Of services and tips

I am not the kind of person who would give away money easily on tips.
But there are instances when I do appreciate good service.
One such instance was when I landed at the Calcutta( I hate the sound of kolkata!) airport on my way home for diwali. Anyone who has been to the Calcutta airport would vouch that searching for a particular taxi from the pleathora of taxis is an ardous task. As I was trying to look for mine in the scorching heat, a small boy, must have been not more than 10 years came running to me , asking me the number I was searching for. As soon as he heard me, he started running along the fleet of taxis shouting at me to stay there in the shade while he searches for it. In less than a minute he came running back, pulled my trolley away from me and started wheeling it towards one corner as I hastened to keep up with him lest he runs aways with my luggage. Suddenly he stopped at one taxi, opened the door, threw my luggage in and stood with the open door grinning at me. I opened my purse and before I could do anythung, he said...thoda zyada dena madam...khana nahi khaya hai..So smiling,I gave him a good amount and before I could bat an eye, he disappered just like he has appeared and then I saw him at a distance wheeling away another passengers trolley and excitedly chatting with him. I smiled.

Long days ...

Its been quite some time since i wrote a blog... the main reason for this delay is the extremely lonely phase that I am going through.There isn't much to talk about nor is there anything to write about.

My days mostly begin early in the morning as i stagger towards my office , and ends late into the night when i stagger back from office. Although the hours that I put into office does seem like I am secretly developing a nuclear bomb for India, but the case is not so. I spend my hours in the office because I have got nothing else to do at home. I am bored; generally of life, of TV, of shopping, coffee shops, of going out...

Given that such an important phase of my life is just around the corner, I should have been exicted. There are huge magazines written on wedding planning; sold at arnd 300 rs a copy, dealing with vast array of topics like how difficult it is to choose you wedding dress, what you should consider and what you should not. I spent a total of 1 hr and 15 mins to choose my wedding dress. Its as grand as i thought any wedding dress should be. I wonder why people spent days together searching for it. My entire wedding shopping took a total of 3 days. Out of which 1 day was dedicated to collecting all dresses that I had given for alteration.

At this rate I have a 100 days to kill before i get married and almost next to nothing left in terms of shopping. So I have decided to take it slowly. I now will dedicate each weeknd for just one thing off the list. For. eg wedding shoes on one weekend, artificial jewellery on the next. Helps to keep me on my toes

Whose cow is it!!!

What does one say when a foreigner asks you this question about a lone cow on one of the roads in the national capital?

I had no answer. Neither to the following -

Does the cow have a home?
When does she go back home?
Why isn' the owner looking for her?
Why are so many people on the road?
Why are they talking on the road? Can't they go home and talk?

mitti ki sugandh

I get down from the bus and look at my watch. Its shows 6:00 pm. I look around and give an appreciative nod at the yellow flowers growing in the wild. I again shake my head in bewilderment ... even the wild flowers are beautiful.

As I look around myself.. I can see that it must have drizzled lighly a few hours ago...the road is a little wet...I take a deep breath..( a habit since childhood that comes into light everytime it rains) ...and nothing...the mitti ki sugandh that sorrunds you during the rain is missing...and then I realise....I am not in India...and a stab of something missing...

My Brother Nikhil

Its been about 3 months since I blogged last.....I intend to be more regular now, now that I have a broadband connection at home with lots and lots of time in abundance...

I am watching My Brother Nikhil...for the first time....I had a choice on watching Aitraz or this... I don't read a lot of movie reviews. I watch movies that appeal to me.....sometimes the ads appeal to me ...sometimes the songs and sometimes (but only some sometimes), does the cast influence me.

Okay...coming back to MBN...its a brilliant movie ..and so brilliantly it deals with issues like Homosexualtily and AIDS. Considering that both the issues are taboo subjects....an average Indian family doesn't discuss these topics...and considering that...the movie was a success...It managed to get the message across ....I hope more such educative movies are made..like MRN and Phir Milenge...

As an afterthought...I was wondering what would I do if I was in Nygel's situation. Would I have the guts and the strength to do what he did? I consider myself modern and educated...but would my education fail me ina situation like this? I wouldn't know.... Like it is said, you do not feel the pain until you experience it. I just hope that I have the guts to be brave and do what is right.

Not so white christmas

After 3 weeks of holiday and fun, UK has got back to work. The traffic has once again picked up its pace and unlike the Christmas weeks (when it hardly took 15 minutes to reach work) it takes about 30 minutes now.

Wanted to write about my trip to Scotland…but as I stare at my computer screen now …nothing comes into my mind. I don’t know what to write about…. Not that the trip was boring… but we mostly drove around. It being the Christmas week, everything was closed. And it was not a white Christmas (but a frosty one) in Scotland so the ski plan was a flop (I so desperately wanted to ski L). But we did drive to Loch Ness, which has very beautiful lakes. The picture attached below is one of them (which ofcourse I have taken. Scotland is so beautiful that even if a novice's photos come out beautiful) We went to a beautiful church for the midnight Christmas mass and sang Christmas carols in the shrillest voice that I have got ;)

UK has the concept of Bed and breakfast wherein you get a nice and cosy room and breakfast in the morning. Pretty nice concept, but expensive too. So we stayed in a Youth Hostel, which is another nice concept here. These hostels provide you with dorms that have about 6-8 beds in them. And it costs about £7-8 per bed. They also allow you to use the kitchen. So it’s a very reasonable option if you are travelling in groups.

During the entire trip, we did not go into any of the castles. The reason being, the charge about £20 for entry into any castle and all of them are the same. I haven't been to London, but people say that Buckignham palace is nothing as compared to Mysore Palace. I still have to verify the truth in this statement. I know its a shame that even after 2.5 months in UK, I haven't visited London. But its just that I don't want to go sight-seeing when its freezing. Its one of the coldest winters UK has ever seen, so I am waiting for summer.

Christmas in Bristol

It’s been 4 weeks since I came back to Bristol for another few months. Somehow, the weeks have just whizzed by. It seems only yesterday since I landed in UK. It took me 3 weeks to find a place to stay and I have finally got a decent 1BK flat. Right now I am staying alone and am finding it extremely boring. Last week, I got a TV and now there is some respite from boredom.

The Christmas week has started here. Was expecting to see a lot of lights and decorations here for Christmas. But I must say, I am disappointed. There is hardly any decorations/ lights anywhere except for the City Centre. The only place where I can feel the excitement is in my workplace. For the past 2-3 weeks, my colleagues have been discussing about Christmas presents. iPods are probably the hottest pick since all the shops are sold out on it. We went to buy one as a present for a friend who is going back to India and to our disappointment we could not find anything except 60GB anywhere. Finally we had to settle for a 2GB white Nano. As for Christmas excitement for me, the only thing that excites me here is the carol singing in the malls. People get together in groups in various places in the mall. One can sit for hours together and listen to them. Here a picture of the mall. It actually shows what a lousy photographer like me can do to a nice and lively place.



I am going to Scotland for Christmas. It’s a 4-day holiday and we plan to go to edinburg, Glaslow, Fort William and many other places. Am particularly excited about skiing. And I plan to get lots of lots of pictures and souvenirs for my family and boyfriend. I am hoping desperately for a white Christmas

Meets' Birthday

Meet is this little friend of mine who has just turned a year old a few days ago. He is the son of a colleague. We celebrated his b’day in a total desi style. I did most of the decorations and had to pump about 30 balloons. Poor me. But we definitely had lots and lots of fun.

I spent a total of about 5 days in Chennai and there was nothing that reminded me about the 10 years that I had spent there in a hostel. I was desperately hoping that at least the railway station would seem familiar. So while coming back I approached the station with a lot of expectations. But, nothing. It seemed like any other station in India and nothing like the station to which I frequented to for atleast 4 times a year for those 10 years.

The only place that brought back memories (just a little) was the college canteen of my sis’s college. It had the typical blue pest-o-flash in every other corner, the tumblers and other utensils arranged to form pyramids all along the canteen , curd rice being served in banana leaf and the awesome sambar that tasted just like my school mess which I miss so much now.

Out of the frying-pan into the fire. This adage very aptly applies to my trip to Nagpur from Chennai. If Chennai was hot, Nagpur is burning. Its 48 degrees here. I wonder how people manage to go out for work. I stepped out of my home at 6:00 in the evening (for the first time during the day) and had to run inside again for the fear of being boiled alive.
Have done a lot of surfing today after a long long time. Am looking forward to going back to work next week :)

So here I am in Chennai trying to beat the heat but failing miserably.

First and the foremost, I want to mention my first time ride in the low cost airline Air Deccan. I was quite apprehensive when I started from home to the airport. I had heard plenty of rumours like the Air Deccan flights always got delayed and that the window would open sometimes midair (hehehe). The simple printout which was the ticket didn’t help either. So, I had geared myself for some really nasty surprises. However, contrary to my apprehensions, everything was pretty smooth. Okay, so what if they don’t have some fancy check-in counters. Who wants these fancy things if we get to travel in a plane and also pay less. I strongly recommend taking your own food for the journey as the food that they serve is something next to pathetic. Anyways, all said and done, I think low cost Airlines are here to stay and I hope some more airlines like Air Deccan, Spicejet make an entry to make air travel affordable and comfortable for us.

What made the flight even more interesting is the cool bald dude who sat beside me… :)

So I am back to Chennai after about 8 years and everything is different. Okay, the summer is the same and we have to literally hibernate during the day. I can still manage to pronounce quite a few names of places in the first go like Nungampakkam. There is a place here with the name Butt (pun intended). But everything else is pretty different. Something that baffles me is the size of hoardings here. They are HUGE.

I would love to go to my School but I get it that its on the other side of town… So I guess I will have to skip the school plan.

One thing I liked about Chennai in particular is the way they have maintained the beaches here. All along the beach, they have some really beautiful resorts …some private and some open to public. Yesterday we went to one such resort, the MGM Beach resort and it was really beautiful. Something like the ones in Phuket. They have very clean beaches, awesome beachside restaurants. Beautiful cottages…and everything was booked solid for the next 3 weeks. :(

Will write more about my trip probably tomorrow once I am again in the hibernating mode.

Met Ami outside the SEEPZ gate just by chance today. Decided to meet with Abishek and her for lunch. And when I finally reached Tunga Paradise, was surprised with the entire gang from Datamatics :) Met everyone after about 1.5 years. Although I had worked in my previous organization only for 3 months, the crowd there was very young and lively and we got along pretty well there.

Had a nice time recalling all those incidents from my early days in mumbai. My first train ride all alone ( my freinds had promised to call the police in case I didn't report for work the next day ;) My refusing to get on a crowded bus, my first ride on a double decker bus with me sitting on the first seat on the top floor and calling up all my Delhi friends and telling them about it :), giving lift to abput 7-8 people in the car that came to pick me up from office everyday before I revolted and finally decided it was high time I started using the public transport.

Ami and Abhishek have both gotten inot the IIM's, ahmedabad and calcutta respectively. I wish I had stayed there and going by the record, wud have managed to get into one of the IIMs ;0)


Finally, I am leaving for my 2 week trip to Chennai to meet my newly married sis and jiju. Will meet my fav cousin too, so am looking forward to some awesome days.

Well, cudn't keep up the promise of posting everyday. The training plan died a premature death. Before I cud begin the third day of training, I was called away for an assignment with my previous boss who after 8 months of seperation ;) still can't seem to do without me. Thank god that the assigment lasts only till tommorrow.

Just completed reading the book "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. This book is the author's first book and he also happens to be a doctor which I think is pretty cool. The book is pretty amazing in the detail to which the author has gone in his descriptions. Very sheepishly, I now accept the fact that there was so little about Iran that I knew before reading this book.

There was one time when I too aspired to be a writer. But going by the way I write this blog, I should be ashamed of even thinking of it. :) I am consoling myself with the fact that I am more of a storyteller than a storywriter. My expressions do most of the talking.

Now that I think of it, I have aspired to be many things. While my house was getting constructed, I aspired to be a construction worker. :) I must have been in 7th std then. I also wanted to be a doctor, athelete, swimmer, a painter but among all this confusion "the constrution worker" thought was pretty serious. :) All my childhood games had a special role for this person, though the only thing this character wud do was go to the construction site ( after a long walk) and eat and then come back home :)

My landlord very discreetly informed me this weekend that they planned to sell the house. So the house hunting days are back again. It seems a little comforting to know that the neighbors are planning to give away their house for rent in a few months. The entire weekend went by wondering where were we going to put up for the 2-3 months. And to add to the despair, the landlady kept getting prospective buyers to the house the entire weekend. Finally, had to run off to my cousin’s place to have some piece of mind.

I am in a training this whole week. This week included, I will be away from office for 3 whole weeks. One week of training and 2 weeks of holidays J. As far as the training goes, all I can say is I am back to the days of ITP where we would dim the lights of the room and doze off while the faculty blabbered on. Only that, this time, new entertainment methods are being tried and tested. For example, blogging ( yes I am in the training room rite now), smsing, reading online newspapers, and lastly, reading novels surreptitiously.In fact, I plan to blog everyday this week. At least, I promise to will make an honest attempt this time

Life has a way of dealing with things. When you actually think that there is no hope left, life turns around and gives you just that.

Finally, my plans to leave for home seems real. I will be leaving for my home town tommorrow ...... after lots of scheduling and rescheduling my leave plans. Finally my PM has been convinced that she can let me go for 2 days ( imagine, 2 WHOLE days :)), without the project falling apart. I will be going back home after about a year. After all these years and years of staying away from home, it always feels nice to go back to home ( even if it is for 2 days). Home is where you get pampared for no particular reason. You can refuse to pick up things, make your bed/eat/drink/ bath ( eeeks!!! ) / be nice and no one will say a damn thing to you. You don't have to smile at everyone who passes by and you will still feel at home.

When we used to return home for summer vacations, it used to be so much fun. 2 and half months of watching TV and sleeping. It was a relief from the schedule at hostel (PT at 5:30, 7:30 breakfast .... etc). We actually used to maintain a notebook where we would jot down the list of movies that we saw during the holidays so that we could go back to hostel and compare notes on who saw the most :)) Then the movie story session would be held each sunday afternoon....

[ Back to the present :)]

Weekened was good. Went to meet a very good friend from college. She has recently got married and looking at her, I was convinced to put off mariage by atleast another 1-2 years :)
Another long lost friend called me today morning....to catch up on each others lifes, and it really felt good to be talking to her again after about a year of losing touch.

Hoping to meet many other "bachpan ke" friends in Calcutta.

Happened to watch the movie "Shall we dance" on the weekend. One quote by Susan Sarandon on her response to "why do people get married" was

"...Because we need a witness to our lives. There are a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean. But in a marriage, you are promising to take care about everything - the good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things - all of it. All the time, everyday you are saying 'your life will not go unnoticed, because I'll notice it. You life will not go unwitessed because I'll be your witness' ...."

Well, I quote it here because it is the most romantic and sensible answer I have ever heard.

As it seems, there is nothing happening on my end other than office and movies.

Interesting quotes

Life has been pretty normal for the few past weeks. So normal that I can't think of anything to blog about. Have been reading and watching a lot of TV during the past days.

Thought of posting a few quotes that I liked:

Walk a mile in other people's shoes.
You'll be a mile ahead and you' have their shoes too.
- a newspaper ad

Yesterday is dead, tommorrow hasn't arrived yet.
I have just one day and I'm going to be happy in it.
- The Sunday Times of India

Faith is - acceptance of that
which we imagine to be true,
that which we cannot prove.
-Da Vinci Code

When a question has no correct answer,
there is only one honest response.
The gray area between yes and no - Silence
-Da Vinci Code

Its the new year!

New Year Eve was fun. Far from the lonely new year eve that I had planned to spend watching TV ...this new year eve was rocking. Thanks to my cousins who dragged me to one of the clubs here in Mumbai where we got to see Malaika Arora Live :) ( I keep bumping into her nowadays). I have never danced so much in my entire life. This definetely was one of the most memorable new Year parties.

The next day, I got up early and the first thought that comes to my mind is "woh sharabi kya sharabi, jiske dil mein hum na hon"....C'mon , its the NEW year and THIS comes into my mind first? So I went off to sleep again, wishing for some nice thought to come to my mind like "me winning the Nobel Prize for Peace..or for that matter...anything :).

By sleeping till late on 1st, I had already broken one of my 2 new year resolutions. and the 2nd one is being broken right now as I blog my way to glory. ( The 2nd one was to blog only after 7 in the evening :)) So there is probably no hope left for me now.

1 question that has been going on in my mind -
Why do we go to temples? Its been a month since I have started going to one of the mandirs near my place. I have never liked temples where it is always crowded and wet and songs are being played loudly. But this temple is different. I find so much peace there, even if it is for 30 mins. And I guess, this is why we go to temples. To find inner peace.

See, its always good to put your thoughts to paper. You find the answers right away :)

How am I supposed to give a new topic EVERYDAY?

At my bus stop today, I happened to notice a big bright star that hung right above a shop that I passed by everyday...twice. "Merry Christmas" was written on it and it just occured to me that is has been 5 days since Christmas, so probably the Big bright star was hanging there since 5 days and I had not even cared to notice it. Too Bad. I chided myself on behaving like a robot [ trained to go to the bus stop and back] and not look at my super-human mumbai surroundings.

Read "five point someone" and its an absolutely fantastic and hilarious book. Started reading it in the local train on my way back home. Just 3 pages into the book and I was laughing loudly with all the fellow "inmates" of my compartment looking at me as if I was from Mars :) But the book is just outstanding in its narration and you feel so much a part of the story. well, I felt extra close because of the "Neha" character :)

Have started reading "Veronika decides to die". Lets see why.

Plan to catch up on TV on new year's eve like I used to when I was in boarding school. It would be such a big affair- getting to watch TV the whole night.We would come and sit in the TV room a little before 10pm so that we caught just the right places. It was difficult to get a good view of the TV when you are sitting 6 ft below it....but that rarely was a concern for those woh missed the "right" places :) we would be just happy to get a glimpse of the long forgotten "DD Metro". And now I come to realise how much I miss school.Every small thing excited us...

And once again....its the last week of the year

For some very strange reason, new year brings upon a cloud of depression around me. Its the time of the year, when the past kind of flashes around you. You remember the various new year resolutions that you made and subsequently broke :)) And then finally it comes back to you that the entire year just kind of flew by. I can't think of any one thing that I did during the past year that I am proud of :( (Not counting the Old lady in the local train, that was my duty :) )

Today was good....10 hrs in office and still counting :) Was able to set up the clustered server here after 15 days of trying. Will probably write a mail to my Oniste leader informing him abt this. Am thinking of telling him that this is the New Year's gift :)) Nowadays, I kind of enjoy my time in office. Getting some intersting stuff to do...[of course, the non interseting things- I delegate ;0) ]

Have to give a presentation tommorrow. I have no clue on what I am going to speak. So I guess, I shall make a move from office right now, with the printouts of all kinds of documents :))

My First Day

Well, its my first day at blogging. Don't even know if I will continue tommorrow :)