The reality...

During the project meeting :

Manager : Any planned leaves before Jan 13th.
Me : No...nothing planned yet.
Manager : You must have some plans...
Me : No.
Manager : 31st night party maybe...
Me : Thats a weekend.
Manager : Oh okay. Still you must be having some plans. I am assuming two days off for you. So that makes it 15 working days for you.

I come out of the meeting room thinking if I really look like a party animal. The manager didn't allocate leaves for anybody else.

THE REALITY :

Me : Everybody is goin out on Chrismas-New Year week. Why aren't we going anywhere!!
Db : Hmm. Lets plan something.
Starts searching for holidays in makemytrip.com...
Me : How much will that cost?
Db : 30...at least that is.
Me : And where are we with the saving for the new car and the house interiors?
Db : We have hardly got anything.
Me : Lets open that excel sheet and see where we stand with our savings.

After half an hour...
Me : What we can do is call some friends over on the 31st, order some good food and get some drinks. We can play monopoly through the night. Sasta, Sundar and Mazboot...what say!!!

Db nods sleepishly...

Moral of the story : People are not necessarily what they look like.

Happy Diwali !!!

Saree tales...

It all started when we decided to attend the wedding of one of Db's friend. I think it will be odd to turn up in a salwaar kameez when everybody else would be draped in sarees. Hence has started my saree hunt. Much to the why-do-you-need-to-do-this attitude from Db and to the twinkling eyes of the MIL who believes I do not wear saree enough .

During my numerous visits to my sasural, I have been a lot of times asked to start wearing saree to office once in a while...on the pretext that I should know how to drape sarees and pratice how to carry them all day.

My question is WHY? What's so great about wearing a saree and how does it take anything from anybody who dosen't wear them?
Yes I do like to wear them at times, may be just for a change, yet I do not like it when it comes as an compulsion to me...when I am judged on whether I wear them or not.
I always believed that sarees are so overrated.
I mean salwaar kameezes are supposed to hide more skin than sarees, to some extend wearing a jeans and kurta would also show lesser skin. Yet there is a certain notion that the elder generation has, that we ought to wear sarees to occasions.
The logic that Indian women are supposed to look their best in saree doesn't go down well with me.

I think these things were invented only to add more trouble to the women folk. While saree shows more skin and to add to it is so difficult to carry, yet people insisted women to wear them since they just wanted them to put more effort. Or may be the women in the older generation had nothing else to do in life, so they used to drape sarres and carry them all day just for timepass.
The logic is similar why we women are expected to wear sindoor, mangalsutra, toe rings and bangles to show that we are married, while men have nothing of that sort. How biased is that???

Yet these are things that have been carried since generations, and are difficult to challenge and change.

Getting Ready...

Two women in my team are pregnant, so that makes me the only woman in the team who is married and dosen't have babies.
So it was obvious that I would become the soft target of the rest of the women folk around, trying to advice me to start a family before its too late.
Whatever!!!

But this certainly is something I cannot postpone forever. I know Db is still young to be a father, but I am probably very quickly surpassing my age to be a mother(One of the big problems when you marry someone just your age).

But it scares me...

I had kidney stones, and they then said if you have gone through this pain, child birth will be a breeze. I am sure they are kidding me...labour pains can make kidney stones feel like mosquito bites in comparison, I believe.

I have high BP and also breathing problems. So don't think medically its gonna be a cake walk for me either.

And again, I don't see myself being the kind of woman who can't think beyond her baby, I would still have my life, I would still like to give my importance to my carrer, would still think beyond just the well being of the kid.

Basically...not the best mother a child could ask for.

So I do not think I am ready yet, but then are we ever ready for anything at all in life!!!

Tanhayee...

I haven't been too regular offlate...have I!!!
Don't blame me, for I have too many to pass on the blame to.

Not that I am working my ass off, yet I haven't been able to visit my blog very often...Please do not ask me why, don't get me started on that!!!

Well...Db is travelling tomorrow for his away day to Goa. Since its a pleasure tour provided by his employer, spouses are not invited (But of course!!! How can you have pleasure when your spouse is around). Somebody at my office suggested I join him on my expense but I guess the best of the boys also need a break from their wifes once in a while...so be it. Jaa je le apni zindagi...

So its gonna be 'main aur meri tanhayee' for a couple of days.
Not that I mind, I am gonna enjoy my late night movies, my solitude shopping, waking up in the afternoon and lying on the bed all day like a sunbathing crocodile.

Is divorce the easy way out???

During hostel days, the sunday matrimonial were a great way to have a good time. Most importantly the ads of people wishing to marry the second time or nth time, we used to read and discuss them and laugh about the fact that you find all kinds of people in this world. You do not then understand the pain that those people have gone through...not unless it happens to someone you love so much.

Its difficult and draining when someone in your family is going through marital problems, and there is one in my family who is going through the said problem. Now I understand when people in their second marraige ad would say 'issueless divocee'...now do I understand what you mean by it and may be I should have never laughed over them.

But is divorce the easy option???
I donno.
This generation and most importatly the women in this generation are a group of screwed up maniacs. These are people who probably run after an oasis while losing out on the real pleasures of life. Agreed...for different people, happiness means different things. But what is the happiness worth if you are carrying the curse and tears of so many people including people who brought you into this world. The woman here in question, in her quest of happiness is at the verge of losing everything, her husband, in laws and her own parents too. What kinda happiness does that bring, one which you'd probably celebrate alone without a shoulder from your own family, the so called happiness that you get after ruining the life of another unsuspecting man who had nothing to do with you or your moronic ideologies. Why is this woman being so selfish???

I mean, which couple doesn't have differences, what kinda couple gets along all the time!!! But you have to give it your best shot, you have to have an intention of keeping up and nourishing a relationship and not just walk out at the drop of a hat.
I believe we live to add value...I being alive give happiness to my parents, my husband is happy to have me, my in-laws are hopefully okay with a bahu like me, I have a good going carrer and people happily support me because I am one of the reason for peace and happiness to them...if I am not there tomorrow all these people would miss my presence. But having brought her to this world what did she add, her parents are embarrased to have a daughter like that, she ruined the peace and harmony of my happy family, if she dies tomorrow, to whom will that matter. I for one would sigh peace.

I strongly believe she got a very good family and a great husband, so much so that her own parents to a good extend are supporting us and not her. Unfortunate are the people who do not get good relationships in life, but more more unfortunate are those people who get the right people but they lose them because they take them for granted.

I do not care if she regrets this tomorrow, nor do I care what she does with her life to the extend that I do not care if she lives or dies tomorrow (rather I wish she fails in every walk of her life)...because we have had enough of her already.
I am only concerned about him. Is it easy to nurse the wound given by a two year long bad marraige??? Is the divorce thing easy for men!!!...considering that women have more legal rights than men, and also I am not sure to what extend this woman can stoop down to. Will he ever be able to trust another woman??? For him, being a man all of 29 years, is it easy to remarry and settle down again???

I am trying to try to be on diet...

The Silence..

It was during my time in Kolkata when I got addicted to the telivision. I used to stay alone then. While I was working as a trainee in CTS during the day, I was a loner during the evenings and the weekends. I had no roomates and most of my friends were available only on phone. The silence was too much to bear, so I had the telivision running all the time, could be news, music or movies, but it just made some noise and I'd not feel the silence anymore.

Db is not very fond of the TV, in fact it quite irritates him...while I am so used to the TV running all the time. And this is just one of the numerous ways that we are so different from each other.
And last night was one of those rare days that Db had won over me and the TV was off for the whole of the evening. It was quite cold and we had switched off the fans too.

And there was silence.
Somehow the kids in the building were so silent tonight, surprisingly the lift was unused too, no sound of the back gear of cars, no sounds of the ladies fighting in the little slum behind our building. One could hear the grasshoppers crying. Occasionally one of us would speak and we felt the echo in the house. There was a occasional sound made by Db's laptop's keyboard or the aquaguard...and I never kew these sounds could be as loud as it felt tonight. There were just sounds made by the both of us. Seemed like the world has come to an end and we were the only two survivors.

After a long time since I left Kolkata, I felt that killing silence yet again.

So how I feel is...

So how does it feel in a new office...
A curious question...isn't it !!! Well I'd just say its different. The people are different, culture is different...yet which doesn't necessarily mean its pleasant.

I was skeptical before I joined, reason...when things just go as planned and smooth, you know something is wrong. There was always at the back of my mind that since my professional life was going uphill since quite sometime, I might have some problems popping up soon. May be I'd land up in a wrong job, may be I'd be fired in a month...I donno.

But luckily the problems that I face now are nothing closer to what I had anticipated.

The organization as a whole is good. The project is again a banking project and the technology I'd say is satisfactory. But...I joined here for some benifits, which I did not get.

I joined for the work-from-home benifit which is not given to me, since its a banking project. The project is obsessed with security and hence the internet facility is terribly restricted. All my team mates are Telgu. So we have almost no connection to the outer world and I also have almost no connection to my teammates because they speak only vernacular language. Not that I mind, I had anyway decided before I joined that I did not wish to make friends in my team unlike how it was for my previous projects. Making friends in the team backfires many-a-times, and I had made an conscious decision of refraining from the same. So it works...

But despite of the fact that I was terribly frustrated the first week, despite of the fact that I cannot access my blog at office now on, while the rest of the office outside my project continues to enjoy unlimited internet access, despite of the fact that I am now almost totally disconnected from the world outside during office hours...yet there is just one thing that nullifies all of the above...

I start from home at 9 and reach home by 6.30...Howzzat!!!

Do I sound funny...

Life is like a black man's left ass .
...its not fair and its not right.

Shayarana Andaaz...

Watched 'Zindagi na Milegi Dobara' today.Didn't feel it was any great creation...okay dokay I''d say, yet one should give credit where due.
The locations of Spain were breathtaking while some scenes were genuinely funny and some brutally witty one liners. The movie reminds me of 'Dil Chahta Hai' and 'Hangover' both of which I liked better than this one.
Somehow I just cant digest men who are almost forty giggling like school boys. ZNMD had men who were more caricatures...men who are ubber rich, ubber kool and each of them carries some emotional baggage which were extremely cliched and boring. They can afford a fortnight holiday in Spain, rent the dream villas, buy bags worth 12000 euros...and more shit. They seem far from real.
Jealous I am of their wealth...you might say. May be I am, and yet I reserve the right to not like a movie for the above mentioned reasons.

And what were actors like Nasseruddin Shah and Deepti Naval doing in their teeny-weeny roles. What did they charge for that little much presence in the film...two way taxi fare!!!
And the most surprising part...for the first time I liked Katrina Kaif, Dhan Tan Nan!!! I am surprised at myself too.

Well..there were a few amazing shayaris in the movie written by Javed Akhtar. I am not a great poetry lover...yet the poems in the movie did catch a nerve. Here is one of them :

जब जब दर्द का बादल छाया

जब ग़म का साया लहराया

जब जब आंसूं पलकों तक आया

जब यह तनहा दिल घबराया

हमने दिल को यह समझाया

आखिर दिल तू क्यूँ रोता है

दुनिया मैं यूँ ही होता है

यह जो गहरे सन्नाटे हैं

वक़्त ने सबको ही बाटें हैं

थोडा ग़म है सबका किस्सा

थोड़ी धुप है सबका हिस्सा

आँख तेरी बेकार ही नम है

हर पल एक नया मौसम है

क्यूँ तू ऐसे पल खोता है

आखिर दिल तू क्यूँ रोता है

Moving on...

Today is when I breathe my last on SG-Land, and then I move on...

Not that switching jobs is something new to me, but this time its different. This time I am more anxious, more nervous. May be its something do with my years of experience. I think i am at a more vunerable situation now when one wrong decision can screw up my carrier for a long time to come. So the fear of the unknown is more...way more this time.

I would be jobless, unemployed for the next three days...a normal housewife with no paycheque and no insurance. So I intend to watch a lot of movies, go for shopping...basically drain out my husband's bank balance. Isn't that what housewife's are supposed to do!!!


Shopping reminds me.
I had done this little online shopping on a chinese website, and despite of the fact that I ordered the largest size that they had it would still not fit me. Lets not forget that chinese sizes are obviously samller than that of Indians. Determined to fit into it some day, I have finally achieved my goal. Though I am not sure if I lost weight or the dress expanded due to numerous trials.

What do you think???
I think I look pretty darn good.

Back to work...err...No Work

I am finally back to Bangalore after 10 days...

Not that I would consider in-laws visiting as my ideal holiday idea, yet one has to agree that Db was born at a picninc spot. His hometown is so picturesque, full of mountains and rivers and waterfalls and leeches too.
But sadly I am not the daughter of the place, I am the daughter in law. And its a priviledge that I have been excused from wearing saree all the time unlike all the other bahus do...they wear a saree with a ghungat.

If I would have been born in the same place I would have probably jumped in to the waters, play till I get pnemonia, get cured, crawled back to it, play till I got pnemonia again, cure myself again and crawled back to the waterfall yet again. And with the mountains, I would have probably gone on a montain climbing/trekking spree till I would have managed to unfurl a flag with my name on every single mountain a pair of eyes could reach...which would easily be a couple of hundreds.

But sadly its not my Mayka. That's my sasural, and this thought itself is scandalizing. Sulk!!!

Nevertheless, the good part is Db finally managed to click some descent pictures of me. Oh haven't I told you...in my previous birth I had happened to break a very expensive and rare Pinhole camera, because of which all cameras in the world conspired to hold grudge against me and never ever give me a decent click. Even my matrimony pics clicked by a professional photographer, and for which I paid a fortune made me look like a baby elephant. And for the similar reason I have shoved away my wedding album to a place where where even cockroaches can't find it.
So I consider it as a great achievement that after three years and more, Db was finally able to click some pics which we both with mutual consent considered as descent. Applaud!!!

Now that I am back, and its my last week in this office...I have nothing to do here that can be remotely considered as work. So sitting all wella after a long time or as my dear collegues would like to put it as...this is my honemoon period.

So honeymooning I am...

Another story...another mishap.

It happens yet again to another man, who unwilling became the victim to the women of this generation who cannot handle her independence.

I wonder what is wrong with this generataion of women!!! Why is it so difficult to keep priorities clear, and who gives them the right to screw somebody else's life with their own. If there was somebody else who you wished to marry, but could not beacuse of any God-Damned reason, why can you not try and begin a new life with the man you finally decided to marry instead. What makes them think it is a fair decision to hang on to both, the ex-flame and the now husband...and screw all the three lifes.

Probably the idea of happiness is different for different people....yet I don't see any reasoning of a sane mind here. I feel like shaking these women and ask...What? Why? What do you want?? What were you thinking???

It did happen with my family too, and I know how devasted everyone is. Not just the man in question, his entire family goes through a lot of pain while the woman's family has to go through a sad phase of embarassment. Eventually it leads nowhere, nobody is happy. Independence for women...at the cost of what??? Is it worth it???

No, I am not against women being independent...like many people are.
Some even say that probably our ancestors were aware that women do not have the capability to handle freedom and that's precisely the reason they were dominated and kept in purdah. Now that they have broken the chain of opression enforced on them since so many years, it has been proved that women cannot handle it.

While I do agree to some extend that most women are not able to use the newly found independence responsibly, yet I also believe that the problem here is much more than just that .
Women do have evolved, yet we do have an older generation and a hypocrite societe to please. If the woman in question would have gone ahead and married the man she pleased with no opposition from her family or the socite, then I wouldn't have been here writing how she has been the cause of worry, embarassment and destruction for everybody.

Till today most of the parents do impose restrictions on the girl child, the societe continues its hipocracy towards a woman.
If a man goes around with many women, he is a stud....but when a woman does the same she is labelled...
It shockes me to find that a lot of the educated mass considers it to be a pride to have recieved huge dowries...also these people do not celebrate a girl child. If a man wants to marry a woman who is of a different caste/religion, its easier for his parents to give in while its almost an impossible task for a woman to convince her parents.
Such women, when suddenly get their independence, they obviously misuse it.

I believe since this generation has witnessed women proving themselves time and again to be as competent as men, anything that is considered a taboo for a woman has to be a taboo for a man too, while anything which is acceptable for a man has to be acceptable for us, despite being women.

Probably when the older generation would also consider us at par with the men, and would be fair to us...the women would not misuse their freedom.

The bygone weekend...

Note : This post is gonna be very long and self-indulgent. Read it only if you have nothing better to do.
Now that you are going ahead with reading the post, you have agreed that you are sitting as wella like me. Join the club.

An interview to remember...

I had this interview in the EGL campus in Domlur around 1pm on Saturday. I was pretty interested in the company because I had heard they pay well and also they are very close to my place. May be that's the reason that stopped be from walking out even though they made me wait for almost 2 hours, a practice I normally follow if the waiting time exceeds 45 ins.
Whatsoever, I was called in for the interview. The interviewer was quite a good looking man, may be in his early thirties...My java questions went very well, better than I had expected. But,when he wanted to know my experience in webservices, I had only a couple of months on my resume. Yet with what little I remembered, I was able to answer a few high level questions. But they wanted somebody in a lead role, hence my experience in webservices would not suffice.The interviewer couldn't be sorry enough, he said sorry to me almost 5 times...since he thought my java experience was quite good but I would be an outright reject if he passed me to the next technical panel, who apparently would judge me only on my webservice experience.

He called out my name as I opened the door to leave...
'I am gonna remember your name...unique one'
'Yes' I said. 'There is only one'
'Not even on orkut or facebook???'
'None' I said.
'I am gonna find out...' He smiled.
'Okay'(!!!???)
'And yes I am sorry again...you were good'
'Please don't be...you are just doing your job' I smiled and left.

Where the hell were these people while I was single...shit !!!

The high Maintainance wife...

It was not planned. We wanted to buy a good saree for the MIL during our visit this July. We cheked at a few shops and we found the rates were ridiculously high. This Saturday, while a soon would-be-married friends were planning to go for their wedding shopping to Chikpet, we decided to join in.

Not being the kind who is so selfless to travel to another corner of Bangalore just to buy a saree for the MIL, I obvioulsy had other plans for myself...but not as evil as it eventually turned out to be.One of these shops had a dres material hung on display...I queried the price and he said it was for four hundred."Okay...I am interested...!!!"I went in to dig out similar cheap offerings that they might have, but after almost an hour I exited the shop with shopping bags worth 2000 rupees only.Also to be noted that I am to pay 1100 rupees to the tailor who is stiching those dresses for me.

BTW...I bought a nice and expensive saree for the MIL too.

Adieu Cockroaches...Plz don't come back

We went on a house cleansing mission this Sunday. The cockroaches have been a pain in the a** for quite long. So, finally we went a killing spree, our wepons being a red Hit spray and a broom to kill the cockroaches who managed to escape from the spray.
After a struggle that lasted more than an our we had the blood of almost a hundred cockroaches on our hands.
But the final result is good, my kitchen is devoid of cockroaches and that gives me a lot of peace.

Taking the Healthy options...

Since the kitchen smelled of the cockroach spray, cooking was a bad option. But the last thing that we wanted was to order food since we together weight a ton already, and putting on any more weight will result in long unending bills to the doctors.
Well...it was time then to try on firang food items like salad.I made something called a portuguese salad, inspired by the one I had in Nandos the previous day. It turned out quite tasty and filling...so much so that I made some more of it and carried to office for breakfast.

I plan to experiment more on the various kinds of salads that can be tasty and healthy at the same time. Hopefully we'd both lose some weight then.

What did you do to get your first Android....

I was born this date 28 years ago, and managed to con a gadget freak man to marraige...

Happy birthday to me...

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.