A lifetime in this warm cocoon....

Updates from a tiny garden @ the garden city of India :)

2010-10-14T15:35:00.000+05:30

Oooh its been a while since i wrote something... now i don't know how to begin a post :-|
well, let me start by saying... a lot has been happening (both good & bad) in the garden, ever since i posted about it here. i am gonna talk about the plants thriving currently, despite the harsh weather at Bangalore my balcony hasn't seen sunlight for the past 2months :( ) & the yield i have been getting so far - coz this is something eating my mind for quite a while now.

There are 7 tomato plants, 4 capsicums, 2 chillis, 1 brinjal, 8 carrot saplings, 2 small curry leaf plants & a pot of mint growing currently in my little balcony garden. Garlic is also growing(??) as comapnion plants in 3-4 pots. The rest of them (around 6 of them) are ornamental/flowering plants.
So far, i have harvested lots of tomatoes, 4 small capsicums, some beans, a very few green peas, a bunch of spinach, some chillis, a whole lot of mint, a tiny bunch of coriander, radish leaves, a few round radishes & 2 knolkhols. i was also lucky enough to get 1 out of 3 cabbages mentioned in the earlier post. The other 2 started growing in a weird fashion, with leaves curling outwards... and were removed after waiting for ages to see them mature. But, growing cabbages in containers is fun & a great learning experience.

Tomatoes are the ones which keep me happy all the time, even if they are not of "acceptable" sizes or shapes. i also carried a kg of tomatoes, when i visited my parents at my hometown, last month.
So, let me present to you a picture of the accidentally-grown-tomatoes harvested 3 months back. They have a sweet flavour and ideal to be eaten raw or as fresh yummy juice :)

The ones on the left side are the little-bigger-than-peanut-sized-so-called-round radishes and a handsome bunch of their leaves :)

Below are some images of my Tomato Tumbler (F1 Hybrid) plants. they did give a decent yield, though the fruit size is quite small. But, last month these plants (i have 2 of them) were attacked by blight (not sure if its early or late) and all the foliage was lost to the killer disease... the fruit set also has stopped after that. hmm.. nature is harsh at times!

What you see below is a INDAM Ruchi tomato plant - am growing 2 of this variety. Fruit set has started but many of the buds have fallen off probably due to the cloudy weather nowadays.

Those of you who are complaining that its been an overdose of tomatoes in this post, can eye the pic below - carrots growing in "companionship" with toms... am soooooooo very eager to see whats happening underground... how the carrots are growing, whether they are growing at all.. what colour they will be etc.

This is a variety called Early Nantes, but 4 months doesn't seem so "early" to me :P

Another view of the same plants, they are throwing up shoots every other day... and am waiting with bated breath to see the hidden wonder called the carrot :D

To the right - another of the INDAM Ruchi tomatoes. To the left - one of the 4 unidentified tomato plants that grew accidentally from the compost. this one is more than 6 months old and is still fruiting!

Finally (much to the relief of the readers :P), let me end this post with some flowers... these were actually yellow blooms 2 days ago, which have turned pale now :)

P.S.: i am sorry about the bluish tinge in most of the photos above, this is because they were captured late in the evening

Pityriasis Capitis!!

2010-06-15T19:56:00.000+05:30

Stumped? Flabbergasted?? musing that i am a part time research fellow at the Bhabha Atomic Research centre? wondering whether this is the name of a novel disease that has contracted my tiny brain cells?? secretly admiring my ability to have found out the key substance employed in the Big Bang project? Or completely dismissing this as another variety of ripe mango? well well…. dont strain urself too much guys!!

This post is just a result of the trouble & tension prevailing in my head, due to the almost omnipotent Pityriasis capitis! The subject matter of discussion here is the dry, white or grayish substance that appears in patches on the top of the head, when the scalp sheds dead epidermal cells in large clumps! Yeah, ladies & gentlemen, we are talking about the deadly dandruff!! Of late, i have been reading a lot about this irritating itching condition of the head… and the possible causes & effects of the same. "Dandruff is one of the great levelers of life. It knows no class, creed or race. It affects everyone but not in equal measure" says an author in a e-magazine. Whoa! what an optimistic "socialistic" outlook of the problem in hand!! i wish i could get hold of the fellow who wrote this… and make him scratch my head non-stop till he dies (which by all probability, wud be a few minutes after he contacts my head! :P) Almost all sources say that this condition is due to lack of "skin oil" in one's body…. this i admit is the most ridiculous statement i have heard in my lifetime! coz the amount of oil secretion from my skin is more than the output from those huge oilwells of all the Middle East kingdoms put together!! the layers of oil enveloping the exteriors of my nose is just enough to tackle this country's oil crisis for another 30 odd years (i.e. assuming iam alive & retain my nose for so long ;-)) Another reason cited in the world wide web is that of heredity predisposition which also remains null & void in my case, since none of my parents/immediate relatives suffer from this intriguing problem :-
It seems, dandruff could also be due to lack of rest/emotional stress/poor blood circulation. i have been telling my manager since ages of yore, to provide me an elegant Sony Vaio, a sturdy Volkswagon, company sponsored accomodation at Darjeeling & a french cook to accompany me during the stay… so that i can rejuvenate my system, relax my mind & soul, regulate my blood circulation, (if needed) do an effective work-from-resort and as a result, eliminate all rotten dead cells from my complacent beautiful skin!! well, he seems not so pleased with this scheme of things…. cant figure out why!! :rolling eyes:

Psychiatrists claim that this dandruff is not just a cosmetic problem, it can end up affecting even the person’s social behavior. How true this is!! My favourite pastime nowadays is to scratch my head vigorously & watch with spellbound admiration the beautiful white flakes unfolding their wings effortlessly & falling on the keyboard… just like autumn rain!! i can almost hear the "Pudhu vellai mazhai.." song from Roja in the backdrop, when i indulge in this act that is why elders said… "A keyboard is a reflection of one's head!!" err… didnt they?? i also keep scratching my head during team meetings, conf calls with client, defect triage discussions & appraisal meetings!! But, almost on all of these occassions, people attribute it to my hyperactive brain functions & ultra-efficient thought processes! nobody really thinks the reason for my hand permanently glued to my upper compartment, is a mass of lifeless useless skin cells! We (moi husband & self) also spend our spare time at home, sincerely scratching each other's scalps & adding glory to the Wills slogan "Made for each other!!" So, if any of you guys are planning to drop into my house anytime… (to get my autograph/pose with me for an stylish photograph that is), please give me a ring before you come…. this is for your own safety! :D Owing to the increasing workload at office & the prime need to maintain a decent work-life balance, im planning to hire a PSO (Personal Scratching officer) who would replace my hand-on-head! In case any of you are interested in applying for this esteemed position, please note the main eligibility criteria: the person can be Male/Female (with 99% reservation for TDH male candidates with a striking personality!), need to possess long, elegant nails on all 10 fingers (no colouring material/polish allowed on them lest u poison my hair!!), have high levels of patience & tolerance, extreme commitment, dedication and most important… willingness to work in flexible timings (what if i fall into a scratching fit, in the middle of the night? ;-)). Dont worry, compensation will be on par with the (dandruff) industry standards on my head!!

Now, coming to the cure for this mammoth problem and to prevent it from deteriorating to serious & dangerous "Seborrhoeic Dermatitis":
One frightfully easy method is to use a shampoo containing a cytostatic agent (like selenium sulfide or zinc pyrithione - well dont ask me what these are… may be something like bleaching powder good for scalp anyway!! :D) All those horrid chaps who were dumb enough to not identify that it was the very ordinary "common salt" or Sodium Chloride that was being soooo hyped in the movie Dasavatharam, stop blinking…. try out all possible shampoos in this planet to conclude which would be the ideal one for your already deplenishing hair! It is recommended that eggs, cabbage, wheat, garlic & yeast be incorporated in our daily diet, so that it will enhance the supply of Vitamin B and B6, very important constituents in controlling dandruff! The only foods i can think of to be containing all these vitamin rich components are yummy sticky Pizzas & dry boring Garlic breads!! Alternatively, you could try applying garlic externally… errr.. on your anyway-stinking scalp…. so that'll effectively reduce dandruff generation and also keep ur manager & team members away!! :P Use alternating showers of hot and cold water while washing your hair, to improve circulation around the scalp. But dont overdo it, lest you end up with alternate patches of hair & football grounds on your head! Last but not the least, brush your hair kindly dont treat it like it were a naxal threat & u were the ruling party! :P Well, dont ask me if i have tried any of these remedies out…. im just waiting for responses from the victims errr… the bravehearts who attempted these experiments! Dear readers, you can also drop in some simple, "sensible" & useful suggestions, in the Comments section and help me have an itch-free scalp & life Thanks!

src: Lifted from my internal blog at office

Garden's day out :)

2010-06-10T18:41:00.000+05:30

Pl find below a few snapshots from my little balcony garden, all captured with a Canon EOS Rebel XS. Let me declare with caution that this is my first experience with a DSLR & with gardening. For a person who cannot even click dejent pics using a zimble mobile camera, a DSLR was like Raj Kundra to Shilpa Shetty, a pricey catch.. a boon from heaven. So, if the pic quality is bad, lets blame it on the camera and its maker, if the plants quality is not up to the mark, lets blame the weather & the vaasthu location of my balcony

Alright now, a cellotape to the royal rigmarole emanating from my pungent mouth! And here you go…

i dont know if its the cute orange rose or the lush green beans plants that i love more.. both of them induce my adrenaline levels to soar high, hence this impartial click

A tiny ornamental (?) chilli plant trying to figure out if it has to grow tall & reach the bachchans or spread out its purple wings and expand like Adnan Sami (anyone who tells me, Adnan has reduced weight, will get a tight slap on their cheek! running around for adjectives & similies & metaphors is a painstacking job, plz understand!) or hibernate until further notice from the gardener

Cabbages which were pea-sized (Kozhi would insist that this adj be reserved for my brain.. hmm) in the prev post, expanding to unknown territories within its black residence and growing into a lovely monstrous flower. this pic is old by a month. in fact, there are 3 such cabbage plants which have completely enveloped the container with their huge huge leaves.

A red rose bud ready to open its eyes to the strange concrete world outside… i know this photo experiment has come out all weird n shaky. But, as always, plz bear with my assasination attempts

This is a ‘basal cone’ shoot emerging from the base of the orange rose plant, captured in the 1st image above. Basal cones are supposed to grow vigourously and produce a multitude of flower buds than the central stem.

Next on board are my lovely tomato plants, which have started flowering & setting fruits off late. All the “Pusa Ruby” variety tomatoes that i planted (refer: prev post) died a miserable death due to lack of adequate sunlight & probably an overdose of my horrible presence ;-) The plants you see in this pic grew on their own, from seeds accidently present in the organic manure i used!

The ground in the background, belongs to Oracle Corporation… and i have told them not to start any construction until my tomato plants yield generously The building in the back, back-ground houses JPMorgan, Nokia, Cisco & many such corporate jumbos… the only thing pending now is my to-be-updated resume

The same tomato senoritas with sleepy flowers dressed in pricky bright hair all over, making me feel they are related to Anil Kapoor or Karadi T.Rajendar in this birth or that of the recent past

A teeny weeny coriander sapling jutting its head out of the cocopeat medium, just to check what that noise was all about. Hey kiddo! that was just me, sneezing sprightfully Take it easy buddy & yes, say CHEEEESE

phewww… all of u can wipe off the sweat streaming down ur eyebrows, ease your facial bones, heave a deep sigh of relief & relaxation and get back to holy work. This is all from my plantville & photoville as of now… more tortures, on a later date. Until then, fare thee well!!

My Dear Flora :)

2010-05-07T14:33:00.000+05:30

This weekend has been very special & kind to me. My little dream has borne fruit.. or rather leaves & flowers. geeee im talking about the beautiful red Amaranthus plant (Keerai in Tamil, chauli in Hindi, cheera in Malayalam) growing steadily & silently in a 4 foot wide pot at the balcony!The pic you see below (sorry about the bad quality image) is my first harvest (gift) from the tiny balcony garden that i tend to once a green moon...

This passion for gardening had been lying deep within for centuries.. until i chanced to stumble upon a wonderful blog - that of a geekgardener at Bangalore who grows agro produce in pots, buckets, tubes, tubs & sacks and gets a bountiful yield month after month. This ignited fire has been spreading wild all over me... sending me running all around Bangalore purchasing seeds, pots, organic manure, compost, cocopeat & what not. It has also made me poke holes into all plastic containers at the kitchen, dump soil into them & archive the seeds/seedlings... the day is not far when we will have lotsa veggies growing in our small kitchen garden, but no bowls/containers in the kitchen to stock them :P My better half is also scared that i might dig holes in his shoes & start a "sole" stirring drip irrigated horticultute project in its confines!

On display are a few sprouted cabbage seedlings... posing brightly from a puny pot, overcrowded like Mumbai's charming CST railway station at the peak hour (or) T.nagar's very own Ranganathan Street on a typical Sunday evening :)

Below are the very same cabbage kiddos transplanted to a spacious pot, and breathing a sigh of relief as if pushed from the CST station's thick populace to the sunny nooks of the IIT campus at Powai (or) Adyar's cosy Theosophical society (for the Chennai audience i.e.) :-D well... i know im trailing off track, but nothing unusual abt it right? ;-)

Yeah, a red Amaranth is growing here as well! they are the coolest dudes in my vegetable garden, given the ease at which they grow without much fuss/fertilizer :) The little ones growing in the disposable plastic cups are tomato seedlings striving to prove Darwin's survival theory wrong ;-) And the cream complexioned apparatus that you see to the right, is not really a flowering plant from the Carribean or a hep veggie plant from Florida, but a plain boring (yet inevitable) washing machine in deep slumber close to my little garden :)

errr... how do i end this post now? hmm.. hummm...
well, so this is wht i have been doing for the past couple of months, only THIS... in my thoughts, vibes, moods, dreams, actions & nothing else. i am keeping my fingers & toes & nails & the dirt-between-them crossed... let me see if i can experience a "real harvest" of tomatoes & cabbages in the months to come... Next on target are brinjal & capsicum darlings... C'ya till then, will post more updates soon enough :)

In flames

2010-01-29T15:48:00.001+05:30

if there is one thing at all in this world that puts me off, its someone stating that i patronize my mother tongue, my caste, creed, community or religion. if most of the bloody population around me is made of such stuff doesnt mean i have to adhere to this too!

i would rather be rendered deaf n dumb, than hold any particular language on my head high. i would rather burn my tongue red, than sing praises of my caste or community. i would rather pull my eye balls out, than bathe in the spectrum of ONLY mother tongue movies!

i care too hoots for people who live life this way & those consider me to be a part of this vicious tribe!!

Of old months & new years....

2010-01-05T16:47:00.000+05:30

yet another year... of strife & struggle
wading through life, a notorious puzzle
bloody tears painting the paths red
a bouquet of dreams dried, dusty & dead...

5 mistakes of my life

2009-12-17T22:52:00.000+05:30

Slogging for my project & letting every Tom, Dick & Harry earn credit for the same

not bothering to show case (read: showoff) my accomplishments to every ruddy individual in this company

allowing some insensitive & irrelevant folks to criticise/offend/humiliate me at their wish n will and showing them a plesant smiling face always, instead of my ass!

expecting humane emotions & finer feelings from near n dear ones

not mastering the art of Saying NO

Twlogs :)

2009-09-14T19:34:00.000+05:30

noticed some ants in the commode. terribly worried about by blood sugar level...

went to ENT to have Praveen's ear problem diagnosed & treated. Stepped into pharmacy outside the clinic to fetch the prescribed medicines. The pharmacist asked the person in front, after supplying him with requisite dosages, whether he had ample stock of facial masks at home. The person replied in the affirmative & left me staring blankly at the "proximity" of infection :-|

pimples are sprouting on my lower lips like tadpoles on a rainy night. wonder what is the criteria for a pimple to make its mind to originate at a particular spot on the skin, when there is a vast galaxy of anatomic space from head to toe!!

surprised & amused that i suffer from indigestion, nausea & dehydration more often when i eat home-made food than when i eat the junk food on the streets :D

Stuck in strangling traffic today morn for 1.5hrs from home to office, which ideally takes 15-20mins on an abnormal (traffic-less) day!
dunno which was more annoying... my bus being jammed in a solid sea of vehicles flooding the invisible road, moving at a speed of a millimetre a minute (OR) being seated on the most uncomfortable luggage holder hump just above the front wheels of the Volvo, causing me to "jolt" like Farhan Akhtar in "Rock On" (OR) perceiving with utmost disgust the bus conductor's fingers digging deep into her nostrils busily extracting volumes of :yuck:, the very same fingers involved in distribution of tickets & the holy currency (OR) a fellow passenger caughing uncontrollably with her mouth wide open to intricate examination n infection!!
Gawd!! travelling in a local non A/C bus is far less disgusting than this irky expensive travel in a Volvo!

Had a veg burger for breakfast, 2 veg rolls for lunch & a veg sandwich for dinner! 8-O feel like a miserable Mexican Submarine soaked in yellow yucky cheese!
badly wanna dig into hot masala dosa accompanied by red,white,green chutneys & steaming sambhar and a onion-sprinkled sambhar vada, preferably with kuzhi paniyaaram as a starter & SaravanaBhavan-CurdRice as ender! :D sighhhh!

in love with this crazy month - posessing 2 M, 1 L & 1 XL weekends :D
dreaming about those summer holidays... when 2 whole months used to be XXL weekends always... :dream: :dream:

Autodrivers Anonymous - Part I

2009-08-28T09:07:00.001+05:30

Note: i have many a times copy+pasted stuff from this space to my personal blog at office... today i thought why not do the converse operation :) not that i have a great many fans awaiting with bated breath for my incredibly intellectual posts here... but this is more of a Backup operation (just in case i terminate my relations with the current org, sooner... or later... hmmm...)
Warning: Long post ahead! read at your risk :) :)

This happened sometime post the hot summer of 2006…. when the rains had just grazed the thirsty soils of Chennai. i was put up in a structurally double/practically single BHK apartment at Thiruvanmiyur, just behind the Marudeeswarar temple.

It had been just two or three days since i joined 'my current org' and hence i lacked all the essentials possessed by SW professionals - namely ID card, Access card & Bus pass! So, everyday i used to walk till TIDEL signal and take a share auto to TCO. This particular day, as i stepped out of my flat, the debut showers for the day had started…. and i had no umbrella/windcheater/any other protective equipment in hand…. And self being in disagreement with Shriya Saran's principles, didnt want to do a "Rain number" from Tvmyr to TIDEL…. you might be wondering why i didnt take the ECR route from Thiruvanmiyur instead of the bumpy OMR route? Well, to be frank… though i had been in Chennai for 7yrs during childhood & 2yrs as a working professional, i did not know of any land beyond Tvmyr!! My intuition was that.. the Indian subcontinent stopped within the boundary of Tvmyr… and anything beyond that was an alien continent/extra terrestrial space!! So, i silently walked till the Marudeeswarar temple… while the rain drops were beginning to gain momentum… eagerly looking for an auto of "acceptable nature"! Several autos flew by… but none of them headed to Thoraipakkam After about 10mins of impatient waiting… one auto driver slowed down near me expectantly. "Thoraipakkam?" i enquired, in a slang & accent that brings back memories of the first 10mins of the magnum opus "Dasavatharam"!! He said "80!" and i got into the auto without any further negotiations…. for fear of spending the entire day rooted at the same place, under the spell of the Rain God!

The auto headed forward on the same road, much to my surprise & suspicion (for i had expected him to take a U turn & move towards the OMR)!! i was biting my nails & wondering where on earth this fellow was taking me…. The vehicle had moved just a few kms & touched the outskirts of a territory called Kottivakkam…. when the mobile phone of the driver started singing some supposedly melodious song. He took the cell phone single handedly & spoke something to his akka (elder sister). The converstaion went on for a few minutes & meanwhile the auto was going all zig-zag & drafting modern art forms on the road…. thanks to the illustrious concentration power of the driver! After a while of intense, emotional talk over the phone, the driver turned back to me… and said in an extremely panicky voice…. that his wife has been admitted to the labor ward of a hospital…. and that the doctor has declared that there is quite a deal of complications in delivery!! He also asked me nervously, almost with tears in his eyes "Sister, what is the meaning of COMPILLI-KAY-SON?" i told him it meant some prominent issues in the delivery of the baby… at which he started howling & wailing… He went on murmuring that the well-being of his wife was of utmost importance… and that he didnt really mind, even if he had to lose the baby, to save his wife. i was trying to say all that i could, to console & convince him that she would be hale & hearty…. but my words only fell on deaf ears. He proceeded to narrate what seemed to be his life history!! describing a very cinematic love story, that was obviously & dramatically opposed by their parents….. and hence he had no moral/fiscal support from any of the relatives!! i was patiently listening (despite being late to office) to his entire tale of woes…. with a weak heart & tensed mind, when his cell phone rang again…. and it was a second call of alarm from his so-called akka!! He spoke in a trembling voice for a few moments… and then informed me that his wife's condition was serious…. and that he had to reach the hospital immediately with a considerable sum of money for the treatment.

Unable to bear the sight of his painfully distorted face & moist swollen eyes, i proceeded to open my purse and give him 200 bucks; he responded in a flash… enquiring if i could offer him some more cash, since it is the critical need of the hour and he had no other source of revenue in such a short span of time. Deeply moved by his plight, i gave him another 300 bucks and told him this was all i had…. and wished for the speedy recovery of his wife from the ongoing trauma. The fellow was overwhelmed at this deed… that he stepped out of his cabin in the front, came near me… and was about to touch my feet!!! (something which even my husband has not done all his life ;-)) he thanked me profusely & told me that he would be grateful to me throughout his life. i reassured him that everything would be ok soon… and left the place to catch another auto that would ultimately drop me at the office premises, without any further delay. i waited for sooo long that i felt the movie Marudhanaayagam would hit the theatres before i got an auto for my onward trip…. all the share auto drivers announced loudly that they would not be travelling to Thoraipakkam at all (contrary to what the troubled auto driver told me), even if given an MLA seat at that constituency!! So, i walked all the way to the crowded Thiruvanmiyur signal and managed to catch a speeding share auto, madly heading towards TCO! Though i had got fully drenched on arrival at office, though i went extremely late to office within 3 days of joining, though i had to stretch myself for long hours in the late evening, though i had lost a fair amount of money, though my friend told me repeatedly that i had been fooled very cleverly & elegantly, i still had the immense satisfaction of having helped a person in need and having done my good deed for the day!! i had a silent satisfied sleep that night.

Days rolled on…. it had been nearly 7 or 8 months since the afore-mentioned incident had happened. i was now living in Indiranagar, Adyar. It was a Saturday morning around 11.30am… and i was hurriedly looking out for an auto to Koyembedu. And as always, each auto i came across gave me a look as if i was going for my last journey to Mars & quoted attrociously enormous prices for a trip to the private bus stand at CMBT. Time & tide & also the KPN bus wait for none!! It was already past 12.00 and the bus was to commence its journey from Koyembedu at 1.30pm sharp…. and if i were to miss this mobile monster, i would not be able to meet my husband that weekend & will have to wait for 7 more days for the next meeting!! As i walked in anguish, on the troubled waters… err… roads of Gandhinagar, an auto stopped near me. i told the driver the destination… and inquired the charge; not wanting to start any further negotiation, i got onto the vehicle, wondering mildly about the familiarity of the auto driver's face. The driver turned the vehicle to a small lane off the main road & went ahead in full speed. 5 minutes past the start of the ride, his cell phone rang….. he picked it up & there ensued an intense conversation over the phone and the auto's zig zag patterns on the street. i told the autowalla rather sternly, that i had very little time left to board the bus to Bangalore and asked him to hurry up. He turned back with sorrow written all over his face, informing me that his "akka" had called…. to notify him that his wife was in critical condition at a hospital… and that i could take some other auto…. if it was urgent! My heart skipped a beat….. as all the memories of the incident 8 months back, flashed across my mind's monitor. i told him i could not wait any longer and just walked away…. to catch another anonymous auto to Koyembedu.

Till date, i have no clue…. whether this person had in fact cheated me…. or whether his wife was really ailing…. whether all this was a co-incidence or just Deja vu!! Anyway, my sincere advice to all you readers would be: Before availing an auto service, do ensure that

1) the driver is either unmarried or tooooooo old to have a marriage
2) even if he is married, his wife is not pregnant
3) even if she is pregnant, she has no complications in the delivery process
4) even if there are complications during labor, he has no sister to inform him about it
5) even if he has a sister, she does not know his mobile number to share the sorry news
6) even if she knows the number & tells him the tale, you dont have the heart & money to sponsor the delivery of the auto driver's kid!! Amen! :D

Moody Mondays...

2009-08-24T18:03:00.011+05:30

Woke up reluctantly at forty five minutes past seven. greeted my plants
with half-opened eyes & little broken yawns... Prepared a quick lunch only for Praveen, as he finds any food palatable & agreeable.. unlike self, who needs a reasonably delicious gravy un-mixed with white rice boiled to the right degree centigrade & pressure, adequate quantity of melting-in-mouth side dish, preferably with capsicum as one of the ingredients! With very little time left to run for office, i gave up the idea of cooking all the intricate delicacies described above.... and decided to ingest the poor boring lunch at the office cafeteria today (like most of the days!) Boarded a Volvo, travelled quite grudgingly for 15mins and the remaining 15mins immersed in PGW, after managing to find a vacant seat, to place my a$$. Got down well ahead of the stop, to avoid being jammed in the insane traffic for the rest of my life, walked towards office for 10 short mins... and seeped into my "protected chamber" post scrutiny by the ever-observant security folks.

A mundane Monday morning.... full of blues & bitterness... i feel like a Broiler hen being shut in a nasty cage, just before being roasted in a redhot barbecue grill! Struggled through the turmoils of everyday existence at office, combatting project pressure & petty politics for 9 horrid hours...shed silent tears in the rest room...sweared at every piece of code n the coder n the onsite folks who deliberate me to perform such nauseating tasks day after day, in a monotonous way!

Wrote this one during the little intervals of life... trying to penetrate the nebulous labrynth of destiny, knowing very well that.. this too shall pass... like withered leaves on an autumn day... swept away by streams of mystique winds to far away shores... where new born petals glisten amidst green grandeaur... announcing the arrival of a nascent morning... life moves on... even as death beckons the outer gear with a subtle smile & a warm embrace... the inner light flickering meakly.. dew drops on its brows & a whisper on its lips... remembering bygone moments & dusty dreams shelved in the shady nooks of a sub conscious sanctum...

Little joys....

2009-08-12T17:09:00.012+05:30

My mom told me in the morn that as per my sunsign predictions for
the day, i will have plenty of happiness & sunshine in my life today!
well... so far, this has been quite true

1. Left strong sensible comments in a celebrated blogger's blog today, thereby teaching him principles of modesty & self-discpline! :)

2. sneaked away to the office reception at peak hour and solved THE HINDU crossword semi-successfully!

3. wrote this post on a piece of paper with a bar of pencil between my trembling fingers, a magical feeling experienced what-seems-a-decade ago!!

4. Cracked down a colleague's system password... logged in with his credentials.. and enviosuly scrutinized his Payslip!! Just a token of gratitude from self... for his kindly deed of presenting the scripts i create, to the client, as his own!!

5. Solved the "Petals around the Rose" puzzle in 3 quick moves and felt so superior to Bill Gates!!! Sudhakar, thanks for the link! ;-) The world need more of geniuses like self! :P

6. Got rid of rodents err... relatives from my house in a very tactful manner and shipped them away to a distant inaccessible location, where the gravitational force of the earth would overpower the magnetic force of my house!! :)

7. Wrote this piece of crap, very well knowing it is crap... and is gonna be shunned by readers who accidently fall into this space! Loose motion is any day better than constipation!! :D

Random rotten reflections...

2009-08-06T19:13:00.011+05:30

i have been eating chocolates at a rate which would put the evil H1N1 virus to shame! in fact, my Diary Milk intake on a normal day (let's not talk about abnormal days when hair on my scalp stands at 90 degrees to the hemispherical plane of my cerebrum... and spider legs & tadpoles are savoured by my delicate tongue for refreshment!!), far exceeds the number of times Rakhi bhabhi appears on television, the number of statues erected by Maya aunty or the number of tweets made by the Tech-savvy minister Tharoor everyday

A bunch... nah! a heap of relatives are arriving from Tvm tomorrow.
Wish they made relatives of the finer healthier blend nowadays.. ones who would just let out a yawn, on being told the fact that their host (moi ofc!) hasnt an inkling of the fuzzy process of making coffee (or tea or rum for that matter!), ones who dont really cough n choke n die of stroke, when informed that their charming host eats roasted peanuts for lunch, inhales fresh air for breakfast and gargles n drinks Oatmeal for dinner... and proposes to share the same menu with her esteemed guests, ones who wouldnt stare aghast into white space just because their darling host starts fumbling for coins & half notes in her torn n tattered purse... and mutters curses onto the US government for not tackling the global economic slowdown, the moment the taxi driver produces a bill of 2854 bucks, after an exhausting trip to Mysore!
Sighhh... "relatives" are made in hell i suppose! and sent to earth for Probation!!

i have been feeling like a cat on hot bricks every passing day. The "fire" to quit my current job in this well known firm and move on to another (for better or for worse) has been burning fiercely in my bosom for months now... i just cant push myself to crawl into office everyday without dropping tears all over the garden encompassing the campus & watering the tiny blooms all along the path!! and yeah... the gardener must be quite a blessed soul, methinks! :( (he must be thinking the same thing abt me...hmmm..)

Renowned Malayalam actor Murali bid farewell to this world today... A fine mature artist, i have seen & admired his roles ever since i was a kid... His demise is certainly a loss to Malayalam cinema, which is rather undergoing slow & subtle metamorphosis... with a good number of crap movies releasing every year!! Also disheartening is the sudden death of an efficient director/script writer Lohithadas... A red alert to all serious & sensible directors of Mollywood! Dont let this industry be lost in the great Bermuda triangle of modernization / commercialization. Looking forward to a renaissance in Malayalam (Indian to be precise) cinema in the days to come...

Bangalore is celebrating a bandh this Sunday, to commemorate the erection err... installation of Thiruvalluvar's statue at Ulsoor. why the Tamil poet's figurine has to be placed in a so-called hi-fi cosmopolitan city as Bangalore, when he or none of his relatives were born/brought up at Namma city and he already stands 133 ft tall at Kanyakumari, is beyond my gray cells's capacity! Hon CM says it is a sign of goodwill b/w neighbouring states... and he too is gonna err... unveil a Kannada poet's statue at Chennai! while this has raised the blood pressure & cholestrol of members of Karnataka Rakshana Vedike and they are hell bent on creating a hullabaloo on the day the two-liner poet's statue is unveiled here!!
sighhh... if at all this nation wants to foresee progress in the near future, the first thing to eradicate & penalize should be the statue-installation syndrome that has caught almost every ruling politician in this country!! why cant they get it into their fat head that it is the tax payers' hard earned money that they are throwing away for their cheap & vested political game plays!!

There is always this fear of writing my personal moments/thoughts in this space... not sure who all are likely to read it & scoop my intestines out :-| the perils of being a celebrity.. sighhh! :P :P :P
but seriously, there are so many things happening in my life every single day... so many ups n downs n U turns that i would like to scribble yonder... but most of the stuff has to be filtered n censored before hitting this blog, for fear of adverse reactions (which again cannot be detailed here! :roll:)

hmmmm... life moves on like a tortoise injected with clinical anaesthesia... and every moment seems to be frozen in time... i am in dire need of a "secret" blog (i can hear somebody chuckling there! ;-)) to pour out lot of suppressed emotions n anectodes... hope i dont dont end up owning a 100 million blogspots by the end of this year!! :-|

Tata bye bye C UUUUUUUU :)

2009-05-25T11:48:00.003+05:30

im travelling to my hometown tonight...by bus..all by myself... for the first time ever! i have been "subjected to" train journeys quite often during college days & before marriage... but a lonely long distance travel in a four-wheeled vehicle is new to me... in fact quite intriguing & disturbing to me ... i hope to rely on Sir.Wodehouse for company... the only problem being the work is titled "The Mating Season" and i dont want the KPN fellows to throw me out for reading & propagating "THAT KIND OF LITERATURE" in a public transport! hmmm... let me see if i get the time to envelope this book with a sheet of newspaper and read with peace & privacy... :) if not i have to read with the aid of cell phone light, once the bus is put to sleep in the night. hope they dont play stupid & stale movies starred by (as usual)Vijay, (ayyayyoooo)VijayKanth, (eeeeeks mummyyy)Sathyaraj or the even more terrible son of his!!, (stunningly sterotypical) Arjun or (Unlimited broadband) Namitha!!! :P im just trying to visualize the state of mind of the passengers & their reaction if the bus folks were to play a movie like... say.. Pather Panjali throughout the night!! :D

{i know.. this post is getting awfully boring... but never mind... my aim is to scribble something every day... and keep this blog live & licking.. err.. kicking!}But i wouldnt have access to internet or any other modern means of communication (even mobile phones are active only seasonally when the signal from the tower does not get attrated & distracted by the swaying coconut trees all over the terrains of my native town :) ) for another 1 week... so all you souls who set your eyes on this blog... can heave a sigh of relief & rest in peace!

6 days away from office is certainly a dream come true! Heaven.. i would have called it, if only i did not have to spend my time surrounded & suffocated by flocks of hobnobbing, backbiting relatives!! hope to come out of the ordeal unscathed... ;-)im looking forward to gobbling lots of delicacies in the days to come... except on the day of the marriage... coz they serve the same kind of food (i mean same menu, same colour, same odour, same flavour, same texture, same mixture of food during every marriage...) and that Sumo-wrestler-size-par-bolied-rice is enough to drive me away from the eating zone for eons!! sighh! when will they make an amendment to this at all... in the constitution of our family marriages! :-|

one interesting incident i am looking forward to... is the "Milk & Fruit ceremony" errr... to all you ignorant blokes, this is a ceremony where the bride's mom (yeah you heard it right!! :P) gives a glass of milk & a piece of banana to the bridegroom, the fellow gulps down half the qty of the pale solution, munches half of the banana.... and passes the remaining halves to his better half!!! ok... now lemme tell you what is so exciting about this... that im eagerly waiting for... the bride in question/answer, hates milk with all her heart & stomach! and would throw up at the slightest smell of this yucky liquid!! So, her mom is planning to arrange for coke during the Milk & Fruit session and i am all eyes (& ears) to witness this holy (read: gala) incident, as the CEO of the Milk HatersUnion!! :D

Hui maaaa! there is so much work to complete by eod (which is 2hrs form now!!) gotta finish the heaps of tasks, transfer so(w)-called-knowledge to a new comer,run home, take my bags... and catch the bus at 5!! and here i am dillydallying... pouring out this rigmarole.... with no heed of time & tide! Wokay guys! am off to some serious work now... will catch u after the looooong lovely vacation! Baa-byeeeee! :D

Huh! Humph!! Hoo!

2009-05-22T13:37:00.004+05:30

Friday afternoon, rather early evening... and i have still not got into the mood of doing any constructive work... assigned to me from folks across the seas... Hangover as they call it.. Of what?!! is the question. Neither did i have a spectacular week so far nor am i expecting any exceptional phenomenon to materialize and brighten my otherwise-mundane weekends...it is just that am unable to overcome the inertia of rest... to which my infernal mind has succumbed...passionately...losing all sense of discretion & direction... sinking into blissful oblivion...even blogging has become a burden to me... im getting more impatient & hysterical day by day..all i want to do now is.. pack my bags, wear my boots & start off on a silent vacation to some sunken green valley... lost amidst the pale clouds & green woods... stopping by only to respond to the melodies of the bubbling stream...

not a second passes without me thinking about the misery of being involved in a profession which appeals to me only as much as Velupillai Prabhakaran appeals to Mahinda Rajapakshe... oh yeah! that reminds me.. i have been just reading Srilankan history, Mahavamsa & such other chronicles, roots of Srilankan civilization & colonization, beginning of ethnics violence... and reading only these for the past 2-3 days!

Of late i have been adopting a no-contact stand with most of the folks. i have always been nurturing this suspicion that whether i stay in touch or not, these so-called friends / relatives / acquaintances wouldnt care a damn abt it! and my refrain from calls,mails,chats,scraps etc has only strengthened the fortress of this growing suspicion... the last time i made an effort to shut out all my connection gateways, i had lost a treasured relationship (why it was treasured in the first place, i fail to understand now...) Anyway im glad to be off-line right now and talk to only the select few that would value my company...

My brother-in-law's marriage is in the offing and i seem to develop all sorts of phobias about going to that heavily-crowded extravaganza called wedding! i can never comprehend why a hundred thousand odd people gather to witness an occassion for which most of them care two hoots about (if not for the entertainment & food freely available at the expense of the bride's parents!!)

Writing this piece of stuff has been really really difficult and challenging... (now dont raise your eyebrows & drop your lower jaws!!) what with two equally useless computers at home sans the internet connection (which has been denied to us due to 'lack of boxes' at this age of 2009... and there sits Dr.Abdul Kalam dreaming about a progressive developed super power India by 2020!! sigh..) and there is no possibility of one writing two lines successively without being interrupted, watched & read by a multitude of co-workers at office!! i have this odd doubt whether i am writing a small simple blog at office... or having an intercourse right there in the middle of my cubicle surrounded by a multitude of "resources"!! Humph! (told you... not to be reading those stupid Shobha De books!! 8-O) whatever... i am glad to have scribbled at least a few incoherent thoughts from my hapless mind... and aspire to do so every single day, even if it means "stretching & straining" myself till the fall of the night! After all, what is life without breaking free from the monotony & cacophony of day to day existence... and spurting out some vagrant, disciplined thoughts from the interiors of the cerebral hemispheres!!
Gosh! i am so relieved now :wide grin:

Hell O!! is there a vacancy up above there?

2009-04-08T18:49:00.006+05:30

it is high time i stop playing the Joker at office & anywhere else... unless of course i can afford to be the Heath Ledger stuff! if only i had the will to injure & torment others as much as they prod & play with my emotions... hmm... All these days, i was just serving as the Idiot box for this entity called God... and now it looks like mortals too have joined the league! they switch me on whenever they need entertainment free of cost.

i hate going to office, doing utterly annoying & boring tasks in front of a bare insensitive computer, interacting with colleagues, attending conf calls, replying to pain-in-the-necks (managers in case u didnt comprehend), lunching with ppl-whom-you- wish-had-been-transported-to-Jupiter-ages-ago, giving those scary knowledge sharing/transfer sessions to new comers, fiddling about with source code that treats you as its worst enemy, taking tea/coffee/juice/bio breaks only to cool the fuzzy filament inside the skull, venting out frustration on innumerous Notepad files saved as drafts at every nook & corner of the PC, executing hideous scripts till the fall of the night, sending stupid status reports to managers all over the world and living a religiously robotic life from dawn to dusk... every dreadful day of existence....

i am sick & tired of writing blogs these days... the same morose meaningless stuff scrawled all along all the pages... boring melancholy pieces or incredibly idiotic so-called comical writings... all bundled in this bitter bloody blog! Heck!! i think i ought to recede & sleep inside this cocoon... not unleash attrocities on the readers.... hmmm... point noted!

i am unable to relate to feelings of joy, pain, excitement, anxiety or sorrow exhibited by fellow beings... i feel they too are objects frozen in the bonds of time, dolls with strings dangling down the cliff, specimens submerged in bottles of sweet poison, their brain bubbles bursting into acidic & alkaline reflections, marinated in a mindless elixir... swirling in streams of silent pathos...

love has lost its lustre, hope its honour, relationships their meaning... an unwanted unwarranted childhood, an agonizing adolescence, an insignificant miserable existence now, a bleak hopeless life ahead.... is this all i can ask for? nope. Fumes from the plains below... souls in the skies above... a journey of the lifeless... a journey of the invi(n)sible... infinitely converging into the single dot of infinity.... endlessly expanding to sublime forms encompassing this universe... integrating.. and disintegrating.... across the span of space....

Is there a vacancy up there?

i dont understand...

2009-03-05T18:01:00.004+05:30

> why some girls(or guys) think that dressing up (or down) to match the latest trends, putting a patch of paint on their lips, sporting a weird out-of-the-world hair do, tatooing and/or piercing all the nooks, corners, fissures & grooves of their body, keeping their skins deprived of sweat glands, residing over time in beauty parlours, walking clumsily with high heeled footwear like horses on a march past.... are the sole purpose for which they were dropped down to Mom earth from the stellar skies above!!

> how some "human beings" are capable of hurting others' feelings so very easily, no matter whether the person is known to them since ages or has been cast in front of them for the first time...

> why people attach so much importance to their religion / caste / creed / traditions even though these are just artificial & imaginary things created by them for no sensible purpose at all and has grown to be the biggest evil in society today

> how/why the mind is designed in such a way to jump in joy/weep in agony/die in pain over matters which seem all the world to one at a given moment... but seem as worthless & irrelevant as a flea in the waste bin after a finite interval of time

> how the mind forms a very descriptive image of a person when one gets to know about him/her from some source for the first time... and this image bears no resemblance to the appearance/behaviour of the real person who is unveiled to you at a later point in life. i must say many of the bloggers comply with this Theorem ;-)

> why my brain is so crooked that it looks for unintened puns & hidden double meanings in simple sentences. i had emailed some Technical data to a colleague and he had replied saying "Thanks SKS! you have given me enough for a sleepless night". i could not stop myself from letting the horse wander :P

> why there are as many languages in this country as there are dry-fruit eating gun powder smelling young fellas in Pakistan. what is the purpose of so many syllables, sounds, slangs & accents when the children in the Little Flower convent next door communicate so effectively using signs & symbols :)

> how is it that i sit down to write something so important and sensational as the Richard Gere-Shilpa Shetty kissing episode or the Muthalik-haath-pe-chaddi episode or the Achu-uncle-Unnikrishnan-patti-comment episode or the RamalingaRaju-eating-250gms-of-rice-&-letting-out-550-ml-of-urine-in-C-class-prison episode.... but finally end up writing all the rot that thy witnesseth overleaf :)

In memoriam....

2009-02-19T12:44:00.012+05:30

This is irritating! Sheer injustice i would say!! why does this always happen to me?? i feel like crashing my head on the monitor!! i wanna tear my & my neighbour's hairs apart!! i wanna dip my brain in a bowl of boiling acid!! Heck! why is it that i cant write one simple post about some ordinary thing... anything??!!! No i dont suffer from any block or cistern!! Two minutes ago i was all set to write about the bus travel experiences of my life.... and as i started moving towards the restroom... my mind was so preoccupied with reflections about my fear complexes.... and my indigestion problems that i ensured to make a mental note of all these & reproduce them in my blog... and sigh! on my return journey from the honorary restroom i had firmly decided that i would write about the lack of disk space in my computer & regarding its extraordinarily poor performance! And lo! here i am writing about totally irrelevant disillusioned stuff... which was never part of my brain cells 30 seconds ago!! Hmmph! is there some way one could put a decent breakpoint to a thought stream.... jot it all down... pour out all emotions related to the thought... smile at it contently... and then move onto the next thought bubble in queue... waiting to burst on ma top compartment?!! :P Notoriously random, haphazard, fuzzy & diarroheaic thoughts!!

Anyways, ultimately i have ventured to write about something bothering me lately and dimming the day lights in my life! Let me cut all the usual crap and get down straight to the problem in hand.... my memory bag or the plain lack of it!! i cant tell you when it all started.... but it's been happening all the while... religiously, harmoniously & yet ambigously!! i have been losing traces of my memory cells with every passing day... and im forced to suspect a leak in my cerebrum through which all the intellect, the supernova of a brain, the stellar storehouse of superior intelligence & intuition ever possessed by any living being... is oozing out to the mundane Milky way system!! i have been examining my head to look for potential injuries or damages inflicted by many a jealous mongrel co-exisiting in this galactic space!!

Some crucial incidents which led me to this scary revelaion of memory leak are as follows:
Few months back i had misplaced my mobile (again as a result of inability to recall that i had placed the phone on a bike in the parking lot of my office and went home conveniently forgetting it!) and was trying to reach out to Praveen to pick me up from a convenient location on his way home.... but alas! to my astonishment & indigestion :P :P i realized that i had forgotten his number!! where as i could remember the 12 digit number of a friend in Singapore whom i talk to once every Solar eclipse! 2 days ago my friend from Chennai had paid me a visit... and we were roaming around the streets of Bangalore till evening... and when the time came for him to depart... and i had to drop him at the bus stop near CMH road, i had no clue where the bus stop was supposed to be, considering the fact that i had been shuttling to & from this bus stop for the past 6 months at a stretch!! Gasp!! it took me half an hour & a long walk till the end of CMH road to find out that the bus stop was available there all this while... waiting for me with a smile! i had telephoned my mom this noon, just like any other day, and was enquiring about the apetite of our dogs (among other interesting talks about Economic recession, Global warming, the US bill on H1B visas, the possibility of life on Mars, the next susceptible targets of Taliban, the colour of chaddis worn by some sene of high repute, the risks of talking a long while on mobile phones etc & etc...) when it struck me hard... that i couldnt recollect the name of my labrador... Nancy, Jhansi, Nandini, Joby, Jerome.... all revolved around my head! i told my mom i would call back later... kept the phone.... and sat blinking at the ceiling.... after 10 whole minutes of brain-squeezing & nail-biting it fell on me as a flash of lightning! Julie - the name i have been uttering non stop every day!! Sigh!!!

i realize it is high time... i shave my head displaying the crack on the shell.... start all that tatoo work on my body... embedding the phone numbers, character sketches, relationships & action-to-be-taken about all people associated with me currently!! errr... i am wondering where exactly this Ghajini would have scribbled his ATM PIN numbers for it to be remembered, yet concealed from public scrutiny?!!! :- :P

The silent chaos...

2009-01-30T11:27:00.007+05:30

1 month away from blogs... immersed in a world made solely of Soap, Java, XML & web services... so much has transpired in the world outside... so much... from the Satyam saga to Barrack Obama's swearing in... from Dr.Singh's surgery to the Slumdog awards... murders at Bangalore homes to moral policing at Mangalore pubs...news keeps seeping into my eyes & ears from all across the world... stirring my nerve centres today & numbing them the very next day... life moves on... silently... sullenly... effortlessly...

Everyday as the eyes are glued to the insensitive 15mm monitor & hands stuck to the ever-obliging black & white keyboard, the brain frozen in its dark hideous chambers... the mind racing on a non-existant treadmill of hopes,desires & ambitions.... dreams floating on the eyeballs....words swelling on the finger tips... waiting to be expressed... longing to break out of the cocoon...to scream & announce to the rest of the world of its untimely birth...wanting to be a part of the paramount ocean of words sailing in the media outside....

Today, there is so much to write about... so many incidents in my life & the lives of others that have impressed & compressed me during these days of "mind arrest"... i am unable to pick n choose a single solid aspect of life that sojourns the mighty kingdom of mind... am just flipping through the pages of the unwritten omnibus of existence so far... may be a few random leaves scattered here & there.... is what i wanna grab and place in strained sync here... some old & withered... some green & beautiful... some warm & sunny... some buried deep down in the muds alongside the roots... all the myriad shades of strife, success & survival... through the winding lanes of life...

The deafening sound of silence within.... the structured chaos of the inner eye... deeply engrossed in active soliloquy... the humming of fellow computers in the background, the rush of a hundred foot steps across the cubicle of auricles & ventricles, the downpour of a million thought droplets from the brain clouds, the paramount ocean of memories lashing on the crude rocks of time.... stopping only to stare at the sinking moods at the brim of the horizon... life moves on.... a ballad of mindprints embossed on the drowning sand dunes within...

The Lost time....

2008-12-07T13:07:00.009+05:30

The first thing i realized on walking into office today was... i had lost it! the one precious thing... that has been so attached to my hand & heart for three years now.. had deserted me... leaving me all shattered & dejected. I had never really bothered to check out the time hinted by those prettly little needles unless someone on the road had wantonly asked for it! neverthless, it was a part of me, ticking away harmoniuosly with my heart beat and the tune of my life... well, to those of you who are smirking & sneering "it's after all a watch!", well... not exactly. it meant a life that was... an ocean of love that was.... but long forgotten in the tides of time.... this little piece of beauty had been presented to me by a loved one 3yrs ago and since then it has slipped off my hand so many times... on the busy black roads of Chennai & Bangalore... only to be retrieved by me hastily.... amidst the speeding trucks, angry buses, reckless 3wheelers & mocking pedastrians!

But, this time it was different. it was the rush hour and i was running like my-pants-were-on-fire... with a host of things in my hand... ranging from ID card, purse, papers, lunchbox to hair pin,comb,banana(my breakfast) & my lovely wrist watch. i climbed onto the pillion of the Hero Honda and Praveen accelerated it with full force to join the maddening stream of vehicles on the road leading to my office.i did sense a not-so-light object striking my leg and falling off with a clink! but, dismissed it as some stray piece of rubbish from the road caressing my leg during the speeding journey. Only on reaching office... it all came back to me through the good old flashback spiral!! i instantly hired an auto albeit the driver had charged an insane fare of 80 bucks for a distance of 5kms... and went to the same spot near my residence. i must be awarded the "Ms.Nut of the year" award, to have desperately believed that the piece of shining gold-plated watch would still be lying half asleep on the lane for half an hour... waiting for my cosy touch... for being caressed... for being restored back to the warmth of my skin..., with a plethora of slum dwellers in the vicinity sincerely struggling to get their hands on any property on this street that has been left alone for more than a minute!!! i sadly searched for my dear watch... knowing that it had gone off to foreign hands... hands that had throttled my hopes and doomed my dreams :(

i returned to the auto stand in disappointment.... and took an auto back to my office... knowing that there are more battles to be fought and more tears to be shed... i reached my cubicle just in time to make the customary call to my onsite co-ordinator at the US of A... and discuss project issues (which afaic is a redundant term... for my project has nothing else but problems.. problems... and perennial problems!!!) The call went on for about an hour... during which i was lending an ear to the chidings of the onsite fellow (who suspects whether i have cleared at least my pre kg exam papers), mourning the loss of my pretty "timeless" possession, brooding over the uncertainty of Praveen's current job,sinking into depression at the thought of continuing in this horrible SW engineering field despite hating it with all my heart,silently wiping a tear with the edge of my dupatta & replying in affirmative to all the rot that comes through the phone line... from across the seas!! "Multitasking" i call it!

After the sunset of all the drivelling project talk & technical discussions that mean nothing to me... i disconnected the call, changed the status in "Office Communicator" from "Do not Disturb" to "Available" and set about on the ordeals for the day... with a "barren" left hand, a heavy heart, swollen eyes & a cold insensitive computer! The wall paper on the cubicle facing me, read "Today is the first day of the rest of your life!" hmmm......

A world of my dreams!

2008-11-27T15:48:00.007+05:30

This week has been yet another dull, uneventful week of this month, ever since i joined the sickly project.Nothing much to do except start my day moodily with an onsite call... listening to the cracking voice of the drill master... clicking his tongue & complaning about my lack of skill & poor performance,mutter meek "Ok"s & "Yeah"s to every statement/question of his,assure myself that iam not gonna put up with this for any more time,frown,fret,fume & stare red-eyed at the tiny monitor, blink occassionally at the troublesome piece of code, rack my chunk of brain in an effort to fix the Number Format & Null Pointer exceptions,smile foolishly everytime i realize its just the presence or absence of a paranthesis that made the world of difference to the code,keep clicking on that friendly "Save Project" button just to avoid the threat of losing all this rotten work & the torture of doing it all over again,chat with my virtual network of friends,glance through newspapers,talk to mom at native,lunch,read blogs,realize there's very little time left to complete my task for the day,slog, stretch till 10.00 or 11.00,upload the completed scripts to the shared workspace,report status to all concerned,let out a huge heavy sigh,rush off to the parking lot... to be picked up by Praveen,plan to have a light dinner at any hotel on the way but end up cooking at home since no eat-out seems to wait for a prospective customer at 11 in the night, gobble whatever it is that comes out of the pots & panes,check my mails one last time before hitting the bed,content that the day has ended with no significant events & most importantly no stinkers from the client,indulge in a bit of conversation with my husband about his "day",promise ourselves to wake up early next day to accomplish all that is pending since last weekend,crawl onto the bed & get lost in deep slumber even before the hadn unconsciously switches off the night lamp. Tomorrow, is yet another day of this dull, uneventful yet fast moving week of November. And what has kept me alive & breathing throughout these 5 days is nothing but the prospect of plunging into my favourite passtime... my well nourished dream... during 2 whole days of the weekend!! These oxygen masks (err... i mean Saturday & Sunday :D) are the only things that aid me in maintaining my sanity & blood pressure at normal levels!! :)

Ok i can hear u all excited guys screaming "What's your this favourite passtime u r talking about?? Winning beauty pageants? Helping Obama chart out a neat economic strategy? Helping the ATS & Army men tackle the terror situation at out homeland? Saving US banks from sinking?" :P :P :P well.. well.. well... nothing on those lines buddies.It is plain simple house-hunting!! that fuels my day dreams throughout the week and makes me float on pink clouds during the weekend :) i am obsessed with the blue print, design, construction & architecture of buildings! A "concrete" passion that has been floating in my blood, my genes ever since i was born!! i love running my hands on the tender "butter paper" containing the design drawing of the building,marvelling at the creative brains of the architect,watching the first few blocks of stone being laid, the subsequent layers of bricks coming in to the family of the building, the toiling labourers giving nutrition to this growing construction,the site buzzing with activity, the light rain that disrupts the work & leaves puddles of water on the mixture of cement, gravel and/or concrete,the naked rooms of the semi constructed house/apartment/office with no doors or windows to conceal their privacy,the crude patterns on the walls left by the labourers or their offspring,the dusty interiors,the day the carpenter's babies are brought in & laid harmoniously at each yearning corne,the secret smile of each room as it peeps through the newly laid window bars/grills,the smell of fresh paint touching each exposed nerve of the building & covering it in a warm embrace,the birth of a new building,smile on the face of the builder,pride on the face of the buyer,content on the face of the engineer/architect,relief on the face of the worker - this is the joy of a lifetime! a joy that fills the heart of self as an onlooker!! :) i only wish i could be watching this birth all my life... But, nowadays, very few of us get the chance to buy a plot of land & fund a construction there... so, most of us settle for ready-to-occupy houses/apartments to be acquired for a lumpsome amount of loan + cash!! In pursuit of such r-t-o apartments, we set out on each Saturday/Sunday looking at different flats of different builders at different locations of Bangalore.Its either the quote or the design or the amenities that arent pleasing enough for us, so far.But, frankly speaking, i have no intention of buying any apt in the near future.... simply because it would kill the ecstacy of visiting varied constructions with a multitude of design variations week after week and the absolute bliss of living in those dream apartments for the rest of the week, till the next hunt begins!! :) So, it is just a day away for my real life to begin... amidst concrete jungles & stone havens!! till then, work work & more work my friends.. C'ya!! :)

Passion Plus!!

2008-11-13T15:54:00.025+05:30

"i am a substandard writer. whatever i write nowadays is nothing but garbage". this is the thought jogging in my mind for quite some time now.... feeling worse & worse everytime this thought attacks me... Well, im not saying that i was creating magic with my pen earlier... but the style & content of writing has deteriorated much nowadays... :( i am not judging my posts based on the visit count or the number & kind of comments that i receive.... i know for myself that there is something so morbid & sullen about my posts..... that leaves a bad taste in the mouth (rather eyes) after reading it!! But, anyway... that doesnt mean im gonna quit writing. i simply cannot do that! its too late now :D Thinking on these lines, i am trying to figure out... if not writing... then what is it that i am good at!

Reading - the last time i read a book was before Obama started campaigning for the polls (which must be somewhere around 3rd century BC.. errr... BO!!) :P i have firmly stood by my resolution of not buying any more books, unless & until i finish reading the stuff on my shelf. It is a pity that i dont find time (Oh really?) to flip through the pages of even a 'light' PGW, that has been lying next to my bed for ages... as a place holder for my mobile, pen, keys, torch light, hair pins, Amrutanjan etc... sighhhh! i should resume reading, before i forget the number of alphabets in the English language (26... when i last heard it, right?)

Photography - This is another dead hobby (iam used to calling it passion!) of mine which badly needs recharging just like my hibernating camera in the bureau locker. Yeah! thats where i keep the little Olympus micro mini fella, hidden from the lights & shadows of the outside world. And he gets 'an exposure', only when i decide to set out on an outing to some distant land! not that i could come up with some scintillating shots everytime i gripped the periphery of the lens.... but i could see through this third eye the angles & colurs & dreams of my own world! Though, buying a better model of camera with latest features might help ignite this passion further.... this has remained a distant dream.... thanks to the photographer in me... who cant settle for anything less than a trendy expensive DSLR!! :(

Music - Naah! not singing or tugging at any strings or hitting hard on any percussions!! just lending an ear to the pleasant sounds incarnating from filmdom or albums or kutcheris and involuntarily swaying my head rhythmically to the raagas,thaalas, layas & aalaps! i am not doing even that nowadays. My craving desire to join a vocal music class has been lingering like a leech on the interiors of my mind.... ever since i tasted the juice of music & learnt my inability to produce an array of humanly acceptable sounds with my vocal chords!! :( i had carefully altered the word "singing" in my profile to the cliched "listening to music" long back! but, even listening doesnt seem appropriate now... it is mere hearing that i am doing, if at all some soulful sounds drop into my ears at times, by accident!! No efforts or accomplishments beyond that. :(

Gardening - Well im extremely devoted to this piece of 'art', if you would be kind enough to call "looking down curiously from my balcony at the plants-seller & listening intuitively to his conversation with my house owner, silently spectating the scene of my neighbour watering the saplings in his garden, gazing moodily at my landlord's kid playing with the earthworms in the soil" as gardening in the best sense!! :D

Cooking - This is one practise which i can claim to have been faring well at... the prime reason being i luvvvvvvvvv eating! and there is no soul within 1000metres radius... who can provide me with unlimited quantities of varied delicacies every day! Necessity being the mother of invention... gave way to my culinary experiments in the kitchen, and having a mouth-capable-of-engulfing-any-palatable-stuff-irrespective-of-taste-smell-&-appearance (yeah, that belongs to my honourable husband! :P) handy has proved to be a boon for me!! just chop, slice, saute, fry, boil, burn, garnish & serve to this ready-to-eat human being called husband, then depending on his survival & sustenance aspects.... start tasting the food on my own. so far... so good. no suicides. no murders. i have been doing a decent job.

hmmm.... let me wind up this ultra long post now.... and get back to the ever-boring but bread-winning activity.... the art of coding(before my PM decides to send me on the next Chandrayaan expedition)!!!! :bleeeeeeding eyes:

'Sow'rangutan ver 1.26 :)

2008-11-07T15:08:00.012+05:30

i despise the thought of holding currency notes in my hand... especially minutes before i have food... Currency papers/coins, according to me, are one of the most unhygenic substances in this country... as they have no source/destination information tagged to them!! Yeah,im the same ugly devil who munches red-apples-smeared-with-the-choicest-of-dust-&-dirt, for breakfast, while moving in a bike during the rush hour!!

Every afternoon after lunch i have this confusion, whether i am at my home or office.... whether i have to take the plate & leave it at the cleaning area... or wash the plate by myself... or just leave the plate with its contents on the table! :(

i try talking to my dear dog Blinky over the phone, whenever i call home. wonder why these little buddies arent able to pay attention to the very same 'sweet' voice that brings a fond glow to their eyes & an incessant dance to their tails... when heard in person!! Helloooo Blinky! cant you hear me? :(

Activities/objects that are not in use for even a short while, are completely wiped off my memory cells... leaving behind mild traces of its existence!! No! im not talking about the QTP function library or SQL queries or the SAP eCATT framework or any such terrorising softwares which i have lost touch with of late... ;-) Yesterday, i had great difficulty in crossing a small road near my office premises... just because i have been moving around in 2 & 4 wheelers for quite sometime now... that i have completely forgotten the Art of looking left-right-center & moving across to the other end!! :-

i have fallen head over heals in love with this guy... this amazing personality... the dude(!) called Barrack Obama!! Ever since i heard his victory speech on TV (for umpteen times), i have been running around the house shouting "we CAN! we CAN!! we CAN!!!" so madly that Praveen has been giving me weird glances with his mouth wide open!! :)

Of late, i have this persistent feeling that i am working at the client's place.... on a project to be delivered to the client's client!! :roll: Only after sights of neighbours using our Outlook emails/Communicator and when i pay the caterer for lunch, do i realize that i am working at my own parent company after all!! ;-)

i feel so helpless/embarrased and do not know what on earth should be done when someone praises me in public (ahem... ahem.. yeah this happens :))... or when a close friend/member of family is weeping non stop... or when a tiny tot comes in close proximity to self...

Diwali - The blasted festival!!

2008-10-29T12:10:00.008+05:30

I hate Diwali! not that i have anything against the festival itself... but i simply detest the way it is celebrated... bursting & blasting all the way! i really cannot fathom what kind of pleasure people derive from listening to loud explosions & inhaling clouds of smoke!! i sometimes wonder whether the people adding a dose of fire to the cracker rolls are actually DEAF & "DUMB"!!Diwali days only remind me of:

1) the agony & fear engulfing my doggies, who seek refuge on my dad's lap or sometimes on top of his head (assuming that it is the safest place on earth!)

2) the wailing kid next door who regrets having come out of the secure cosy interiors of his/her mother's womb, just to be threatened by loud, terrorising & intimidating noises and sparks in this strange world outside!!,

3) the ailing grand old people inhabiting the "Home" who shudder at every thundering Atom bomb/1000 wala & at every whizzing rocket taking the life out of their serene yet insecure self!!

4) the incessantly coughing ME, owing to suffocating smoke & odour penetrating the house, from the dark, fuming streets!!

Are we humans?? Cant we think of the trouble we are giving to fellow creatures, the amount of harm we are doing to the environment, the amount of cash that is going down the drain, when we so haughtily & joyously burst these crackers in public??!!! Every year, we get messages like "Wish you a happy & safe Diwali!" But, why the hell, do we need wishes or warnings like this? wont it be better if we just refrain from indulging in such violent & immature celebrations? Is this the only way one can express joy?? hmm... the other day, my uncle who had come back from Germany, was fretting that he was not allowed to take even a pressure cooker with him... coz these things are completely banned in Germany, considering the "Noise pollution" it causes!! Can u just believe it? i wonder how a German would feel if he were to witness these horrible explosions & awful smoke layer enveloping the environment, in the name of a festival called Diwali!!

My neighbour was telling me that he had purchased crackers worth Rs.4000 this year, but it had all got over in just 2 days! and so he intended to go out for his next bulk purchase and show off to everyone that he too is "celebrating"!! Yuckkk!!! How stupid!! Does anyone know that the labourers at Sivakasi who make these "blasted" crackers get only 5 or 10 Rs. a day as wages... while we spend enormous amount of our hard earned money on just setting fire to these chemical commodities in the name of celebration?? Instead, cant we give at least a fraction of this money to the Bihar flood victims, the families of those killed in bombblasts or even the poor workers involved in this Fireworks trade?? im sure these poor yet skilled labourers will be able to think of alternative occupation only if this Fireworks industry is shut down completely!! What do they benefit out of this occupation as such?? a mere peanuts for salary... and a host of health problems!! they send their kids too to this cursed job just because the entire family/clan has been doing this since ages of yore! When will these children ever get a relief from this sickening work? Dont they too deserve to lead a decent & healthy life like any of us??

hmmm.... these are just droplets from my thought stream.... there might be quite a number of people who disagree with these views... may be even wanting to light a cracker attached to my posterior & send me to heaven/hell.... but all i can say to you folks is Live in Peace, only then you can "Rest in Peace"!! Be a human first, then you can be an Indian!! Amen!

P.S.: If there are other festivals/ocassions that are celebrated in similar ways, then i proudly declare that i hate them too... with all my heart & might!! All these only add shame to our existence & so-called-evolution from our ancestors!!

Musing-it-is!

2008-10-15T16:43:00.015+05:30

I heard myself deeply snoring last night... was under the impression that people with a gamut of problems in hand, never slept in the first place! hmm..

Questions like "Where do you see yourself after 15years?", "What do you want to achieve in a decade?" scare the wits out of me... coz the next living moment is itself a big fat question mark dancing before me & threatening to engulf me!

Dell laptops are so heavy that they cannot be rested on laps, for more than a few minutes!

I suffer from Diarrohea whenever the water pipe in the house is leaking, the motor stops working or when the over head tank is being emptied! Thanks to Murphy!!

My desire/dream of authoring a book in this lifetime is never gonna materialize.... for nowadays i am unable to pen even a single verse of poetry, a piece of short story or even a regular blog for that matter

Relationships are mere illusions from time to time, plotted carefully on the virtual co-ordinates of the mind...

Of late, my Nokia 5200 mobile has been drinking more sambhar than the rice or dosa on my plate!

If only life came in bits & pieces... with one pixel to live at a time... guess it is haphazardly colourful now!!

My heart goes out to the 900 unlucky staff who were mercilessly thrown out of Jet Airways yesterday. Welcome to "ground reality" folks!

The number of times Vodafone calls me everyday is double the number of calls i get from all the humans in "MyContacts" put together!

Only when i was stammering & searching for nouns, verbs & adjectives in English yesterday, did i realize that its been almost 6 months since i had an unofficial light hearted conversation at office!!

It was a shocking revelation when i saw that my physcal weight had leapt by 10kgs, just because i hadnt stood on the weighing machine for the past 1 year! it was even more shocking when my parents referred to me as bulky & ugly!

I got a Timesheet reminder just now prompting me to complete the time entries for this fortnight. how nice it would be if one were to get a reminder 15days/1 month prior to the day when one's time is up on this planet! would aid in increasing the productivity during the final days... :)

My first tag ever!!

2008-08-18T14:46:00.032+05:30

i have been (or is it 'had been'??) tagged by Her Highness Revathi Ramanan to write about all the nonsensical stuff i do in life.... i was soooooooo delighted to know that i, of all people, had been tagged.... and that too... by a writer i adore the most.... The fact that this is my first tag (i mean the one im writing first.... of course Sree had tagged me earlier to do the Book-pages123 tag, which i would attempt conveniently, when i get hold of a book with "proper" contents in Page123 :-D ) is adding fuel to the glowing spark of joy!

6 whatever’s about me:

1) im very short tempered. i lose sense of my surroundings & get very violent at the slightest provocation.

2) i am always enveloped by a strong inferiority complex, that prevents me from mingling with people, from voicing my thoughts, from living the life the way i want to... this is the factor which even kept me off blogging all these days (or years??). Now that i have started writing, i feel much much much better :-)

3) i have a great passion for music & musicians :-) Music (esp the vocal part) is like my first love! But, i have had a bad throat (read: nasty voice) throughout 365+ days, for 26 odd years now :-)

4) iam extreeeeeeeeeeemely lazy!! it is close to impossible to make me do anything... not only physical work... but also mental movements :-D this i believe is the sole reason for the sorry state of my wretched life now!! and is also the reason for responding to this tag after 36 days of procrastination!

5) i really dont know if i really like anyone in this world..... on second or third... or 100th thoughts..... it appears that there is in fact no one significant in my life ;-) And yeah, im married!! :D

6) i am a devoted pessimist, hypocrite & at times a sadist too! In short, im Ms.Hyde always roaming around in the guise of Ms.Jekyll (thats why the "About Me" section of my corporate blog has the words "Devil in Disguise"! it aint any joke) And the irony is that, i dont have a mind of my own & get so easily influenced by people, their thoughts & behaviour.... good or bad :-)

7) i hate many (a clever way of saying most :-)) men, especially the MCP kind! i also hate all BLR-kinda girls (errr.... to know of what kind the girls @ Bangalore are.... well you have to be a normal level-headed person of simple nature.... and have to forcefully live in Bangalore for a couple of months ;-)) who are either scantily dressed or dress in a way to always "project" certain aspects of their profile... Yuckkkk!! is all i can say. Their sole aim in life is to appear modern, freak out, have fun & be a nuisance to the world around!!

8) i simply love whiling away the entire day from 9 (Oh rather 10.00) to 4.00, at office and then start my boring loads of work after 4.oo and work like crazy to meet the planned target for the day! It is surprising, sometimes funny, to note that i complete all the designated work (which i am supposed to do for 8 long hrs) within 2hrs of my time.... while my colleagues slog & struggle from 8am to 8pm everyday!! The rest of the day, i spend in effectively cribbing about my stressful timings, incessant work load & work pressure that is soooo typical of this IT industry! he he heeee :-D

Now, that makes it 8 whatevers about self!! Dont blame me... it was indeed your choice to have scrolled this far :-) now, before you people conclude that i was sooooo thirsty for a tag... that the moment i got tagged... im going onnnn like a mad dog let loose in the streets, i will stop the first part of the tag at this!

5 things I miss right now:

Frankly speaking, i havent had any great moment/experience in life that i would miss right now. But, for the sake of this tag... let me squeeze my peanutty brain... and think hard.... to find 1 if not 5 "missed/lost" things :-)

Well.... here they are:
1) My childhood, when i was less evil, had lesser troubles & led a plain innocent life :-)

2) My life at Padma Sheshadri Bala Bhavan Higher Secondary School. The studies, the oratorical competitions i participated in, the so-called-strangely-insincere friends, all the awesome teachers, the meditation classes, the guitar lessons, the 50paise idli + chutney, the poori-masala, the great cultural events at the Bharat Kalachar auditorium, the proud feeling of being the only student who joined without paying a donation, the opportunity to grow amidst a lot of celebrities.... and a lot more :-)

3) My dog Jenny who passed away a few years back, due to old age & associated diseases :-(

4) My GATE preparation phase, when i badly wanted to get a decent GATE score & enter into an IIT/Anna University for my M.Tech

5) The 6 months pre-marriage period when we got to know each other better (?!!)

10 things I wanna achieve in a decade:

1) Be a successful enterprenuer (preferably run a good restaurant or an independent SW Testing company or an Organic food store :-))

2) Own a lovely duplex house, at a calm green location, architected by my friend K :-)

3) Take my parents on a flight journey (if not overseas, at least inland ;-))

4) Get involved in atleast one Work-from-home program & make lots of cash :-D

5) Donate some part of my pay towards the survival, growth & empowerment of the under-privileged

6) Learn carnatic music from a guru and be a good "notable" singer at least in the bathroom!!

7) Travel extensively (or wander nomadically, to be precise :-P) & discover incredible India, and if possible some regions outside the sub-continent too :-)

8) Work in a full fledged Test automation project & learn at least something useful (apart from dirty politics).... before i leave my current company.

9) Own a Nikon DSLR camera and become proficient/professional enough to capture good quality images using it :-)

10) Reduce my weight. i dont want a drastic change like Adnan Sami.... but at least to some extent where people dont suspect that im eternally pregnant!!

My dateless diary of discomforts!

2008-07-02T17:27:00.001+05:30

1) i feel quite uneasy when i see someone gobbling idlis or dosas or rotis or any other wholesome, non-sticky palatable stuff for that matter, with forks & spoons! A few days back, i saw one of my colleagues trying to scrape the pulp out of a mango & eat the juicy portions attached to the seed, with a spoon!! That was the heighttttt of unnecessarily-modern-stylish eating! i just wanted to leave a loud imperssion of my hand on her cheek.... but my code of conduct prevented me from doing so... Well..... what is the intention here?? is it to avoid dirtying of fingers/hand? ok, then one can very well wash his/her hand with soap & water that'll serve the purpose of removing food particles, stain, greasy matter & odour from the otherwise clean hands! if the aim is to prove some other point... like the proficiency in table manners/dining etiquette or stylish & sophisticated eating habits.... then, well.... i dont have anything to say to you folks!! Life is too simple guys & so are life styles! Pl dont infuse ridiculous complexities into it!

2) Day to day existence in Bangalore is more troublesome & sickening than life in a large metro (i know & i mean only Chennai ;-))! Waking up at 7 in the morning with half-shut eyes & half-shut mind to see very little daylight peeping in through the window (making it look like a frosty 5 past midnight!), reluctantly doing all the morning duties in the shivering cold, cooking weird dishes in a nonsensical pace & packing lunch, hurrying madly to catch the one & only office shuttle, getting stuck & squeezed in an inevitable intolerable traffic jam every single day, reaching office at the nick ot time... all weary & worn out of the essential body nutrients, spending a usually dull & dreary day at office compulsarily staring at the monitor bleakly & dreaming of the far-fetched yet fun-filled weekend all the while, hanging around with friends & relishing coffee breaks more than the coffee itself, sincerely leaving office even before the clock strikes 6pm!, painstakingly caught in the never-ending queue of vehicle population down the road, a mad rush past vehicles quite oblivious of the changing traffic light hues, reaching home with a sigh of relief & a sense of achievement, refreshing & incessant relaxing in front of the idiot box, gobbling & gnawing the little palatable stuff removed from the refrigerator & reheated in the oven, chatting about office episodes, troubles, worries, wishes & the world of opportunities before us, retiring back to the cosy bed of deep slumber & dreams unlimited!! A normal but crazy routine in every sw prof's life..... but crazier & gloomier when it comes to life at Bangalore.....

3) i completely hate people who linger around the rest room for long hours, chatting on the mobile phone for an idiotically indefinite period of time.... it is absolutely embarassing to find someone lurking about the loo... trying to keep a count of the number of minutes you take to get ur business done, the number of flushes you make, the number of times ur hand comes in contact with the handwash, the number of times you frequent the place in an interval of 2hrs etc... etc... Man, i just cant comprehend how a person can keep talking away to glory for hrs together in such a cramped whacky place (which offers zero or negative network coverage)..... all the time listening blissfully to the soulful music of water mixing with you-know-what! And how does the person at the other end (of the phone, i mean ;-)) relish this background score of strange "sizzling" sounds???!! 8-O All those guys & girls who are into this "testing" practice.... please try to understand.... there's a hell lot of vacant space outside the b.room to exercise your right to speech! Please let the souls in the holy abode "rest" in peace!! :-)

4) The recent appraisal cycle & the resultant hikes/promotions have made me reflect on how well, seemingly-trivial things like a "soap" & "bucket" go together hand in hand.... just like bread & butter, curd rice & pickle, fruit salad & ice cream, vodka & cigar :-) , Laloo Prasad & the cattle junta, Reality shows & controversies, Sreesanth & his "slapstick" comedies on the field, Monsieur Obama & Ms.Clinton, Deepika Padukone & as-of-now-Ranbir, Noida & gruesome murders etc... etc.... The only words of caution to be noted being.... an excessive exercise of soap might also land you in MORE than one bottomless bucket!! Also the same brand of soap might not suit & satisfy all sort of skins.... and if at all the soap falls down during the process, dont hesitate to stoop down low enough to grab the fragments, even if it means gracing the feet of the "provider"! And always remember.... Smoother the soap, stronger the bucket!! :-P

5) i find myself shifting in my seat, shuffling my feet & biting my nails, when someone exclaims "Whoa you are a mallu??? Thats quite surprising!! your husband does seem so.... but your looks dont suggest the possibility of you being one....." this is more like the cliched expression "North Indian" pointing to any person not from the southern states, but could possibly inhabit the east, west, north east, north west, central parts of India!! well well.... i agree Malayalam is my mother tongue, but the fact is i ReadWriteSpeak Tamil even better, know a decent "amount" of English & Hindi, am accustomed to a wee bit of French, can comprehend Telugu & Kannada to some extent, love to learn Bengali any time & have a great passion for Urdu & Konkani!!!!! Now why on earth am i referred to as a Mallu???? just bcoz that's my tongue by heredity? As far as iam concerned, language is just a medium of communication & if both the transmitter & receiver of the sounds/sights are comfortable, even sign language would be fantabulous!! Why unnecessarily associate language with one's traits/traditions/life styles?!!

6) i get suffocated & de-stabilized when iam at my native place, surrounded by infinite number of relatives, all throwing quizzical glances at me & enquiring with an unusual outpour of affection as to whether there is anything "special", anything "extraordinary" happening in my life, with an awkward, mocking smile on their lips! as if the whole purpose of existence in this world is to keep "pollinating" & multiplying!!! i wonder why the hell these folks cant mind their very own business instead of poking their large ugly noses into other people's interiors! i would very well love to massacre this entire lot of people with bare hands.... and let them know what all "extraordinary" things i am capable of doing!! just being polite & courteous all the while doesnt help at all....

7) i find my blood pressure shooting to extra terrestrial heights when the assistants/helpers/sales (wo)men in a shop keep trailing behind me in close quarters.... spying on me like the direct decendant of Mr.Sherry Holmes, breathing under my hat & making me feel like a prey at the hands of a butcher! Why do these people behave this way? Or rather, why are they taught this code of conduct? Cant people be civil/sensible enought o maintain a distance from the customers & still be helpful in times of need? Why should they walk around like they are inseparably attached to our tail bone since entry into the hideous shop!! Many a times, this has made me "flee" from shops involuntarily, without even attempting the intented purchase! it is high time shop keepers realize the need to treat their customers with dignity & provide them the right amount of breathing space & assistance! :-)

8) i feel utterly distressed & helpless when i find myself in close proximity to a eunuch! On the roads, inside parks, at the traffic signal, at the restaurant, at cinema halls & places of tourist attraction, these special set of people make life miserable for innocent individuals passing alongside them! i understand these people are suppressed & oppressed in different walks of life and find it next-to-impossible to sustain themselves on this planet. But, whatever said & done, these group of people should not try to gain sympathy or money by enforcing their physical strengths or "displaying" their biological disabilities to the general public!! This kind of behaviour will only add fuel to the existing fire of hatred, neglect & ill-treatment meted out to this unfortunate community!

The SEVEN wonders & SINGLE blunder of June 2008

2008-06-30T17:30:00.004+05:30

Wonders:

1) A school mate during my 7th & 8th classes, whom i met quite surprisingly at moi office last year.... and learnt that she is designated to be my colleague.... is married to a famous TV personality (i found this out only last week..... another plesant surprise indeed)! but it is a pity that i didnt take the effort to go & speak to her in office... nor did she... dont even know if she remembers me.... :-)

2) A classmate of mine (at college) married a guy who was also very well known to me.... both of them were a part of a large gang of friends.... and there was no cue... as to their relationship extending anything beyond sweet friendship.... i was pretty surprised (or may be shocked!!) to see their wedding snaps on Orkut! Hmmm.... life's so strange!

3) A star blogger of our company's internal blog world (who had quit his job & gone off to a distant land) called me a few days back & we had a great talk about this & that & that & this! it is really wonderful to share one's thoughts & feelings with someone whom you've never met in your life..... but know so very well.... through the blogging media! Internet rules!! :-)

4) Another great blogger of our corporate blogging space (popularly known as the Queen of Humour!) spotted my request mail as the reason for her to put up a post after a very long time! It felt so greattttt! i was soooo happy to see my name & mail content featured in her blog! :-)

5) After a gaaaaaaaaaaaaaap of 15years (Oh yeah!) i managed to scribble a decent few lines of poetry the day before yesterday.... out of sheer impulse! And was dumbstruck when i saw the immense appreciation & encouragementi received in the form of Comments to that poem! Want to write more....

6) The agent (more commonly known as the marriage broker :-)) had brought a proposal for my brother-in-law 5 months back, which did not suit our specifications much. Further, we happened to see the same girl's profile, a month ago, in one of the matrimony sites.... and yesterday.... when i was riding on a familiar road, close to my house.... i saw this girl in person.... sooooooooo close.... that i would have nearly clutched her hand in excitement! After all, it is a very small world! :-)

7) After a really long period, we (my husband & self) went for a weekend (road) trip to Nandi Hills (on the outskirts of Bangalore) yesterday. It was a different rejuvenating experience altogether..... far from the madding crowd in the city, though today has been a day filled with fatigue, back ache, headache, leg pain & so on.... Looking fwd to more such expeditions in the near future!

Blunders:

1) While talking to one of my old friends over phone last week... i had enquired about the well being of her dad & mom (individually).... totally forgetting the fact that her father had passed away about an year ago.... just a second after i uttered that sentence, i rephrased it... mentioning only abt her mother & eliminating the dad part :-( That was quite embarrasing & heart wrenching! (though she did not mention anything about my critical blunder.... but spoke in a rather reassuring manner.... about her mom & her dad's first anniversary!!) Hmmm.... Look before you leap!

The trained mind!!

2008-06-10T17:23:00.009+05:30

Today has been rather hectic & exhaustive.... since self was subjected to 4 training/KT sessions at office, which easily ran to about 6hrs of painful time!! i dont understand why a person has to be compulsarily put into some sort of training about a ghastly subject which is no way related to him/her.... just because the supervisor wants to keep the team engaged! i dont know how many times i fell off my chair dozing.... how many insects got into my oral cavity during uncessant fits of yawning..... how many tears rolled down my cheek due to constant gaze at the projected image of some stupid S/W application! All the while the trainer was going blah... blah... over some strange looking SAP screens & power point presentations, i was engrossed in the world of my dreary dreams, intricate aspirations, confused thoughts & nostalgic reflections..... Leisurely lost in the labrynth of thoughts.... i started getting some unusually remarkable ideas, all of which if implemented, could change the lifestyles of millions of software souls like me!

First of all, i was musing over the nonsensical system of 5 working days & 2 offs a week! i would like to personally meet this fellow (the one who invented/implemented this sytem) & give him a sound thrashing for wrecking our lives!! You know what? my uncle who works for Kingfisher Airlines, has the most interesting work schedule, which is Day 1 - day shift, Day 2 - Night shift, Days 3 & 4 - Off Day 5 - day shift, Day 6 - night shift, Days 7 & 8 - Off and so on..... Dont you think it is really mind blowing to work in this routine? And also, this schedule is subject to change every 1or 2 months.... for eg., last month the schedule was Days 1,2,3 - Night shift and then Days 4,5,6,7 - Off!!!! Yeah, i know its hard for most of u to digest this..... but this is how the work clock is set for the engineers at Kingfisher (flying good times indeed!!) :-D i was wondering why such a simple & efficient system cannot be implemented in the Software industry as well? This means that we wont be madly waiting for the Sat & Sundays to freak out.... or feel blue & sick on Monday mornings..... because after every 2 days of work, we get a reward of 1 or 2 days holiday! Of course, this has to be applicable in all the locations of a company, across the globe for better synchronization :-) i believe such a relaxing time table would certainly keep us stress-free and increase our productivity manifold!

This system would be a boon to expectant ladies, who get only 3 meagre months of maternity leave and working mothers who have this intriguing problem of not getting to pay enough attention to the kid during his/her growing years.... This arrangement would also enable any of us to finish off many household tasks like paying the EB bill or telephone expenses or taking a gas connection etc... etc... basically you get all the time in the world to lead a meaningful & motivated life!!
We get precious time to spend with our near & dear ones..... may be manage to pay a visit to one's native place, get in touch with old friends etc... Moreover, if any individual wants to take up a part time job, purely for generation of additional income or for indulging in his passion, then this can also be accomplished by the break up of a 7-day week in to miniscule working days of 2, then break, then 2 office day, followed by a break of 1 day..... And i strongly feel that any organization should not restrict its employees to serve only them.... Part time employment, internships or field research should be encouraged. Only then, the status of livelihood in India will see a marginal lift! it is high time we open up our minds & start thinking out of the ordinary.... start bringing in novel strategies that would make our professional life all the more interesting.... and we would never have to crib about "Work-Life imbalance" in future!

Thus my friends, my wandering mind brooded on such interesting aspects of our daily life.... and got trained to think differently & diligently! :-D Well, my training session (the actual one) came to an end at last and my trainer was asking us if we had any questions in particular. i was just smiling broadly, amused at the train of thoughts that entered & encompassed my mind during the 1.5 hours of SAP training!! Tomorrow, we have similar night-marish sessions throughout the day.... so lets see what strikes my "trained" mind in the day to be born! Cheers :-)

Timely decisions!

2008-06-09T16:17:00.005+05:30

Its been a long time since ive been wanting to spend my weekends effectively & qualitatively! (now dont ask me what this means :-)) Throughout the five tormenting days of the week, i keep telling myself that at least the impending weekend should be one of the healthy kind.... with lot of constructive tasks accomplished & some wholesome time dedicated to my passions/hobbies. But, every weekend nowadays, turns out to be a mundane, eating-watching TV-sleeping-shopping routine.... and i am at a loss trying to differentiate it from the regular week days!! There are a host of interesting things i would like to do on a typical sunny weekend (yeah sunny! bcoz the rainy ones keep you locked inside the house.... with little to do... but count the rain drops!). Examples include: A bike ride (of course i hav a driver - i.e. my husband :-)) to a faaaaar off place, some interaction with the scenic surroundings there & a cumpolsary photo shoot amidst blissful nature, watching a "meaningful" movie provided it does not eat up an entire holiday, eating out with my husband at a different place on a different & delightful cuisine, spending some time with my relatives, indulging in writing/photography/embroidery/craft work at least for a decent couple of hours each on Sat & Sunday!!

Somehow, none of these aspirations/proposals have worked out for me.... with the effect that i keep grumbling & sulking every always-moody Monday mornings! i even want to have a fitness routine inculcated in my daily life Mon - Fri! But, no amount of planning/writing short notes/keeping remiders on cell phones/maintaining a Time table from my end has helped in realizing at least one/any of these dreams :-( i feel really ashamed of my time management capabilities & the way of life iam leading! it is so haphazard, so premature, so crude & so meaningless, to say the least!! Today, i was trying to figure out the root cause of all these grievances.... what exactly is the primary obstacle in my path of glory? One significant & notorious rival to my plans is the ever-prevalent laziness.... that seems to have clouded a major portion of my life like a thick heavy blanket! Can anyone suggest what is the least i can do to overcome this sickness called "laziness"?? Next on the list would be a lot of pending chores, piled up by SW professionals like me, to be done only during the weekends (things like cleaning the house, washing clothes, paying bills, buying veggies or groceries or dresses or footwear, booking tickets, exchanging "formal" greetings with relatives/friends etc....)!! For people like me, who have no domestic help available, all these tasks have to be given individual attention and the ensuing problems in even one of these activities affects the other tasks in queue.... thereby ending up in effortless consumption of two full weekend days :-( Hence, going out to beautiful, tranquil destiantions during weekends has also not been possible, courtesy the pending work load at hand! Is there a way out of these turmoils? Is there a possibility of accompishing any of the afore-mentioned activities during the 5 days to lessen the burden on a Satursay /Sunday? Please share your thoughts on this :-)

The third vital i-wud-call-it-part-and-parcel-of-life is to dedicate time for your loved ones..... which also means an absence from the world of one's dormant hobbies/passions! i just cannot imagine myself sitting in front of the computer & happily blogging about my ideas/thoughts/idiosyncracies or experimenting with the digi-cam on weird but interesting subjects!! Such things have become quite far fetched now..... unless of course i am completely alone & jobless at home! Hmm..... it is like the cliched saying.... "if only i had more time!", even though there are approximately 48hrs at my disposal! This week too.... im trying to chart out a strong plan.... to make judicious use of the time at hand.... to allocate some hours for living my dreams.... to relieve myself of the stress & fatigue my mind is undergoing.... to enjoy the simple pleasures of life and to reinvent myself, while still completing the usual list of never-ending tasks on the weekend-to-be!!! So guys, do wish me good luck & strength to succeed at least this time!
Your tips & pointers on coping up with the hurdles & managing time effectively are most welcome! i would keep you updated ont he (after)effects on Sunday! Cheers :-)

Travel Travails!!

2008-06-02T18:20:00.004+05:30

i stay at Bangalore, somewhere close to the old airport.i visit my native place very rarely, once in 6 months or so....this is not because i am under house arrest by the Naxalites/millitant outfits nor is it because iam subject to any kind of PETA/POTA act preventing me from setting foot on my home soil... the prime reason for my infrequent visits to Kanyakumari, is the lack of proper & "tolerable' transport services from the Garden city to the tip of the Indian Ocean!!

When i was at Chennai, i never faced this problem.... there was our usual sunny Kanyakuamri Express, that'll pick me up from Egmore at 5.30pm & drop me gently at India's southern most tip at 6.30am sharp... the next day!!just had to spend a night comfortably, with hands & legs stretched....in this friend-for-life train! Now that im in Bangalore.... i have very limited... in fact, just a single "feasible" option!! My usual but most-hated mode of travel is the Semi sleeper bus service provided by KPN. This means that i would have to subject myself to approximately 14hrs of a roller coaster ride.... with an aching back, weeping toes (bcoz im too short, my legs dont reach the floor of the bus :-( ), worn-out posteriors, a moaning neck, an itching body & a can-burst-at-any-moment bladder/kidney!!

i have wondered all these years (am still wondering) why there is this inadequacy of reasonable transport services from the so-called hi-tech city, software hub, Silicon Valley of India to one of the fascinating tourist destinations of South India (if i may call it that).... And any fine day (working or weekend) i find that all the available buses/trains/flights/lorries/bullock carts & containers from Blore to Kanyakumari are FULL... and there is no possibility of getting any seat other than the ones at the top (out)side of the vehicle, without advance (read: 1 month early) booking!!! When there is always this mad rush, why the hell cant the govt or private transport fellas provide more number of vehicles in this route?? Ok now let me also throw some light on the alternative modes of transport available to me.

The Train:
There are 2 trains plying between these stations.... one of them on a daily basis & the other one on three inconvenient days a week :-( The problem with Train 1 is that it takes a horribly longgg route.... starting at 10.00pm from Bangalore in Karnataka, via Palakkad it enters Kerala.... roams around each city & township in God's own country for one whole day & reaches the land of Cape Comorin at around 5.30pm (with due regards to the punctuality of Indian Railways :-)) the consecutive day!! that is close to 24 hrs in the train.... wasting a day's leave from office, no sleep, no brushing, no bathing, no proper flushing... an incredibly nasty routine with equally stinking co-passengers for what looks like close-to-a-decade in the spiteful train!! All i manage to get is a meagre two days off from work.... which i would rather love to spend with my family at home.... than with the strange smelly species in train :-) OK now coming to Train # 2. This blighter, as i said earlier, runs only on Wednesdays, Thursdays & Sundays..... and that too... during the daytime.... thereby making travel impossible for office goers like self :-( i dont see any valid sensible reason why this train cannot/should not run on all days... or atleast during the night!! Lallooo uncle, any thought on this?? hmmm....

The Flight:
There were those (g)olden days when air charges used to be as low as 900 bucks (i.e. inclusive of the fuel surcharge, airport tax, service tax, coffee tax, toffee tax, cotton tax, airhostess-beautification tax etc... etc...).... Those days, i used to take the Air Deccan or Indian Airlines flight to Trivandrum... which is approx 2hrs journey from my native town. But, there was this intriguing task of someone always having to wait at the airport, to "pick me up" & drive me home. Another option is to to take an auto till the bus stand.... wait eternally for a pathetically cuboidal structure locally known as the "Bus", enroute Kanyakumari.... reach the destination bus stop after 2-2.5hrs of tedious travel.... and from there take another bus to reach my sweet little home... phewwwww!! Nowadays, even this has become a distant dream... with the fuel prices soaring skyhigh & all major airlines hiking the ticket fares at supersonic rates.... i seriously dont want to donate all the components of my "peanutty" salary towards air travel!! Also, another major hurdle - the Blore airport having been moved to a territory as far as the Indo-Pak border... which would easily consume 2-3hrs of juicy time & a Gawd-help-us rate for the taxis to reach the airport, from my place of residence. All this boils down to 3hrs of drive from home to BIAL, 1.5hrs in air, then again 2.5hrs from TVM airport to home - close to 10000 odd bucks & 7 straight hours even for a small inland flight trip!!!! Hence, this too is ruled out with a big fat Natraj pencil & ruler :-)

As for the last of the options - Lorries/Bullock carts/Containers, well all i can say is iam from a deejent family (oh yeah!!) that tabooes the girls from boarding lorries... or any other dangerous vehicles of the kind.... and deems it close to terrorism (travelling in lorries, i mean :-))!! With regard to bullock carts... well.... err.... i dont want to spend an entire lifetime travelling around the vast expanse of the earth.... at speeds equal to that of a walking Karunanidhi.... in a futile attempt to reach home :-) Moreover, due to inadequate possession of oxygen cylinders or life-saving masks..... and being the only child of my parents.... i refrain from the prospect of travelling in a closed steel container enroute Kanyakumari.
Thus, having "exhausted" all options at hand.... i am currently standing at the KPN office.... trying to book two tickets for my onward & return journeys to & from the peninsular district of Kanyakumari, my birthplace!!

A peep into the past & a step into the future....

2008-06-02T14:02:00.001+05:30

i realized (no not all of a sudden) that ive been dormant in this space for quite some time now..... Both my previous posts were copy + pasted from my internal blog at office - which i have intentionally removed from this site. In fact, the responses i got for one of the articles i wrote in my corporate blog, was the key cataylst that drew me into blogging in this space.... so thanks to those heated arguments & sharp comments :-) Now, that sets me thinking.... why on earth do people get so sensitive & emotional when speaking about subjects like God or religion or beliefs? To me, these are just some random topics that strike a chord in my brain..... and i treat them very much like any other topic in this world... nothing special about them!! im not a person who wants to write specifically about sensational/revolutionary/brow-raising topics.... or a bloodhound eagerly waiting to pick up a fight/argument at the drop of every hat!! All i want is peace in this world..... and i would like to reiterate the fact that all my posts here... are just attempts to share the spontaneous reflections of my mind.... nothing else :-)

Also, slowly but steadily, ive started learning this art of maintaining two individual blogs & knowing what to write in each of them.... Normally, it takes a day or even more than that for me to author & publish a post in the internal blogosphere, keeping in mind the kind of audience that visit my blog, their expectations etc... i spend a lot of time editing, re-reading, modifying content/writing flowery sentences in my posts. But here, ive decided that iam gonna blog freely.... with no concern about the content (dont worry its all original & decent stuff :-)) or style of writing; the only checks ill be doing to any post in this blog, would be that of spelling & grammar! But all readers are welcome to drop in their suggestions/tips for improvement whatsoever :-) So, here's me starting off right away.... and wishing for a happy, sublime blogging journey fwd....