, on the billboards, the papers, magazines, just about everywhere. Paulo Coelho and whatever the ding dong about the universe conspiring you to get what you want, the mind definitely play tricks and makes you see what you want to see. Now, I seem to see only pregnant women, or women with small babies. In the U.S specially, the complex where we lived was Indian dominated. Many of the women there were in their twenties or early thirties, and I guess they felt it was the best time to have kids. I saw only preggy or young mothers everywhere to add more pressure to a wannabe like me. The following is written after some group therapy with fellow women in their 30s.

So, when a woman badly wants to get pregnant:

• She looks longingly at the wine bottle in the fridge every day, just to open it the day her periods start and repeats this every month.

• She reads up all possible articles on pregnancy.

• She tracks her ovulation cycle and calculates and recalculates the same thing over and over again.

• She suffers from IPS (Imaginary Pregnancy Syndrome). She feels pukish or pee often for no reason.

• She does pregnancy tests before time, and stocks the test kits.

• She doesn’t care whether her husband has just had a long day and then a long overseas call after work, her ovulation cycle is the most important thing in the world.

• She sees only babies everywhere and pregnant mothers.

• The whole world seem to be pregnant.

• Babies are suddenly cute, even when they pluck flowers, which bloomed after 6 months in the apartment complex, and destroy them.

• She doesn’t wonder anymore why parents have to bring them kids to malls, and leave them everywhere, howling and bawling.

To prove my point about pregnant moms and kids everywhere, I have this photo as a proof. Isn’t the whole world pregnant!?

hoin hoin hoin

2011-06-28T21:55:00.000-07:00

Hoin hoin hoin! wondering what? well, this is how the song, "Genda Phool" in Dilli 6 start and ends. And obviously, i am singing it in my mind. So, Amrika it is via Paris on Air France. i will blog more regularly from there. i am going for a vacation for two months and not quitting my job. One main reason is that i have too many clothes to wear. lol!

Have identified some places where i could get free food and stay: Arkansas, Texas, Washington D.C, Virginia, NewYork, and Rhode Islands. There are other offers, but it is difficult to plan the itinerary as everybody is everywhere. Anyho, i may also end up playing Garfield and not move my butt at all.
so, people see you on the other side. hoin hoin hoin! :-)

why?

2011-06-20T07:46:00.000-07:00

Why is the amount of work inversely proportional to the number of days left to do it?

4 Lions

2011-06-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

i remember S and i laughing till it hurt while watching the movie, 4 Lions. It is a black comedy about four British Jihadists and their ideology. You can laugh over the demented logic of the dim-wits, and how they execute their plan. This movie is about the moral idiocy of suicide bombing itself. There was a scene where they go to some training camp in Pakistan and make an utter fool of themselves. i think some U.S drones struck at the camp or something. There is a recruiter among them who doesn't speak proper Urdu and he is scolded in pure Urdu by his colleague by using the choicest bad words. It is funny and crazy at the same time, yet boldly provocative. Watch it if you still haven't.

the american geography

2011-06-07T08:49:00.000-07:00

i never knew that America would be so important to my life someday. Agreed many of us work for American MNCs in Bangalore, but all i cared about friends is that they are in the U.S. East coast, west cost, south central, the wtf coast that never mattered are beginning to make a lot of sense. So, i have been busy figuring out the American geography and checking out where are the places that i could get free food and stay. :-) Want to catch up at least with the childhood buddies, the ex-roomie, the bro-in-law and family, and of course my dear S :-) America, why are you so big?!

My Marriage

2011-05-26T02:36:00.000-07:00

I married when I was barely 18. We were young and madly in love. He was from a very rich family and showered me with gifts. His parents were happy thinking that marriage would make their wayward son settle down and promised my parents to take care of me. I knew he was on drugs, but thought our love would make him give it up as he had promised. I stopped studying, but he continued. He went back to Delhi to do his graduation. When he was in the second year, one day, he was found dead in the toilet due to an overdose. Already, I was like a maid in that house, with him studying and not staying with me, and my situation worsened after he passed away. I came home to be with my parents.

My parents sent me to Bangalore to do a BSc course in Biotechnology to keep me away from the talks of the neighbours and relatives. During this time, I met my second husband. This was my second chance in love and life, and he stood by me through thick and thin. He was disowned by his parents when he decided to marry me. He started working for a BPO to support me. I had two children in quick succession and decided to be a house-wife. After a couple of years, he started his own business. We have come a long way from where we started.

Things however, did not turn out as good as I expected. He started having an extra-marital affair. He hired her as a Manager and people started telling me about the late night dinners and client meetings. I fought and confronted him and it became very ugly. He said he picked me up from the ditch, severed ties with his family and married me, and now, I doubt him. I managed to get the girl fired. Now, there is another management trainee and I heard the same things have started with her. The business trips are getting frequent, and he is coming late very often. I am in my late thirties now. He is a good father to my kids, and I have decided to live in this house for them. I am past questioning.

Me too Saina-chasing the feather

2011-05-10T04:03:00.000-07:00

Past: December, 2006. Badminton tournament in ex-office. (too many exes in too many categories i say. tsk tsk! ) Me and my manager were thrashed all over the court by two huge and married ladies. Well, we were single then. Slim and trim, may i add and assumed we had a better chance of winning. Oh, they were merciless. One of our colleagues advised us and said, i told you guys to hit hard and high. It looked like you were showering flowers on them. We lost but, we decided in unison, to change the coach. :-)

Present: With my past experience of excellent sportsmanship, ladies and gentlemen, i played badminton the week before last and lost gracefully, with honour and consistency, in all matches that i participated. A colleague of mine gave her name but backed out in the last minute. i had metioned i would have been interested, so i was asked to stand in her place. M was my partner in the women's doubles. i went, encouraged by the fact that she has fractured her right ankle and me, my left. We limped together to the court and decided we would point out the cock (as we also call shuttles) to each other and play spot-the-shuttle.

We did not run at all, but made the other party run so much that we almost won the match. We lost 14-15. Then i partnered my current manager and participated in the mixed-doubles. This time, not only the opponents, but i made my partner also run around that it almost looked like we would win.
However, i suddenly remembered his feedback on appraisal that one needs to be consistent, and maintained it. We lost again. This time 12-15.

My partner M, went on to win many matches and reached the women's finals without running much. Many people wanted to act that they were all great players and stuck to the line, "i have not played for 5 yrs. i am out of practice etc" i stuck to, "if only i hadn't fractured my ankle" :-)

tale of a home

2011-05-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

The mother and i

2011-04-11T22:34:00.000-07:00

Me: Mom, why are you bringing rice of all the things from brother's.
Mom: It is really nice. i don't like the rice at your place.
Me: huh! Mama, you don't want to carry some salt too?
Mom: laughs.

Sometimes, i do think i have taken the crazy genes from my mother.

Went over to the brother's place over the weekend to bring back mom. We came back by train and all my mom could think of bringing back from Tirupur in Tamil Nadu to Bangalore was rice. :-)

The nephew looked like a little monk with his head tonsured. He used to sleep with mom the past one month that she was there with them so, we did not wake him when we left. Heard he cried a lot after he woke up.

The train journey was amazing though. i blocked out office, work, the dilemma over my undecidedness, and chatted away with mom over all trivialities of life. How much of the world could we see from that small window! It was not green everywhere, but in patches. Between many drylands, we could see patches of tomatoes, yellow flowers, roses, maize etc. Mom and i would point out to each other between our chit chats and cups of tea and coffee. Also, beautiful were the trees among rocks and boulders, beating the hot weather and burgeoning with bright green leaves, breathing new life, creating new landscape, drawing new scenery.

Finally, i was home and nothing compared to the comfort and familiarity of my pillow.

The Visa interview

2011-04-07T03:25:00.000-07:00

Being my first Visa interview, i had butterflies in my stomach though i tried to act nonchalant. i always wanted to travel on work, and not travel as a spouse or a dependant but i have to agree it doesn’t happen too often in my field of work. Between us, S was the experienced one and he gave me a lot of gyaan.

S carried a fat file, while i had to follow him carrying a few documents, which talked nothing about my work or qualification, but only about my identity, whom am i married to etc. Suddenly, i realized my life and key to the US depended on S, so i clung to him like number 10 on Tendulkar’s playing shirt.

Then the question started. First they asked S all the what, where, why, hows of his job profile. i was prepared for myself too. You see, i have never stayed for 3 yrs in any company and that tells about my interview facing skills. With utmost pride, i was prepared to say i work for a biiiigggggggggg IT company , the RandD division, no, not Rand, but R and D as in Research and Development . i was about to answer like a self-appraisal meeting. Suddenly, he asked me, “Ma’am how long have you been married?” i looked at S and mentally calculated how long we have been married. Ok, ask something about my job i thought to myself. The next question was, how did we meet? i replied, ‘online’ thinking what a famous blogger i am and how widely unread it is, but how S was a fan and started mailing me. i almost gave my URL to this guy, but he was not bothered. Finally, he asked me “Where are you working?” i was dying to answer all that i had prepared. i whispered the name of my company and he concluded for me that i am going to quit as i have to go as a dependant. i stared at S, and S nodded on my behalf. The visa got stamped and i can visit or be with him as long as he is in the U.S. but i cannot work. However, i am looking at freelance or part-time opportunities, pole- dancing for one.

Going back

2011-04-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

When shit happens, shit happens.

This was my general mood today and i was getting stressed out over small issues.

i thought i was having the most rough day. However, i somehow had the good sense to reach out to an ex-colleague and a wonderful friend. We work for competitors, but in the same campus. i joined her for lunch. i told her i think i could do with a drink. i was not lucky with the drink though she happily offered lassi.

When she introduced me to her colleague and we started talking about our old place, she said that it was an amazing place to work for and it was also because of me as i went out of the way to make the new joinees feel really comfortable. It is something which she learnt from me. Holy goodness, it came at a time when i needed the most that i even felt like crying. it was like the first drops of rain to my parched soul. Couldn't thank her enough.

mental note:

Reach out to friends. They'll never let you down.
A good conversation is sometimes even better than sex. (why i am writing this, i don't know)

cat on a hot tin roof

2011-03-23T08:17:00.000-07:00

Thought i was going through a cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof phase, and just read Elizabeth Taylor has died.
i see only home décor these days. When i watch a movie or a serial, i am more interested in the background. In No one killed Jessica, i noticed Manu and Sabrina's houses had the same curtains in certain scenes.

amir khan-shah rukh khan

2011-03-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

Wonder why the title? Will come there. i could have tagged along with S to the U.S. i didn't because i loved my job and it meant something to me. i was not working for the sake of money alone. i wanted to make a career out of it. i have put a little over 8 yrs to my profession. S got convinced by his management to get foreign exposure, and i didn't want to stop him, though we could still have a good life here.

Well, the appraisal feedback happened today, and for the first time in my life, i was not happy with what i got. i know your expectations and management's seldom match, but it wasn't even that. Worse is the cock and bull story later about you are technically reporting but not technically reporting to me. If you feel screwed, it is not me reassurance after the series of you are doing greats.

Thinking that i have sacrificed my personal life for this makes me feel worthless.
Came back, ate potato chips and cried in that order. Tomorrow, i may see some sense. i know.

So, i want to feel important today and have this urge to show off my blog awards given by fellow bloggers. i had saved the images of some awards, but for some, i have forgotten who gave it. So, like Aamir Khan, i want to shun awards, but the Shah Rukh Khan (got the title?) in me is awakened and i want to display them. i know i had got some silly blogger award or so :-) . Please own up. Else, i am going to display whatever i like. i will derive some cheap pleasure out of it.

On women's day

2011-03-08T10:07:00.000-08:00

i open your wardrobe. i get a faint smell of you, warm and fresh. Wonder how you remain smelling good throughout the day even when i cannot do it. i close the wardrobe immediately, fearing the smell would fade. It was my wish to stay back and hold on to my job. Thank you for understanding, and giving me that space.

The house seem big and the bed even bigger. i miss curling up to you, i miss you keeping my feet warm, i miss you reaching out for me and for my hands; even when you are asleep. i miss the talk and updates between morsels of rice, and also the cleaning together after dinner. i miss the small pleasure of watching movies together on the laptop. i have not finished "band of brothers" because we started it together and we couldn't continue. i miss you complimenting me, and forcing you to compliment. i miss you saying,"You look really nice. For tomorrow also, 'You look really nice'. So, don't ask. :-) ". i miss the weekend evenings on our balcony, you on the guitar and me singing out of tune, over chicken and drinks. Now, i stand in the balcony all alone, and look at the lights trailing in the distance from vehicles, only the cool night breeze and my thoughts for company. Everything seem so distant. i miss the financial planning and THE financial planning and the financial planning over and over again.

The days go on. i keep myself busy. Work is cool. Colleagues are good. The pay is nice. i am managing well, but through it all, i have missed you. i hope this separation pays off.

And today is the day we celebrate Women's day. The woman that i am, the woman that i want to be somehow doesn't add up without you. i pray the months fly, and i could be with you as soon as possible.

My tryst with bribe and corruption

2011-03-02T08:51:00.000-08:00

As a child, I took a wooden scale home from school and lied at home that it was given by my teacher. My brother complained to mom. Trying to act cute and innocent did not work with mom, and I had to take it back. We had Moral Science classes where we figured that fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Being honest and ethical then slowly became part of our value system through parents and teachers. During induction in companies, we are taken through a lot of online courses on ethics and what is expected of us. The companies too, are very strict about it. Sometimes, I do wonder what the employees of Satyam must have felt if they do have a course on Ethics. We crib about our salaries and managers once in a while, but deep down, all of us want to believe in the values, vision and mission of the organizations that we work for. I do feel many politicians must have come with the intention to serve, and right the wrong, but get mired in POLITICS.

My tryst with corruption started with my marriage registration. We were adults nearing 30 with all the right papers. The clerk in the registrar office smiled and asked us money when we submitted the form. S and I were shocked. We saw another lady who was his supervisor. She was in her late forties, well dressed with a huge gold chain and bangles. S said, “She is the supervisor and the others will not dare in front of her. Let us submit to her only.” We went to her and to our horror; she demanded money even without fluttering an eye-lid. S asked why, and she said everybody gives. We gave a few hundreds and left to get back after 1 month. We went after 29 days, as it was a weekend. We were not allowed to get married as we did not complete 1 month notice, for all the money that we paid. We had to go back again after a week. We were married, but to celebrate our wedding, they asked money again. S gave a hundred rupee note this time and we left.

Then I applied for my Passport. I had the marriage certificate too as a proof this time. I went through an agent and submitted all the documents. The policeman who came to verify the address and identity was so thrilled to talk to my bro-in-law who was in the army. They shook hands, one soldier to another, and then he asked me money. I gave him a few hundreds again. My passport to foreign travels was at stake you see.

With financial independence and staying alone, came the need to set up my own kitchen. I know these days, Facebook and blogs are where we cook and praise each other’s culinary skills, but we need some kind of fuel for whoever is doing it behind the scenes. I left home when I turned 19. Never voted. I was told; in Karnataka, you need the ration card or the voter’s id to get a gas connection. I shifted hostels and never got my name registered; as you need to be in one address for a certain no. of years. I tried registering through many of the corporate initiatives that came my way, but none of them worked. I pulled along a Kannada speaking friend to help me get a Ration card, for identity purpose. The officer told me that I need to bring the list where my name has been stricken off from the ration card holders’ list at home. Asked mom. She said, we never had our names in any list like this. I ran from pillar to post for 5 years, while paying exorbitant amounts through private players. When people have paid Rs.320 for a cylinder, I have paid Rs 800 and above. Finally, one neighbor told me to pay Rs 5500, and I got the connection without ration or voter’s Id, my citizenship, my Indianness, identity all established.

Marriage gave wings to many dreams together as a couple, and we booked a flat. When we had to get our flat registered, we were asked to shell out 20k over and above the registration fee. The builder advised our file will not move otherwise. We asked around to fellow flat buyers. All of them seemed to have paid and we toed the line.

Yes, I never opposed to any of these. I stooped in front of whoever exercised power, even when I was right. But, i have recorded these incidents on my mind because they did not agree with my values. Tomorrow, I may pay huge capitation fee to get my child admitted to a good school. Like all parents, I will continue giving him/her the values about right and wrong.

Wish life was as simple as it were in childhood. All you bothered was about homework and getting good marks. You could still afford to be uncorrupted.

photo mosaic

2011-02-25T01:18:00.000-08:00

I read about this from Asha. Then a couple of days back, i downloaded the AndreaMosaic software and tried it. I am liking the result. Sharing one of them here.

Photo Mosaic: Pics from my holiday album

Wallpaper from Imagine India: Base Pic

Before I was a mom

2011-02-21T01:41:00.000-08:00

Itching to write, but i have no time today. So, thought of sharing a Forward by a colleague and a wonderful friend of mine, about being a mother. This is for all my friends J, Lin, R, and those of you who've entered momhood and for people like me, who are under peer pressure. :-)

Before I was a Mom I made and ate hot meals.
I had unstained clothing, I even took pleasure in shopping.
I had quiet, uninterrupted conversations on the phone.
I had privacy in the bathroom.
Before I was a Mom, I slept as late as I wanted and never cared about the time I went to bed.
I was able to sleep the entire night uninterrupted and woke up with a feeling of being well-rested and ready for a new day.
Before I was a Mom, I never got up every few minutes, stopping whatever I was doing - voluntarily, just to be sure all in the house was okay or to lay my hand on the back of a sleeping child to be sure they were breathing and not feverish.
I brushed my hair and my teeth every day. I enjoyed leisurely bubble baths whenever I wanted.
I had time to clean house and read a magazine.
Before I was a Mom, I renewed my spirit by having lit candles burning all through the house; never nervous about that practice injuring fingers or being a fire hazard.
I never tripped over toys or forgot words to lullabies and nursery rhymes. I was confident.
I was not concerned about the paint on the wall, leaving a window open or the front gate unlocked.
I never worried whether or not my houseplants were poisonous or what I kept under the kitchen sink or where I kept the sharp knives.
I never gave a second thought to the safety of electrical outlets or the accessibility of the medicine chest.
Before I was a Mom, the word "immunizations" meant almost nothing to me.
I had never held down a screaming, fearful child so that a doctor could do tests or give shots.
I had never been puked on, spit on, chewed on, pooped and peed on or pinched by tiny fingers.
I had forgotten how real monsters hide in closets without a night-light on and that bed-bugs bite too.
Before I was a Mom, I had complete control of my thoughts, my emotions, my body and my money.
I never looked into little teary eyes and cried myself.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late watching a child sleep, while praying over their future and being thankful to God for today.
Before I was a Mom, I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I couldn't stop the physical pain or ease the emotional hurt.
I never knew that something so small could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much. I never knew I would love being a Mom.
Before I was a Mom, I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body, or the necessity of having eyes in the back of my head, or the importance of having three hands.
I didn't know how special it would feel to hold and feed a hungry baby, kiss a boo-boo or to offer comfort in the middle of a thunder storm. I never held a sleeping infant because I did not want to let go.
I never knew the delight of small arms hugging my neck.
I didn't know the bond between a Mother and her child could be so strong.
Before I was a Mom, I did not know anyone so small could make me feel so important and needed.
I had taken for granted the special moments and milestones I had been blessed to witnessed in the lives of others - like first steps and first words - the sound of a tiny voice whispering "Mommy?" for the first time - the discovery of rain and snow - the first taste of a cookie - and so much more.
No, I had never experienced the warmth, joy, heartache, wonderment, commitment, responsibility or the satisfaction that comes from the knowledge and understanding of what it means to be willing to self-sacrifice.
Now, I can appreciate the over-protectiveness of my own Mom, because I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much - before I was a Mom.

Romance

2011-02-17T08:10:00.000-08:00

S: Hey, did you get the e-card that i sent you?
Me: No, which email id?
S: Office. Check your Spam folder.
Me: We have no Spam folder.
S: Shit!
Me: Did you get the card that i sent you?
S: No, which e-mail id?
Me: Actually, i didn't. Since, i did not get what you sent, it's the same. How does it matter? :-)
S: :-) Saali!
Me and S: challo, goodnight/have a great day!

We are trying to romance each other online. And i wonder what was it that we talked about from Friday evening to Saturday morning before we got married.

let us all shop, shop and shop some more

2011-02-10T21:24:00.000-08:00

The whole city is on sale. At least, i think so. i shopped a lot online when i was recovering from my accident. My excuse was that i had to make myself feel like i am going on with my normal life. Now, i realise i am shopping even more. online, offline, anyline... i am registered at many online shopping sites. Surprisingly, i take that much time as i would when i really go shopping:

Does anybody else at work have it?
Will it make me look fat/too skinny?
can i afford t?
Can i wear it to work? (i have no other social life these days)
Will the husband mind (he doesn't care, but it is part of protocol and i act concerned)
is the colour right?
can i hide it in the closet?
offline, i walk closer and then walk away and look at it from a distance, then take it to the trial room. Online, i zoom in and zoom out the image, then read the specifications, again and again.

If you feel guilty, what do you do? Spread the virus, or let's say, spread the love. And a blessing in disguise happened in the name of Fashion and you. Now, we have been exposed to all kinds of brands from the comfort of our drawing rooms and the various media available. We don't wear them, but ya ya, we know them. And then there are these fashion weeks that happen, almost every week. After a point, you'll see Wills ShivajiNagar Fashion week, Wills Kengeri Fashion week, Wills Dharvi Fashion week etc. Without diverting anymore, Fashion and You empowers you (bakra banaos) to reach out to some labels. The products are good and the prices are reasonable. It works only through reference, and you get discounts each time your friends buy for a certain amount. So, you buy and she buys, and he buys, and all of you buy and they make merry and also the money. So, if you want to feel less guilty about shopping too much, refer your friends. i can send the invite too. Drop me a mail.

Right now, there is Happiness Sale @Central (what are they happy about, i don't know), Shoppers' Stop and LifeStyle too. I am into Home Decor right now. Lifestyle had better and cheaper stuffs than Shoppers' Stop. Bought candles, vases, decorative stones etc. Took me about 2 hours to select them. i felt, smelt, touched, looked, sighed and then bought.
Today, i am living up to this thought that came through my Word-of-the-day subscription.

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen. -Jerome K. Jerome, humorist and playwright (1859-1927)

Back to mundanity

2011-02-07T19:44:00.000-08:00

Gave back my walker to the hospital yesterday. Started taking the bike to the colleague's (with whom i carpool) place from today. couldn't stop living.

i try to leave work early these days. To reach home, to my mom, craning her neck from the balcony.
i don't know how many decades ago i turned 18, but i am back to being a child.

*********
Finally, i spoke to lady Bernes of Femina and got my reward. i did not shout or try to solve their problem. just that i had sent my address 5 times. i am glad i followed up. The little rewards inspire me to write. i write for joy, only here. even the social networks do not give me joy, just some momentary gratification. everywhere else, i eye the rewards or i get paid. Money is what separates us from animals, like they say in Sienfeld. :-)

And it is that time of the year-my shoddy state of finance

2011-02-01T04:06:00.000-08:00

i am not proud to say this, but my finance is in a shoddy state. And it is not too late to make resolutions. started thinking if i were to die, what a financial mess i would leave behind. i had freelanced for a company
long time back. i never submitted my invoice. i hadn't done anything about the PFs in the past two organizations. i have changes (coins) in the name of Mutual Funds in many places. Some are tracked, some untracked. i used to tell myself i need to do something about it, but never got to doing anything and just went about my un-exciting life.

The only saving grace is that unlike some of my female colleagues, i haven't left it to the husband to take care of all financial investments of the household. i know my fund houses and investments and i take responsibility for any mess that comes along with it. (book idea-The pride of a financial moron)

While being bed-ridden, i decided i must pull up my financial socks and be financially fit too. i mailed to the people i freelanced for and got a fair amount. i have applied for withdrawal of one PF and the transfer of another. In one case, i even had to get an affidavit declaring i was working there as it has been more than 3 years that i left the place. i have initiated transfer of PF for the other organization to my current one.

Next, i need to fill up some forms for some superannuation fund in the ex-organization. Don't know how! yes, it is in English but the enormity of the no. of forms gave me a mental block and it has been pending.

And i don't like this new Know Your Customer thingy happening for the fund houses. Mine are not KYC compliant and you cannot do everything online.

HDFC doesn't allow you to update address online. Don't like it. ICICI allows you to do it.
So, here are the things to be done:

~~Withdraw PF from so and so company~~ (submitted forms, waiting for Govt to act)
~~Transfer PF from ex-company~~ (waiting for govt to act, DO NOT change too many companies)
~~Follow up on payment for past freelance work~~ (got it. honey, i got money!!!:-))
Follow up with landlord and collect documents ( i ended up paying the electricty bill for his new tenant. forgot to remove online registration. collect mails. we live poles apart now, and i am just back on my feet.)
~~Combine all MFs to one account~~ (Let CAMS to do their job and manage only one account online. came to know this is not possible. Done for 2 MFs. They are not partners with Reliance.)
Pull out the non-sensical ones (wait for market to stabilise. Probaby post March)
~~Visit branch and submit address proof.~~ (done. 14/2/2011)
~~Submit KYC form~~ (keep all docs ready. Done. 9/2/2011)
~~Nominate S for all investments~~ (how much money i am gonna leave you! it was just a fracture. me not dying so soon. haha.)

Names and Pseudonames

2011-01-18T04:28:00.000-08:00

i have been getting a lot of emails to my id arunima@gmail(dot)com about kidney transplant. No, i do not need one nor am i selling, or donating. i get emails about prime time T.V programs of some t.v channels. i know there are a couple of Arunimas in the media, but i am not one of them.

Registered myself to Blogadda, and my username and id also got mixed up with a certain Arunima Singh. Blogadda is trying to figure it out for me. My blog couldn't do anything at Blogadda. At least, they are doing something for me hahaha.

Dear arunimas with extensions(eg: arunima2010@gmaildotcom etc), i am glad i got my gmail id as arunima(without_any_extension)@gmail(dot)com. There is a saying about early bird catching worm and all that, you see. :-) That doesn't mean you could drop my email id wherever you want, for all registrations as a secondary email_id and create a lot of confusion.

The hubby started blogging and he has already started generating revenue. I thought it was joke, blogs generating revenue and making online money, but it happened with his blog. No, i am not linking it here. It's a technical blog, maths and all that jazz. No, actually not jazz, it will be pi, ki, sigma etc. I don't let him bring it to the bedroom, though i love the money. Considering that i have been around for 7 yrs; well almost, his is in the stage of infancy. So, i give him expert advice and say, "make it more colorful. add graphs and stuffs." Not that he listens, but i feel important.

Femina

2011-01-13T01:59:00.000-08:00

i was elated when i came to know that my LTTE to Femina (Letters to the Editor, courtesy Amit) was one of the winners for the November (1-15) issue and i declared it here with equal exuberance. i was bed-ridden and it did good to my morale. i was told i would receive a mobile phone cover from miss sixty.

However, a lady, Bernes Mendes of Femina magazine ended asking for my contact details 5 times. The first two times, i did it patiently. The third time, i followed up CCing the mail ID to which i had sent my letter (cos i know they checked that mail) again. So, lady Bernes with an apology, asked for my contact details again. i replied with a grrr and then again and yet again, i was asked for my contact details. Finally, i copied all the e-mails that i had received (2 chains) into one and asked them to read it and told them they are very unprofessional. She gave me two numbers, which were unreachable too when i tried from my landline. (my cell phone was stolen and i was in no mood to buy another online, and i wanted a phone to suit the cover from Miss Sixty, perhaps a smart phone or so). i have not received any more mail, gift or love from Femina thereafter.

In the mean time, i received 5k discount coupon and bought diamond earrings with 5k discounted from Surat diamonds, i shopped online from Shoppers' Stop with another discount coupon, i got a stole delivered for free from imint, all from the luxury of my bed. i mean my virtual life was rocking, but no sign of gift from Femina.

It is not about not getting the gift but, for the fact that Femina is a good magazine (answer-for-everything, tech savy and all, no???) . i went to their website, and gave this feedback.

"Hi,
I was one of the winners of the "Letters to the editor" for Nov 15 issue. A certain Bernes Mendes has been asking me for my address 5 times even after I have replied to each and every mail with my address and contact number. Now, I am not interested in the prize, but it has left me with a bitter taste of the way Femina is functioning. You claim to be many things to many women, but I see a' technology-retard-sob' in the behavior, if her excuse for asking my contact 5 times is due to some problem in checking her mails. Her action is actually invading my personal space."

2 months tomorrow

2011-01-10T09:39:00.000-08:00

It will be two months tomorrow that i met with the accident. i have started working though i work from home often. i don't know if i took any new year resolutions. It's funny how one's focus and perspective in life changes completely. This new year, i gifted myself legs, which are of two different shapes, sizes and colors. When the cast came off, i wanted to disown the leg that was underneath it, but it was mine and i had to get it home. :-)

If there is anything remotely close to being called a resolution, it is to get my legs to be of the same color, shape and size. Yes, the ankle is swelled up and bluish in color still. The back pains when i strain or stress myself, and i limp slightly when i walk. Every bloody activity takes longer; infact, much longer than it used to take and sometimes frustrates me.

Parting from S was tough this time as he will be away for a long time and also because of my health. i know i am being selfish, but i think i married for this give and take. Next post will be about how i blasted Femina. yeah, i am one scorned woman.

hurting loneliness, sleeplessness, and some such

2011-01-09T10:16:00.000-08:00

“I think the place where poets meet
lies in an inner space between
the ribs, the lungs, and hurting loneliness.

A poet fills his bags with rose petals and
empties it on the head of another poet.
Her hair is full of petals.

There love poems rhymed and metered bloom
and in that moment of raining flowers
is the place I want to be.” Nina sorreno

Perhaps, that place is the blog for me. I had this strong urge to type even when the body said, it is time I call it a day as I have to limp myself to work early tomorrow. Dad left on 31st of December for our hometown. Mom is still with me. I hated his guts when he was around. Perhaps, hate is too strong a word. I disliked his guts around mom, dominating and oh so self-righteous. Somehow, I wanted him to know I DISAPPROVE. Perhaps, this is all because of my teens, where I grew up worrying too much they’ll fight, or cried too much that they are fighting, or I was too idealistic, or just plain crazy. Yet, if I were to die, I’d want one of my friends to let dad know that I blogged here, and I know he’ll be the only person who will appreciate this place and his daughter as she is, very emotional, imperfect, suddenly funny and so full of anger. See, even in death, there is a part of me seeking daddy’s approval. He dotes on my husband. It was important to me that he approves of S. Perhaps, I wouldn’t have married S if dad did not like him.

They say the internet is written in ink, but I had to tell my story somewhere. Sometimes, I regret letting some friends know I blog here. I miss my old template too. I am missing sleep right now, and S. He is in the US. I am craving for some potato chips too.

aha, 2011 and resolutions

2011-01-01T22:11:00.000-08:00

may your dreams bear wings, and may those take flight!
may you be amazed, bewildered, and thirst for something!
may you aspire or be inspired!
may you grow and help others too!
may you kiss with all your heart, be it your spouse, a child, or that one true love!
may 2011 be a year of possibilities!

Here are some resolutions I created for them solely for fun:

Salman Khan: Find new girl, find another look-alike of the girlfriend and cast her in new movie if the relationship with girlfriend turns sour.
Sonam Kapoor: Take acting tips from Papa darling apart from sizzling in the designer clothes that he's been providing me with.
Arun Nayyar: My life is not on lease (liz!)
Abhishek Bachchan: Stop following the wife everywhere and start acting.
Aishwarya: Support a new cause. Say 'no' to plastic!
Deepika Padukone: Continue being happy and gay (at least one of us seems to be)
Hrithik: No more kites, only more, mori, i mean meaningful cinema
Tiger Woods: Not take my surname seriously. There is nothing called woods. Everything becomes public.
Priety Zinta: Act busy with cricket if i don't get any movies!
Rani Mukherji: Keep saying, "I am not getting married" if i don't have movies to talk about.
Yana Gupta: Pant*ies, pant*ies, pant*ies!

i just had to share this

2010-12-15T05:08:00.000-08:00

Cannot say more. Please read. Manipur: How to Lose a Generation, from Tehelka.

Silence!

2010-12-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

“I was reminded of something, an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment, a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever."~ The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I look out of the window and see the mist forming; the weather is just salubrious in namma Bengaluru. I love this place. If I hadn’t met with the accident, S would have been sending pictures of snow to me from the US by now, like he did last year. I have never seen snow in my life, not even been to Darjeeling.

I have memories of childhood, they say memories are selective. I have good memories of those with the siblings, friends in the neighborhood, good memories of mom and us, good memories of me and dad, but, I don’t have any memory of us as a family laughing together. I have some, of us playing Ludo and watching Cricket, Wimbledon together, but beyond those games, I have no memories of pep talk in the family over the dining table, over a cup of tea: mom, dad, and us children, or laughing like nuts over the antics of one of us or a silly joke. 19 years of my life, until I left for Bangalore, and no memory of us having a good time together as a family. Dumb brain!

Perhaps, my views in life have been too idealistic and my brain chose to remember what was worth remembering. Oh yes, it was the year 1989. We came for a South India trip and all of us went to eat chicken biryani, in some restaurant in Chennai. I remember that. I was too young, but we seemed contented. Perhaps, my family was a happy family.

thoughts on the eve of the festival of lights

2010-12-12T06:03:00.000-08:00

I wrote this on the eve of Diwali, but did not post it here. Like Pallavi did, i felt it is nice to reflect once in a while.

I hear some children laughing and bursting crackers outside the apartment. Ah, childhood, how easy it is to be happy! I thought it was shifting to the suburbs of Bangalore that has suddenly made me feel the chill nip in the air, but I realize, the year is slowly but surely coming to an end. On the eve of the festival of lights, as i send wishes to all my near and dear ones, i reflect and ask these questions to myself:

What or who inspired me this year?
How has my personal relationship with family, friends and colleagues been?
Did i make new friends?
What were my personal goals?
What were my career or financial goals?
What bogged me down?
What kept me going?
Did i go out of my way to help anyone?
How was my health?
Which book touched or uplifted me?
Did i lose anyone dear?
What new skill(s) did i acquire?
How much or what did i donate?
What hurt me?
Did i have a hobby? new/old
Which incident or what made me laugh like nuts?
What was the most important thing that happened this year?
Have i become a better person?

The reassurances of the everyday

2010-12-09T22:54:00.000-08:00

i stood in my balcony today and saw the landscaping being done by the support staff. It was beautiful! Well, i am recovering fast. With nothing better to do, i found contentment in the humdrum reassurances of the everyday. Visited the doc. He hasn't removed the cast on my leg, but he has given me a walker. I have been advised to take it slow. The hip still pains. Umm, my hips don't lie. i am able to go to the rest room on my own, and also go to the dining table. My bed pan days are over. It's a great thing to be able to poop on your own. man! i can't tell you. Mom used to make fun at times, and tell me not to do it more than once in a day. So, i am gaining back my independence, one step at a time.

Colleagues visit me once in a while and cheer me up and they got me a lot of movies and shows, Sienfeld for one. I also read Mystic River, Shawshank Redemption, Paths of Glory, and Shalimar the Clown. Will write about them later.

Femina declared my letter to be an award-winning one and i will be receiving a cell phone cover from Miss Sixty. Now that my mobile phone got stolen, i am sure the phone cover was what i had most wanted. :-)
Anyho, i also won the caption contest for blood donation in my office. I happened to check my mails from bed and just sent, and lo, i had won. You see, winning is in my err cast, or hip so to say.

"A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn't it ironic...don't you think" ~ Alanis Morisette

what the...!

2010-12-05T00:28:00.000-08:00

When you struggle to sit up and place the laptop, and then position yourself slowly to check your mail, and the mail that you get, is about how to increase the size of your penis... hmpf!

One friend updated on Facebook that his son is already going to school. I replied, "And I am still pissing in bed". Dad played devotional songs in a loop in my room. Wondered if he was thinking that I am gonna die or something. :-)

Everywhere in the papers, it is all about scams, be it at the national or the regional level. I seriously feel, if all of these tainted politicians are asked to resign, nobody will be left at the helm.

Now we cannot promise the sun and the moon to our loved ones, and write poetry as she is claiming that the sun is her property. :-) The comments on this article were damn funny.

One said, "Someone should claim space itself and charge her rent for the use unless she moves her sun outside of the universe."

and another said, "Cool. Now that she legally owns the sun, I can sue her for damages like sunburn, skin cancer, global warming, and fading the paint on my car."

Watched recently:
Transsiberian (ok)
Green Zone (good)
Nothing but the truth (good)
The Social Network (good)
From Dusk Till Dawn (funny, crazy)
Red (good)
Salt (love Angie so, loved it)
Hart's war (very touching though IMDB rating is not so great)
Brooklyn's finest (serious, good)
Jonah Hex (ok)
The time traveler's wife (ok)
Hell Boy 1 and 2 (good. old movie. just for the sake of passing time)
Resident Evil:Afterlife (loved all the parts so, couldn't miss this one. I can watch the entire series back to back)

Wish to watch the latest Harry Potter and Guzarish, but for that, I need to walk to the theatre. hmpf!

And it happened!

2010-11-28T08:16:00.000-08:00

"I hope the Pacific is as blue as I have always seen in my dreams." ~ Shawshank Redemption.

With the ceiling fan as a constant companion from the past 17 days, this ending line from Shawshank Redemption seems to make a lot of sense.

I had registered for the midnight marathon, Bangalore and started practicing. Was planning to take tips from Shubs. I had also given my name to participate in the cultural event of our company's anniversary. It started like any other working day. The colleague with whom we carpool had to fly to Delhi for a conference. So, the remaining two of us decided to go in a bike. i was pillion riding and suddenly, we were thrown out of the bike. i have never got up from the time i hit the ground.
My colleague who was riding, suffered a fracture in her hand and stitches on her head. She had to undergo surgery on her hand, while i fractured my ankle and pelvic bone and I am bedridden. A gentleman called Vishwanathan from Infosys helped me reach the hospital and contacted my husband. He carried me physically from the auto as there was no stretcher in the nursing home that I was first admitted to. God bless him! On the other hand, my mobile phone got stolen from the accident site as my bag was left behind in the confusion. My laptop and purse were safe as another gentleman managed to save it from the people who were taking it away and handed it to my office. I choose to believe in the goodness of strangers and ignore those selfish morons who tried to steal even when two women were lying helpless with blood.

Well, such is life. It comes with a plan of its own. S was to fly to the US in two days time. He had to cancel it. I had the marathon, the salsa dance, the product release and what not. Now, my only plan is to walk again.

Time stopped for me on November 11th. The days just bled into each other with no major change. Only thing that seemed to change was the table calendar. The pain was excruciating as I could not even turn to my left or the right. But then, my old and retired parents flew in. The brother and wife came from Tamil Nadu and the husband took care of me night and day and I am trying my best for them.

Like a child I have to relearn everything. To sit up, to turn, to lie on my stomach, to walk again.

On a lighter note, S is living his marriage vows and he is doing pretty well and not making me become a weapon of mass destruction by washing and giving me sponge baths. I'd be too embarrassed if I had died as nobody hit us. The front tyre of the Scooty punctured. There is a window in my bedroom, but i cannot sit up and look outside as of now. So, i am keeping tab of the ceiling fan and i say sweetly,"honey, the fan needs cleaning." :-)

movies, serials and some such

2010-11-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

I boasted about watching movies every other day, and then I could not watch any for over a month. Tsk tsk, not doing it again. However, I finished all seasons of the series, Lost. I am a few years late, but I made up for it in 2 months straight, sometimes watching the whole day and night too :-)

My favourite series is still The Big Bang Theory.

Coming back to the movies, watched this German movie, Das Experiment . Based on the Stanford Prison Experiment, it was gripping. It could be sickening to some people. About 20 people are hired for 2 weeks and kept in a mock prison. Some of them are made to act as prisoners and some of them as prison guards. They are asked not to resort to violence and given the option to opt out any time, by surrendering their payment. A scribe and a pilot enrolls and the movie is about the turn of events.

Also, loved Music of the Heart starring Meryl Streep. Based on a true story, it is about a music teacher, a single mom at that and her struggle to teach the violin to inner city Harlem kids. There were many touching scenes. If it was in Hindi, I am sure it would have flopped. There was a scene where she tries to get a grip of her life. She fires the electrician and all the workers at her new apartment. In the same tone, she fires her boyfriend saying her kids need stability and since he cannot be committed, he is fired from her life. Amazing performance by Meryl Streep. I am sure, to some of you, it would look like I am reviewing Sholay, which everybody has watched on T.V again ...and again:-) but I am sharing this because it was really heart warming to see this movie. To a parent of a black boy who accused the white people for giving them false hopes, she said she took up the job because she needed it, and she should come and look at her son play the violin in the class once, to see the enthusiasm on his face. A woman like any of us, vulnerable with insecurities and yet she finds the emotional wherewithal to weave magic in the lives of the kids.

For all new house owners:things to remember when you do your interiors

2010-10-19T23:49:00.000-07:00

I stay in Bangalore and this is based on my experience. It may or may not apply to you. One more thing about interiors is that, you could spend from 1.5 lakhs to what-have-yous? You don't have to go for really high-end ones, but do ponder over the fact that you cannot be buying furnitures or re-doing woodworks every other year. It will cost more in the long run. So, go for a good one while you are at it. Pull out the Mutual funds, beg, borrow, do not steal. :-) Banks offer you loans along with the home loan these days and it is much cheaper than Personal loans. I like minimalism and I went just for the basics to make my house functional.
Area: Super built up: 1615 sq ft. Apartment

Get a good interior designer. If you know a good carpenter, that also works. Benefits of an Interior design company is that you don't have to monitor every detail everyday. They take care of the carpenters themselves, and they share design ideas with you. Having said this, it is your house. Reasearch as much as possible. Be pro-active. Visit the site at least once a week and monitor the work even if you hire an Interior Design company.

Always negotiate the price. The woodworks will be charged per sq ft based on the type that you want.

Kitchen: You can go for modular kitchen or get it done. Research on the ply boards to be used. You don't have to buy them, but at least you won't get cheated. Common Interior designers do not use good brands like Kitply. Ask for hot water resistant ply boards, not just water and termites resistant ones. Trust me, they'll fight back on this, or ask for a lot more mullah. You can go for pre-laminated boards; factory made ones, or laminated ones. I will give you the details if you want. You will be guided by your designer on this. Things that you may have to take care are:

• Check if your kitchen area already has a granite slab. Nowadays, most builders do not give it. If they do, check where are the supporting rods underneath the slab. When you have to cut the granite to fix your hob and chimney, you cannot cut it right where the rods are. I had to make design changes based on this and had to move a shelf on top of the hob for symmetry. Check where the plug point for the hob is. Remember to mark it. Your Interior design guys could miss it. Mine just did. They had to go to another apartment, measure with a scale and get it cut after they had covered the area with ply.

• Research for the suction capacity of the chimney. For a normal household with non-veg cooking 750 to 1000 m3/hr is good enough. You can install chimney by 2 ways either using duct mode or by recycling mode. I went for Duct mode. It requires some carpentry work, whereas recycling mode will save you from such modifications but it requires periodic charcoal filter replacement. Ensure the duct doesn’t have many turns and is as straight as possible. 10 ft is the ideal length for the duct. Plan where do you want to keep the gas cylinders. Pipe gases will take some time to reach Bangalore. I used copper wiring and kept the gas cylinders in the utility area. This will avoid any catastrophe in case of a leakage, and I save storage area in the kitchen. Gilma, Faber, Kaff, IFB are popular brands. Go for one with good service. Do not go only for looks, but also for utility (hob and chimney). How easy is it to clean? You will be frying, spilling milk etc.

Tiles: Knock each and every tile and see if there are air bubbles. They tend to break if there are air bubbles.

Wardrobes: Vineer, laminate. Vineer is more expensive than laminate. Options are: Outside Vineer, inside paint, Outside veneer, inside laminate, laminate inside-outside, laminate outside, inside paint etc. You can replace the laminate after some years. Vineering, you have to paint it. It gives the shine and natural polished look, but laminate is good enough too. If you have laminate inside or outside, touch with your palm and feel the laminate for air bubbles. If there are, ask your carpenter to remove it, else it will tear in a few years.

Most important thing is to ensure your carpenters or Interior design guys cover your tiles before the woodwork starts and do not break them. The polish and paints stain and it is a pain to clean. Also, if you are in an apartment, it may be very difficult to get the same type of tiles that the builder has provided if they are broken.

Didn’t know this post would get this long, will add more points later. Or you could add your points too. Hope somebody pays me for this. :-)

Home, finally!

2010-10-06T04:44:00.000-07:00

I wake up to the sounds of birds chirping and not vehicles zipping by
I see the beautiful sunrise from my window
I water my plants and know there will be no dirt accumulating on the leaves when I get back home
but, more than all of these is the feeling that this is home, finally!

S' and mine. Our sweat and blood.

Jaha pe sawera ho, basera wahi hai!

Used Car ad from BMW

2010-08-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

Caption reads: You know you are not the first. But do you really care?

Bhagat Singh

2010-08-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

The collegue said, "The page has become Bhagat Singh". She meant to say that the page got hung. Now, please go back to doing what you were doing before i start listing the movies that i have watched in the past 3 weeks. i watch a movie almost everyday. i have a terabyte of movies. so, there...

I got a comment that it is not right to use his name like this as he was a freedom fighter. Perhaps, he is right. Maturity has never been my forte. I found it funny at that point in time and blogged. This is a case of technology controlling us you see. You hit Publish and pah, it is gone.

Stone, next post will be on movies.

random things

2010-08-11T08:10:00.000-07:00

R and I joined the organization together. We met during induction and we hit it off from there. By the second day of induction, we became fast friends and we have remained so. I remember his shock and surprise when my hand went up to the HR's call of people with above 5 yrs of experience. I told him, it is my 6th company whereas it was his 2nd. He dropped me to the auto-stand, all the while trying to get my age with questions about the year i passed out 10th, what is my total years of experience, and if i started working right after finishing studies etc? i told him i know what he trying to do, but played a woman to the hilt and did not tell my age.

Now, he knows my age. We catch up once in a while post-lunch and walk together. He told me he is quitting. R, i am going to miss you and that is why, this post is for you. We say we will keep in touch, but i know it is never the same. One of my ex-colleague and i work in the same IT park together. We were so excited to be working in the same campus (different companies) that we met up or lunch the first month i joined. After that, we have never met up. And it's been one and a half years now. Most of my team mates have also left. For a change, i am sitting back and watching. All this while, i've always been the one who left before the others did. :-)
************

From the office bus, i saw a beggar at a traffic signal carrying an infant and an empty bottle of milk. Something tells me the infant is not her child. Any mother, no matter how poor wouldn't display the empty feeding bottle to beg. She would feed the baby with her own milk. She would do something. i don't know. i am disturbed by that sight.
*******************

There was one scene in the movie, Paa. It was just about a minute or so. Vidya Balan as a doctor advises a couple in their 30s not to delay in having kids. Somehow it hit me hard. Looked like she was advising me and S. i am not confident that we are leaving a better world for the kids. hmph!

Sis is coming next month with my 7 month old nephew and 3 yr old niece. Let's see if they inspire.
**************************************

She:S

2010-08-09T21:28:00.000-07:00

She (S) was in my neighbourhood. 25, a house-wife, and happily married with 2 kids. People found her beautiful. I found her exceptionally good looking because she had my teacher's hair style. Those days, whatever the teacher did was fashion to me, even when she put a flower on coconut-oiled-and-pleated hair. Her husband was into the timber business. Suddenly, he was diagnosed with cancer and passed away within a few months shattering her perfect world before her eyes. My story starts here...

I have not seen her in all these years and only remember that she was beautiful, though I clearly remember the blue Maruti 800 that was shattered into pieces by the men of the locality.

She fell in love again after her husband passed away. The guy was the tuition master of her boys. He came home to teach them. The men in the locality came to know, and suddenly decided that parayas cannot eye their sister. I guess this guy wanted to impress her and got the brand new Maruti 800 (it was in the 80s. Dad still had a scooter then. So, this guy must be rich and may have wanted to show her that she would be happy with him). The second time, he got it and parked on the road, it was broken.

S eloped with him to another state with her younger boy. Somehow, she couldn't take the elder boy with her. Her mom continues to tell the world that she doesn't know where her daughter is. We hear murmers that she came down to try and take the elder boy, but he judged his mom wrong, and continued living with his uncle. We heard she is happily married now. The man left his parents and the state for love, to create a safer and happier world for her. I salute him!

My point: At 25, I was still not married. I shudder to think what it must have been like for S, who was a house-wife with no financial security, and to be widowed with 2 kids at that age. What it must have been for a mother to choose between a second chance at life with a loving man, and her child? What it must been for S' mother, and why does society still bother so much about someone else's life?

Looking at this, I am so happy that my were-married-once friends have the freedom and also the anonimity in the city to live their own lives. One of them told me how she hates visiting her hometown because people still eye her differently, and remind her about her failed marriage to an abusive swine.

Mirror in the sky

2010-07-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

"Oh, mirror in the sky...
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life" ~ Landslide, Dixie Chicks

Silent Eloquence completed 6 years of blogging. She was so happy that she got drunk and died. :-)

I went through a phase where I did not want to read blogs, did not want to write. One lesson is not to try blogging once in a month, but try to do it once a week atleast, so that even if you slip, you don't slip months together. A social networking site was partly the culprit and it behaved liked a Mister. What is a Mister? Well, if a married man can have a Mistress, can a married woman have a Mister? So, Silent Eloquence found a Mister in Facebook. An update here, an update there, a comment here, a comment there, boredom, boredom, and lo! I am back.

There are a lot of stories to be told, a lot of experiences to be shared. I am dwelling a lot into personal relationships these days. I am observing, searching and reading a lot about soul mates. Starting to believe it exits and happens for some people, if not for myself. Corporate life, the stressful deadlines, a lot of ambitious single women in their mid and late 30s, single mothers, married couples in late thirties still not sure about having kids, divorcees, married and looking, and a lot of lonely lives... I have met and worked with all of these and some more in this short career span. No, I am not saying these lives are ugly or distasteful. I am saying as is. Some of them are living, 'i am better off like this' happy lives. Once upon a time, it was a simple statistics, an article in a newspaper. Now, I am rubbing shoulders with these people. It is about the people I care about and share lunch with. It is about me and you. There are a lot of stories left in me to share, a lot of stories to be told and therefore, Silent Eloquence continues.

In the domestic front, woodworks are going on in our new flat. Loving every moment of it. Weekends are fully tied up due to this.

6 yrs of blogging- the same old me, the same old shoes, just longer hair.

2010-05-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

13th May, 2004 was when I posted my first entry. It has been an amazing journey, where I met a lot of blogger buddies and shared. I must mention one blogger, who really inspired me. She is Poonam. I read all her posts in a week's time and started blogging. I was heartbroken when she deleted all her posts one day and moved blogs and URLs, and stopped blogging. Sometimes, I do get mails from people who've said that they read my blog and started blogging. If the feeling was half of what I felt when I read Poonam's blog (though I don't know how you measure it:-) ), I am really glad that I could inspire.
It's been an amazing 6 yrs for me of self discovery. I've come across bloggers, who say that the template is like clothes and should be changed as often as possible. It hasn't happened in mine. For me, I can say something like this: "I walk these paths, I learn these lessons, I crossed those miles, the same old me, the same old shoes, just longer hair. I still search for you and I still search for myself."

I continue to learn, to seek, and search. In the 6 years, I have realised I can be detached from blogging yet love it.

Congratulations to a dear blogger cynic, who has become a mother. The kiddo might just call her Didi, but the news touched me as I have been reading her for 6 years now, in her different avataars.

And all these years, I have never written this, I am madly in love. :-)

Suicide

2010-05-03T22:36:00.000-07:00

"Animals don't have a choice.
If they're not happy with their place in the world... too bad.
They have to live the life they've been given.

Humans, on the other hand, don't have to.
We have a choice.
If you don't like your place in the world
you can get off anytime you want.

Suicide. That's right.

You don't like the way your life's going,
you don't like the way you are in the world,
anything around you,
you can check out anytime you like.

Animals aren't allowed that thought
and believe me, if they were, they would use it.

There'd be a lot of dogs and cats, owned by assholes
that live in high-rises, diving out the windows.

Zebras... if they even had remotely that thought

would take a look at themselves and go, "What the F*#K!

Black & white in a green & brown world... this blows.

I'm just gonna jump in the river.... I don't have a thumb to work a gun or hold a knife or even open a jar of pills. I'm just gonna dive into the next lion's mouth. Why even bother?"

Now, monkeys have the opposable thumb so they could kinda do it the exact same way we do. Now, there's a bunch of people that say, "Oh, it's against the law". Well, it's only against the law if you do a crappy job and get caught. Other people say, "Oh, we should save them". Yeah, well you know what? Not everybody wants to be saved. Not everybody should be saved. And who are we to force our will upon them? I mean, isn't that one of the joys about being a human? Freedom of choice? Now, it's not all bad.

Now, I'm not saying "Kill yourself". But if you're gonna be an idiot and do it anyway, it's no sweat off of my back. There's a lot of good that could come from it. A little bit of bad thrown in. Some of the things: A job will open... An apartment will become available... There'll be more air for me... They say there's two girls for every guy - if you're a man, there'll be four chicks for me... There'll be more Ketel One vodka for me... There'll be one less idiot in line at the bank who gets up to the window without their F*#King slips filled out... I won't ever have to go to the store to buy my favorite Salt & Vinegar Chips and have the clerk point at you and say, "They bought the last bag".... You won't help change the McDonald's sign to a Hundred Billion Served... You'll never get AIDS... You won't have to worry about calories ever... No more, "Hey, does this make me look fat?"... There'll be one less polluting human...You won't have to recycle... There'll be one less car on the road... There'll be more Ring Dings for me... Fifty or so chickens' lives will be spared... Your fingers won't ever get red from eating pistachios... You won't be forced to visit your Grandparents on Sundays anymore... No more church... You'll be saying, "Hey, World - Kiss My Ass!"... No more wet dreams about Supermodels... No more Barry Manilow... For a few years anyway... Wondering "Am I a loser?" will be a thing of the past... Say good-bye to crappy Xmas presents from Aunts and Uncles... You won't have to suffer through a Motley Crue reunion... F*#K flossing and brushing... You'll never lose sleep over a pregnancy scare... Adios, Acne... Worrying whether you fit in or not won't be on your brain... See ya later, homework... You'll never have to sit through another movie brought to you by the creators of South Park... Schools out forever.... No more paying bills... You won't have to do chores... You won't be able to run over toads with the lawnmower though... You'll also miss McDonald's French Fries... Bugs Bunny... The amazing electrifying feeling that surges through your body when you kiss someone for the first time...

You won't be able to watch the letterbox director's cut of Jaws... Candy... Living above ground... Pudding crust... You'll miss the rush of getting your first apartment... Getting to the point in your life where you can tell your parents to "F*#K Off! I gotta make my own mistakes....you did"... You'll miss sex - you'll miss thinking about it, looking for it, sex by yourself, sex with a partner, sex with multiple partners.. No more summer nights that seem to go on forever... Roller coasters.... Naming your kid the name you always wanted... Making a difference in the world... You'll miss the experience and pleasure of Hallucinogenics... Watching your neighbor's wife change clothes with her blinds open...A lifetime of masturbating... Watching your favorite team sweep the series... Music... You will definitely miss music... Trying to sneak into your house drunk - three hours past your curfew... You'll miss the blaze and glory of the 4th of July fireworks... The taste of Captain Crunch... If you're a boy, you'll miss the feeling the first time you reach up a girl's shirt... If you're a girl, the feeling the first time you reach down a boy's pants... You'll miss your favorite coat... Waffles with whipped cream and strawberries... Beating your friends at video games... You won't be around to see what shape and color the new marshmallow in Lucky Charms will be... You'll miss the feeling you get when reminiscing about your first love - thirty years after the fact... The joy of giving and receiving at Christmas... Skinny dipping... Getting stoned, reading Green Eggs & Ham, and eating like a horse that got loose in the grain bin... Flying cars... Hey, you were born - Finish what was started."

Bobby Gaylor.

lullaby-Tha tha thabungton

2010-04-28T04:20:00.000-07:00

The following is a song in Manipuri that I like. It is a song sung as a lullaby in a movie,”Matamgi Manipur” by singer, A Kamala Devi. Written by, KH. Phulendra, the lines are profound and very sweet. I have tried to translate it, so that you can get the essence of it. It is much better in the original as the words rhyme unlike my poor attempt at translation, and blends well with the soothing music.

Moon, Moon, the gentle moon;

Shines quietly over the clouds,

The stars are aligned and looks on dreamily,

The silver clouds float sleepily,
The swaying winds have rested the trees.

In the night’s cradle, the living have rested.

Pull a clouds’ horse and a wagon of stars,

Listen to mother’s lullaby and sleep o little one.

Beyond the velvet clouds,

Embark on your dream world. "

thinking pictures

2010-04-11T05:13:00.000-07:00

You immortalize some relationships by talking and writing about them, while there are some, which you carry only in your heart.

Ad Finem-Poetry

2010-04-02T13:07:00.000-07:00

On the white throat of useless passion

That scorched my soul with its burning breath

I clutched my hands in murderous fashion,

And held them close in a grip of death;

For why should I fan, or feed with fuel,

A love that showed me but blank despair ?

So my hold was firm, and my grasp was cruel—

I meant to strangle it then and there!

I thought it was dead. But with no warning,

It rose from its grave last night, and came

And stood by my bed til the early morning

And over and over it spoke your name.

Its throat was red where my hands had held it;

It burned my brow with its scorching breath;

And I knew the moment my eyes beheld it,

"A love like this can know no death."

For just one kiss that your lips have given

In the lost and beautiful past to me,

I would gladly barter my hopes of Heaven

And all the bliss of Eternity.

For never a joy are the angels keeping,

To lay at my feet in Paradise,

Like that into your strong arms creeping,

And looking into your love-lit eyes.

I know, in the way that sins are reckoned,

This thought is a sin of the deepest dye ;

But I know too if an angel beckoned,

Standing close by the Throne on High,

And you, adown by the gates infernal,

Should open your loving arms and smile,

I would turn my back on things supernal,

To lay on your breast a little while.

To know for an hour you where mine completely——-

Mine in body and soul, my own——

I would bear unending tortures sweetly,

With not a murmur and not a moan.

A lighter sin or lesser error

Might change through hope or fear divine;

But there is no fear, and hell has no terror,

To change or alter a love like mine. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 -1919)

pimping the blog

2010-03-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

No updates doesn't mean I don't care about this blog. I have been pimping it. Have shared the URL with 2 of my colleagues, who have become friends. See, I rate them colleagues too. 9-6 buddies, colleagues whom I still don’t mind catching up on some social networking site (after spending like 9 hours with them in the office), and colleagues whom I SMS etc. Colleagues whom I call up after work, or on weekends are the really close ones. I am burning calories exercising my thumb to be in touch with them you see. I hate SMSing though. So, when someone reaches the right friendly-colleago-meter , and gets close, I start gently, “Do you read blogs? Do you blog?” Whether it is a yes or no, I give my URL and there, the pimping starts. Then, I’ll follow up with them patiently, until they are forced to read. Hoo haa haa (evil grin). I say, there is an exhibitionist in every blogger.

Talking about SMSing, I must take this post as a way to thank a certain ex. I am sure I never did thank him when we were supposedly involved, ego and all that. (I got a single digit hike that I feel like being so nice in my blog) Ex, thanks for the calls that you made to me, when all I did was give a missed call. If I regret anything, it is the fact that I did not ask for my commission from your service provider, for giving them business just by a missed call.

So, guys don’t just think of dumping that girl friend of yours who gives you missed calls and doesn’t really call. They turn out to be good wives you see. Ask S, my lawfully wedded husband, at how happy he is.

While pimping the blog, I came across this post of mine. I am glad I could feel in those days, and that I was proudly foolish.

After reading it, I made a sad attempt to write the following:

And we follow each other with our eyes, not saying a word.
And we sit across talking different things, yet making love with our eyes
And we sit and wonder if the universe will align for us at least once
And everything vanishes like shrieks and whispers all at once
And loneliness blinds us in between the wrong and the right
And I sleep with eyes wide open, with trepidation

to think,

to rationalise,

to let go of you.

"And when we meet
Which I'm sure we will
All that was there
Will be there still
I'll let it pass
And hold my tongue
And you will think
That I've moved on....
I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender" ~ Dido.

anniversary

2010-03-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

S, my husband, the one I conned and married two years ago, on this day by dressing up like a doll, going around him seven times and showering flowers on him, and bowing with my hands folded. S, my lawfully wedded husband… well, he just got smarter. Initially, he thought life is going to be like the wedding day always, like a king and the wife bowing and showering flowers.

Well, my friends, time changed and so did the smses, from ‘I love yous’ to “I bought tomatoes and potatoes, you get the rest on the way home” He realized that the wife just doesn’t smile but also talk, and talk nineteen to the dozen, even while asleep.

In the morning, while he expected coffee in bed, the wife has jumped out of bed with a hair that would put any religious leader to shame, and jumped into the office bus, to start her so called very important day in her very important career.

So, when Uncle Sam came calling on the pretext of some consultation, S, my lawfully wedded husband ran away for three months, leaving me in Bangalore, to paint the new house in pink and blue polka dots if I care.

Happy Anniversary hubby, missing you dearly. There are bills to be paid and the fans need cleaning.

like strawberry wine

2010-02-16T00:02:00.000-08:00

I still remember when thirty was old
My biggest fear was September when he had to go
A few cards and letters and one long distance call
we drifted away like the leaves in the fall
But year after year I come back to this place
Just to remember the taste

Of strawberry wine and seventeen
The hot July moon saw everything
My first taste of love oh bittersweet
Green on the vine
like strawberry wine

Chanced upon a bundle of cards stacked in a corner i knew i’d never look.
Peeped through one to find a birthday card from 7 yrs past.
it started singing. The battery was still fine. The song was mine.
Ah! there was a time when love was innocent.
Wanted to keep it on the pretext of sharing with grandchild (ren) someday,
but i had to live with the partner first to see it all happen.
Tore the cards and gave the battery to the neighbour.
The music, my first love, all became a child’s plaything.

The fields have grown over now
Years since they've seen a plow
There's nothing time hasn't touched
Is it really him or the loss of my innocence
I've been missing so much
Funny how those memories they last

~Song: Diane Carter, Strawberry Wine

Gas bags all

2010-02-07T20:37:00.000-08:00

Anne Hathaway claims that she digs into Physics books whenever she has time. She is interested in String Theory and Quarks etc. I have a feeling the lady is a gas bag who is claiming this just by following the T.V serial,'The Big Bang Theory'. ha ha ha. I love the serial too and I love Sheldon Cooper and his gang.

Coming to the SRK Vs Shiv Sena issue, bollywood is busy saying it was not me. Kajol said, "I don't have any account on twitter". Karan Johar said, "it is not Kajol". Abhishek joins in by saying,"Kajol doesn't have a twitter account" and the debate has moved from whether you support SRK or not to whether Kajol tweets or not. bah bollywood!

Since nobody is saying anything, I decided I must say something. I am going to Goa on the 11th. yes, finally!

6 of us from the office are going. So, if you think you are a twenty something PYT and you have beautiful legs, stay out of my way!!!

Falling in love

2010-01-29T02:30:00.000-08:00

I love good beginnings, the prelude to good things in store, like for*play.

I love the falling in love bit more than being in love. Being in love needs labor and conviction. Falling in love doesn’t require anything, not even brains. Yet it keeps you on your toes and makes you behave like a blind rhino, lost but positive to find a way out.

men!!!

2010-01-22T03:40:00.000-08:00

Men!!!

Well, there is no apparent reason why i am doing that. Today is my swearing and cussing day. So, men!!!
Read A thousand splendid suns and then went on to watch another movie on Afghanistan, 'the escape', which is about a journalist abducted by the Talibans and who was then helped to escape by a terrorist.

Enjoyed the book much more than the movie. I am a few years late in reading the book, but I did not read it all this while, because it was damn expensive. I don't like the fact that the second book of an author just becomes too expensive because the first book was a success. That way, I liked Chetan's latest cos Two States was just 95 rs. men!

Watched Sherlock Holmes. Jude Law is well, Jude Law. I know him as Sienna Miller's ex. men!

Been watching movies frequently on the big screen. It's my way of gearing up for the EMIs that will start next month on the home loan. Keeping this in mind, I shopped and splurged on my birthday on jackets, shirt, skirt, stockings, and shoes. I have never worn knee-length formal skirts to work.

Now, when it becomes easier to count your age in decades, you realise your legs are not getting any longer or better, and surprisingly, you even start to like them. (basically, you realise you don't have a choice on many other things, what are them legs!)

So, i thought if i have to wear it, let me just frikkin wear it, and did it.

Lastly, men!

though late, this was just amazing

2010-01-17T04:38:00.000-08:00

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."

— Neil Gaiman

Bollywoodization or AamirKhan-ization?

2010-01-05T03:25:00.000-08:00

It was 31st December. I took the steps of my office to reach the 2nd floor. Suddenly, an idea struck. This is not a day to work but for having fun. Pulled a friend and booked tickets for “Three idiots”. Some more colleagues had booked for Avatar a-must-not-miss-at-any-cost movie that I had watched in the first week, and boasted of. We went riding pillion on the bikes of colleagues who had booked Avatar. We lunched together, a big gang at Mc D and parted ways as our shows were different. The two of us had ice-creams; window shopped, enjoyed the movie, walked in the rain and drifted down the streets. Then I headed to join the hubby and some friends to another party, a hundred different songs in my heart, but all blending with the clamor of the crowds to make one grand, joyous harmony. What a way it was to welcome the New Year!

Coming back to the movie, at one go, you can spot the uncanny resemblance to ‘5 Point Someone’. All the characters are around it. I don’t know what the contract or agreement says. Chetan said, it is the bollywoodisation of his novel. That way, I feel all his novels are bollywoodised and that is why they are selling. Sometimes, I feel he is becoming Shobhaa De. The only difference is that for Shobhaa De, at times you hate her after reading her books, and for Chetan, after reading his books, you feel you can also write one but just don’t know how? Therefore, he is selling. There was one glaring mistake in his latest book, “Two States”. I am no IITian but Gold is not Argentum (Ag) as he has written in that dramatic situation after mentioning IIT and IIM for about a hundred times. Yes, I am exaggerating. It is Aurum. How could someone forget that? There was a father-son scene that I really liked in that book.

Coming back to the movie yet again, I liked the changes and the additions to the script, call it AamirKhan-ization or Hirani-ization if you must and I didn’t care where the credits rolled, but I had fun. I still hate Karina Kapoor for no rhyme or reason, other than Jab-we-met. She was supposed to be a medical student in the movie, but she confidently led a team of docs, one of whom said she has been in the service for many years, and helped her sis deliver through the internet. So, the movie was about geniuses. Aamir was a genius and so was she. My opinion about Karina remains the same.

I remember Ju sharing her experience when she was a med student and had to help deliver a baby for the first time. When she cut, the water bag (or something like it) bursted on her mouth.

3rd was the birthday and most friends didn’t bother to call up but wish online. I hate social networking sites. I am always online in them.

2009

2009-12-23T02:42:00.000-08:00

10 yrs back, my parents sent me to Bangalore to give me a normal (and better) life, far way from the bombs and guns, while they chose loneliness for themselves. i packed all my childhood dreams into one suitcase, and left home. Now, i have booked a flat in Bangalore. i am extremely happy to have done it, but i felt a pang of guilt thinking i may never go back. i hope age catches up with my parents and in-laws a tad slow, and they are able to travel and stay with us for sometime.

Well, 2009 has been a year of learning for me. S' brother passed way leaving 2 young children. He was a single parent too. i lost a friend in childbirth. The baby survived. She didn't. i lost both my grandmas, two strong women, widowed at a very young age, and who struggled to bring their children up. One was 100 and the other was 98.

2009 was the year when my honeymoon period ended and i woke up to responsibilities. i learnt the difference between donating money and giving money out of commitment. While courting, S told me that he is sponsoring the education of a boy, his brother and kid sister. i felt 'wow' that is so nice, the ideal family man etc. Living it out was difficult, in fact, very difficult, being someone who has always believed in 'retail therapy' even for mood swings. We had to think about the two children too, while S faced the recession with no salary for a few months, job insecurity and pay cuts. i had to have a paradigm shift to be able to accept things the way they were and expect less.
Got the benefit of being married to a large family when his younger siblings did well. S felt like a proud parent and i did too.

2009 was the year when my assertive skills and patience were tested when the in-laws came to live with us for a couple of months. Been on my own for almost a decade and then to have someone, suddenly tell you how to dress, cook, and behave was killing. i felt claustrophobic, i felt like tearing my hair apart. i often thought of speaking my mind and refusing outright, but when i saw the mother-son-father laughing over coffee, i did not have the heart to speak out or say that our values were different in some cases. in the end, i ended up being good friends with my ma-in-law and i heard she raves about me at home. S is very proud about it, though i still feel i have to get even with him.

2009 was the year when my dream for a flat got big, bigger, vanished and then came back with a bang. Went all across Bangalore in an auto for site visits for a year. We were tempted to change the game plan and go for a car instead, but i am glad we didn't. Finally, booked a flat the first time we saw it after all the merry-go-round. Just like getting married!

2009 made me question myself at times, "why did i get married?" cos i often came back late from work, stressed, tired and famished to an empty house as S worked even more late in his new job. Sometimes, i sat alone and cried just to realize i am very hungry and raided the refrigerator. A full stomach translated to positive thoughts that said, we are in it together :-)

2009 gave me the opportunity to work in a new organization with some amazing colleagues. Unfortunately, many have left the place. Filling Station, Kormangala became our once-in-a-month adda where we laughed and bonded after work.

2009 gave me the opportunity to perform the Salsa with a colleague of mine. i enjoyed it thoroughly. i also had the chance to go for an ‘all women trip’ to Hampi. Boy, it was fun. also managed a couple of breaks with S- Wayanad, Yercaud, Ooty, Conoor etc.

2009 made me stronger as a person and taught me life skills. Very early in the marriage, i have realized it needs a lot more giving.

2009 made me see that the eye-candy at work is about 5 yrs younger than me. When did men become so young and i, so old!

2009 made me addicted to Farmville. (got it while waiting for S to come home). He might just ask me to choose between him and Farmville. i am choosing Farmville!!! :-)

earth without maps

2009-12-12T22:58:00.000-08:00

"My darling. I'm waiting for you. How long is the day in the dark? Or a week? The fire is gone, and I'm horribly cold. I really should drag myself outside but then there'd be the sun. I'm afraid I waste the light on the paintings, not writing these words. We die. We die rich with lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we've entered and swum up like rivers. Fears we've hidden in - like this wretched cave. I want all this marked on my body. Where the real countries are. Not boundaries drawn on maps with the names of powerful men. I know you'll come carry me out to the Palace of Winds. That's what I've wanted: to walk in such a place with you. With friends, on an earth without maps. The lamp has gone out and I'm writing in the darkness." Katharine in The English Patient

looks like I'll have just one more post this year, a 'goodbye 2009' post. I am indulging in many other things other than blogging though I know, I'll always come back here.
Lot's of things happening in my life.

oh, i have a blog

2009-10-29T20:48:00.000-07:00

self-pity and me don't go together. I was bedridden for sometime. felt terrible as the life partner, husband in other words, had to work long hours and I was left to myself. watched a lot of movies one after the other, in the laptop without getting out of bed. Those Kate and Leopold, a walk in the clouds, PS I love you, Someone like you, Forever young, romantic movies of my generation, I must say. Then I went on to the Lord of the rings series. I watched about 30 movies and then finally got bored and jumped out of bed, and started going back to work.

Now, there is work and more work. There are calls which goes on till 9.30 pm while he still continues to come late. There is no work-life balance, but a great work-work balance between S' and mine.

And then there was 'Ethnic day' celebration at work. We were announced that we would win prizes. I went as colourful as a peacock in my ethnic dress. Didn't know where the judges were and ended up not winning. We just got a mail that two ladies have won. They just wore some sari, mine was intricate and difficult to manage and ...peacock colourful.

I hope the winners are not reading this. I hope the judges are reading this.

Anyway, sad and heartbroken, I overdosed on the sweets that the company gave. Man, I just wanted to die!
But all was not lost. I made a colleague buy me chocolate. He is on the 5th floor and I sit in the 2nd floor. He pinged me saying that he wanted to see me in my traditional dress. I said, buy me a chocolate and come. He did.

I thought I have lost my negotiation skills with men after getting married, but well, it is like never forgetting how to swim.

and sometimes you bleed

2009-09-29T06:09:00.000-07:00

And sometimes, you bleed just to know you are alive.
i am puking, i am crying, i am bleeding,
until i am left with no strength
it is not just the pain, it is also the fear that it may take away my dreams, bleed them away forever...
i curl up to a ball as if this would help me stop my insides from tearing apart
you look at me concerned, while i look at you through the excruciating pain, knowing you cannot bear half the pain that i am going through
my insides turn, they ache and scream,
my heart pounds everywhere, louder than ever
As you hold me tight, i know i am not ready to die...no, not... just... yet
perhaps, the dreams will take wings again.

I want some drama

2009-09-18T01:06:00.000-07:00

squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
and I'm beyond your peripheral vision
so you might want to turn your head
cause someday you're going to get hungry
and eat most of the words you just said

What else do you expect in life after having a good job and a good husband? Mom and my mother-in-law will reply 'a child' i am sure, but that is not my point.

I think I need some drama in my life.

The weather is so nice right now that I am nostalgic and wish to go home. The thought of going home puts me in a dilemma. I don't know 'home' means in-laws' place or mom's place and what kind of scheming or debating i must go through to stay where i want.

Wonder what 'value add' marriage has brought in my life other than some more responsibilities. hmph!

My English teacher in 6th standard explained asparagus to be something that we eat in my state, called 'Yaipan' in the local dialect. (We make pakoras and some curry out of it. ) I did a Google search a couple of years back to realise that what we eat is not asparagus, but something else. It is another form of arrowroot and not asparagus. Those were the days when we had no internet and teachers could say anything they wanted, and Amrika was so far away.

Talking about Amrika, i am going to Tamil Nadu to meet my brother and his family. They are settled there. If I can talk about Amrika, i can talk about Tamil Nadu.

Me and some colleagues wanted to visit Goa. I have been wishing to visit this place while S feels it is overhyped. I had even started imagining myself walking on the beach, promenading peacefully under a blamelessly blue sky, drinking Fenny or some fruit juice. One by one the colleagues dropped out and one male colleague and I were left. Knowing that our respective spouses are not so kind to allow just the two of us go ahead, Goa got shelved. Now, I have to beg S to take me by December at least. How much pride I had in announcing that I am off to Goa with colleagues!

So, I am off to TN to meet the nephew. I am giving some bonding time to S and pa-in-law (ma-in-law has left). Let the father-son duo gossip about women if they want.

and god help you if you are an ugly girl
course too pretty is also your doom
cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
for the prettiest girl in the room
and god help you if you are a pheonix
and you dare to rise up from the ash
a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
while you are just flying back

I'm not trying to give my life meaning by demeaning you
and I would like to state for the record
I did everything that I could do
I'm not saying that I'm a saint
I just don't want to live that way no,
I will never be a saint but I will always say~ 32 Flavours, Ani Difranco.

It cannot get more eventful

2009-09-12T22:48:00.000-07:00

i did not understand why Karnataka, a BJP-ruled government declared a state holiday when the AP CM expired. is it because our airport is so far away that AP has been considering that it is theirs and since our airport can be part of AP, AP can be part of Karnataka? This doesn't make sense? then, please explain the holiday.

Anyway, i am going to start house-hunting again. yeah, it is a good way to spend your weekends. call up and visit one or two projects, come back and sleep over it. i am seriously planning to start another blog and review the projects. i have seen at least 60 to 70 projects in Bangalore.
The last time, we had finalised on a project and almost booked it. Suddenly, S' company stopped paying his salary. Bah, we were prepared for a salary cut, but 'no salary' was life-altering.

We had to change the game plan. From house-hunting to job-hunting, and this mental shift was really difficult for me. i braced myself to be the sole income earner for a few months. i was stressed that i shopped a lot. got some 6 pairs of new shoes and a lot of clothes during those months.

Then my organization started to play ping pong. re-org after re-org happened and i am in a new project with a new person under a new manager. Then the family played sick-sick. First it was ma-in-law and S, then pa-in-law. The baton was passed back and forth, until it reached me. With the Swine flu scare around, the past few months have been only about visiting the doctor every other weekend. i feel like writing about the experiences with the different docs that we visited too, but let me save it for another day. i only know, life has been really eventful these past months and i am going to start house-hunting again. jai hind!

gulf_michael

2009-08-25T04:45:00.000-07:00

A to Z tag

2009-08-19T02:48:00.000-07:00

AmitL tagged me(thank you, ji)to do this A to Z tag, and here goes:
A. Attached or Single?
Attached. It was ‘Confused’ for quite some time.
B. Best Friend?
My group of childhood friends from school and J.
C: Cake or pie?
Both, occasionally.
D. Drink of choice?
Black tea with lime, black coffee, cold coffee, vodka with a dash of lime, and fresh fruit juices.
E. Essential item you use every day?
Water, food, clothes, bathroom items etc.
F. Favorite color?
Depends on the mood, but I like red.
G. Gummy bears or worms?
what the *beep* !:-)
H. Hometown?
Imphal- I might retire there. Indulge in gardening and teach children.
I. Favorite indulgence?
Blogging when I am not supposed to. (get the hint)
J. January or July?
January, of course. It is my birth month. It is winter and the dishes are yum that time of the year at home, though winter is not my favorite season.
K. Kids & their names?
Lubentina, the greek goddess of garden.
L. Life isn’t complete without?
Some music.
To add to this, marriage is not complete without the mom-in-law. :-)
M. Marriage date?
Well, wanted it to be 07-07-07. We were chased out as we did not have all the papers. :-) Then we got married and after that I forgot. Marriage makes you forgetful. What did you ask?
N. Number of Siblings?
2 big brothers and 1 big sister. Big family, happy family! :-)
O. Oranges or Apples?
Both and some more. The HR in my ex org kept on telling me, comparing the two BUs that I worked for is like comparing an orange and an apple. I left the organization because I didn’t get what she was saying. ;-)
P. Phobias?
I am afraid of the dark.
Q. Quotes?
“They laugh at me cos I am different. I laugh at them cos they are all the same.”
R. Reasons to smile?
love, life, health, internal peace.
S. Season?
Spring and rainy season. Love the new leaves and flowers. Love the smell of wet earth. Reminds me of childhood.
T. Tag people:
Anyone reading this post and finding the tag interesting.
U. Unknown fact about me?
I was adopted. No, I am lying.
V. Vegetable?
potato, tomato, onion. (my essentials)
W. Worst habit?
Biting nails (not any more). Running to the pick-up point every morning.
X. X-ray you've had?
back
Y. Your favorite food?
Not particular, but I like egg curry and Indianised Chinese food.
Z. Zodiac sign?
Capricorn. Am I cool or what!

Time to Opine

2009-07-30T23:39:00.000-07:00

While I opine about the situation I am in; because of the in-laws, I had forgotten that the summer is almost over and left to myself, I would have anyway worn the clothes that I am forced to wear because of them.

Saw the partner who comes home much later than me, eat happily, chit chat with parents, giggle with me in bed, and somehow find time to do the things that he loves to do- read a book or watch a movie, and I realize how much complacent I have become or how busy I was, feeling busy. I am sure he must be getting good sleep too, while I worry myself bald and worry over the baldness again.

I am friends with a lady who sell vegetables. I am her regular customer. Yes, I am good at it- relationships (I think). She is 26, younger than me and has 3 kids. 2 daughters and a son. Sometimes, I give her a little extra money; sometimes she gives me a little more vegetable. I gave her son; the clothes that I had intended to gift my nephew and keep telling her not to have another child. She smiles and keeps saying ‘yes’. I suddenly notice her stomach bulge again. She covers it with her sari if she sees me. Don’t know if I am imagining. I often ignore her smile, and start to worry about her, about the kids, the world, population, pollution, and wonder if I’d ever want to have a child of my own. She seems to be ever-smiling through it all.

At the cafeteria and some hangover

2009-07-27T01:11:00.000-07:00

At the cafeteria, I noticed a lady wearing a slogan T shirt. I nudged my colleague and said, “look at that”. My colleague asked me, “Is my bum as big as her’s?” Now, for opening my mouth, I was forced to compare and contrast two things, which were not objects of my desire.

Moral of the story: Be specific about what you are pointing out.

I will not talk about the movie, The Hangover. I am sure many of you would have already watched it or are in the process of downloading it. I am going to talk about the object of my attention, S’ hangover.

Once, we partied at a friends’ place. We normally stay back at their place or they stay back at our place if we drink at night. After downing some pegs of old monk and vodka and waxing eloquent on Richard Dawkins and Statistical modeling, S got up, washed his plate and declared he is sleepy and wanted to call it a day. Later, in the middle of the night, he cuddled up and asked me if he had dinner and what did we have for dinner. He knew that I was his wife (unfortunately! :-) ) and that we were at his friends place, but he had no recollection of events after the 3rd peg. It freaked me out. He came home and researched on the net to see if there have been similar cases, and some people wrote that they don’t remember what happened for 3 days at a stretch. In the movie, at least they were under the influence of drugs. I told S not to drink when I am not around and not to exceed 2 pegs.

Since this is my blog, let me stop with what I said/ordered/instructed and not add what he replied.

The bubble wrap

2009-07-22T21:55:00.000-07:00

As I waited for him at the airport, I went back in time to recollect if we had ever hugged. We had been friends from a very long time, but beyond the high fives and the pats on the back, we had never really touched each other. Oh yes, we had. We held hands in a school play. Thank God, I was the girl and he was the guy. Considering the way I was, I could have very much acted as a guy too. I have portrayed the role of a drunkard with élan and the trophy at home is witness to that.

I have hugged my boyfriends, I mean my friends who are boys, but I guess I have been a little reserved towards him from the beginning.

Suddenly, I could see his head and then the trolley. At one glance he saw me, and pushed the trolley towards me. Now that we were a couple, suddenly, I felt shy. Is there a phrase ‘shyly excited’ or ‘excitedly shy’? I was feeling that. He proposed me from across the miles and I accepted. It was inevitable in some way and somehow, I knew it all along that this is going to happen though I had dated other people.

A meek ‘hi!’ escaped from my lips and I just smiled. Had it been any other time, we would have been in a group shouting and cheering. His friends would have asked him which poison has he bought and then gang up to finish it. I remember us converting the dollars to rupees. If somebody used to spill a drop of the drink, we used to say that 50 Rs is gone.

We headed towards their apartment. It was the same place where I had met his gang of friends, the gang whom I named albeit fondly, the Trophy gang. They had this habit of lining up empty bottles-alcohol, deodorants, water, coke, and even ash-trays, as if they were some trophy. It was the same place where we had strummed the guitar and sang ourselves hoarse. I am sure the boys had their own pet peeves for having to run and get dressed, to look decent when a girl was visiting unannounced, while they laid nonchalantly in their bare basics on a hot summer day.

We met M in the apartment. Came to know B had moved out with his girlfriend in another flat and C had moved with his sister. M will be married in another 3 months and he decided to retain the flat. So, he would be staying with M for a month. The gang would be coming in the evening again I was told.

The room was suddenly quiet. I didn’t know what to do and took a bubble wrap from one of his gift items, and started bursting one by one. He took it from my hands suddenly and gave me his palm. He asked me to read his palm as I had often boasted of knowing palmistry. I played along. I traced the lines of his palm with all seriousness knowing very well, the trap. This was not a handshake; this was not our high fives, this was the first touch of new lovers.

The Proposal

2009-07-15T22:13:00.000-07:00

I remember coming back to the hostel after watching ‘Miss Congeniality’ and taking another 1 and half hours to narrate scene by scene to J, some even with actions. I was a good crapologist and J giggled through it all. I miss her.

Watched The Proposal at the Fame, Lido (road is damn congested because of the metro coming up). Enjoyed it thoroughly even though it is a candy floss cliché filled rom-com. You know the ending, you know the story but the journey was fun-filled and had us in splits.

The story is simple: devil boss, enterprising subordinate, boss proposes marriages to save her a*se, plays romantic couple to convince people and family, falls in love, happy ending. Sandra Bullock plays Margaret, another version of the devil boss like Meryl Streep did, but she manages to come on her own.

Ryan Reynolds had lovely comic timing and facial expressions. The grandma was just amazing. Her jungle dance to thank the mother earth and then Sandra joining her in the act was too funny. There is another funny scene on the wedding dress with the grandma and I will not spoil it by talking about it.

The office scenes were good. She is referred as ‘it’ by the staff and they flash messages to each other. I won’t tell where, but we once had a group chat in the team against the boss. Hence, the unity of the staff and the scenes made me laugh a lot.

I worked for a small firm once and we did not get internet connectivity for all the 9 hours at work. We used to tell the system admin to let us know when it was connected without the boss’ knowledge. The sys admin would come out and rotate his finger in the air. That was the sign we had been waiting for. Immediately, we would jump and open yahoo mail (this was the most popular those days) and browse for the next 45 minutes. It felt like heaven.

I will write about some fun-at-work moments someday. Coming back to the movie, it is paisa vasool.

Glossary:
Crapologist: One who specializes in handing out crap but presents it in such a fashion that it appears to be fact (Courtesy: Urban Dictionary)

Quote for the day

2009-07-12T22:50:00.000-07:00

“MILs are just so harmless and nice. You just have to do whatever they say.” ~ Arunima, Blogger.

my Einstein brains at the Antakshari

2009-07-04T22:21:00.000-07:00

We were shown a clip. The clip just before the song,"hal kesa hai janab ka". I have not been watching Tv so, I am quite rusted when it comes to visuals. There were negative markings too. We had to pass or give the correct song. My colleague knew the name of the movie and couldn't really recollect the song and went on saying,"yaar, ye wo phisalne wala gaana hai" again and again. You know what my Einstein brains started visualising that moment? Jack and Jill tumbling down. Yes, it was a hindi-movies-only Antakshari and the word 'phisalna' conjured up the image of Jack and Jill to me and nothing else. We scored zero in that round.

Next was an audio-visual round. A video of a scene before a song would be played but the sound track of another movie would be in the background. We got the first video and the song right, which was from Golmal. The background audio was from Gupt. We identified the movie, but gave the wrong song. Most of Gupt's songs start with similar music and it was tough to identify the difference in 10 secs. We scored zero in this round again.

Therefore, we lost. We led until the 5th round out of 7. Had a chance until the last round, but ended up 3rd or 4th. (doesn't matter as we were not runner's up either). A team that almost got eliminated won. Charged up with all the songs starting with 'u' and 'th', I sat and perhaps, went on sitting. :-)

High points:

We won an award for having the most innovative team name, which was "Galle me khitch khitch". Yours truly gave the name against some team mates resisting it. Other teams had sur, jhankar beats etc.

It was a lot of fun.

I got complimented for having a good voice from some people.

Help!

2009-06-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

We have an Antakshari competition coming up. I don't tweet and so, I have to blog it.
Please help me with songs that start with 'th' like 'thori' or U, as in 'unse'.
I know this song, 'unse milli nazar' beyond that, I am blank about songs that start with U(oo).
I'll come back with the updates by saturday or sunday.

ex.com

2009-06-22T04:41:00.000-07:00

Women often say that some of their exes become dumb once they break up. Why did he have to prove it! (Thumping the chest and crying). Why oh why! (thumping the chest and crying again) An old-friend-now-turned-stranger mailed me. He wanted to show that there are no strings attached and he meant business. So, the mail started like this…

Hi http://arunima.blogspot.com/,

Business business business…

Regards,
Ex.

Dear http://ex.com/, (the way you like it)

I have a name. You could have left at ‘hi,’ if you didn’t want to address my name. By taking my name, you are definitely not going to cheat on your wife/girlfriend/lover/kid/family/OS/Password/Server/Browser/mom-in-law (sigh! Mom-in-law just comes out of nowhere. Focus Arunima, focus.) I think it is called e-mail etiquette. Please don’t break my heart like this. I would love to say that I dated intelligent, smart people rather than … (ehem!). Regardless of your regards, if you can’t be nice, don’t spam and give me brilliant blog ideas.

Regards,
http://arunima.blogspot.com/

S

2009-06-10T22:09:00.000-07:00

I have been wishing to read Sea of Poppies (Amitav Ghosh) and The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay (Siddarth Sanghvi).

A few days back, when I came home from work, the ‘Sea of Poppies’ in a hard cover was waiting for me. I flipped the pages and I saw the following written in my husband’s beautiful handwriting.

“ To Arunima,
For the voyages, and all the adventures,
past, present, and future.
S. "

I smiled and then jumped and thanked him, then hugged him, then kissed him then I ran back from the kitchen again to read it and re-read it, and thanked him again and kissed him and smiled and jumped and hugged and kept on smiling.

that young woman

2009-06-04T22:36:00.000-07:00

I first thought she is a kiddo who is giving her 12 boards. I came to know she is a kiddo who is giving her 10th. Well, she has passed her 10th with flying colors. She is all grown up and she is taking on her father on whether to attend CBSE, ISC or ICSE.

Read what she has written to her readers in the side bar of her blog and you’ll know that she means business. She is witty, she is smart and, she has ATTITUDE! At her age, I would have perhaps, liked myself being addressed as a young woman but, I can’t help saying that she is so so cute.

Dear All, meet Ramya. She has given me some awards too, honest scrap award... wait, let me scream out loud. Honest Scrap AWARD and Friendly Blog AWARD.

Thanks kiddie, I never knew people your age read my blog. She is 15. Hell, I really don’t know if people read my blog at all.

You make me feel like a fossil at times but, it is really nice to have you around.

In the news:
I have started gymming because mother-in-law is coming.
I have realized that my husband is very learned. Remember, without blinking an eye, he gave me the statistics of models appearing on Playboy. How learned! How confident!

Doubt

2009-05-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

Watched Doubt. This time around, the devil doesn’t wear Prada but a religious habit, and plays Sister Aloysius Beauvier. You can’t tell if she is a devil or the angel though she acts every bit like the devil in her role as the principal of a catholic school. She confiscates radio from students, doesn’t allow them to use ballpoint pen, checks if their nails are kept short and clean and, advices a teacher that the photo-frame should be placed right in front of the blackboard so that the teacher can see from the reflection what the children are doing behind her back. Any misbehaving student is sent to the Princi’s office.

She reminded me of school and an Italian nun we had, Sister Amelia. She used to punish anybody and everybody for anything and everything.

While she is around and if you pass by and, if you see a piece of paper on the ground, it’s your day. You have to pick it up and throw it in the nearest bin before she tells you. Else, she would catch you and not allow you to join the assembly prayers. You will be released only after you say ‘sorry’ after the prayers. If we see her, all of us used to start searching for papers on the ground and sometimes pick up non-existent litter and run towards the bin and escape. We were not allowed to hold hands and walk (it was a girls’ school) or to run and scream. We used to wear solemn faces around her, wish her ‘Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening’ and walk past (paper picking is when you are in primary) and continue playing the fool once she was out of sight.

In school, we also had these bag checking, nail checking, uniform checking, and book checking sessions. Looking back though, I have only sweet memories of my school. Sister Amelia has also passed away after years of service in that school.

Coming back to the movie, it was an amazing performance from the two lead actors, Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. In short, it is about a conservative nun who suspects a liberal priest of making wrong advances to a black boy and confronts him. The ending was still left to interpretation.

The drama is woven around the exploration of desperation, the vehemence of conviction and the all-encompassing and all-consuming doubt-doubt over your faith, doubt over someone else's faith.

My point (Monday morning point)

2009-05-25T04:41:00.000-07:00

Maya, Chaya, Laloo, Billoo, Gowdapa, Gowramma, just about everybody was ready to give unconditional support to the UPA.

And look at how the DMK bargained. They should have created some new posts like the Minister of Potholes, Minister of Underground Cables, Minister of digging, Minister of filling etc. I am sure they'll have enough work to do for the next 5 years.

The words,' shame' and 'ethics' doesn't exist for these people. Like the Shotgun Murugan SRK said in OSO, I feel like calling them Rascalas!

********
The paper said that Carmen Electra is going to star in some series nude. (I don't know how nude. That is not my point.) The point is that she has already appeared nude in Playboy, perhaps twice as per reports from my husband. It is like saying Celina Jaitley is going to expose. Google for these two ladies and the images that pop up will talk for themselves. I mean who is interested in seeing Celina Jaitley expose? She is always almost naked with her b(infinity symbol)bs jetting out all the time and hot pants for public dos. So coming back to Carmen Electra, has she sprouted a third t*t that the paper is so much interested in her exposing?

This is my point on a monday morning. ehem! have a great week ahead.

it's been 5 yrs

2009-05-14T21:09:00.000-07:00

I realised I have been blogging for 5 yrs. As the archives show, I started in May '04. I have been tempted to change my template very few times, but somehow I am still with the old template.

It has been fun to write.

I have realised its personality is very much like mine.
I have realised I'll continue writing for a long time.
I have realised I don't keep on thinking about my blog as I used to do earlier. I write when I feel like it and I write what I want.

Hell, the title should have been 'Realisation'. Look at the amount of 'I have realised' that I have used. And now, don't start thinking that I have been living a moronic existence all this while. shoo!
I am just trying to give away a little more of my character perhaps, through the rightful use of the wrong words.

I have a group of 5 best friends from school. We are still in touch like the old times. Some of them, I have known for almost 26 yrs of my life.

I am still in touch with a gilli-danda friend in the neighbourhood from childhood.

I am still in touch with my first roomie in Bangalore, who has gone back to Mizoram now.

I met J in the other hostel. We are still in touch and I am in touch with another 2 friends from that hostel.

I am in my 6th company now. I found many good people in each company, but I found at least a good friend in most of them with whom I still catch up.

I am still in touch with Meg, my only male best-friend left. We've been friends since '95.

Many have drifted in between and there is an occasional hi! and bye! on social networking sites. But, for these friends, we've never required a social networking site to be in touch or to catch up with each other.

In the blog world too, I have some blogger friends. If I have aged as a writer, I have grown as a reader too and it has been a wonderful experience. Even with so many interesting new bloggers popping up every other day, I am glad that some of you still care to drop by. I am glad that in these 5 yrs, some of you have really mattered to me and I have mattered to some of you and I hope to say someday that I have been reading you for the past 10 years like I just said about my childhood friends.

Congratulations to Shub. Wish you a very happy married life!

Where does it end?

2009-05-05T23:10:00.000-07:00

I fell in love with you watching Casablanca
Back row of the drive-in show in the flickering light
Popcorn and cokes beneath the stars
Became champagne and caviar
Making love on a long hot summer's night

They met at work, her first and his second. Sparks flew and the inevitable happened. It happened in a city where people were judged only by love and companionship, not the sameness of caste or creed. The relationship matured as they moved ahead with their careers and different companies. She had always been independent and that was what her parents intended too, sending away their daughter to the city to work. When the talk about marriage with this guy came up, however, the parents did not agree.

I think they have been going around for more than 6 years now. I find them to be like any other young, good-looking and compatible couple.

Her father died without agreeing to the alliance and that broke her resolve to go on fighting. Perhaps, he didn’t know he would die. It was cancer I heard. The mother still sings the same tune, widowed and still mourning the husband that would never come back, to fulfill his wishes without ever bothering to meet this guy. Is there a point? He is from a different caste you see!

She said she is not marrying him and have agreed to her mom to marry whoever she chooses. Makes me very bitter about the whole thing. The first words that came to mind were to say that the old man is dead but, I stopped myself.

They still meet and kill themselves a little each day.

I guess there're many broken hearts in Casablanca
You know I've never really been there so I don't know
I guess our love story will never be seen
On the big wide silver screen
But it hurt just as bad when I had to watch you go

Blow

2009-04-29T03:39:00.000-07:00

"So in the end, was it worth it? Jesus Christ. How irreparably changed my life has become. It's always the last day of summer and I've been left out in the cold with no door to get back in. I'll grant you I've had more than my share of poignant moments. Life passes most people by while they're making grand plans for it. Throughout my lifetime, I've left pieces of my heart here and there. And now, there's almost not enough to stay alive. But I force a smile, knowing that my ambition far exceeded my talent. There are no more white horses or pretty ladies at my door. "
~ George (Johnny Depp)
The ending lines of the movie, Blow.

Of late, I find Johnny Depp to be one among my kind of handsome actors.

I used to go Keanu Reeves Keanu Reeves, George Clooney George Clooney and the Robinhood guy, Kevin Costner.

In the current list, the others are:

Joaquin Phoenix (I even like the name in his case),
Leonardo DiCaprio(I watched Titanic and Romeo & Juliet first before coming across Basketball diaries and Gilbert Grape, and thought he is a chocolate hero but, he has more meat than that)
Edward Norton (Watch Painted Veil to believe me. I am having a huge crush on him.)

I have watched almost all the movies by these actors.

The election and the middle class dreams

2009-04-20T03:13:00.000-07:00

My name did not appear in the Voters’ list.
Disappointed!

I have never voted in my life and really wanted to do it this time. Submitted the forms through the VotedeIndia corporate initiatives. I think I selected the wrong constituency and ward no. in the form. I am crazy and I live in a crazier locality is my thinking. It is neither-here-nor-there kind of a place. Google map was a little dicey and it did not throw up the right constituency. I reconfirmed with my landlord and also the neighbor and both of them said that what I have selected is right. Apparently, it was not so. I am angry with the Landlord, the neighbor, myself and, everything else in between.

Humko Vote dena mangta!
I think I’ll go and simply stare at the voters or sing Tarzan Boy. Why? Simply! I like the tune.

Considering the recession, I bought a cheap pair of sandals for work. Now, let me first talk about my feet. Cheap footwear and my feet don’t go well. This has been since childhood. My feet look like those of a duck, very beautiful! Mom tried to make me wear some cheap shoes and after 3 months, the toes would pop out of the shoes, start smiling and greet her, “hello mommy, your daughter needs better shoes.”

I envy those people who can just slip on anything. There are a lot of foot wears for ladies that are quite cheap and stylish, the flip flops in all shades, the thin straps and so on.

I look at them longingly, but my feet can take only those that are strong hearted else, it will win and leave the sandals in tatters. If you ask me what I would do if I had lots of money, my answer would be,”I’d get a foot job done.” That is one reason why I don’t have lots of money. Now, you might think this is crazy, but I had a hostel mate who wanted to correct her toe nails with surgery if possible. We shook the hostel laughing, after hearing that.

Coming back to the point, I bought cheap footwear for work and after a week of running to the pick-up point, it started laughing. That is when I got angry and being fed up with recession, started the shopping spree.

I bought 3 pairs of really good sandals. Now, I have a rack full of foot wears. It’s a different thing that it has always been full. I also bought some formal shirts and finished it with a nice Kurti and a holiday with S to Wayanad, Kerala (holiday post coming up) to beat the recession to pulp.

It is not like we have not been affected. The flat did not happen as our salaries became unpredictable. I did all kinds of math, but realized they were just not adding up to what we require and it would be too risky to commit on huge EMIs now.

These are the dreams of a middle class. I cheer myself up by saying; “it is ok, this is what I am, I have never been anything else.”

I am going to do something now. Let the flat happen whenever it has to. For now, I’ll change the curtains of the current rented accommodation. Yes, I can do that.

When I became a scheming woman

2009-04-14T04:27:00.000-07:00

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees,
well they’d be singing so happily,joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away
to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, and practical.

I thought I was quite assertive. Well, that was until I met my mother-in-law. I wanted to stay at my parents’ when I went home as I was going alone without S to attend my childhood friend R’s wedding. I rehearsed what I am going to say to her and how I am going to say it and if she gives me some reasons for saying ‘no’, how I should reason with her. The husband neatly walked out of this by saying that he doesn’t want to get involved as both women mean a lot to him and he doesn’t want to take sides. (Bah, I’ll remember this) After all this preparation, when I finally opened my mouth, she said,”No”. That was it. I was blank. Every idea evaporated and I forgot all the corporate trainings that I received and the case studies we had about being assertive. I meekly said ‘ok’ and hung up.

That was when I wished I was not married, but the deed was done.

I had to find a way out.

I resorted to telling half truth. Ha ha ha.

Booked my flight a few days earlier and stayed at home and then went to my in-laws as the dutiful bahu. Since, it was a small place I was worried if some common friends who are in the neighborhood would mention to them that I was home. R, the bride was more worried for me than her own marriage. I joked that I’ll go to the market in the car wearing a helmet to avoid being recognized.

It was funny, it was scary. Having done this, it was easier to stay at the in-law’s place and be the dutiful bahu, coy and obedient else, I would have been really disappointed about my vacation. I have stayed away from home for almost a decade. I don’t go home every year and desperately wanted to stay with my parents.

Co-sister was there for company. She was with the in-laws for about 6 months as she waited for her passport and visa to join bro-in-law in the U.S. She did everything the way mom-in-law wanted and I had to toe the line. I was surprised, but I did learn some things from her, about endurance and being nice, not because they are nice, but because you are.

I have decided to boycott any training on people management or assertiveness.

And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, clinical, intellectual, cynical.
There are times when all the world’s asleep,
the questions run too deep for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd but please tell me who I am.
Now watch what you say or they’ll be calling you
a radical, liberal, fanatical, criminal.
Won’t you sign up your name,
we’d like to feel you’re acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable! ~ The logical song- Supertramp.

womencipated?

2009-03-30T20:43:00.000-07:00

Don't know why the title! It is the word that came to mind when I thought of posting.

When I went home for vacation to my small home town, I came to know that 2 of my seniors in school are divorced. One is a doctor and was a brilliant student and the other is a successful, and well-known journo. In my current org, two of my colleagues are divorcees. 3 of my colleagues in the ex-office were divorcees. All three were under 30, without children. Some of them are extremely good looking and are wonderful people to work with. J had 3 lady managers out of 5, who were divorcees. Another colleague has 2 of her friends who are divorcees. One was married for three months, and another for one and a half years. Sometimes, I do wonder if this is what we call emancipation of women, independent and ambitious or their continuing victimization, forced to walk out of marriage because of domestic violence and harassment?

I am a feminist up to an extent. I believe that rather than being in a painful marriage, it is better to walk out and find your own place and voice. I don't know if these are cases of women going ahead of their male counterparts adapting with the changing times and the males being left behind, or something else.

After hearing about all these people and after seeing many of them happen in my own circle however, I don’t know if I should rejoice that women have finally found their courage to stand up for themselves for their rights or worry that with the new found courage and independence, people have forgotten to compromise.
****

I left my phone number on some property sites while I was searching for an apartment. Now, the buggers have shared my number with whom I don't know. I get an sms update on some fart shop being opened in Jayanagar and Vijaynagar too.
***

Work has been really hectic. I felt I earned every penny the hard way this month.

random thoughts-not demented mind

2009-03-17T04:37:00.000-07:00

Betrayed by youth, the thin old man struggled to push his cart full of vegetables, in the road that was inclined upwards to reach the market place.

Feeling guilty and helpless, i looked on quietly as i waited for my bus to work. i couldn’t carry vegetables to work even if i bought some from him.

Decided, i must get up early even on weekends to walk a little extra and buy from one of these vegetable sellers before they reached the market. The vegetables are anyway fresh and beautiful than those found in the racks of the beautiful stores, all fainted but wrapped in neat plastics.

Succeeded to do it, after much struggling to get out of bed. Then bought a nice breakfast for the husband on the way home and watched him eat happily. Boy, is he so easy to please or am i so much in love?

Listened to the kid neighbor talk about her vacation plans in zest. i might get bored if i get that much holiday. Am i getting old and boring?

Wishing for company to the pool, i told Archoo that it is time to get back to shape as her baby is 9 months old now. Headed to the pool to find a lot of overweight women in swim suits determined to swim away the inches.

Not being able to contain her happiness on being slimmer than some people, Archoo exclaimed loudly, “i am so happy about myself”. Shooed her away from the ladies before they heard and crushed us. Happiness is relative!

Enjoyed being part of the women brigade- all unconscious of their bodies in all shapes and sizes. Enjoyed more being part of the minority in that brigade-not come to learn swimming or lose weight.

Company of a female friend, pep talk, dip in the pool on a hot day and the taste of chilled and succulent watermelon. Heavenliness?!

Time and tide

2009-03-10T21:33:00.000-07:00

I am not sure about time and tide not waiting for anyone, but my bus to work definitely doesn’t.

Run Arunima run.

kiddos

2009-03-06T23:46:00.000-08:00

“One for the cluck of a happy hen.
Two for the chirp of a sad wren.
Three for the hopping of a green spotty frog.
Four for the bark of a howling dog.
Five for the quack of a duck on the lake.
Six for the hissing of a slimy snake.
Seven for the swoop of a brown ugly owl.
Eight for the sneaking of a wolf on the prowl.
Nine for the scratching of a tiny rat.
Ten for the purr of a furry cat.” Mrs. Pallister

I had taken some interactive learning games for my niece and nephews. Ni, the 1and half yr old wanted to play only when his cousin D plays. If he was not allowed, he’d cry. Other times, he is not interested and he didn’t want to play alone on his dad’s system. I was teaching D to play the games. He was busy with the mouse. Ni started climbing on my lap, reached out his small index finger and started pressing the spacebar. Well, nothing was wrong so far and D could still play. D was engrossed and did not bother what Ni was doing. Suddenly, Ni put his foot on the keypad demanding some action and attention. D started crying and then Ni joined.

I am helping a friend in creating a similar product for these VIPs with an attention span of a lightening bolt. What characters to use? Which songs to use? How to connect the interactivities? How to keep them engaged and learn? What if they don’t do anything? How to distract? What if they still don’t do anything? How to appeal the parents?
###

Before their parents shoot me down, this is a pic from one of those days during my vacation.

oh my Gaad

2009-03-03T20:06:00.000-08:00

Oh my Gaad! oh my effing Gaad!

I've been married for a year now.

It was quick.

No fights that lasted more than 5 minutes. S' culinary skills have improved. As for me, I was born with a bottle of masala and a ladle. Hence, I continue to comment ...on the salt and taste.(though I am lazy and run out of the kitchen at any given chance)

Lots of loving and lots of laughing.

More, I'll write as the years go by. Second, third and many more to come so...

MS errors and Indian-o-meter

2009-02-24T02:52:00.000-08:00

It seems Microsoft is asking their laid-off workers to pay back extra money, which happened due to some error in calculation.

One of the comments in the article read,” Tell them to shut down and re-start. It works for all the other MS errors.” :-)

To me, the Slumdog Millionaire movie is an Indian movie. At least, it is more Indian than Bobby Jindal and Sunita Williams. We rejoiced when Sunita ate samosa. Why can’t we accept the movie as Indian? This is in my humble opinion and I can’t get more humble than this.

***
Had a long weekend as yesterday was also off due to the Shivaratri festival. Suddenly planned to go to Ooty without S with some of his friends. The plan crashed even before the take-off and they SMSed me with an apology. Crestfallen, I watched some more movies and finished a novel. Invited another couple and we partied at our place. I wanted to add some more exotic starters to what S was already preparing. After browsing for hours together, the exotic item that I prepared was beetroot salad.