Let go...

Laugh when you can,
apologize when you should,
and let go of what you can't change.
Life's too short to be anything... but happy.

Donno who wrote this, but what an absolutely delightful thought.

Life is too short to be anything...but happy.
Probably, some of us think holding on makes us strong...but sometimes it is letting go that makes life a lot easier.

Like Db asked me last night...you must be hating them. It actually did trigger a thought process, do I really hate them!!! HATE is a very strong word, I don't think I hate anybody at all. Rather I have learned to accept people the way they are, because accepting does makes it a hell lot easier for me. A little pretention, a fake smile and a whatever-attitute to when people try to provoke you...a perfect recipe to avoid trouble.

And how some people never cease to irk me...
I donno if counting your miseries is fashionable these days, or self-pity is the 'in' thing (I am pretty alien to fashion anyway)...but why can't people find strength within while they are so-capable of it.

Let go...
I know you are not as helpless as you potray yourself, or probably you are just not aware of it...
Self pity is the worse feeling one could have, more so when you aren't all that pitiful...
Holding grudges doesn't help you, it will only make matters worse...
When you let go of what you are, you become what you might be...
Lastly, You worry me because you are very naive...and worse,you don't know that you are...

As Eli Wallach explained it to Kate Winslet, In movies we have a leading lady and a best friend...you my dear are the leading lady but for some reason you are behaving like the best friend.
Applicable to both of us, me thinks. But now its time we start being the leading lady of our own lifes.

Itni khushi...

One of the best compliments in the best possible way found me last evening.

I was waiting at the reception of Db's office sitting beside a guy who seemed to have come for an interview. I took up a newspaper to read some bollywood gossip to kill time. This guy called me to ask...

'Fresher???'
Me : sorry...
Interview right !
Me : No...waiting for someone.

Nevertheless I was mentally doing a victory dance for being called a fresher.

Kya karen !!! Meri twacha se meri umr ka pata hi nahin chalta...

Who do you blame for your misery???

Actually, thats quite a shortcut, blaming somebody else for our plight. We spend more time trying to find somebody to blame things on, than trying to find a solution to the problem.
But does that help...wouldn't it help to look within???

I have been blaming too many people in my team for being unprofessional, due to few such people the work pressure has been ever increasing. But the fact is I haven't been working too hard to find a solution to it either. Neither did I give it all to change the attitude of the people around, nor did I try to find a way to escape all of it by finding myself a new job. So, who do I have to blame...nobody but myself.
Introspect always helps...it drives you to find solutions.
But somehow I find this to be a rare practice among others. While I always tend to blame myself for most of my problems, most of the time I come across people who always try to find others to blame.

So how does it feel when somebody holds you responsible for his/her misery...
Fortunately or unfortunately, I wouldn't know...I somehow find no pleasure by being rude, or giving tension to others. So most of the time, I'd take pain myself, just because I don't want to pass it to others. But you know...I have been enough such phases in life where I realized that going out of your way to help others actually doesn't help. Someday, it has to come to an end...and when it does, all the good that you did is conveniently forgotten and people paint you grey and carry back only the bitterness just because you finally decided to prioritize yourself over others.

Whats the point in trying to make me feel guilty...
I would never abandon anybody while they are vulnerable, I would be the first one to offer you my hand during times of misery. Haven't I done that before !!! Now that I have decided to pull my hand back, that's because I am sure you can swim on your own...and also because you must learn to swim on your own to become a skilful swimmer.

Difficult to please

Db : (puppy faced)I want the iPad2.
Me : Okay. Lets buy it.
Db : (puppy faced again)Ummmmmm...!!! Its very costly.
Me : Okay. Lets not buy it then.
Db : What's my b'day gift then...you never gift me anything.
Me : Okay lets buy the iPad.
Db : Too costly.
Me : How about a watch?
Db : I already have three.
Me : Few new T-shirts...
Db : Nah...I have enough.
Me : Okay PS3...
Db : I dont like playing games.
Me : Okay. A nice novel. I know you like to read.
Db : Hmm...that works. You could do that.
Me : Great. (I know he likes John Grisham)

Next day.
Db : Which book have you decided for me.?
Me : John Grisham.The Confession.
Db : Hey don't buy that. I already have that e-book in my kindle.
Me : Okay. How about 'The Associate'
Db : I have that too.
Me : 'The Appeal'???
Db : That too.
Me : Could you please visit the site and tell me which one you haven't read.
Db : (After a while) Hmm...most of them.
Me : Basically I should chuck the book buying idea?
Db : Hmm...well Yes.
Me : So what the hell do you want!!!
Db : (puppy faced)I want the iPad2.

Repeat Block one.

Men's Gadgets vs woman's clothes

Last night Db asked my opinion on buying a wireless keyboard.

Me : And what would you do with it. We do not have a desktop anyway, 3 laptops all with their own keyboards. Where would you use it?
Db : I will connect the laptop to the TV and use the keyboard with it.
Me : **Rolling my eyes**
Db : You don't think its a good idea?
Me : Its a psycho idea.

Db : I don't spend anything on gadgets.
Me : You do. You just bought a new phone...the Samsung Galaxy Ace. While your HTC was in great condition.
Db : My HTC is a dinosaur, it uses windows 5. What else did I buy?
Me : You bought the Netbook, while we already had 2 laptops.
Db : Thats because the mother board of my compaq laptop was damaged...
Me : And you got that fixed too for 10 thousand. What about the Kindle???
Db : Yeah I would accept that. But I use it.
Me : And the iPod Touch???
Db : That was a gift, freee.
Me : No, you asked your friend to get it for you from the US. He chose to gift it us as a belated wedding gift.
Db : Okay.
Me : And that laptop stand, with a fan, to keep your laptop thanda.
Db : Thats anything but a gadget.
Me : Whatever!!! The light to read the kindle in dark.
Db : I am gonna kill myself if you call that a gadget.
Me : Anything that has been bought from a croma or ezone and is or used in a computer/tablet/e-book reader qualifies as a gadget.

Db : I am terribly offended. I am gonhna hit you where it hurts the most.

He starts checking his credit card satements since 2010 to check for how much I have spent on clothing and home appliances, which comes to almost 50K.

But here is my defence.
This 50K also includes your jeans for almost 2500, SIL's shopping close to 2000, your shoes from Reebok for 6000 and may be around 3000 that we shopped at Jeypore when we visited there in October.
That leaves me with a little more than 35K. That's almost equal to the price of the iPad if I would have let you buy it.

So not bad..huh!!!

Day 22 : The famous last words

Someone had told me that the key board has more germs than a toilette seat.

Falls with a bang on the keyboard.

Day 21 : Already in a Holiday mood

Such a holiday mood that I am in and also because I stayed quite late at office last night...I almost decided I would not come to office today. But one hit on my conscience by none other than Db and I am here tearing my hair...

Day 20 : Introspect

Its strange how we wait all our life to grow up and come into our own, and when we reach that stage all we want to do is to go back to childhood. We grow up only to realise how things were simpler back then....when life revolved around things like friends, chocolates, playing and sometimes studies. Back then, we would wonder how cool it would be to go to college, to work and to be on your own.

One of biggest thing I craved as a child was to get my independence when I grew up. But we forget that independence comes with a price. There a whole lot of expectations from you. Now little mistakes have huge impacts and never can you get away with mistakes as you made as a kid. We are no longer answerable to just parents and teachers, we are also answerable to our boss at work, and if we are in a relationship we are largely answerable to our partner too. Then you get married and now you are answerable to a whole new set of people, your in-laws.

Life has been a cycle ever since we got married 3 years back. There have been problems, issues ever since. In the last 3 years there has hardly ever been a time when we sat down to think about US, I mean the both of us, what we would like to do or what exactly were OUR problems.
It was always others, my family and his which constantly claimed our attention. I believe the fault lies with US, since the responsibility belongs to the one who takes it. We voluntarily and large heartedly took their problems as ours and eventually lost ourselves within.
Sure its true that you cannot keep everyone happy...

And now, that we somehow managed to put a few things into place, and believed eventually we would be able to sigh peace...another chapter awaits US.

Day 19 :

Its going as an unfruitful day...

The servers are down so the testers cant test...
The testers can't test, so no bugs are raised...
No bugs are raised, so I have no work.

**Yawn**

Day 18

3 more days to go before I go home...

Day 17 : On the hunt

Humko toh hamare package ne mara
Technical round mein kya dum tha
Humare kasti wahan doobi
Jahaan paisa kam tha

Written in homage to all those offer letters that I lost because they believed my package was already too high for them to afford me.

Doesn't make sense...

whatever!!

Day 16 : Misplaced Intelligence

Ah I am so heartbroken.

I had reasons to believe that I would put down my papers before I start home on the 21st of this month.
But thats not happening, because I screwed up.
I had this offer from a descent company, though the package was not great but I would sure have loved to be a part of the organization. Even after many negotiations I could not bring them to give me any better pakage. I thought I would probably accept the offer and during my two months of notice period I would try to find a better offer.
But Db encouraged me to take a chance.

I was aware that my rating from the interview panel was quite high. I wrote them a mail stating that I would not be able to accept the offer if they were not willing to increase the pakage. We hoped that would ring a bell for them and they would try to put there best foot forward. It had happened several times in the past and this could have happened again. But it seems it didn't go well with them and the consultant tells me that the offer is withdrawn.
Boo hoo hoo!!!
I guess sometimes we think we are too smart, but people are smarter. I probably shouldn't have tried to use too much of my brains.

But then...lemme look at the better side of it.

I would get to work in the new building of my current employer. We are going to shift there by July and the building seems to be exteremely beautiful.

My salary here is not too bad, and I have managed to build an reputation here...because of which I believe I was given a higher designation during this appraisal cycle.

I can get a car loan from my office, at a nominal interest.

I can finally redeem the money for my french lessons, which otherwise wouldn't have been reimbursed.

Day 15 : Imagination Running Wild

Kinda free today, so lets have a thoughful post for a change.

Life has changed a lot in the past 12 years. With just two TV channels, a bicycle to ride, no internet, no cell phones and no computers(a rarety then), its difficult to imagine if we even had a life back then. Probably the next generation would not see such life changing inventions.
But on second thoughts may be they will.
Probably our parents would have thought the same about our generation...since they witnessed the invention of more essential things ...motor vehicles, plane, telephone, cameras or as small but essential things like gas stoves and mixer gringers. Probaly things that we saw in our lifetime would go more towards luxury while what our parents saw were essentials. May be our kids would witness something beyond just luxury.

If you were a Super Commando Dhruv fan in your hay days, you would understand this.
I wish they come up with this 'aayami dwaar' (inter-dimesional door) that Dhananjay had to anywhere he wants. It would open in the air and you just need to enter it and opens at wherever you want to go. They could probably have access rights on the door so as to control the access to various destinations. That would save us all the tedious travel in the traffic.

Day 14: Dilemma!!!

How big a salary pakage would make you agree to join an office with an old building which makes you feel you have gone back by 30 years on a time machine, with age old systems and extensions, with a stinky bathroom with no tissues.

Day 13 : Busy Me

The 22 day marathon blogging is turning out not a very difficult task as such.
At least I am a little more regular and have been posting quite some actions for each day.

Well...life's got busy.
Lets take today as an instance.
I had a salary negotiation with Comapny1 today, have a telephonic technical round at 12 noon with company2 and an face to face round with one of the directors of Company3today at 6pm.
Amist all this I am still working on the project which is getting more and more tedious with each passing day..

Day 12

I am early to office today.
One of the things that hate about the team is nobody takes the team meetings serously.
We are supposed to have this stand up meetings everyday at 10, when I would personally make sure each one of them does attend the meetings. But that I don't give a damn (the reason for ot would be a part of the upcoming blogs), no body really cares.

Its past 10 already and there are not even 50% of the legs available for the meeting.

Day 11: Crossing the bridge to high maintainence

I feel I have suddenly transformed into a high maintainence wife.

I suddenly find myself interested in high heels and beauty parlors, these institutions have been deprived of my attention all these years.

I went for a pedicure today for the very first time in my life and the guilt was overbearing since the attendant had to really work hard for my feet. She could have attended two clients with that amount of time.
Also, I bought a pair of high heels this evening, the second since last month.

Db's been wondering whatever happened to his low maintainence wife.

Day 10 : Its raining birthdays

Its friday...
Somehow I feel my virtual battery gets almost discharged by friday everyweek. With very little energy left, friday is the day I am the least interested in my work.

But I have something to look forward to today.
We had five birthday's this week, in a team of 30 odd people. So these 5 people have joined hands to give us a nice lunch today.

Food...good food!!! Slurppp!!!

Day 9

I wrote a whole big blog but lost it somehow. Cannot gather the patience to remember all of it and jot it down all over again.

Lemme just fill up this place to keep the 8 days old tradition alive.

Day 8 : Making up for the lost time.

Ouch!!! I missed my 22 days resolution by not posting yesterday. Shorry!!!

I was at home, not keeping very well. And I find it weird to answer them when everyone at office starts quizzing me on why I took a day off. What can I tell them, sometimes I say stomach upset and sometimes an headache. However I have always stood by it that women need more sick leaves than men anyways.

Didn't do much at home yesterday, just watched a couple of Bymokesh Bakshi episodes on youtube.
You know what!!!
I always complained that all the TV serials and movied churned out in Hindi mostly cover Punjab, and sometimes Bengal, Gujrat, Rajasthan, The southern states, Maharastra, UP and even the northenmost states Kashmir, Himachal and Jammu. But I am yet to see Orissa featured anywhere. There are no movies, no serials made on us Oriyas. But there is one reference to Orissa, and its in Byomkesh Bakshi. Though the set up is in Kolkata and the characters are all Bengali, but in the episode Kamra No 102, he mentions the ancient city of Orissa, Cuttack.

Though not a pivotial reference, yet I am happy to hear the mention of Orissa on screen for the first time.