Jeeves Around?

Not sure if others tend to agree, but I experience it more often than not. So often the words which just flow out of my mouth just fail to figure when I make vigorous efforts to recall the same. Especially when there is no dictionary at hand or no access to internet or no assistant like Jeeves (of Wooster-Jeeves fame of P.G.Wodehouse creations) to help recall, the feeling just kills by drilling and tricking the brain!! It feels sickly to realise that you are one word short of the already measly vocabulory you own! What of the effort gone into learning the word sometime back that doesn't come back to picture when wanted to?! Same was the case with a word that I could only recall it started with a 'P' and was relatively big one, a word I had used considerably frequently, a word that I had seen in the first paragraph of the latest article that I had read. In fact, hundred and one tips or pointers to the word but for the word I could recall.

On a Monday morning, when I was feeling blue and sad for some vague reasons, that word tricking me for a couple of days flashes to my mind, out of the blue. "PROVIDENCE" was what I wanted to recall, recall I did but not when I wanted to. There is a saying in kannada, "Sankata bandaaga Venkataramana", which crudely translates to "When in trouble, we are reminded of God". Looked like nothing but monday blues and depression could churn the name of God out of my mind!
"Sankata bandaaga Venkataramana". Hence Proved!!

Moments celebrated!!

They saw each other, at once wished to be together for eternity and the rest is history. A history not too old, yet old enough to seek the sort of attention that a history can afford to. Happy Anniversary to the couple and to the history that has bundled in itself all the memories that bloomed along the path. The memories of the hearty laughs, petty fights, cold wars, heated arguments, graceful agreements, love, friendship, sharing-caring, bike rides (of course the bruised feet and knee after those dual trips), car drives, gifts (of course, the ones that were accepted out of compulsion too), Filet-o-fish burgers at McDonalds, hours spent on shopping in the malls, most of time not ending up with anything but fatigue, burnt fingers at the kitchen and what not!
Cheers to the journey!!

A journey that started as follows…
When a girl of marriageable age got hold of a snap capturing an eligible bachelor who was as handsome as handsome could get, wouldn’t she be on cloud nine? Most certainly, she was!

First Impression!!

When she met him a couple of days later, she did realize that the snap hadn’t done complete justice to him, who appeared more handsome in those blue jeans and grey T-shirt, friendly, down-to-earth and amicable. Instant consent. Period.

An era of endless phone calls and smses, mails and rendezvous now and then, alarmed the parents of what task was ahead of them. Engagement followed. Exchange of vows, rings and those hide-and-seek glances overpowering the staring audience.

(You didn't have to sweat,dude!!)

Days went by in a flicker, love intensified, phone calls that were endless however, turned to be their endless-best( only to be concluded with a currency expiry or battery dip) .It was time to rack brains to get the right content and design for the wedding card.



Did I mention of the poems that they wrote and exchanged?? Well, how could they be missed?






She wrote...


Uncommon Stranger


The Dawn


I said...


And he wasn't any less either!!

The gentle breeze played with her locks


Gently whispering in her ears


The lady in white,


A fairy on a moonless night


The moon could only muster an envious smile


A gentle smile blossomed on her face


Her eyes searched a part of her in me


With a hint of mischief, they seem to ask


Are you the one?


Between the silenceI heard the sweet melody,


Not violins, but the sweet melody of silence


I knelt before the fairy,


as she looked upon me with her charming eyes


I asked, "Will you marry me?"


(He probably has no faint hope that she could be treasuring this priceless gesture yet!!)

Wedding ensued. Amidst the blessings of thousands of well-wishers, they entered the wedlock to be the man and wife. Indeed a wedding of sorts it was that bound the souls that were meant to be ‘we’. And thus continued the journey, this time hand in hand.

Today, they are at a year’s milestone with all the charm of newly-weds yet, just the change being the ‘healthy’ competition to burn those alarmingly rising calories!! Yeah, the journey has been such a smooth sail that bubbly couple has turned chubby couple, bubbly yet though!!

Bubbly couple

Chubby-bubbly couple

Even for a smart wife (Ahem!) it is no doubt a challenge to think of a gift to her man, a gift that is not a gadget that he already owns, a shirt or other accessories that could possibly impress him. She gives up on thinking for a ‘surprise gift’, in effect, keeping him from being gifted something unexciting and herself from shelling out bucks to buy something exciting only to herself and supposedly not to the recipient!! In fact, he would be pleasantly surprised to know that she has not bought a gift for him, so to say!!! By the way,weren't those innumerable scratches on her mobile good enough (rather, bad enough) that he had to register one from his side too by dropping that poor thing? Well, this time, it shall be excused. Now, that's a surprise, isn't it? Not often do wives excuse husbands,do they? Surprise! Surprise!Surprise! Gosh!! she is working so hard to surprise him! Ok, one last attempt, she promises to clean the clutter in the room too!! Hopefully, at least the last one does the 'surprise' trick!

What other mode than a blog post could a software engineer wife think of to wish a software engineer husband on their anniversary?

Raghu, it goes to you, my honey. Thanks a lot for all the love and friendship that you have bestowed upon me. Thanks a lot for the wonderful person that you are. Ummmaaaaaaaaaah ;)

Howzat?!!

If these could mean a thing, even a trivial thing....

Walk a New Path

Casanovas on the bus

Is it or it Isn't?

At a scorching hot mid-day, if a woman in ragged clothes with an infant in her arms, making pitiful signs, begs for money on streets or at traffic signals to feed the baby, is she subjecting the kid to child labour? Has the infant already started earning 'bread' for the family when it is yet to bear milk teeth? If that is child labour, who is to be blamed? The infant's father who escaped from bearing the responsibility? Bereaved? The betrayed mother? An easy approach to easy money? Or is it the genuine reason of poverty playing its tricks on the poor family? However,some scenes turn as painful and disheartening as they can get....

Control nahin hota?

I was at the right place at the right time, that is at the time when we would want to discuss gender-based issues at teenage, I was in a fairly liberal girls' pre-university college that posed no hindrance for such discussions,be it with lecturers or with fellow students.We used to have innumerable discussions of such sort, when the students and lecturers alike would express their experiences,personal or what they had witnessed in the daily life. As I said, the topics were innumerable,considering the fact that it was almost close to a decade ago,I would have forgotten all the topics of discussion, well I might not be able to enlist the topics, but surely they have had a permanent impact on my life. Recollecting some of the instances;one of the lecturers was saying that she used to notice a girl wearing a jacket to college everyday which meant even during hot summers.Out of all curiosity, when she asked the student why she had to wear a jacket even on hot days, the girl instantly said that she was wearing a jacket not to protect herself from the harsh weather but from the misbehaving conductors or other men in the bus!! Such discussions were a way of making us aware of prevalence of the wickedness in the world,helping us realise that innocence that was still very much embedded in us at that age could blind us from confronting the incidents with seriousness or caution. Only after having such discussions and listening to others' experiences did we realise that every other day, the guys (and uncles and grandparents too - well, shameless uncles and grand-parents of god-knows-whom,not mine!!) that fall or lean on a girl in the bus need not necessarily be doing out of helplessness in a jam-packed bus!
Another of such instances that I can recollect, something that can't afforded to be forgotten more so for its prevalance is the case of men pissing in public places. Barring the gentlemen,I wonder how some men shamelessly get into the act in public as if with a strong feeling that the whole world is his home! Well, the urge is unbiased to women too, but the urge to control the urge exists in women, but why not in most of the men?
When it comes to such shameless acts or girls, I guess some men can only tell "Kya kare, control hi nahin hota"!!! No cure for this weakness, is it?

Well, gentlemen out there, please note that all the offense intended is for the sinful folks, not a generalisation in any case. We do believe and hope that sane men exist on earth.

SMS mania

You wish to vote for the Indian Idol or Sa re gama pa Contest? You wish to voice out your opinion for the potboiler surveys on the news channels? You want to choose a song to be aired on radio? Want to vote for the seven wonders of the world? Just SMS so-and-so at so-and-so. God!! It amazes me how omnipresent and omnipotent SMSing has emerged to be!
What a Superb Money-making Scheme this giant SMS turns out to be!! I hope it does not so happen that a time will come when a person who manages to call an ambulance after having met with an accident gets his request turned down for calling up while he should actually be SMSing!! People consider it such a hep thing to SMS that the media and telecommunication industry is exploiting this weakness to reap huge profits. Just recently, my dad so proudly said that he had SMS'd to vote for TajMahal to be one of the seven wonders of the world! On the way home, whenever he wanted to ensure that I had reached home or I need to be picked up, he used to SMS me saying "Wher r u? " . Well, a person who considered language and semantics so important also is bitten by the SMS-bug , I suppose. En masse influence it turns out to be, if not obliging,one looks out-of -fashion,not hep, not open to new ideas,not in the "in" generation which makes even people who were quite away from such short-cuts get comfortable with it. Well, it takes a lot from me to type 'you' instead of 'u', 'right' instead of 'rite', 'what' instead of 'wat', 'where' instead of 'wher' etc ,the effort although is reserved only for formal write-ups! When I stood against using the shortcuts to keep myself and my language sane, I was teased,suggested,advised to be crisp and follow short-sweet style for which I too budged for all the huge number of SMS conversations that happen,it indeed is tedious if not followed. Thanks to the SMS-magic,no doubt innumerable people escape from getting ridiculed for not having decent language skills. Of late, it's never even thought if the person has a weak grammar or vocabulary, it's presumed that it's the SMS-style of English which in effect, relaxes the need or compulsion to be right in saying what needs to be expressed. Ruin of the language it sure is,me a potential contributor to it. When time means more,everything else seems to have taken a back seat.

K.. if u wud lyk 2 cmt on d post ,do SMS me @ so-n-so!! :P

What you wanna be?

One of the private kannada channels telecasts a programme offering 1 minute fun-oriented games to people. Over the weekend, I happened to see one episode of it and small kids of age 5-6 years were made to take part in the tricyle race. Every kid that came to participate was asked what he wants to be in future and the answer invariably boiled down to be an Engineer or a Doctor. Realistically speaking, of the 10 kids or so who were asked the question,only one kid said, District collector. I appreciated him, not exactly for his (which could not necessarily be his) career choice , but for his ability to pronounce the words well!! Here comes the crux of the matter,one of the kids' answer was to be a doctor, which didn't surprise me a bit, but when asked what sort of a doctor (specialisation ,that is) he wants to be, he innocently said 'Engineer Doctor'!!! Laughing out loud was the impulsive response I gave,but a little later, I was so depressed to see what elders do to kids. It's so disheartening to see that kids' minds get engraved with career choices of parents even before the tender souls realise what the career they are supposed to like, supposed to mean!! Down with parents,who don't wait for the kids to understand and make their career choices! A kid is expected to accomplish dreams of his parents and like it too,not knowing if it exists,not knowing if suits his interests,ultimately so confused and pressurized!! In the case mentioned above, when it looked like his parents were confused and unable to come to a conclusion,one binding to engineering and another to medicine, how can a kid decide, if he is expected to? I don't mean that being an Engineer or Doctor is not good, but certainly not good if not done with own mind and interest.
On the flip side, maybe, I thought for the lifestyle engineers adopt and multitude of health problems they complain of, a specialized 'Engineer Doctor' does make complete sense!! Kudos to the innovative kid,rather, his innovative parents for thinking way ahead of time!!

From here to there...

Born that we are
Die we sure shall
En route to death,
A path so different,
Follow he, you and I shall.
Some reach faster,
Some slower
Some happy and contented,
Some happier still,
Some sad and unsatisfied,
Some sadder still,
Destined we are to the same place,
A joyful ride for some,
A displeased one for others,
Wonder if the path chosen or the traveller
Makes travel all too different

Caretaker

Flies hovered around her wounded toe. Runny nose and dried phlegm that blocked one of her nostrils made her breathe uncomfortably. Yet, not a thing in the world would stop that 2 year old girl sitting blissfully on the sand heap from constructing castles out of it. One of the laces of her tattered frock suspending and another absconding,the red ribbon around that knotty and dry orange tinged hair were some of the many things that added to her unkempt appearance. As I was totally engrossed in studying her,I saw that she suddenly put a handful of sand into her mouth. Then came her sister, who was just standing close by watching kids play while still having an eye on her kiddo sister, to drag her out of the mess.

I did pity that small girl for being dragged on the graveled path by her elder, but not-so-elder sister, but how interesting a play for a 4 year old girl will it be to take care of a sister, young but not too younger to her? How often can she play that take-care-of sister-with-care-game without frustration when her peers are playing hide and seek in the vicinity.

Just recently in one of our chats, I told my friend that all women at some time of their life would become Montessori teachers but here that girl, who herself deserves a caretaker, is all set to take care of her kiddo sister when her parents are off to earn bread for the family.They earn. She helps them earn, or is she too earning her bread all too early? After all, relief that she gives her parents by burdening her tender shoulders comes for a cost, isn’t it?

A milestone, not the destination!!

Yesterday morning,I happened to sit next to a lady who was an english lecturer by profession in a reputed college , of which I got to know a little later. As both the acts of my pulling a book out of my bag to read and her attempt to strike a conversation with me coincided, she consciously withdrew from interfering in my business. Since I too thought, her intent for talking could not have been any different from the bus-pastime talks that ranged from the the heavy traffic to the scorching heat to rising prices of commodities to the driver's slow driving to the ticket the conductor never issued etc, I too didn't volunteer to ask what she wanted to know and left it at that and got to my turning the pages of the book. As she was seated between me and a college guy, opportunity had knocked her twice and this time, she did strike a conversation with the college guy. There ends my act of reading the book. Somehow lecturers' talks have always diverted my attention extended towards my books, not any different this time too!! Hence I suspended my reading with the blind hope that she would alight in sometime.

If I have eavesdropped, blame it on the lady's decibel-potent talks. I could not help but overhear her conversation with that poor college lad. Her viva-voce with him started from his career to his hometown to his qualification. Then she did her bio-data delivery and came to the crux of the matter. She had to go to Mysore and was here for examination paper evaluation. Since she was not very familiar with Bangalore,she wanted some directions the City railway station to catch a train to her place (No PJs here that of course, to a railway station, people go to catch a train!!... not really, some go to welcome people too!!). After she got the directions,thanks to the heavy traffic, she still was left with so much time to talk that she had to dig topics. Since the college lad was a computer trainee, she assured his belief that it's a good one to make bug bucks instantly and said that she advised many of her students also to go for the computer stream. She is virtually a career-consultant too, I thought. After this, came the fact that her brother's daughter,studying her 12th now,who had secured 95% in her 10th standard board exams,is exceptionally intelligent. That guy curiously asked Ms.Career-consultant which professional course the girl wanted to pursue after 12th. For her scores, Medical or Engineering course is quite possible, he suggested. An instant NO was her response to his suggestion. Such expensive courses for girls are totally uncalled for,she said!! I was disappointed to hear this, more so from a college lecturer.This is just one case, previously too,I had seen some of my friends who could not cherish dreams of being engineers or doctors or other professionals of the chosen stream for reasons that can vary, but all based on the common fact that they are girls:

1. Parents were not ready to spend for such expensive courses for a child who would eventually go to someone else's house .(This feeling from people who are economically sound is disgusting to know).

2. Parents could not afford to spend for education as well as wedding and since wedding takes the inevitable priority,education takes a toll (this is quite pitiable to know).

3. Parents who are economically very sound but consider that studying such courses taking all the pains is of no use when no one is waiting for her earnings now and in future too, as her (definitely status-matching)husband would take care of her necessities ( Economically self-sufficient, but mentally deficient , you see. What do we say of such people who can't figure out the difference between career interests and the money earnings).

4. Parents not very sound economically, but give importance to education and quite aware of the education loans provided, are quite apprehensive of who's going to repay the loans in the future. (This is quite understandable,not many guys would like to marry girls who carry debts along, right?)

There could be many more reasons, but all I want to say is that let Marriage for a girl be just another milestone of her journey,not the destination,not the sole purpose!!

If my parents thought on those lines, I could not have been an engineer, nor my sister a doctor. I don't say that one has to be an engineer or a doctor, but let them be allowed to pursue their interests putting the thoughts of marriage at abeyance until their careers are shaped. Well, if marriages turn out to be so dreaded and life-time-achievements for girl's parents,then they are not to be blamed,right? Down with the society that savours on the pains that go into pulling off a wedding event!! If only wedding was considered just another casual event, maybe the intelligence quotient and brain power of India would increase enormously,no wonder fulfilling many a girl's dreams, which now die even before they bloom!

Book or Crook?

There are two kinds of books for bus travellers. Both yielding the same effect of missing your alighting stop.
Ones of kind that put you to a sound sleep, no matter what happens, with just a page's read!!For some aspects in life, perseverence simply does not pay, hope I sound more as being realistic rather than pessimistic.
Others of the kind that keep you so engrossed in it that you end up missing your alighting point, well, I just finished reading a book of the second kind."Five point Someone", one that had been in my wishlist for ages,finally got read..What a wonderful and lively writing it is! An amazing ride it was from the maiden page to the last full stop encountered. Kudos! Mr.Chetan Bhagat.

Fractured Posts

The whole of this month has been the ultimate block period for me. The lack of enthusiasm won over my will to write for reasons unknown. Yet , I am adamant about giving justice to my will. It is said ( not sure ,so what? I say...) what we write reflects our mood. It's basically an attempt to make a root-cause analysis of the cause for the lacking enthusiasm in me. Here I put forth all the mid-way abandoned, haphazard, disconnected posts,rather posts-to- be.
Let's see if my root-cause analysis has enough inputs via these black and blue beaten posts.

5/6/2007
Being jobless and having friends who are again jobless is a win-win situation. While, I don't have enough work and friends are too busy to be disturbed,it's a tough time!! As per ethics, can't really doze officially at workplace, you know. So, had a very comfortable,no work time yesterday. Just as I turned 25 three days ago, my orkut fortune said that I would have a very comfortable old age. Should I feel ecstatic that I am having a comfortable time or should I feel disgusted that my supposedly old age has already kicked off? old age at 25,huh?



8/6/2007
Not many folks, not a single soul I knew around.Pitch black sky or something that looked like it under which I sat in a corner weeping totally lost!! Not knowing what to do or where to go.At some instances I screamed out of helplessness,not to get a reply. All I saw was that all the people around doing the same thing as I did,weeping and screaming at times. As was I lost, so were they. The stronger the will to know where I was,fainter was the clue. Where the hell was I? Hell, by any chance?



10/6/2007
ONLY DEATH IS CERTAIN.
While most of us say that we are not afraid of death since it has to happen one day, yet a moment of silence spent on how death might encounter us can send shivers to our spine. Truth is bitter and as long as the truth is presumably quite distant,everyone heaves a sigh of relief. Even when a dear soul passes away at 99, there are a couple of near ones crying away as hell showing their dissent at destiny's say.Never is it the right time to die,isn't it?

15/6/2007
One of those innumerable times when a sting of aversion towards my blog has bitten me. For days, I have not visited my blog, which happens rarely, and when it happens,happens big time. For days I haven't cared to see what's happening or thought of updating it although so many things provided scope to blog. So very often feeling possessive about my blog as if it were my kid and then forbidding it for quite some intervals as if it meant nothing to me!! Strangely contrasting!
If I have an aversion towards my blog and end up not giving a damn for it for long, who else will appreciate it,anyway?
Not sure why, my respect for moms increased double-fold now. Come what may, do they ever forbid us? For all the mess we do or how irritating we get, never for once do they averse and forsake us!! Hats off.
Not sure if my comparison makes any sense to anyone, but to me the sense of belonging moms have is the most supreme in the world.

16/6/2007
As a cosmetic remedy, as per observation, I suggest that guys having protruding teeth and scared to consult a dentist can adopt to bearing a moustache. Seriously, a fellow worker at office never gave a hint to anyone that he had protruding teeth until he shaved off his moustache to look young(I suppose ) for his wedding. I hope the bride had already seen his before/after -moustache images before, otherwise, the shock she could have had at the wedding could be shockingly immense.

19/6/2007
I have always had the tendency to talk to people to whom very few people would like to talk, rather the loners attract me more. Ever since I was in school, I would volunteer to talk to people who mingled very rarely with the others. I somehow sympathized with them,used to feel sorry for not many interacting with them, so I used to talk and in the process,ended up making great friends.But in the process, .................................... (Hmm.... I really don't remember which heavy-weight job I had to handle that I left an abrupt post in itself, more abrupt!! Looks like I could not wait to complete the sentence!!)

Today!!
Well, did it aid my root-cause analysis? Yes, absolutely.Idle mind is indeed a devil's workshop!!

People.Places.

Ever wondered what makes a person trace his eldest brother's wife's first uncle's neighbor's brother living in some corner of the US when he goes there? No distance or familiarity or the lack of it can stop one from getting hold of some souls on landing in a totally new place. That's pretty understandable too!Man craves for company, for more than anything else, security.Some level of security crops into the mind that he/she has some folks familiar to them that they can turn to when in trouble.
At my previous workplace which was relatively small,if people could avoid bumping into one another, it would be a great achievement altogether. Yet, day in and day out, most of the the encounters would go unacknowledged keeping the ostensibly unfamiliar people,unfamiliar. As were so many others,a person I saw mostly everyday ( of course leave,weekends,holidays etc claim for exceptions) never cared to talk to me anytime for over 1.5 years. Well, not that person alone to be blamed, I never cared a bit more to talk either.Well, that was a disease I gradually picked up after entering the corporate sphere.Fake a smile only to the people concerned,in the business sense, at the most.After all, how often can your ego afford to get offended for not getting a response for your greeting?Only later I got to know that it takes a lot from people to smile back!!
Coming back to the supposedly unfamiliar person,when I happened to see her at another place that was quite unfamiliar to me and very unfamiliar to her,she came forward to strike a conversation.Speak she did with so much comfort giving a feeling that I have known her for over 1.5 years.Unfamiliar places do make unfamiliar people familiar!! Strange are (wo)man's ways!! Of late,We reach out if need be and not for anything in the world,otherwise!!

Married,Yet Available!!

A married guy claims himself "Available"!!! What is supposed to be his wife's reaction? Should he be spared for all the love she has for him or punished for his deed? Is it short of any offence?

Offence it is not!! What is his mistake after all, if Google talk offers 'Available' status message too, irrespective of the user being married or not?!!

:P

Be Idol. Judge Idol

A singing competion audition. A contestant with a strong will to sing and become a great singer, sings. Does not impress the panel.Gets rejected. Nothing to vent about here. Everything stuck to protocol there. A person makes an attempt and since only the best can survive, if he could not sing well, it is fair enough to get rejected and the decison of the panel is respected.But, a role model, an idol, an icon from the panel judging the judiciousness of one's dream and saying one has to dream to one's capacity and not beyond that, was horrendous. If the contestant was a truck cleaner, does that mean he should not dream of being a singer? It would not offend if he had told that he does not have it in him to sing, but to say that to cherish dreams, which was seeming as if,of 'sophisticated-class' was not for him,was disgusting.I hope Annu Malek was not intending to demotivate the poor (literally too) contestant,and he remarked on those lines at the spur of the moment, but would it not have hurt the poor guy? Would it not have demotivated him?Big B would never be Big B if had not cherished dreams of becoming BIG despite a series of initial flop movies. Neither would Abdul Kalam or Dhirubhai Ambani have been whatever they went on to be if they had not dreamed the sophisticated-dreams!!
Let the Indian idols be judged by Indian Idols themselves !! Let the right to dream be left alone!

Culinary S'kill's

Well, very recently, I was struck with a very adventurous, challenging, first-of-its-kind, brilliant and highly social-service oriented idea. And I also know that I am the only person who is capable of and destined to do it. The origin of the inspiration is the fact that whenever I have held my hands on any cookbook (confessed, out of compulsion), I always see that only one method of a dish preparation would be mentioned in each of those, with no guarantee of the out-coming taste, and to try things differently, one has to own a library of cookbooks which is quite impractical. After all, all the time can’t be spent collecting and reading cookbooks you know, one has to cook too!!!

So, I thought I should author a cookbook that would do away with the need to gather different cookbooks to try out dishes and save a lot of time, money and serving the purpose with guarantee of taste too!! Now, is that not a social- service? So, I will compile all my recipes with dedicated effort and publish “HOW NOT TO COOK” book. Now, is this not a one time solution to the cooking–woes? Just follow any method but the one mentioned in the book, so there you get multiple cooking options and of course, guaranteed taste too!!!

There’s one risk though, I would like to admit.
As the world knows, “The way to the husband's heart is his stomach". If you make the best utilization of the book, your husband’s love for you might not increase as it can for me. If you follow “HOW NOT TO COOK” properly, you end up cooking real tasty food, hence he will eat his stomach-full, hence the way is jammed, hence you can’t reach his heart!! If you can keep him starving, the way looks gliding smooth and clear, isn’t it? ;) It’s up to you to decide, what’s better for you, good food or husband’s love. I would prefer the latter one for sure (Mind you, mutually exclusive, they are!!).

Gave up!

I finally gave up reading Inheritance of Loss.Yes,I did! After all, how many times can I afford to doze off and hence miss my stop while travelling by bus. And I can't quit my reading habit in the bus. By the way, that's the only time I can read too, with a quarter of my day spent in the bus,I can't allocate time exclusively for reading alone!

Sorry Kiran,the great man-booker winner, I simply had no other go! Better luck next time...err...Or Should I say, wish us better luck next time? No doubt, you have had good luck with the book.

What the heck?

He kisses her. He doesn't have a problem. She doesn't either. Now, the rest of the world has so much to scream about! Damn it! I am sick and tired of all the SMS polls of the kissing controversy that gets aired in every other 24x7 channel. Who is actually flaring up the controversy? I am not saying that Gere didn't go off-Gear but if Shilpa doesn't have a problem with it, what's all the fuss about? If it is an offence, then why let all the love-birds to parks? Come on! What's with the folks to fire it up like anything as if they only looked up to Shilpa to learn and follow Indian Culture.

When folks have survived all the Emraan Hashmi movies and still stuck to culture, what can an incident like this do to Indian Culture? If something has to be done, do to those obscene Indian Movies which reach out to many to affect their thinking, not propagandize something that was barely known, and witness the fun. Why an Arrest Warrant to Shilpa, after all? What was the mistake she committed? That she won the Big Brother Show? That she got mega publicity? That she met with the Queen of England? Grow up , jealous folks! Drink Eno to subside the raging fire in the stomach!!

Or is it a means to watch a Kiss-show,time and again, free of cost? All it takes is to burn an effigy or two and roam around in groups with all the band-baaja. What business did they have,anyway? If it is really an offence, let the court do its job, why should one attack one's dignity by airing the same every now and then? So shameless of whoever responsible for it. 24x7 channels are at their devilish best , just for the sake of conquering media attention and acquiring big bucks.If only they cared for Indian Culture.

Misfit

To a person who considered herself the biggest misfit at the workplace on quite some irksome occasions, what a relief it is to see "Men at Work" signboard in front of the Ladies' Restroom? Worse misfits do exist in harmony at my workplace !!

Co-incidence or otherwise!

The lady of the house on an unfortunate day, slips and falls on the floor to sprain her ankle to resist her from her daily chores for over a month and a half.

The master of the house doesn't take too long to join the bandwagon by falling off the bike to get hands and legs bruised.

Left were two diminutive souls at home who couldn't exclude themselves from the in-house trend. Yeah, fell after just two days after the second incident and had enough injury to comfortably enjoy the family-package offered from God-knows-whom or God himself.

Should all this be comfortably called unfortunate co-incidence or some mysterious evil spell or evil spell that din't get too worse or ... or..... or....
Whatever,Hope folks recover soon. Well, me ok now!!

THE time

Sure,Time waits for none,
Come it has at last

To pay for the deeds done,
And not done too

To punish oneself for the errs done,
And not done too

To judge oneself
And get (mis-??)judged too

Alas! THE Appraisal time has indeed come
Getting head-ache along too

Please excuse if anyone had to bear the risk of reading through the doggerel at its doggerel-best! I owe such springs to the tension,disgust,boredom,annoyance and similar feelings that rise at the appraisal time...

Gosh! last day it is .... let me go and finish it for finishing-sake, at least!! This is one time, as you sow, you shall maybe not reap.So, what the hell!

Good Friday

We were not declared a holiday for Good Friday. Yet the Friday turned out to be good. Friends gathering to chit-chat and gossip after a long time with the masala dosa to boost the energy was good enough to make the Friday good, if not best ( Not with my better-half I had gone, you see to make it best Friday!!). However, as usual, the gossip and comment-offering ranged from one’s boyfriend followed by giggles to dresses followed by giggles to wrist watches followed by giggles to that followed by giggles to this followed by giggles. In the simpler sense, giggles all the way!!

While all of us were compiling the traits of the just-became- fiancés, and breaking our heads to get the reasoning for the same too, we noticed that

Most of the fiancés take to running on the treadmill. For the reasoning,

• It could be to learn how to run faster and faster after marriage (from whom and when is not a guess, right?!!) .
• It could be to become fit, right? ‘Survival of the fittest’ is the enlightenment one gets, maybe!!
  

Most of them opt for Moto Rokr mobile model. The advertisement to launch the model featuring Abhishek Bacchan nodding his head incessantly,come what may, pretty much explains the reason right? Nodding, and nodding for anything doesn’t come without practice, does it?

Had time not be the enemy, we would come up with some more. With the hope that many good Fridays are ahead, we left the compilation at that.

Issued in the public interest of the fiancés to catch up with the tips offered to fit well to survive. Yeah, I happen to do some social service as a consequence of meeting friends on Fridays (drink-less hangover!!)!! Any doubt if my Friday was otherwise? No way!Good, ultimately good.

Dravid Bangalored!!

Enough of coverage and the criticism that Indian Cricket Team has had in the recent past. Me not ready for criticizing them, not that I am their fan, but I don't want to do things that the blue billion is doing so seriously and awesomely well too!!

This one is to show my disapproval for the Videocon company’s move to suspend ads featuring Dravid and Dhoni for the reason that they have not performed well, and the ads supposedly would get aired ,when ( more so, if) they perform well in future.At the end of the day, everyone wants to take their business seriously, so does Videocon. But, what happened to the senses of the marketing team to resort to such means? Who in future would be willing to endorse their products? Is there some actor all of whose movies would run to packed houses? Is there any cricketer who would perform stupendously well in all the matches (It’s another case that some Australians can, but can Videocon afford them?)

Naah …Videocon, Are you sure you played your cards well? I am sure, you haven’t.

Yet again!

Come April first, people fool me more than what they do everyday. Every time,I resolve to be extra-cautious in my dealings with folks on that perilous day but I fail,miserably.A good friend of mine said I was looking cute, cuter than ever before. And,yeah right,I believed! How could I believe, and believe that? Why are some so vulnerable than a lot others?Hmmmph!!

Fade Away

I hate you

I look into the mirror
Alas! You I behold

Loved you never,
Bother me not,
Never will I, either

Time and again,
Memories you refresh,
More I want to forget,
More will you remind

Why me?
Forever, I hate you
You hurt me, so do your traces in my life
Fade away, never to come again
Fade away, you adamant pimple!!

Signs

I had chanced upon an astrology book at home when I was probably in my high school. The curiosity that built up in me made me read the traits of folks under the sign I belong to, despite the fact that I don’t really believe in the concept called astrology. Although, I too possess some traits as described by all the astrological gurus, I owe it to coincidence.

The one point that had strengthened my disbelief was one sentence that I try to reproduce literally here; “You are a person always wanting to take different routes to your house, everyday”. No way! Me never for that intensity of change in routine. I generally hate deviations from routine unless they are exceptions like someone gifting a box (well, won’t mind if two too!) of chocolates for no reason!!

But of late, I realize that the fact that had reinforced my disbelief is true, indeed very true. I do take different routes to the exit door from my cubicle on my way home!! Now should I have a second thought on the strength of Astrology? The predictions seem so right. But, would it still stand valid, since I take different routes not for want of change but to escape from my manager’s hawk-eye!!By the way, should I just mind my business and wonder if the predictions are going right or take a look at others’ traits too before I start thinking about validating astrology? If I take different routes, so do others, after all, the manager not manages just one person, you see! And, all of them are not born under the same sign!!

Hmmm…. Let me see what I can do about it. It’s time to leave for home and since I see my manager near the printer area, I guess, it would be a good idea for me to take the entrance-to-the-pantry-and-exit-from-there-route for the day!!

Role model, yet accessible!

Once in college, one of our lecturers, maybe just over an year elder to us, conducted a written H.R. interview for us and the reason he quoted for doing it was to prepare us for the job-hunt, while actually the reason was that he wanted some tips to face H.R. interviews well, he was lecturing part-time and software-job-hunting most of the time. Intentions apart, it was fun.

Among so many questions, there was one asking for who our primary role-model is. As we were meant to read our answers aloud (mass-learning of interview tips,you know!), as expected, got to hear the names of Mahatma, Abdul Kalam, Einstein, Narayan Murthy, Azim Premji, Ambani and many who have had their names encrypted in history.It came naturally to me that I would write my dad as my real hero, my role-model. I uttered the same when it was my turn to read out my answers aloud and surprisingly to me, classmates and lecturer included gave an amazed look! Probably they were expecting, maybe the names mentioned supra by default or some name that weighs as much as those names do. No, to me, it is my dad. Not that they are not, but they never influenced me before my dad did. I was not surprised when folks mentioned their role-models, but why were they? Why is it that, very often, people who are so very accessible to us and mould or influence our life every single day are taken for granted?

Nevertheless, here’s for my dad who made books accessible to me long before they reached many, who made me write and kept revealing secrets on how to keep a reader engrossed with the write-ups ( failure on my part it is that I have not taken the lessons well), who taught me to debate (I still remember when I slept all night and he burnt the midnight oil to get my written copy of debate ready by morning),who taught me to meet people and build social relationships and who taught me how to long jump too!! (I guess, he knew long before that I would enter the software industry and should be well equipped with the jumping act!!). I learnt a few, he tried teaching a lot , though.

Dad, I know you wont read this, neither will I make an attempt to make you do too. Yet,just wanted to shout at the top of voice and say “Love you lots,Dad!!”

If at all, I have a complaint against my dad, it’s that he doesn’t know cooking. Hence, I don’t too!! Yet, both of us managed to survive (of course, on mom’s cooking (kidding..I’d better.Mama,love you too!) or elsewhere)!!

What's new gets it's due!

As a matter of fact, more number of people than I knew read my blog!! Yippie!!Me not too sure of their opinion on my posts as most of them leave no comments. BUT THEY READ, of late I got to know!!! Just recently, one of my friends told me that she forwarded my posts to her friends and to read their responses via mail to her (that was later forwarded to me for my information) was sheer joy. People saying that I write good and should continue to post more ..blah blah blah… I strongly feel that she being a good friend of mine, would most certainly have hid from me, the harsh comments.

What started as a compulsion to create a login to comment on some friend’s blog ( He had restricted commenting only to registered members), led to my blogging. With an inclination towards writing that I had ever since I was a kid, it interested me in a big way.

What’s new never fails to get it's due;when I started off, I was so keen about blogging often, although I never, for once, blogged simply because I had to or to break a long gap..never!! I did it only when my impulse asked me to, the effort was to make my impulses to ask me to blog often.

Aaaahh…the pleasure of publishing the first few posts!! (The umpteen number of republication of the posts to achieve that perfection in publishing, to get rid of extra spaces, to add the missing commas etc…. ) . Not that I don’t republish my posts now, but it has reduced to a great extent for I let go of some known minor typographical errors to dwell happily.

One or two posts up, and more often than not, most of them, I suppose (me too not an exception) dream of making a career in journalism/writing etc. No one, not a single one, would get spared from writer’s block and how often writer’s block hits would determine how quickly the assumption that it is easy to make it big at journalism diminishes.

I always have had a principle that I should not force anyone into reading whatever nonsense or otherwise that I write, I never informed my friends of the blog link. As a consequence, I didn’t know more than two people (me being one) seeing my blog when I started off, yet, I checked my profile user statistics umpteen times a day just hoping to see one figure up! How humanly crazy!! Everyone wants attention, although it was not why I was maintaining a blog, I would not mind getting the same, rather should I confess that I wanted it !!

One single comment on the blog, would make my day. Not before my blog grew old with quite some posts, did it see one comment. Reasons could range from it not interesting the reader to lack of publicity..whatever!! Now a comment (not that I expect or get many) does nothing to my day.

I still find it funny on how I used to scrutinize every trivial incident with an intention to blog, my friends always teased me if I would blog this-too and that-too incidents!!

What happened to that spirit? Why should only new get its due? Only things that don’t dampen over time are acts of passion, I believe.

Let passion prevail.It'd better!

Woo-men to know why!

Sanjana sat with her laptop to prepare an essay for the contest to be held at the Ladies club on “Women’s Entrepreneurship in India-Hindrances and Remedies” on account of Women’s day, the next day. With all difficulty, she did all possible arrangements to wind up early at office to come home soon and prepare the essay.
So, here she starts “Women Entrepreneurship in India is………”

[There rings the doorbell. Sigh! Disturbs the tempo, she goes to check who’s at the door, the newspaper agent for his bills to be cleared].

Forcing herself back to the mode, ok….hmm.. she continued from where she left, ”… a serious matter to be discussed and dealt with. Women, despite having the potential and the apt education to make it big in the society, yet are not into the entrepreneurship, at a significant level. Even if they are, just in measly numbers. If the hindrances are to be analyzed … ”

[A voice from within says it’s 5’0 clock and time to pick her daughter from the crèche. Off she went on her why-should-boys-have-all-the-fun?-bike to do the same very quickly to be back with Sara. Don’t traffic jams have their own say? At last, come they did. Freshening up of Sara, cleaning the lunch box, some snacks for her followed! Sigh!! With all the energy levels dipping, she realizes that her essay is dangling in a state as worse as it can get.]

With all the determination to bring a decent half-essay up before her husband returns, she keeps Sara busy with all the toys to stop her from disturbing her. Rightly, Sara didn’t disturb, so engrossed she was in playing with the toy Kitchen set. Man! she was preparing quite some delicious dishes. Don’t moms know the toys the kids like? Toy kitchen set for a girl!! However much she tried, her concentration frequently deviated to watch her kid play, with the ‘Kitchen set’. Was it the kitchen set or the kid that put her to thoughts, is still a matter of thought. While witnessing her daughter play, her inner voice makes another entry to tell her that the salt has exhausted and needs to be bought for cooking. Again, down the flight of stairs, the shop two houses away, salt-shopping, up the flight of stairs, all holding Sara in one hand. There she comes to the door, huffing and puffing, Pawan, her husband waiting at the door step all tired after a day’s work. So, tea and biscuits to him followed. Now started the cooking for dinner. While she just answered Pawan’s eager question on what was cooking for dinner, the coriander charred to death in the pan!! Sara, toddling in the kitchen, to explore high-end girls-toys(?) made Sanjana keep one eye on her, and another on the rice that was cooking on one burner, curry that boiled on another one,chapathi flour kneading etc,yeah all in the only other eye left! Hmmmmpf!! At last, she didn’t fail to generate the aroma from the kitchen to have her hubby assemble at the dining table. Serving dinner for him done. Spoon-feeding Sara done. She also had dinner, for it can’t be let gone, if left , for how many days can one follow not-having-dinner style?

A look at the clock shows 10.15 p.m and God! Who would press the clothes to be worn for office next morning ? Of course, she! She did. Putting her daughter to sleep, more huffing and puffing, the only lullaby the kid is used to, ended successful! Now the time says 11.00 and after all the fatigue, she tries to pick up her essay from where she left it, “ ….. family commitment and lack of support being one….”

[Oops!! Something on the stove smells charred…God! Forgot to switch off the stove after the milk had boiled enough!! To the kitchen and back.]

Now, that’s it! Not a single cell in her body wants to go ahead with the essay. Off she dozes on the chair she sat only to realize in the morning that her essay is as-is. [It’s hardly a movie that an angel would come and complete it!!]. Her breakfast preparation would not let her tap the keyboard, so she wooed Pawan to write her an essay on the “Women Entrepreneurship in India-The Hindrances and Remedies” while she prepared Masala dosa to the family. And the essay that her husband wrote for her did win the contest!! If not for men, who knows the best reasons for the staggered Growth of women Entrepreneurs?

P.S: Inspired(?) by a true incident at office when a colleague,who of all,would not have spent time on women's issues sat and compiled an essay for his fiancee.It was presented later.It kept me stunned that a woman had to seek her counterpart's aid to discover what hindered women's (rather, her) progress!!

B'lame' Acts

Not committing a mistake. Getting blamed for the act not done, as if done, solely done. Helpless and unable to justify or resist the blame. Hurts. Truly Hurts. My state of mind for the day.

Not me alone, so many can identify with me on this, I suppose. Times when, you know you are right, rather not wrong, yet take the blame without offering any restraint owing to the situation you are in.

Why do we take blame?

For the fortune of some people being born long before us. Yeah, it’s called ‘Respecting Elders’ not to talk back, I am told. So, you tolerate.

Position. When my class teacher blamed my handwriting for her not being able to read something, I only agreed to improving it. (If my mom had criticized my handwriting, I would very well say, “Mama, any hand-writing that does not look like yours is not all that bad!! Everyone has a style, mine is one too!“). Since it was from my teacher, I tolerated.

You can’t really be blunt in your words to hurt someone badly, not at least your friends, so you tolerate.

Situation. You are in need of some work getting mobilized from a person that you hardly have any time in messing around retaliating and straining the relationship, which would in effect hamper the process. So, you tolerate.

Not in the mood to pick a fight or too depressed to talk. Who says choking voice sounds melodious?

You are least bothered about someone saying something, so you let it pass as if unheard.

You are actually guilty of committing the blame-worthy act. (Why mention this? Not all accept blame even on committing a mis-deed, right? So I proudly mention that I do it.)

You simply are used to taking blame as if it’s your duty while someone does the giving act as if no one’s business. Well, who doesn’t know how most of the house-maids are treated simply because they are of the lower-economic cadre and are compelled to hear, for they desperately are looking for financial benefits, be it at the cost of self-esteem. Self-esteem is a very luxurious attitude that only people of higher cadres (Occupation, Status, Gender etc) can follow, you know. So you tolerate.

You take the blame because you tolerate. Here ‘tolerate’ is a synonym for helplessness, fear, respect, patience,I-don’t-want-to-disturb-the-situation-by-shouting-out-aloud-attitude as applicable to the situation, isn’t it?

Blame Game is so very lame at times played just to get away from a mess by making someone else a scapegoat. Today, I have been one, rather the latest of my situation-based-scapegoat-incarnations.

Orkut: The Marriage Counselor

If on my orkut profile page, my relationship status is displayed as "Married" and Living is displayed as "with parents", what does that imply?

Here are the options I offer to help you get the answer.

Option A : Did I pick a fight with my hubby and go to my mom's place?

Option B: Do my Parents also stay with me at my hubby's place?

Option C : Do we both stay at my parents’ place?

Option D: None of the above.

If you took an audience poll and landed up with Option A as the answer, sorry , no-better-luck-next-time too!! Neither are Options B and C right.

Well, the answer, of course, is Option D: None of the above!! (It had better be your answer!!)

If my profile states that,all it means is that I have not edited the profile completely,forgetful and careless that I am !!
Hmmmph!! Some people simply think too hard as if brains are only to think!! :D

Love in Excess!!

Girlfriend (Gf): Love you, dear.

(Blushing all the way)

Boyfriend (Bf): Love you too,honey.

(Yes lad, saw your 32nd tooth too!!)

Gf: Huh? Love me too?

Bf: Of course dear, Love you too!!

(Oh moron, adjust your tone, don't sound as if you are doing a favour!!)

Gf : What the hell do you mean by love me 'too'? Now tell me, who else also?

Bf: Oh...well...no... not like that..

Gf: Just tell me who else it is, right now, won't you?

Bf: Oh My God!! (by the way, the girl's now away by 1 Km !!)

Well, I guess it's time I stopped imagining dialogues between young Romeos and Juliets in the parks who come,hand in hand, all smiling, and go one behind the other necessarily in the order,guy behind the girl, girl crying mostly and walking away once in a while, guy pacifying, failing more often than not!!

I don't know,do I?

I am diagnosed of an abnormality,so I guess.

I don't know what i seem to know!!! Yeah,I looked at my resume today! Unfortunately!

Having said that I glanced at my resume,need I say that I ought to get ample of reassurance to build my confidence? I guess,God always knew I needed a reminder to be postive that he made every droplet of my blood say B +ve!! So, to uphold that, I am trying to come up with some remedy. Learn all that I have quoted in my resume or modify my resume to match whatever I know? Confused!
However,modifying my resume by removing whatever I don't know seems to be apparently a less-taxing task.Wait a second, if only I knew what I know and what I don't. Would I not learn if I knew that I don't know something? If I have not learnt something, does it not mean that I don't know that I don't know that! Gosh! Soup it is!

I always knew it's not a myth when folks said working on a saturday is injurious to health. It's not kept me sane on all the days I ignored that warning! By the way, combined effort with friends while building the resume does not help.It simply does not help! Trust me!

deFAULT

While I was browsing through the E-card gallery (yeah! for a Valentine's Day card for my loved one! Who am I hiding it from?), I found a real cute card which said " The only thing I love the most is YOU,YOU and YOU",besides other mushy wordings.The animation was good and the background music could not have been any better. Perfect treasure hunt it was in a short time, given the fact that I am so very infrequent at the galleries and hence unfamiliar about which gallery hosts the best of the cards. Being proud of my achievement,I sent it.

Then came the problem. There flashed a page saying:
“E-Card sent successfully"
“Click here to send this card to someone else” (And a button associated with the statement)

Huh? Send the card to someone else also? Doesn't my loved one have a problem? Well, I have....

Sometimes, passing on defaults to everything possible is a fault,no doubt!! ( Or does someone wink and say,not a fault, not at least in the case mentioned above? :D)

Awe-'struck'

For days,

The clock struck 6
I woke up to a new day

The clock struck 8
I left for a long day at office

The clock struck 10 in the night
I would be back home

The clock struck 11
I bid good-bye to the day

And one fine (actually, not-so-fine) day,

The clock didn’t strike
I woke up to a new day at 6

The clock didn’t strike
I left at 8 for a long day at office

The clock didn’t strike
I was home at 10 in the night

The clock didn’t strike
I bid good-bye to the day at 11!!

Hey Clock, how mechanical can life get? A mechanical entity like you will manage to take a break for want of cell to get rejuvenated, but we don’t, rather can’t afford to!

Clean Sweep!

Today, it is one of the very few times when Bangalore presents itself to me in a form very different.

The Hosur Road didn’t treat me to the aroma of the Carbon-monoxide.

The Madivala market did not treat me to the smell of rotten tomatoes and greens.

Neither did the Smoking Zone at office vex me, when I went past it to the café.

The foot paths where people left a mark whenever nature beckoned, did not bother me either.

The big (heard some rumours that it’s getting nominated for Limca Book of Records!!) Dust bin at the end of the road didn’t stink at all.

The public toilets at Majestic bus-stop did not go all that public (For once, the delayed bus did not annoy me).

No, it is not 'Anti-pollution day' or 'Keep the City Clean Campaign' happening at Bangalore. Sometimes, catching cold can be soothing too. Ostensibly, pollution-free Bangalore it is for me. And how cruel and jealous of people to advise me to see a doctor to get rid of something that has done such good to me?! Unfair!

About me

When Beta-blogger was introduced, I was so excited about changing the outlook of my blog and I thought I revised every division of it. That was just what I thought. Today, I suddenly realize that 'About Me' section was something I had left untouched, unaware. It is certainly not that my traits don't need a relook and if not modified, does that mean, even over a considerable span of time, when everything around us changes, I haven't? How can a person or his traits remain stagnant, rather afford to be so?

By the way, every time one is asked to describe oneself, I am sure, more often than not, many people pause owing to their mind going blank, then realize something needs to be told and try and explain themselves in whatever best way they can. Every time I face the question, I guess, I give a varied answer. Not that I change often, it’s just that I don’t have a fixed opinion about myself. After having been with myself for over 24 years, if I can’t understand myself, how am I to understand others? If asked to write a paragraph about Gandhiji, maybe I would, but about me, a paragraph? No way!! Does that mean I am so complicated to be understood, even by myself? Mind-boggling!

What still strikes me is what makes every one to be so different making it difficult for us to understand oneself or others? My sister and brother were brought up in the same environmental setup as I, went to the same school as I, were taught by the same teachers as I, yet we are different. Very different. It is said situations make the person you are, to put it simply, even the situations we faced, by far, were not too different. Just that we siblings are way too different!

I only think I will never understand myself better, and when I had put

“ Hmmm..... boy! this space has indeed put me into a lot of introspection. At the end of it all, I realise I am every inch a Gemini, good and bad attributes in consideration. Loquacity is a trait running in my veins. Mostly fun-loving and sociable, but, on and offs in moods cannot be denied. All in all, a moderate soul.”

under the About me section, it was just that instantaneous opinion I had about myself when I wrote it. If asked to write afresh, I might give a totally contrasting version.

Well, here I go and change the 'About me' section to something that will stand valid despite my being ignorant of myself.

About me? Well, “The less said the better, for I might contradict myself in no time!”

Hey Guy, marry not!!

Hey Guy, marry not ....

Coz your peers did
Coz you are now 'well-settled'
Coz your parents insist
Coz you earn enough now
Coz you own a flat now
Coz you yearn for home-made food
Coz your horoscope says it's the right time
Coz you are visiting India from the U.S on a long holiday and not sure when you can visit again!!
Coz you are on the verge of getting fatter
And of all,
Coz you are balding!!


Marry only if/when you feel you need a soulmate for life. May God bless.Amen!

P.S: However,girls will generally not marry without looking into these criteria,though!!! :P

Saw this slogan on a guy's T-Shirt: “ Save Earth,it’s the only planet with Girls!! ”
(People not satisfying the criteria might be feeling otherwise !!)

Cite-less On-Site!!

One of my friends is leaving for an on-site task for a brief interval of time,as of now the duration seems to be a fortnight. She had been one of my lunch-session members and now, the only member for a long time.

Bored of the routine menu at the cafeteria, she opted to taking her lunch from a vendor who is ever busy supplying lunch for a considerable lot. As usual, today too, in the lunch break she went to collect her lunch box or dubba as it is popularly known on the campus,she informed the dubba-wala, as he is fondly known, that she would be going on-site for some time and she would resume taking her dubba once she returns back.

So, here are the excerpts of the conversation:

She : Bhaiyya (He is the big brother for everyone here), Don't get my dubba from tomorrow, I am going on-site.

Dubba-wala: Oh is it? That's good news. But, when would you resume taking dubba from me?

She : Hmm..maybe in another fornight. However, I will let you know once I come back.

Dubba-wala: Ok madam, So, you will see all places in America.(All joy personified!!)

She: America? (Puzzled look!!). No, it's very far from Taiwan.

Dubba-wala: Taiwan? Ehh...I thought you said you are going on-site!! Oh... you are going to Taiwan, is it?

She : (Confused) Yeah...Taiwan.

Dubba-wala:Oh.... Happy Journey, madam.


This being one of the pressures the folks face, a lot more come their way:

Going on-site is an anxious task, more so if it is for the first time.

Packing the luggage with all the home-made pickles,puliogare mix etc and wanting to take this and that too, but the luggage limit limits them from doing so.

If the dress has to go into the baggage, it has to be brand-new ( baggage new too!!)

Staying away from family and hence bucks spent on those long-distance calls answering what was eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the day!

If the duration is long, knowing the what-is-what of kitchen,laundry etc!!....Uffff

Coming home would mean buying all the chocolates manufactured in lands near and far, some perfumes, some cosmetics ... blah blah blah and a month to distribute them to all those near and not very near too!!
(Distance in relation is never a criterion for distribution, you know!!)

And of all, "the chocolates are simply delicious, so when are you going next?" kind of questions. (Yeah! Will surely get some for you when going next!! Relax!!)

With all this, going on-site and site not being America,then thank goodness!! justification for their going on-site and still not America also needs to be prepared!!

Oops....Going On-site is just not about making bucks as long as the bucks are not dollars..of course,American dollars!!!

The Runaway Bride

Rather eventful, not blogically though, have been the days that went by. To go unrecorded, how’s it possible? I was blessed with the privilege of being a bride who ran away from the intricate real world for over a month and a half. Ran away from office, ran away from traffic-jams ,ran away from everything possible ,all for the wedding event.
With my being one of the (very) early-birds in my friend circle, getting into tying the knot, the event drew the maximum possible attention from the buddies to pull my legs to the best of their ability. After all, I had to get it for all the torture I have put them through, over the years. Folks calling up to remind me the countdown to my wedding, trying their best to make me feel at least a little anxious, nervous and this and that. Not to forget, my being addressed as aunty just when the message of my getting married fell on their ears .
People generally say that however old you become, you are still a kid to your parents. Trust me, when it comes to marriage, it’s exactly the opposite. To everyone on earth but my parents, I looked like a kiddo, far from looking one of marriageable age! However,after having gotten the enlightenment that one has to get married some day, then why not sooner than later like a goody-goody non-fussy girl? Well, I had to make up for all the fuss and mess I had done for two years after graduation to escape from the get-it-right-first-time, cautious, commitment-seeking, cooking-demanding, prank-free(less),responsibility-oriented deal !( oops! A whole lot of adjectives go unmentioned to relieve myself of the pressure that builds up otherwise). For the first time in my life, my parents, despite my lack of awareness, discovered that I have turned out to become a responsible individual to deal with it. So, the forum was set for the encounter for groom-hunt. Less did I know that I would fall for the first encounter that all the excuses I had pre-cooked to reject the proposal just evaporated from my mind. Thus ends the story of how I met my made-in-heaven soul-mate. It’s altogether another story that I have done my best to motivate him to nominate himself for the bravery awards for his gutsy endeavor.

As would every couple at the time of marriage feel, I too felt and still feel (just a month, so why would not I? ;)) that we were made for each other. Perhaps he was at his devilish best in his last incarnation that I was made as a reward for his past deeds. Thus, it was destined for us to tie the knot.

Times change, not the mindset sometimes.Facts says it all:

People expect bride to stand out in beauty amidst a strong competition from all the ladies of all age-groups determined to look their best. Thank God I did, just that I pity the beholders who failed to notice it.

With utmost display of affection, the ladies call the bride to sit next to them with the pretext of congratulating, while they actually would be gazing at the design of her new bangles and necklace, not to forget the pattern of the saree border!

Rather than what rituals are customary to be executed, it’s more a battle of who quotes most of the rituals. Sometimes, for all the fury they have for being enforced to do it during their wedding (be it years ago!), they don’t want others to be spared so easily.

Must be prepared for the “who-know-me-right? Remember, I was your neighbor when you were 2.5 years old, can’t believe you are getting married now! Kids grow so soon!!” kind of remarks. Yeah, I drank Complan that I grew older by 2 years in 1 calendar year!

Supposed to blush when asked the husband’s name! Better still if ample time is taken to utter the same, best if not uttered at all, supposedly owing to shyness.

Now this question can’t slip off my mind: “Are you quitting your job or has everyone permitted you to work?" Gosh! I thought I was getting married, not seeking sanyas that I had to let go of everything!

Now comes the most of blood-boiling questions that gets put: “So, what are the dishes you cook?” (“Do you know how to cook?” would certainly have been the apt question).

All relatives gathered around the bride will 200% beyond doubt say that her in-laws’ house would be her house, henceforth.( Good to know that they have their houses in their daughter-in-law’s name now ,that they are assuring me the same!)

Compelled to improve G.K (read Grocery Knowledge!!). If you are told that tomatoes cost Rs.20, it should not keep you wondering if it were 19 or 21 yesterday or if 20 is costly or cheap!!

Until people find it too late to call us “newly” weds, we have to wear all the ornaments for display lest the relatives presume that the jewellery worn at wedding was borrowed or artificial!!

How much ever you ensure to extend the invitation to everyone, it is never possible to do it to everyone. Guilt feeling follows.

It is considered mandatory to put on weight in just a few days time after wedding! Even my tailor considered the change so very natural and instantaneous that all my clothes were stitched to provide scope for the changes without much alteration in the near future!

All the relatives eagerly watching the wedding video are eager enough just till the frame they are covered,appears.


To be continued …. In the book I intend to author on how brides can feel at the wedding. The title is ready, just the book needs to be authored, that‘s it!!! Hopefully, I record it before the trivial events slip off my mind over the ticks of time.