Ammamma Day

Till date, I've never had anybody standing by me and formally teaching me how to cook step by step. I never bothered to venture in to the kitchen till the time I was with mom and even she didnt bother to drag and drop me there. And once I was on my own, it was always those last minute instructions on phone by mom, "do this.. then do that. ohh you've already done something else.. then god help your curry Bye"! Most of the recipe sharing conversations end that way!
All thanks to google, now a days if someone asks me if I know how to cook a particular dish xxx, I always say Yes even if I've no idea how to even start with it.
But today's experience was different and something I enjoyed thoroughly. May be the first time I enjoyed cooking and also the end result. You may ask What made the difference? and the answer would be "Ammamma" .. umm actually ammamma in law.. but how does it matter?
She tought me how to cook the traditional dish, prawns with fresh green tamarind leaves curry. (Recipe to be posted separately). Stood by me and explained the significance of following a procedure in cooking anything. I never gave much importance to the order of putting the ingredients but today I understood how it really really matters! She also made me thoroughly enjoy the whole process by telling old stories of her learning to cook days.
Being a mom and giving unconditional love to their children is a thing in itself but grannies are completly on a different level. They are cute, adorable, loving, and always huggable!
It's my ammamma day today!!

Learnings for life.

Some incidents of past stay with you forever. Learnings for life.
Just happened to recollect one of them and thought it was worth to pen it.
20 years back, my dad's job required him to do a lot of touring all across India. And everytime he came back from a trip, it was fun time for us, as he would definitely get some goodies for us, even if they were those free chocs given on the flight.
This particular trip of his was to Delhi which was initially scheduled for 2 weeks. We gave him a small shopping list before he left and I had asked for a digital dislay "Disco watch". I was eagerly waiting for him to come back with my watch , dreaming day and night about it. And the trip kept getting prolonged to a month and a half. Delhi to chandigarh to Jaipur to God knows where else he travelled back then in that one trip. He came back home after a 36 hr long tiring train journey. I was not at home when he arrived and later when I came back from play, mom announced Dad is back and he is taking rest. I went running to him , woke him up and he was ready to hug me, when the most insensitive me ignored his stretched hands and just asked "Dad, where's my watch? "!!! He was disappointed for sure, but he did his best to conceal it. He unpacked and gave me my watch and other goodies he got for me. I was too happy about the new stuff and went to show them off to my friends. Later, mom called me aside and asked me "Did you ask dad how his trip was? Did you tell him how much you missed him in the past month and a half and did you just sit and talk to him? He was waiting to meet you and all you asked for was the watch". It then hit me that dad was waiting to meet me and I just completely ignored him. I had never felt more guilty. I then went to dad , asked him how his trip was, told him about my school unit tests but no matter what I did, I dont know if it healed his hurt, it never healed mine. It was such a big learning for life, that till date am still making up for it. I make sure that no matter how anxious I am about the gift am going to receive from anyone, the people are far more important, and the precious moments need to be treasured and not the gifts!

But the goodies never actually hurt much ;-)

Go Away!

Did you ever feel disconnected from the world around you? Wanted to be left alone with your thoughts but still felt lonely? Confused state of mind.
One of the rare phases of life am going through for no solid reason. May be just a mood swing lingering around longer. Whatever it is, it is not helping me at all. Lot of frustration, lot of unknowns, lot of questions with no answers. It's just taking too much to have a clear thought process and convince myself that what am thinking or doing is the right thing.
My own thoughts are taking me by surprise, in retrospection. Something that I thought for someone, did to someone making me feel extremely guilty now. So bad that am not even able to get myself admit it.
Any easy way of getting rid of guilt and cheer up?

Cought Behind!

Just how tough can it be to behave like a thorough professinal, work-a-holic in office atleast during the performance review times? I just somehow end up making the most easy tasks seem like next to impossible.
The other day at office, I was getting extremely bored going through a mandatoy training audio. Please note that our managers have been kind enough not to provide us with internet, so that at work, its supposed to be only work. But we always find our ways to keep us entertained. My friend and me have this new found interest.. Pictionary! Brings the best creative talents out of people who play! So with the training audio on, my friend and me started playing pictionary and she drew some animal and asked me to guess what it was! I started guessing it as a Rat, Lizard, crocodile with a bouncy tail, dog, donkey and .. Horse! A voice said from behind! We turned back in horror to find who it was! We were so engrossed in guessing and giggling that we never realised when our big boss came and stood right behind us watching all our buffoonery!
We gave him back a sheepish grin, trying to hide our drawing pad but it was just too too late! He just remarked "Looks like there is not much work to keep you guys busy...Haffun" and till date I have not returned home before 8 PM :(

P.S: His guess was right by the way.. She wanted to depict Trojan Horse!

Jo and hunger wait for none!

Just how many times does your boss think you are worthy of solving his work related problems? Last wednesday, I dont know why, My boss called me to fix some problem he was facing in setting up his workspace. This time of the year esp when the performance reviews are on full heat, ths opportunity seemed golden! I had to by hook or crook solve his problem..(Whatever made him think I coudl!) !
Unfortunately it was my evening snacking time when he called me. It wouldve been mighty stupid to tell him "Wait.. let me first save myself from hunger death then I will look in to your issues!".Snacks can wait for the boss!
I went to his cubicle and was seriously trouble shooting the issue and then just after ten minutes, my first hunger warning bell vroom. I ignored it and continued doing what I was supposed to do. Then after ten more minutes the warning bell was a little stronger, and I fidgeted a little uncomfortably in my chair. and then... the inevitable.. a grumbling sound came out loud and clear!! I was hoping against hope that only I could hear it and not my boss. As usual, there was neve a saving grace for me.. Boss confirmed my doubts by saying this " Do you want to take a break.. we can look in to this later!!" Ughhhhhhhhhhhh!! Thanks so much for your kindnes boss!!! Jo's hunger waits for none.. not even her boss!

Money hai tho dosa hai!

Long weekend just went by.. literally just went by without we doing much. Saturday evening, we decided it was just too much to be at home from thursday night and it was time we went out and saw what world was doing over the weekend. We went to a near by mall, and landed up at my husbands favorite book store. He got instantly lost in his science fiction and physics books and I was on my own. Books and me dont really go well together so I started watching people around me, all engrossed in some book or the other and most of them with glasses! Not a very eyeful watch... My eyes wanted more!! :) And then I thought I was hungry( May be it was just boredom, but eveything ends up in me feeling hungry). I went to my husband and asked if he was, and got a very "How can you be hungry already.. we just had lunch" kind of cheap look from him! May be it was also added with " you always try to pull me out of this store " look also. So I decided it was better to be nice to him, take money from him and go to the eat out place all alone. I asked him money and he was about to generously give me a hundred ruppee note when my dumb mind started working and I said " They might not have change, gimme just 30 bucks, I just want to eat a frankie". (Frankie in our ofc is sold for just 20, and I thought I was safe by taking those ten bucks extra.) Hubby happily obliged and gave me just that, three ten buck notes.
I was dreaming about the frankie and went la la la to the eatout place to find to my utter disappointment that no frankie was less than 40 bucks!!! My inner self stopped my from going back to my hubby to ask for extra money. I wanted to act smart and check out in the line up of food stalls. There should be something that I can get for 30 bucks!! I went from one stall to other, my full concentration on the price side of each one's menu. To my sheer disappointment, all I could find for 30 bucks was Extra cheese and curd :( . I went to the last and final stall with least hope and my eyes sparkled on seeing this SET DOSA ............................ 30/-
wow! This was something, I could finally get something for 30 afterall! My happines really knew no bounds. I went to the bill counter and ordered confidently, One Set dosa pls and gave him the exact change, 30 rs. I really wish it ended there but there was one more twist in tale, that guy said 33/- madam including Tax. #$%$#%$^%$^$%&^%&%$#%#$%

I had no choice but to call my husband and tell him what happened. And then he came with that triumphant look( urhggggg) and that final kill dialogue " I was giving you 100 bucks".

Why on earth did I think that on a saturday evening, Mall's eatout place wouldnt have change for just 100 and why on earth would someone gimme a frankie for 30 bucks!!!

Tinnama.. Padukunnama.. tellarindha

I think Ive got my answer and a very apprioriate one to my previous post! Now am sitting here wondering what I was really cribbing about last time! I was cribbin that I didnt have time for anything and life was going too fast. Now I realise that it was so good that life was going on like that.
Last week there was a medical (Not mental) problem with me and doc advised me to take 1 week off and take some proper rest at home. I was elated thinking about the unplanned vacation that fell in to my lap. I thought it would be so much fun to sleep till late and do whatever I wanted to all day. I was so wrong! so so so wrong! I sit all day at home doing absolutely nothin!! I mean there is nothing to do actually. Watch Tv.. browse thru the net.. all fine but for how long? Not all day!! I feel like life has come to a standstill and am just wasting it doing nothing. I cant wait to get back to my routine!!
I mean there are lot of things to do like all the pending house repair works, carpenter work and the boring chores like dusting, tidying the house etc etc! But I dont want to do them! Yuck! And I get so irritated when they say.. anyway you are at home all day.. do this do that complete that ! Uhhhhhhhhh! I salute all the successful homemakers but fr me when am at home all day.. Am Lazyness personified.. lethargy at its best (my mom gave me a new title .. "Salugu")!
Oh God.. Please save me from myself.. When will I actually get to know what I really want! And looks like you grant all my typically incorrect wishes!! I was cribbing when I was busy, I am cribbing now also when I have the all the time in the world but doing nothing ( reading books, sleeping, watching tv not counted) .. so what Do I really want??

What's your life like?

May be I have done this blah blahing before but today I had to write this down again.
My life these days has settled in to a routine which sounds and looks ok but is very boring in detail. To summarize my any day, I spend 12 hours out of home( 10 hrs office +2 hours travel time 7:30 am to 7:30 pm) , 9 hours of sleep (9:30 pm to 6:30 am .. Something I cannot sacrifice or reduce for whatever the reasons be) and 1 hr of cooking(7:30 pm to 8:30 pm) 1 hr of tv(8:30 pm to 9:30 pm) . So except for the calender date there wouldnt be any difference between yesterday and today. But there are some days , for someone else's last minute planning, my routine goes for a toss. And am like so obsessed with my routine that the very minute I see a possibility of someone disturbing my routine , I get frustrated and today was one such days. A conf call was scheduled from 6:30 to 8 pm at office and I was supposed to attend it. It meant, I would reach home at 9:30 and lose out on 2 precious home hours. I just made some lame excuse and skipped it. But then there is this guilt also that I shouldnt have done that, I shouldve attended that meeting, it was important! I think its every working woman's dillemma.. neither get a 100% job satisfaction nor the 100% home maker satisfaction.
But to put it in the other angle, I have started hating this routine also. I mean, this is not what I want to do in my life. Do I sound confused? At this point I really am.. I can't quit the job because I got used to it and have also got used to the financial independence and dependence on the good sum that gets deposited every month in my account. Its just too addictive! But its not really the case that am really happy spending 12 hours of my day for this leaving everything else haphazard. It's only when we have those friends for lunch or dinner during weekends I realise how much the home needs my attention and time. When I see other women who are happy home makers, I feel jealous, I also want to quit my job, but when I really think of it, am not sure if I can be happy sitting at home all day doing just that!!
May be its really time I seriously think of the other options I can be happy with... do something which gives me satisfaction and a control over my life and my time.

-A confused frustrated soul

What would you wish for?

I think God(If you believe in God) has this special way of designing peoples lives. Just when a person thinks he is the happiest person in this world, everything in his life is under his control, and even if someone grants him a wish, there would be nothing more he could ask for God plays his move and shows people, there can never be a day when everything can be under control :) .
This is the pattern I observed with so many people so many times that someone or the other always keeps cribbing about some problem in life, helpless, frustrated and very little under their control. I think along with change, worry is also a Constant.
In my case, I have this constant worry of not being able to eat what I want to eat in the fear that it immediately shows. A situation where my fave food is right in front of my eyes, I have the money to buy it, I dont have to ask anybody's permission to have it, but still something stops me. and that is my worry of becoming more fat. So anyday if someone grants me a wish for lifetime, I would say I should be able to eat anything in any quantity but still shouldnt become fat :) . There is one more angle to this situation, I can just care a damn and go ahead and have what I want and be so happy. But the underlying truth is that I hate when people comment on me saying I have put on weight! I just so so so HATE it! so to avoid that, I have t avoid eating and again the vicious cycle! This is my constant worry for my entire life, any day any time.
And I know I am not the only one having this problem, there are many more. So I think I should wish for a more idealistic world where people stop commenting on someone's physical appearance and accept people by their chaacter, what they actually are.
And the irony of the situation is, there are people who are thin and hate being thin and want to become fat but cannot become fat no matter how much they eat, fat people who hate being fat and want to become thin but that doesnt happen no matter what they do and there are few exceptions who are happy with what they are.
Apart from that, looking at some other issues, People who are working are either not happy with the kind of work they have or their bosses or their feedbacks and have this constant thought of "Heck.. what the hell am I doing here" and there are thos epeople who are struggling for a job and are ready to take up any damn job. Its a different thing that once they join a job, may be they would also start facing usual job problems.
There are people in my office who do not want to work on Onsite assignments due to some personal reasons and they are forced to go and they go work there cribbing all the time, and there are so many other people who are like waiting for that one opportunity to go Onsite but it never comes to them when they want it.
People who have money want more money, people who own houses want to own more houses, and the list goes on.
I think this is all a pert of God's game plan and nothing else. Never let anybody be too happy with themselves.
Share your thoughts...

poppat e mazza

Today I realised it so much fun when others around you become poppat.
I was getting extremely bored in office today, with not much work to do. Suddenly I heard some wierd blah blah blah from the CPU in the next cubicle. I turned back and saw that the guy was having his headphones put on but still the sound was loud enough for me to hear. I was just about to ping him and ask, why he was hearing to the recording with such a loud volume that even I was able to hear it clearly. Then tish tish tish.. I turned back again and saw what I saw and I was so thrilled! So many others like me. He didnt plug in the headphones to the CPU and the recording was playing out of CPU speakers. and he was actually thinking he was listening to the recording from his headphones! wah wah wah! Shabaash mere bhai.
I told him tat he had not plugged on the headphones and sound was coming from CPU, I could exactly feel what he mustve felt!! experience helps sometimes ;-)

Keep Wondering...

These days.. Ive gotten this new bug of guessing if the lady I saw was fat or was she pregnant. And yes as usual most of the times my guesses have always turned out to be wrong.
I know that as soon as I open my mouth, I land myself in trouble, but still cant help it.
Last week at the grocery store, I saw my neighbour( afte a long time) and my thought process began.. Was she preggy.. or just fat. I decided on the first option and just because I cannot keep my mouth shut and had to talk to her , I said this " Hey how are you.. Congratulations! Which month??" She gave me a pretty confused look and then to hit me on my head, she said this.. "Oh am fine.. and now I realised I am more healthier than ever that people think am carrying".
Why.. why cant I keep my mouth shut!!! God.. Gimme some control on myself!

Vannakkam.. Namaskar.. helllo! Been a long long time I have written something in this space.. and what better time than the new year to start writing again :)

Wish you all a very very Happy and Joyful new Year 2009. May Most of your wishes come true.. ( Let some wishes remain for the next year toooo ;-) )

This is the time when everybody looks back at the past year and makes new resolutions for the coming year. Thats exactly what I did and did a lil more :) I am still not able to come up with a final list of resolutions. First a stat of the last year:

1) I put on 3 - 4 kgs last year and by the end managed to shed off only 2 kgs. Was fat for most duration of the year. Ate like there's a tomorrow when we can diet not today. Every time went to Cafeteria to eat a fruit bowl and ended up eating either a samosa chat or a frankie. and there was no stopping to sweets. Guilt?? what are you talking I say?

2) I did more trainings and certifiations than some work in office. I spent 6 months just doing technical trainings.

3) I travelled like mad. On an average, I made 6 trips to Hyd, 2 trips to Vizag, 1 trip to Wayanad, 1 trip to Mysore, 2 trips to Grandpa's place, 1 trip to US. Within US, again in 2 months I was a travelling soldier.A summary of 2 months ( Bangalore--> Paris-->Omaha --> Virginia --> Omaha --> San Jose/SFO--> Omaha->Detroit-->Omaha-->San Jose/Yosemite -->Omaha-->Dallas-->Omaha-->Boston->Paris-->Bangalore) The positive thing that came out of all this is that , I stopped having jet lags :) I travelled from Omaha to Bangalore for almost 45 hrs(incl the time shift) and I didnt feel any jetlag the day I landed or even later. My body has developed an ability to sleep anytime, under any conditions and has probably gave up on me! So that makes 20 trips in 12 months :( and not to mention my daily travel to office from home to whitefield and back to home.

4) I forgot to wish most of my friend son their birthday. Even worse, I wished them either advance or belated. Both useless.

5) Spent money like mad. I went to US, came back and ended up paying back money to my company. generally people save up big bucks! I Shopped when I was Happy, Shopped when I was sad, Shopped before going to US, in US and after coming from US :) Am not really sure now whether to see it as a thing that needs improvement or a thing that needs to be stopped :) Love to Vote for former though ;-)

6) Fought with most of my loved ones.. Naresh, daddy, some frens. Said a lot of bad things abt some people, did gossiping, bitching.. everything that makes me feel ashamed now.

7) Really wanted to do something for others, but didnt do anything substantial. Just could manage to give away old clothes to an Ashram and kaamwali.

I think its high time I look at few thing that went well for me last year... (ummmm Long pause for 10 minutes)

1) I went to US on my own for work and did some good work in 2 months and this was like what I wanted to do since I got in to job 6 yrs back.

2) Got 3 awards at workplace.

3) Met up with lots of friends through the year and had a blast. Also patched up with lot of old friends.

4) Didnt fall sick much. Touchwood.

Thats it! I cant think of anything else that went well with me last year!!!

So now my list of top contenders for new year resolutions are as below:

1) Have more discipline in Life. Spend judiciously and watch my words.

2) Eat healthy (Salads and fruits) and Exercise. Keep fit if not slim( right.. I almost gave up in that word ).

3) Travel less! To quantify that statement, I would say may be just about 6 trips in the entire year.

4) Do something substantial for the poor and needy. Spend some time with people in old age homes.

5) Work.. work! do some good work.

Life mein kabhi kabhi aisa bhi hotha hai??

Yesterday there was a lunch party given by one of my colleagues on the occassion of his twins first birthday. @ the party, one of my colleagues 5 year old daughter, Anushka sat beside me at the lunch table. I was generally talking to her about her school, her dress and generally tping (Time passing) with her. I didnt realise, we were giggling and talking so much almost whole tables attention was on us. Then after sometime Anushka's mom came as she was not eating her lunch and told her to finish her rice and only then aunty( Yeah me!!) will play with her. Til then it sounded ok to me too.. so even I committed to Anushka that I would play with her if she finished the rice in her plate! (Alas!) And then comes the not so nice part... She finished her lunch and asked me to play TAD. I was not sure what it was and asked her mom what it was and she started laughing and said its Running and catching! @#$#@$@#$ How can I play Tad with a 5 yr old at a party with all my managers right there!!!! I tried to convince the lil one that we cant play there as there was no place and that she would be tired as she had her lunch just then but in vain. She sat right there on the floor and started crying and her mom was like, please play for sometime!! Even I didnt like to see the lil one crying but How can I play running and catching???? The heavens finally fell and I actually walked behind her around the table to catch her and to increase my embarrassment, Anushka shouted.. "Aunty Run.. dont walk!!!" Bhagwan.. Why didnt the earth split in to 2 and take me in!! Kids can really be so tough sometimes!! and later ( 10 very long minutes), luckily for me, she was tired and then we stopped playing Tad and settled for some silent sitting games. I was almost dreading she would ask me to play ringa ringa roses!!! But she compensated for everything later by telling that she likes me and gave me loads of kisses! I love you Anushka!

What is it ??

Sometimes it becomes so difficult to differentiate whether the other person is commenting or complimenting you. And these days such statements have increased in number for me. For eg.,

1) You are not as fat as I expected . ( what??? whaaaaaaaaaaaat??? Either I am fat or I am not. Period.)

2) Very nice snaps, you are very photogenic . (heloo.. yes, I dont look good otherwise and no wonder you were surprised to see that I look good in snaps? )

3) Ohh you cook??? ( and I hate the expression with which they say that.. How can anyone assume if a person cooks or not just by seeing them... Crappy Assumptions!! )

4) Your lunch tastes good today! you only cooked? ( Its me who cooks, its me who eats.. I dont need your vishesh opinions on my lunch box)

5) Not bad. You did pretty well in the exam. ( I know.. I know.. you didn't expect me to pass the exam!)

Am sure there were more but cant remember any more now.. will keep updating this post.. am sure there are lot more to come!

Presenting.. Joey the chef!

Sometimes you find out some good things accidentally.. like Newton got the idea of gravity from the falling apple. Today I found a new recipe for egg Curry. I was always a great cook ( yes yes everybody agress I know) but today I did something, that made me feel so proud of myself!
Today I started off to cook the most easiest thing in the world egg curry. Everything seemed to be going smooth, until I tasted the gravy. Eeeks.. An extra pinch ( ok 2 pinches) of salt slipped through the spoon in to the curry.. Not my mistake you see!
Now to lessen the extra salt effect, I added milk ( lil better), then curd(even better), lil tamarind paste (now it tastes like something) and to lessen the effect of tamarind I added more masalas.. everything I cud lay my hands on, chicken masala, garam masala, corriander powder and Lo! when I tasted the end product.. yummmmmmmm!!! and it was a super hit among my teammates and one of them even asked me to share the recipe! and here it goes for her :) First add more salt and then all the others ingredients mentioned above particularly in that order :)
Clap! clap! and more claps!
(Joey the chef taking a bow)

All written in the face!

Last wednesday I went to a party at my colleagues place. They being a bengali family, needless to say the food was amazing. Especially the kheer. So yummy. I asked them for recipe and just said I liked it very much ( yes only that) .Today after a week, I met same colleague in the corridor and I dont know why, I was reminded of the kheer, tho I didnt say anything to him. It was as if he read my mind or my face , he said there is lot of kheer at home, I will get it for you tomorrow!! I was like wow then but now going back, am thinking .. was I very expressive in telling how much I liked the kheer(which I knw is not the case as I dont remember saying nything more than just saying I liked it) or was it just the way I hogged or may be it was just the glow and hapiness in my face while eating it which was very evident!!Whatever the reason may be.. the word is spreading fast.. "jyotsna the foodieeee"
And now that the word has already spread, I wish he gets me Gulabjamuns also along with kheer :D geee

And More..

I thought it was all just with the airports.. but no.. the series continued through out the trip. At Goldie's place on saturday morning I woke up at 7 ( ppl say its becoz of Jet lag) and none of them were up. I looked here and there to see what I cud do silently without disturbing them. I couldnt find a toothpaste, cudnt find the correct TV remote , Couldnt find any magazines! so the next best option that looked very tempting was the swing in their backyard! I slowly tiptoed towards the backyard door and without making any sounds figured out how to open the door and was happy that I could open it! and then.. Hold your breath!! The loud alarm went up!! Guyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!! Goldie woke up, her son woke up with his own alarm and yeah I just stood there like an idiot completely shocked!! I just managed to do something I just didnt want to do!!
Bl$%^%dy House alarm systems!!

And it continued..

Now after one story of boarding pass thing, the next one was just waiting to happen.
I had kept my laptop bag under the front seat during the take off and as soon as they gave the go ahead signal for using electronic appliances, i bent down trying to pull out the bag from the seat that was in front of me. I was not able to reach it, I tried hard but I just couldnt. and suddenly panic struck me, did I hurt my back or have I grown so fat suddenly that I am not even able to pull out my bag which is lying just down there. And then, Tada! I realised I had my seat belt fastened which was preventing me to go down!! relief then but then..All these days i thought it was bad only to become a poppat b4 others, but now I know, self Poppat is all the more worse!!!
Moral of the story: Never try to get a bag lying under the seat in front of you with your seat belt fastened!!!

Videshi Poppat series

Now its a new high of my poppat series! Its called the Videshi poppat! and it all really makes me feel like a proper gaon wali .. new to a city.
Last weekend , I was traveling from Omaha to Oakland. I went to the airlines counter and thought of trying my hand at the self help checkin Kiosk. It prompted me for my ticket confirmation number and then asked me to insert the passport for scan. I looked left n right to see where I need to insert my passport and then I found a creek(I am sorry but not getting the right word here .. that small gap in the machine) just enough to put in my passport. I put my passport and hit Enter but nothing happened. I pushed my passport even further and tried again, still nothing happened and it was still asking for passport. And then, I saw on my right there was another creek which clearly had a lable Passport scanning here. And everything was suddenly all crystal clear! where I had pushed my passport full inside was the one from where the boarding pass comes out printed!!!!
And I started trying frantically to remove my passport from that kiosk but in vain. Then to add up to my embarrassment, the airlines guy came up and asked what happened and why my passport was out there.. I sheepishly told him what happened and he again showed me the label which said PASSPORT ScANNING HERE and I said yeah I saw that after I put my passport here. He laughed and got the keys for that kiosk, opened it and gave me my passport. I really wished I just ran away from there but I had to stand there and face that guy coz I didnt have my boarding passes yet!!!! Thats what we call Sone pe suhaga in desh!!
I had never been more proud of myself :(

Happy days..

What does it take to keep in touch with friends? A call, a mail, a chat ping or an orkut message is the least it takes to keep in touch and be informed that they are doing good in some part of the world wherever they are.

Last week I was chatting with one of my Engineering frens and we were casually discussing about some other classmates. As expected, I was updating her on other classmates and she asked me a question which actually surprised me a bit. She asked me If I was still in touch with everyone. For a second I didnt know what to answer and I was like ' yeah I didnt find a reason to not to be in touch with other classmates!'

And the same day I happened to watch 'Happy Days' movie. I seriously miss those days and now wish I shouldve had more fun then. Not that I had any less but I still want to go back and relive those glorious days. Everyday was a different day and an experience in its own.

Ok may be am digressing, coming back to the topic I started with, as to what it takes to remain in touch with people who have been part of your life and have contributed to your life in someway, may be they made you smile or may be someday you had a laugh at them or may be they helped you in some way or you learnt something from them.

Make that effort to get back in touch with all those long forgotten friends, go back to the best days of your life with them, relive your college life! Am sure it will all make you feel the effort was all worth it!

Today when I meet my friends whom I first met a decade (some more than that) ago, and see how we had been then and where we are now, what we used to discuss then and what we discuss now.. hell lot of change but at the end it seems the effort to plan and meet up was all worth it! else this trip of mine wouldve been useless. We started off with knowing each other, stuck with each other through out the years, discussed boys, gossips, college love stories, marriages, husbands and now kids , their food, their everything!!! From girls to young ladies to moms!

I know everybody is busy with their own lives and you with your own, but believe me, this will do loads of good to you! Go On.. Be a Tiger! Grrrrrr :)

Fitness freaks anyone?

Lazyness personification = Jyotsna .. Thats how I would define my current state of existance. I am now seeing people all around me jogging, working out and eating healthy. So somewhre deep inside there was a guilt pang and this weekend I enrolled myself in apartment Gym and decided that its High time I go the healthy way!
The gym reminded me of my early days of marriage. Both my husband and me were somehow very conscious about putting on weight may be because we didnt want anybody to comment that we put on weight after marriage. So my very smart husband gifted me a treadmill on the first valentines day we celebrated together! ( so much for thoughtfulness) . So those were the days of full on Josh and we used to compete for the treadmill. My turn ur turn natak and all.
Then gradually, he felt that he doesnt need to work out as he is ok but he made sure I continued to work on that. And then one fine day I read somewhere that it is enough if we work out thrice a week and still eat all days in the week ( bless the writer) . So the frequency of using the treadmill came down and yeah it reached a frequency of once or twice a month or whenever I felt the food I had was heavy (which is rarely the case). When someone asked me to count calories that I ate, I started equating foods, like 2 idlys = 1 gulabjamun so I can have 2 gulabjamuns instead of 4 idlis for breakfast :) quit some logic! Slowly I dont know why, i felt 1 idly can be equated to 1 gulabjamun and I knew my math right! that made 4 gulabjamuns for breakfast yess!
Likewise there are many other equations which I certainly wouldnt want to share them all.

Coming back to treadmill, now isntead of using it once or twice a month, we started using it as a towel stand. really, it makes up for such a good stand for drying towel, u can spread it so well. After that, the treadmill accumulated so much dust that it was not such a good idea to dry the towels too. Now the poor treadmill is being completely ignored.. it just stands on one corner of the house( leassssssst used corner and most hated corner of the house) waiting for someone to clean the 1 inch dust piled up on it. I almost feel its screaming for me to dust it but I conviniently dont even look at that side :)
Last month my uncle had come down to bangalore and he was all excited abt the home gym thing ( yeah we have treadmill and a gym ball(with dust) too). He was the one who used it all days when he was here and gave us a lecture on why we should make the best use of them and all, but yeah as expected uncle gaye, baat gayi.
Now I have somehow gathered all the enthu that I can for the gym thing! wish me luck!

Mera Bharat Mahaan

Phew.. last few days have been the busiest days of my life till date. Suddenly everything looked important and had to be finished. Found it damn tough to track on stuff. And now am finally here, in US. The place I have been waiting to visit for a long time just to check what it is that attracts so many people here and yeah also out of the fetish for increasing my cross border travel count :)

And guess what.. I don't really like this place and am still wondering how so many of our indians are here. I mean is it out of choice or its just money. People here actually and literally mind their own business which is very unlike us Indians. They will always maintain a fair distance from others. Its just they, their work and then their family and may be their inner circle of friends<>.

I miss Bangalore, I miss my home and I miss my office. Office there was so much fun, I could talk as loudly as I wanted, laugh my heart out and still feel very much correct in my own way! I mean whats wrong in that! The long gossip and bitching sessions during lunch were the best and I miss them the most. I almost knew all my team members family members names and yeah my colleagues husbands sisters husband name also :) . Here I miss all that fun and feel so much out of place. We Indians are so expressive and yeah Loud is the word! But thats the way we are and thats what suits us best!

People come here and try and adapt to these Americans lifestyle and try to own up something thats just not theirs! Aisa bhi kya jeena jisme jeene ka mazza hi na aaye! May be each ones own choice and their way of life.. but for me

East or West.. India is the Best! Jai Hind!

Happy Independence Day folks!

Let live in peace

This has been going on from few years now and now its not a big deal anymore! people have started taking it as any other news as common as sensex fluctuation.
I dont know who is doing all this, who is spreading the fear, who is disturbing the peace and harmony, whoever it is, deserves to be hanged to death not once but over 500 times! Once for every life they took.
On friday afternoon, we were in office and this news spread out that there were serial blasts in Bangalore and at places where most of my friends worked. Everyone was shaken and tried to reach people to ensure their inner circle of friends and family were fine. The phone lines got Jammed and that caused even more panic as there was no other way of reassurance. I had experienced a fear that I never experienced before. Fear of Death. A fear of What If a bomb wa splaced right in our office, what if its there near home, what if its there near Naresh's ofc building.. and several other fears combined with helplessness and anger on some unknown force who was doing all this. I wanted to screa at the top of my voice .. Live and let live people.. you dont have any rights to do this.. to take lives of innocent people.. to spread terror!!
I dont know as citizens of this country what and how we can do something against them coz I know the entire police force is not enough to protect this country of n billion people. We cannot just get used to these thngs and read it in paper and forget about it in a day. This is horrendous.
All of us need to come together , react and retaliate strongly. We clearly outnumber those bunch of terrorists and thats our strength.. we must do something about it. Coz this is not the world we would like to live in and this is not the world we would want our next generation to come in to :(

Jet Set Go!!

Sometimes in life, you do some things and you feel really really proud of yourself. Then there are times when you feel extremely disgusted about yourself for something you have done, and you just want the earth to split in to 2 and eat you up!

Sometime back, my husband and me decided to go to Anantapur to visit one of my relatives. Anantapur is around 3 to 4 hours by road from Bangalore.
We can directly go to the bus station and board a bus without any prior reservation for such short travels. But I don't know why I wanted to be extra cautious ( Strictly against my true nature ) and make a reservation well ahead, lest we get the back seats. So I went to this reservation counter, confused the ticketing guy thoroughly asking him for the availability for Friday evening, Saturday morning, Friday afternoon and all other possible routes. Finally I decided on the Friday evening 7 o clock bus to Anantapur and booked 2 tickets. I had cross checked the ticket and clearly saw the date Friday, 7:00.

As is always the case, Murphy's law sprung in to action and I was really busy at office on Friday and I was struggling it out with some issue. It was almost like a nail biting India Pakistan match , here India being me and Pakistan being that irritating issue. 6:00 pm Code change, build, deploy & test --> 6:15 pm doesn't work --> code change build deploy test.... this kept going on and at.. 6:30 pm I just got worked up and finally gave up and told my manager I have a bus to catch at 7 and will look at the issue first thing Monday morning. Poor guy .. I didn't leave him with much option, before he could say anything I was gone.

We had exactly 30 minutes to reach the Bus station which is around 18 kms from our office and it was a Friday evening peak rush hour. Things couldn't have been worse! My Schumacher raced at a speed, zig zagged in the traffic, honked, took all shortcuts possible and finally reached the station JET!!! I could sense the tension and fumes coming out of him, as he suggested me not to make any reservation and second, I didn't drop the travel plan in spite of being stuck at office till the last minute. I knew, I should've cancelled the plan but.. I don't know why!!

So you might have already got the picture by now, I was feeling half guilty for what I did, half ecstatic for we made it in time for the bus!! We got in to the bus and saw that someone else was sitting in our seats. I went to them and said, excuse me, these are our seats, please get up. They didn't ay much and showed us their tickets. Same numbers assigned!! We went and started an argument with the conductor and driver as to how they can allocate the same seats to 2 people and etc etc. Then somewhere in the middle of the heated discussion, the conductor checked our tickets and a very sarcastic smile came thru his idiotic face. He said, Madam, these are today 7 o clock tickets, and I was like yeah so? And then it stuck Naresh, when they say 7 in the ticket they mean 7 in the morning and for evening the timing shudve been 1900!!!!! And here we were, fighting vehemently for our seats which were never ours in the first place!!!!

I can never ever forget the look I got from my husband, for the 20 minute bike chase, 300 rs bus ticket waste and the vehement argument with the driver and conductor for the seats!!!

Peace be with all ... Amen :)

Living with the dead!!!!

Last week my friend and me had to go to office in the night shifts as we had some conf calls with the clients. The whole office looks so desserted in the night. Except for the security guards and us, there were no one else!
One night, in the middle of the week, at around 1:15 in the night , we realised that there was absolutely no one else in the floor, and even the security guard had gone somewhere. And after that we started hearing some wierd sounds as if someone came, but there was no one and we heard double clicks of the mouse when thee was absolutely no one else!!! The girl along with me freaked out completely and started saying sai baba prayer and me.. I was all tensed from inside but had to put up a brave face outwards else she would have freaked out even more! Both of us then decided to leave immediately.
Yesterday it was all the more freaky. We went to the internet kiosk in the breakout area to check our mails. It was around 2:30 then. It was all so so soooo silent! We sat there for 15 minutes checking our mails and then suddenly the coffee vending machine started off with a loud noise and our systems got restarted (with the message "Windows is shutting down"). Both of us jumped out of the chairs, screamed and ran back to the security guards. I was almost in the state of shock and never more scared than that.

We told the guard about what just happened, and that idiot started laughing his dash out!! He said, the coffee vending machines do a self service every four hours and discharge water to maintain some temperatures and the systems at the internet kiosk restart at every 15 minutes. Our sheer bad luck was that both of them happened together and we thought it was some tech savvy bhooth!!!

Isse badda poppat.. kabhi suna kya?? :)
And I thought coming in night shifts only meant lack of sleep.. now I know it has lot lot more to it!

Govindaa Goovinda!

We went to Tirupati last weekend and believe me, this trip has been more than just a trip to God, but also been an eye opener for me in more than one ways.
I had to come to terms with the fact that God is easily accesible to the rich and influential. The other ones {like us} have to struggle n struggle a lot to get a glimpse of him!
We left on friday night and reached Tirupati by 3:00 am. We went with simple plans that we would get 50 rs sudarshan token and get a darshan of lord at whatever time it is available over the next 2 days. We went to sudarshan ticket counter at the bus and were taken back to see a mile long L shaped queue already waiting for the counter to be opened. It was 3:30 am then. We joined the queue hoping that it wouldnt take much time, once the counter gets opened they process very fast After we joined the queue, we got to know that the counter would open only at 5am. We took it easy and felt, as we came on weekend, we had to do some standing in the queues. Time ticked very slowly and it seemed like an eternity before it struck 5! I was eagerly waiting for the queue to move but even at 6 we were at the same place in the queue! Then the queue started moving at ants pace, but we were moving. Then a little later we realised, people were not very keen in following the queue system and lot of people were starting their own side queues(somewhr at the middle or beggining) and joining the main queue. People like us at the far end of the queue, stood where we were!!! and by the time we realised that even we had to do the same thing it was pretty late I guess. and believe me, it takes a lot of guts to join somewhr in the middle and ignore the angry glares and not so good to hear language of the others in queue.

But when we reached that turn of the L shape queue, things worsened. people suddenly started pushing from back, and people in front did not have any place to move. We found it almost impossible to ground our feet! Sandwiched is the right word. And all this after standing 4 hours in the queue. It was 7 o clock then. But what kept us going was that we felt we were almost done, for we were now at the shorter queue that took us to counter. But we were so wrong.. so so so wrong! There was this light at the end of queue whch we thought was the ticket counter and when we reached there, we realised that it was just another turn and the counter was still far far far away!!! and before we reached the counter we had to survive a few more sandwiched turns!!

I would give you some attributes of that sandwiched queue.. Noisy, frustrated, sweaty, smelly, angry and everything else that I cannot put in words. What was more heart rendering was, people with small babies standing in the queue and people caring a damn for those babies and pushing those who were carrying them too!! The agony those angels were put to was just not done! I almost felt like standing up for them and shouting at all others, but there were others who could shout louder than me! :( and yeah so much for good management, for all the people standing in the queue, there was just one ticket counter and the person giving tickets was taking his own sweet time oblivious to peoples suffering! After all this, came the good news when we were at 500 mts from the counter. The tickets for Saturday got over and we had to come and go through the same queue on sunday to get a ticket for sunday. None of us were prepared to do that! Going through that torture again is something I would not do even if someone said they would give me diamonds when i reached the end of queue. No! No No No!

It was 9 o clock and we were standing there at the bus stop, looking like we just came out of a warfield, beaten, bashed, each one of us smelling like onions and ith no tickets ! We had 2 options, one to go back to bangalore without darshan, second to rack up each ones brains and remember anyone and everyone in our friends circle who in turn had some influence at Tirupati through some relatives. Finally after making some calls, we struck Gold. A person who almost seemed like an angel for us at that time said he would arrange for a darshan next day early morning and also for accommodation :) we couldnt have asked for more. We felt we spoke to Lord balaji himself :)

That was the first smile of the day. Then we left for Tirumala and on saturday as we had nothing else to do other than giving mokkulu ( my FIL n MIL had to offer their full hair) , we went around looking for barber counters (Kalyana Katta) . Here too we had queues, but glad that we had to wait only for 2 hrs :)

Next day we were in the darshan queue by 4:30 in the morning. In fact none of us could sleep all night, with the fear that if we missed out on getting up early next day, we might not get a darshan at all. This queue in another story :) people all decked up in jewellery, silk sarees, silk kurtas, pattu panchalu, tommy girl and JLO perfumes and inspite of all this, there was that tirupati typical pushing that we now mastered! This time we managed to hold some ground successfully without getting pushed with no control. But I suffered from some blows in the stomach and back. A lady all decked up in gold gave a me a blow in the stomach with her elbow, pushed me back and joined the queue before me. I was so shocked to even say anything and yeah before I could say anything she was far ahead in the queue :). people behaved as if they were in some big hurry and if hey didnt break the queue, they would not get a darshan. I dont understand what they fail to understand that everybody in the queue will get a darshan and their breaking the system is only going to make it take longer time {for people like us}

In Spite of all this, I tried not to lose my cool and concentrate on God. I realised the time, effort and money that we had put in and how valuable this darshan was. I then realised why my Dad during our earlier trips used to get irritated when I used to giggle and joke in the queue . He always used to tell me not to do that in the queue and concentrate on God as there was nothing more important at that time. Now I comepletel understand why yo scolded me then Dad. Am sorry Dad for all the irritation I caused you!

So this time, I was fully concentrating on Govinda. But there was something missing. Earlier, people in queue used to continously chant Govinda, one of them would say loudly Govindaa and others would follow him. but this time it was not happening. The only people who were doing it were My mother in law and me. She shouted Govinda first and I followed her. Sometimes Naresh joined us meekly :) And the worst part was, when we were doing this, people stared us as if we were a bunch of uncivilised shouting in the queue!! Whatever happened to all those in the past who used to Chant Govinda with full bhakthi. But now we ignored such glares and continued with our chant. It took us 2.5 hrs for the Darshan and those precious 30 seconds of Gods Darshan made us forget all the troubles and effort. It was worth all the way! Such is his charm.. Govindaa Goovinda!

life and luck!

Man proposes God disposes, Whatever happens Happens for good, Destiny, luck, chance, good time , bad time!!

There used to be days when I used to doubt the authenticity of all the above mentioned sayings.. I felt those were all said only to comfort and said only when something happened to someone which they didnt want to happen. I truly believed those were said just to create a comfort zone or rather say something to cover up their inability.

But these days, life has been taking hazaar turns which is making me strongly believe that there is someone or something that decided what should happen next in our lives!

Some events that seem so inconsequential when they happen, later on prove to be essential or a prerequisite for something else to happen. and hen we realise, goo that it happened then. Its almost like it has been all pre-written and we are only living our roles out here!

Am waiting for something to happen in the near future and will then write it out as a proof to my above given statements :)

spell check

There was a joke in an old telugu movie.. a guy goes for an interview and the interviewer asks him the spelling for coffee. This guy says this " K - A - U - P - H - Y" . Yes you guessed it right, he gets the job because he managed to tell a spelling which didnt have even one letter thats there in the actual spelling of coffee.

Ever saw the funny spellings on the shop boards? very very funny ones.. I wonder who comes up with those spellings, the shop wala or the one who paints the boards..

Today the spelling that triggered this post was "Sai Nudils" .. and if u actually try and read it by breaking the word.. completely off the mark from Noodles! Actually you would find a lot of other vaiations for that word, noodils, noodles, noodels, Mancuria.. the list is endless

One more board that caught my attention was this "Akshaya Navaltiss" .. how much ever hard I tried, I cudnt think straight on this!

Few more..

Krazy fast food ( Why on earth will anybody start their own food chain business and name it krazy !! )

Ravi Mens hair cutting SELUN ( good! Awssum)

HardWear shop (this one left me in splits!!! :) )

Tinkaring shop

BanGELS ( Gels anyone?)

Tell me more if u find them !!

Thank you God

Today I thanked God again for all that he has given me and realised again how I should not be taking things for granted.

During lunch time, my friend told me about her aunt's illness. I dont know what that illness is actually called, but its really bad. Aunty cannot drink water the usual way and her water intake is through a pipe which runs through her mouth to the stomach. if she takes water directly, she will get pnemonia. I dont know if anything can be worse than that. How else can you explain not being able to drink water even when you are thirsty and there is water available around. The very fear that drinking water can be as dangerous as taking your life.. I almost choked at the very thought.

The veyr fact that we have been gifted with perfect health is a reason enough to be happy always. Thank you God.. thanks a lot!

Bug's Life

Yesterday I watched this Animation movie Bug life.. and liked it too. Technically speaking Neemo or Ice age series scores a lot over this movie at the animation but the story line was good.
There is this Ants colony which keep collecting food all thru the season for Grasshoppers. Ants believe that they have to serve grasshoppers else the grasshoppes would kill them. But they dont realise the very fact that they outnumber grasshoppers 100 to one and if they believed they could, they can defeat the grasshoppers.
So the moral of the story is that what we believe is what we do.. If we think that we are not capable of doing a particular task, we really cannot do the task even if we really are capable. So its our attitude and self belief that takes us places. Jo hum real mein chahthey hain actual mein hume wahi milta hai. Very true...

Coorg trip travelog

We were looking for a weekend getaway which was about 6 to 8 hrs from banaglore and a hill station to take a peaceful break from the mundane routine. We zeroed in on Coorg after going through various options. We booked a cab and booked a homestay . There is a lot of information regarding the various acco options available at Coorg. We packed our bags satday night and we all set to go!
Sunday.. bright cool day and we started by 7 in the morning. Stopped by the Kamath Lokaruchi on Mysore road for breakfast. They have a wonderful breakfast buffet for 60 bucks and they serve you all the dishes you can think of for breakfast including kesari bath, bisebillabath, pongal, masala dosa, puri, idly , vada, cut fruits and lot of other stuff!
It was around 2 by the time we reached our first tourist locale in Coorg. Nisarga dham. A forest kinda place with kaveri river running across. We left for Madikere after spending about an hour at Nisarga dham and it was around 4 by the time we reached Madikere. We covered the local tourist spots like Raja's seat, Fort, A shiva temple which looks like Masjid. The restaraunts in Coorg are not very hi fundu but you get good food in every small restau.
Next day we started early and left for TalaKaveri, the starting spring of river Kaveri, which is about 48 kms from Madikere. The way to Talakaveri is very very picturesque. The green deep valleys, the green meadows, coffee plantations, it has it all! it took about an hour and half to reach Talakaveri. There is a view point there, which reqires us to take a flight of 300 steep steps but its all worth it! you are almost there in the clouds. and the view from the top is just breathtaking. We didnt even realise we spent almost 3 hrs there. We started back and reached Madikere, had lunch and headed for Abby falls. I think this can be given a miss. There was nothing much there but for a small waterfall which again demanded us to get down some 100 steps and again climb them back to get back on road! Then we went to Dubare. This place again is just too good! It has this Kaveri river running across beautifully and on the other bank, there will be bunch of elephants which are being washed, fed and trained. A real sight! there are boat rides to take us to the other side to view the elephants closely. There are fixed timings when they would show the elephants, once in the morning and again at 4 in the evening. This is a must go spot.
From there we went to the Golden Budha temple. The temple is open till 8 in the night, but we wished we reached that place a lil earlier, coz it was getting dark by the time we reached there. The temple is built by Tibetians. The temple is actually in the Tibetian village there. The architecture of the temple is simple amazing. We were impressed by the outside structure of the temple, but what we saw inside the temple just left us awestruck! 60 ft tall budha statues all in gold, 3 of them and amazing wall paintings all over the temple and bautiful flower decorations. It just made our trip more worthwile, w were glad we chose Coorg! We did some shopping in a near by market place where all Tibetian stuff was on for sale, real cute stuff I say!
We also had our dinner there, yummy momo's, tupka and noodles!
And then started back to bangalore.. took arnd 4 and half hours to reach home.
One trip which I would actually remember for the Golden temple.. the very first view of the Budha gives so much peace to your mind. and also the trip didnt cost us much. Homestays are pretty cheap and bagain to get a good deal. Our homestay was very neat and had a homely atmosphere with friendly owners and we got it for 800 rs per room per night breakast inclusive.
Coorg is also famous for its Spices and coffee powder and sandalwood.

Overall I would rate this trip 8 on 10 :)

Haal e dil

Dil se tumhe nikalna bhi chahe tho nikale kaise
chaye hain itne gum ke badal inhe hatayein kaise

Tum paas ho kar bhi paas nahin, dur tumse ho nahin sakte
yeh kaisa lamha hai zindagi ka jisse hum saath guzaar nahin sakte

Duniya se yeh aanson chupaye kaise,
muskuraana bhi chahe tho muskuraaye kaise

kadam aage badhayein kaise, tumse nazar milaye kaise,
yeh dard e dil ki dastan sunayein kaise..

woh lamhe jo saath guzarein hai unhe bhulayein kaise, tumhe dil se nikaale kaise..

almost there.. but missed it!

Today something happened that triggered this new entry after a long break.
There is this girl in my ofc.. Shez a lil more than just a colleague and less than a friend .. so i will call her an acquaintance.
I dont know usko mujhse kya dushmani hai.. rather dushmani mujhse nahin mere khane se hai!
Everyday I go to canteen with my team mates for some snacks in the evening.. one day it so happened that all others were stuck with some work and I was damn hungry so I went alone to the cafeteria. I took a samosa from cafe day and just sat down to eat it. < I always like the crispy end of the samosa and keep it to the last to relish it!> So i just started eating from the cone side and I saw this girl coming from no where and asking me why I was eating alone in the canteen and while I was telling the reason she took the samosa and started eating.. I hought she would just take a bite and leave it.. bt I was watching and she ate off the whole samosa :( and thee was no time left to buy one more and eat.. I thought may be she was too hungry so its okay..
Next time I bought a juice and was on my way back to my desk and saw this girl again.. she took my juice.. one pull and my juice glass was all empty!!
Even then I took it easy..
Today it was heights!! I was sitting with my team members and having kachori chat.. yummm and this girl came and I thought there are so many others and I was sitting at other end of the table so am safe.. but no.. she came all the way to me and ate my whole chat.. :( sabko chod ke woh mera hi kyun khati hai hamesha!!!
why me.. why only me???

Mufth ka advice!

Now a days people giving advice for free has increased manifold or it may be the case that I am experiencing it only now! they just give advice on anything and everything! May be some of their intentions are for my good but still.. too much of interference just pisses me off far too much!

Advice would be an understatement.. actually they try to rule ur life by telling you what you should do when! some of such common free ka advices or orders these days are..
"Why havent you guys still bought a car?? How long will u travel on bike!"

I dont understand how me and my hubby travelling on a bike can make them feel so uncomfortable! Not even the case that I cribbed before them that Bike in bangalore is so tough to drive and manage!

"You have not yet planned to buy another house? I think you should start thinking about naother investment"
I wish I could say.."Sorry i dont remember.. when did we appoint u as our financial portfolio manager? U r s good in that!! "

"You have not yet bought an LCD TV? Why??"
What a waste of life .. we didnt buy an LCD TV.. !! I am so sorry.. I will make sure the next time u visit us we will have an LCD TV!!


And the worst and most irritating of all " You guys r married for 3 yrs. No good news yet??.. too bad start planning"

"Thank you so much aunty It was so very nice of you to interfere in my most personal matter and made me realise what a crime I was committing!! If not for your eye opener.. We wouldnt have known and lived our whole life childless! I am indebted to u for my whole life"
I seriously dont understand why others are so curious abt the happenings and proceedings of others life and expect others to live life according to their wish!!
Some issues which wouldnt make a difference to them in any which way.. but still they would give their valuable opinion/suggestion on everything!!

This post is coming out of sheer frustration on people who have been continously giving us the set of rules by which they expct us to live! Puhleez people.. Live and let live.. everybody is mature and capable enough to handle their life and everybody know what to do when and how!!

Poppat umpteen- Timing couldnt be better!

This happened almost an year back.
There was some work in project that was scheduled for the weekend and my lead was looking for a resource to assign that work. As usual everybody was passing the buck and I also told him " I will be out of town.. I cannot come" . By that time there was absolutely no plans for the weekend but I just didnt want to waste my time in ofc over that weekend.
Later we planed to go to Wonderla that weekend along with Naresh's colleagues.
Wonderla is a theme park in bangalore with all water rides and land rides.
Saturday I was having fun in full blast in those water rides. There was one ride where we need to take the stairs and go up and slide from there in a water slide.
I was on top of that ride when I saw someone very familiar there.. And the worst of my dreams came true.. it was My Lead!!! What would be the chance of meeting me meeting my lead of all the people and of all the places in wonderla and of all the rides. on that single ride!!!

I didnt know whether to talk to him or act as if I didnt see him or just slide immediatly from there.. Before I could decide on anything.. My lead saw me and came to me and introduced his family.. I was never more comfortable.. The downslide was never more comforting..

Stop Cribbing.. Stop Living

Yes.. thats exactly my funda of life from today.
Inspired from a lot of things..

Today while I was doing my usual running to catch the office bus, I was cribbing so much tha only I have to get up early and run and catch the bus .. I almost felt like all troubles of life were dawned on me. Then I noticed a lady walking bare foot carrying two big containers of water.. one on her head and one on her waist.. I then realised I forgot to thank God for giving me the life I am leading.

We have got used to cribbing about everything so much that, we have stopped enjoying what we have. We have started taking things so much for granted that no matter how much we have, we are never contended.

A warm shower, New clothes, good breakfast, awssum lunch, hands full of work, good bank balance, a movie , dinner with family.. believe me enjoying and being happy for all these makes life a lot more happy and feels gifted! atleast for me it did :)

Dumb.. Dumber.. Dumbest!

Engineering days were great fun! and what was more fun was the 2 hour travel from home to college in the bus! Travelling with a bus full of monkey was never more fun!

In the route from home to college, there was a bridge over a railway line and sometimes it so happened that whenever our bus went on that bridge, there used to a train going below the bridge. Somehow this story reached my ears that, whenever a Goods train passes by when we are on the bridge, we should make a wish and that wish will come true!!!
Me and my friends strongly believed that whatever we wish , it will definitely come true.. and the wishes usually used to be for clearing all the papers :)
While we used to wish , there were some monkeys who wished loudly that whatever we wish should not come true!

And I still cant believe, how I could actually believe the reason behind the wishes coming true only when a goods train passes below you and not a passenger train... Yeah am sharing it with all of you and you can figure out why!!
Goods trains generally carry coal or wood in them. This coal will carry our wish and when the coal is burnt, the smoke goes up, forms clouds and it fulfills our wishes soon!! and if its passenger train, and we make a wish , someone in the train would pass away to get our wish fulfilled!!!! and its only devilish to wish someone dies to get our wishes fulfilled.. so we dont wish when a passenger train goes under that bridge!!

Thanks to that person who actually made up this story and believed that i would believe it.. and yes! th eperson was very very successful! all the 4 years I spent time waiting for that goods train to go below the bridge when I am o that bridge!

Common Poppats

There are some common incidents that keep occuring time and again and I never learn from them.. it has now become habitual to behave like this!

Other day I was talking to my friend on my mobile and somewhere in the middle of the conversation I started searching for my mobile in my handbag.. and obviously I didnt find it, I started searching frantically and told my friend I will talk to her later as I need to search my lost mobile!!!
Friend ka tho obviously sound off and by the time I realised how dumb I was acting.. damage was done :(

Coming to a more common situation.. I always have a great confusion when it comes to directions.. north east west south left right.. ohh god! so many of them!!
and directions combined with mirror imaging is lethal!! when some instructions say right side of the screen.. it takes a minute to decide which side of the screen I have to look at.. is it my curren right or is it the right if i am not facing the monitors .. which side!!!????

When giving directions to someone is even more confusing...
Once I was giving Naresh some directions to reach a place.. at a point I said "take left take left" and I was actually showing my hand towards right! poor thing just stopped not knowing which direction to go!

Things like these have started happening more frequently these days.. and people arnd me are getting used to it!

Joey Poppat 10 : It was my system that was not working!!

I was in the IPC training in training room no 13. I think you all know how systems are lined up in a training room. Monitors adjacent to monitors, cpu adjacent to cpu and so on.

I was asked to try out a program and as expected when I ran the program it went in to an infinite loop and the cpu utilization went to 100% and there was nothing I could do to end that task but to restart the system. I tried restarting the system, but even that was not working. So I switched off the power connection and I was shocked to see that my system was still on... was my program so devastating???!!!!

All this while as I was busy with my ultra poppatness, i didnt notice that the girl sitting next to me was staring at me completely flaring up!
Ha ha ha!! all this while I was restarting her system's cpu and unplugged her cpu's power connection :) :) :)

Poor thing all she did was to stare at me blankly.. helplessly!!

I still owe her a treat as it was because of me that she couldnt save her programme and both of us got a B grade in that training :)

I accept donations for giving her treat.. all my friends.. listening??

Poppat queen!!! Couldnt get better than this!!

Ok I cannot tell you when this happened, why this happened but it happened. something that shouldnt have happened!

I once happened to extend my leave for 2 days and after I came back I had to go to my manager to explain why!! I was tensed like mad.. and was thinking of all possible bahanas I could come up with and was rehearsing each one in mind.

Went to my Mai baap and said this.. exactly this..

" Hi.. As I was suffering from my cousins wedding..." Bham.. bhoom #%#$%$%^%^%$&&

what the Dash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldnt utter a word more and my boss was ROTFL :(

Bouts of guilt.

Do you believe in the eveil eye/nazar lagna/dishti concept? Even I never took it very seriously till I happened to experience it first hand.
Coming to some elaboration on the concept, people say that if X is not hapy abt Y's happiness and is very Jealous of Y, then something bad will definitely happen to Y if X has that Bad.. Evil eye. There will be some people who will be unaffected by others success, happiness and prosperity but some get really cranky.
And to not to have such effects of buri nazar, they do Nazar utaarna/dishti theeyatam.
First time when someone utarofied my dishti was after my marriage, Naresh's mom did that for both of us and I found the process extremely funny, but now I see some sense in it because it really does work.
Ok.. now coming to what happened in my case..
I am currently in a project which is still in mobilizing state.. as in team formation. and they are filling up both offshore and onsite positions. I had been staffed for a module lead-offshore position. Later I was asked to interview other resources for the team.
There was one girl, a Java resource whom I had to interview for an offshore position but required to travel to onsite for knowledge transition KT. < My manager told me that I need not travel onsite for KT as I had to handle offshore KT> I started sulking the moment I heard it as there was nothing else that I could do about it!
I went to interview this girl and may be because of my sulky state of mind or whatever, I didnt make her feel comfortable and asked her all possible crap. But I have to admit she was good! she was damn good. So at the end, as instructed by my manager I asked her if she was ok to travel and had no problems with it and whether she had a passport or not. I could see the glow in her face as she almost jumped and said, she had no problems travelling and whatsoever!!
By this time my mood had worsened.. it was the only thing in my mind.. I was actualy cursing my luck that how could i have been in a situation where I am interviewing a person for such good opportunity and I myself am not able to take it up even if I so badly want to! I truly felt I was more deserving :)
I was also very very jealous of this girl but conveyed my manager that she was good and we can take her.
I kept sulking that evening and shared my woes with almost everyone possible just to pacify my badly beaten ego and luck.
Believe it or not, two days later my Manager came to me and said we were not able to staff that girl. Because by the time my manager went with the staffing request, she was staffed by some other project. and he said we might have to look for other people to fill up that post in our project.
Then my guilt took over me, it rarely happens this way. Two projects trying to staff the same person at the same time when there are hundred others lying free on bench. Her tough luck that she got staffed in to a project which didnt require her to travel or may be it was my jealousy which turned as bad luck for her.
From that day on, my guilt pangs keep coming back whenever I see her anywhere in office.
I really feel bad about my own thinking and the way I took things.. its a small opportnity which really doesnt matter much for me at this stage of life and there will be lot of such offers or even better ones that will come my way in future.. I shouldve been happy for her that she was getting that opportunity.. instead I sulked and believe me till date that position in our project has not yet been staffed .. for some reason or the other.. :(

From then on I decided to make a conscious effort in being truly happy for others when they are getting something that I am not.. and I highly recommend this to all of you because it really makes you grow as a person..a lot better person :)

Joey Poppat 8: Mummy Maggi.. bas do minute

Today when I was boarding my bus, little did I knw that I would have a new
Poppat story to share..

As usual I fell asleep within 5 minutes of boarding the bus with my mouth
wide open. But I woke up to a yummy aroma of
maggi. I started to look in the bus where the aroma was coming from. < dont remind me of sniffer dogs here>
The girl sitting next to me had opened her breakfast box and it had piping
hot maggi and my mouth started watering

I didnt realise I was staring at her box so shamelessly till she gave me a look which said " You didnt have your breakfast??"
I so much wanted to say Yessssss but then remembered that there are words like shame, manners, etiquette which stopped me from jumping on to her and hogging her maggi..

May God gimme friends whose lunch box I can shamelessly hog on!

Joey Poppat 7: whats with the egg now!!

I love eggs! for the fact that they r so good to eat and so easy to prepare! effortless cooking ka saathi!
It has seen me through my tough times of cooking, any day, if the curry doesnt turn out good, eggs to the rescue. Anyday if u dont want to cook, eggs your saviour!

That day, I was not very keen on cooking and settled for preparing omlettes for dinner. Fortunately or unfortuntely, had exactly 2 eggs in home.
Now arent you thinking, what can go wrong here, 2 people, 2 eggs, 2 omlettes and dinner done... as simple as that! even me thought so.. but as usual, my luck.. my poppat luck.. :(

Scene 1: I took out the eggs from the fridge.
Scene 2: I placed the eggs on the kitchen platform.
Scene 3: I put a pan on the stove for heating.
Scene 4: I got 2 dinner plates to put the omlettes in the plate directly
Scene 5< it doesnt take any longer for things to go wrong!!> : I put the plates on the kitchen platform and then there comes a sound different from what u get when u bang ur plates on the kitchen platform. and within a split second I realised the reason behind that mysterious sound!!! I put the plates on the eggs and they crashed :(

Scene 6: A helples, frustrated, poor me cleaning the kitchen platform, dinner plates, stinking kitchen, and then cutting bhindi for cooking curry for dinner :(

Joey Poppat 6: I think I knw your name!

Coming back to my Poppat series , this one happened very recently.
I have a new bunch of friends with whom I have lunch everyday and where we sit and discuss all the national, state and city issues.
There was a new girl who was assigned a desktop adjacent to mine and as she was new to the office, i asked her to join us for lunch.

As soon as everybody sat down at our usual cafeteria adda, i thought I should introduce the new girl to the gang. I started the introductions with the new girl and told everybody her name and i started to introduce the gang to her. Suddenly after I started off, my mind went blank... and I couldnt recollect anybody's name who sat there.. I just didnt knw what was happneing but no matter what I did, I could not cover up my embarrassment!!!
How can one start introductions and forget names of people whom they r introducing....!!!! but it happens.. it happens with me all the time!
Hence I take the oath, I will never again introduce anyone to any other one!!

Days on bench...

I have been recently released from a project and am currently on bench. And in our office, all the people on bench are supposed to go to the whitefield facility, dont ask me why. On bench implies joblessness and to travel hours together everyday to that office just because our HR wants to make sure we are sitting in office jobless from 9 to 6, everyday!!! They cudnt have been more devilish! Imagine getting up early in the morning and trying hard to catch the office shuttle at 8 and reaching office by 9 to have a pathetic breakfast there served by our office caterers!!

A typical day in office when on bench would be something like this:
Reach office by 9, swipe in and go directly to canteen for breakfast. Have breakfast till 11 .. yeah theres so much to discuss in the monring.. for eg, the news in the paper and also the news each ones personal fron also! then go back to the desktop and check mails, read all the fwded mails,reply to some of them, fwd them again, and
keep refreshing the inbox in the hope that someone will reply to my fwded mails ..
Yeah also browse some arbit sites for bollywood masala gossips.. then its time for lunch.. 12:45 sharp.. deciding on the menu.. stading in the queues and then eating takes so much time I tell you.. so we have to be i canteen tll 2.. sometimes 2:30 :)
Then go back to desks and make those daily routine calls, ask what else wat else to everyone and sit and chat with other bench mates and before you realise it wouldve been 5.
Going back to canteen for snacks or juice wouldnt sound like a bad idea and yess! we never idea go waste! and by 5:30 we start getting ready to catch the office bus at 6 .. need to go early to stop to catch our fav seats in the bus.

There wouldnt be many deviations to this routine unless its a month end, then we need to go to ATMS to check if our salary has been credited :)

So much for the hardwork we pu tin everyday...

Joey Poppat 5- Thrills of Mumbai

Naresh n me had gone to mumbai to visit Di and jijju. They took us to all the good places to visit and famous restaurants. One such restaurant was Mohun's in South mumbai. It was famous for its sea food.
We went there for lunch and asked the waiter to suggest some good items as the menu too long. The guy started suggesting some dishes and I was trying to find that dish in the menu.. primarily to see the price. I found that whatever dishes he was suggesting were very costly. I wanted to inform the same to Jijju as he was not looking in to the price and was ordering.
I felt that my brain worked super fast and a bright idea stuck me .. I told him in telugu " Veedu anni dharalu ekkuva unnave chepthunnadu" (translation: this guy is suggesting all the dishes which r costly). i framed the sentence so carefully in telugu that I made sure I did not use even a single english word.. I was proud of myself that I could think of a telugu word "Dhara" for Price.
To everybody's surprise and my shock , the waiter replied in telugu " meeku nachinavi order chesukondi madam" (translation: please order whatever u wish madam".)

My head started reeling... why on earth should a mumbai restaurant hire a telugu guy!!!!!!!!!! I never felt more embarrassed!!!

Joey Poppat 4- Maths was always scary!

It was during those days when I was in my 12th standard. Maths lecture on Quadratic expressions was going on.
Subbu, bunny and me were as usual not paying attention to the class and were playing tic tac toe in the class. and suddenly for some reason Subbu laughed out loud and we started giggling with her. Lecturer saw us and asked subbu to stand up and asked her what next has to be done to the problem that he was solving on the board. She stood blank and I like a super intelligent girl prompted her the answer. The answer according to me was very very obvious. There was some expression in the numerator and some expression in the denominator and there was a common expression (x+1) in both numerator and denominator . So i prompted her to tell the answer to cancel both the (X+1)'s in the numerator and the denominator.
She trusted me and said the same thing, the whole class bursted out in laughter and the lecturer was speechless!!!! he started off with his usual #$%$%$%^^%^&&^*&

After bashing all of us left right and center, the lecturer told us that before asking us the question, he had explicitly multiplied the numerator and denominator with (X+1) to get something( which i dont know till date) to solve the problem and we fellows had asked him to cancel that!!!!!!!

Is someone out there still wondering how I passed my 12th?? :)

Joey Poppat 3- Not for Heavy vehicles!

It was those days when I started going to car driving classes in Hyderabad.
The driver took me on the same route everyday .. the route had a road where heavy vehicles were not allowed and so there was a Metal bar fixed on the road at a height to avoid the heavy vehicles.

That day while I drove thru that road , the coac started laughing loud.. I gave him a confused expression and asked what happened and he asked me if I drove a two wheeler extensively before. I said yes still trying to figure out why he was asking me that and why he was laughing like that!
The next day when we went through the same road, as soon as we crossed that metal bar, the coach started giggling and only then I realised what I was doing!!! I was actually bending down inside the car everytime we crossed that metal bar!!!

koi mujhe vanish karoo!!!

Joey Poppat 2 - namaste Papa

The pre-requisite for an arranged marriage is the meeting of the guy and the guy's family at the girl's place. Its only after this that either side families decide whether to go ahead or not.

It was my first such formal meet with a guy and his family at vizag. I was a little tensed and lot confused. Advices umm rather instructions were pouring in from all directions. Most prominent and repeated one was that as soon as I enter the room where the guests were seated, I have to fold my hands and say namaste to everyone. And also not to giggle and NOT to touch the sweets that were served for the guests. Mom kept repeating that even just before I was taken in to that room.
I was so tensed that i was a lil blanked out by the time I entered the room. Too tensed to even look up who was there in the room and who was sitting where. So as soon as I remembered I had to say namaste with folded hands and I did that to the first person as soon as I entered. and yess.. the poppat star revolved and that first person was my dad with a blank shocked expression on his face actually wondering why I was saying Namaste to him! :) he actually didnt know how to react when I did that and to top it I started giggling when I realised it was him :) Others obviously had no clue what was happening and by the time they realised what happened I had violated two of my mom's given rules and she was red in face!!

I really wished the earth had slitted in to two and taken me inside!! Why me.. why only me!!??

Joey Poppat 1- Twice Lucky!

Life these days is falling in to a new routine.. My workplace has been shifted to a new office and I have to travel an hour to reach there. I catch the office shuttle from the pickup point which is 10 minutes jog <15 minutes walk> from my home.
The pick up point is in a Inverted 'L' direction from my place.

On friday, as usual woke up late, took longer to decide what to wear, took longer to search for the matching ear rings and the bracelet and finally ended up in no time for breakfast and only 5 minutes left to reach the pick up point.

So I started on my 5 minutes run and as soon as I completed my vertical direction run of the Inverted 'L' I saw my bus standing there at the pick up point. I shouted, screamed.. "stop stop" and luckily for me the watchman of the building at the pickup point saw me and stopped the bus along with few others who tried for the same.

I was glad I could catch the bus and I got in to the bus with a big smile panting , trying to catch breath and then I slowly realised none of the faces in the bus were familiar... I think my brain worked super sharp here and forced me to ask the right question at the right time.. I immediately asked.. which company bus? and the answer came pat..."Yahoo".. It was my turn now to scream again but this time it was "Stopppp stopp not my bus". I had to run back to my stop to ctach my correct bus!

Embarrassment is an understatement!!! I really wished I had some magical power to just vanish on the spot and also erase everybody's memory there on the bus!

Screaming on road to stop a bus thats thats not urs... and then screaming again to stop it!! Why me! why only me!

Coming soon!

Abbbabbabbabbabbababbbaaaaabbababba.... Ok thats Long time No 'C' for you :)

Life's looking as good as it can these days .. or may be thats how am seeing it!
Yesterday morning, while going to office in the shuttle an amazing idea struck me.. well it may be amazing only for me and just an idea for you!
I think I can make it as big as Rowling.. I plan to start a "Joey Poppat" series.. does it ring a bell.. Harry potter series ke baadh it Joey Poppat series :)

Objective:
Just to see if writing down all my poppat stories will make me a lil aware of how poppaty I can be! and make me a lil better person at avoidin such situations :)

watch out forr this space! theres lot of action coming up!!

what to do and what not to do?

Sometimes we go through a phase in life when nothing seems to be right! and everything that happens with us seems to be the worst that could happen!
Thats what it is currently with me! kind of lost interest in everything.. and there seems to be an urgency within to rediscover myself! something I need to do to get myself out of this lethargic phase of my life!
something good is due! May the happiness return and return soon...

All good things do come to an end

All good things in life do come to an end and for me the came to an end far too quickly.. I had never felt more helpless before. I wanted to stop people from taking away my joy from me. But there was very little that was in my control. The sudden turn of events and our smile just faded..
I thought being happy always was not such a tough thing to achieve... afterall what can we do so wrong to be so unhappy with life! but now I really felt the presence of some power that controls our life.. Our life is not really in our hands.. someone els who keeps a watch on our life and laughs at us when we cry.. does not let anybody remain happy forever.. I hate you!

Namma Bengalooru

If you are driving your bike and U felt you were having a Speed boat bumpy ride,
You know you are in...
If U r driving in the left lane and still get overtaken from the left,
You know you are in...
If it takes you 30 minutes to travel 4kms,
You know you are in...
Yesterday you saw a lake and today u saw an apartment there,
You know you are in...
Instead of the early morning mist , u see a cloud of dust,
You know you are in..
You are on your bike and the weather is Amazing ,cloudy, chilling but you still fail to enjoy the weather busy struggling to reach your destination,
You know you are in..
You wait even at the smallest eat out on a weekend for a dinner table,
You know you are in..

Thats Namma Bengalooru for you! Jaisa bhi hai, jithna bhi hai humara hai!

Birthday This year...

twenty six candles glowing big on the cake.. who wants to cut that cake!
Mid twenties.. going towards higher side of twneties.. Not a very good idea I suppose! 26 years and I hardly realised before i reached this landmark! I have lived one thirds of my life( assuming 75 to be my bucket kicking deadline) not doing anythign significant :) and am not sure if in the remaining years I will do something! may be I will try given my laziness doesnt run ahead of me as it always does!
Birthdays stopped exciting me some 4 years back.. even the gifts dont seem to make up for the getting older feeling! There were times when I used to get soo excited about my bday and plan for it 2 months ahead and keep reminding people of the things I wanted as gifts :) The best part of the bday was the new dress, the special treatment all day, evening party with frens and oooooh those glittering pack of gifts! How much i waited for my friends to leave and controlled the temptation rising within to open those gifts!!! I used to guess what they had got for me based on the shapes and the packing.
The gifts also aged with me, from pencil boxes to hair bands to nail polishes to handbags to blue topaz gold rings to a Microwave oven :)

Actually I was even excited on my sisters bday for the sheer pleasure of sharing her gifts and opening them before she could! Well I never shared my bday gifts with her! elder sisters are supposed to be like that sharing and caring no matter what their lil sisters do! :) I insisted on getting a new dress on her bday too and even more a better dress than hers.. I even cut her cake once with her.. For the perfect sis she is, she never complained! Love you di..

whats happening!

A lot of things have been happening around me from the last one month and i am hardly finding anytime for self. Not that am busy @ work (I was really busy at work sometimes.. u gotto believe me here) ..Just that life has picked up pace and i have started feeling that I no longer am able to keep up with the pace. Too many things happening in too little time.



I bought a mobile(Sony walkman phone W810i) , Lost it, bought another mobile(Moto yuva the cheap one!) , lost house keys, Got the new lock fitted to house , Lost a jerkin and found it after a week, lost a handbag, lost my Loreal facewash, lakme liquid Lip colour, Nail polish, Bike keys - Thats just the lost and found list over the last 3 weeks!



But everything was soon forgotten(conviniently by me only) as soon as I saw my lil nephew! he is truly a bundle of joy! One week spent at vizag was enough to get addicted to him! that innocent baby face just got imprinted in my heart! its for the fost time in my life that Ive baby sit and did the diaper thingy but it was an experience in itself! i just didnt mind doing it!



Then my new found interest in gardening has started big time! Today I woke up at 7 in the morning and planted the croton cuttings in to the pots for almost an hour. I even forgot I had a training at 9! But I think growing plants is like growing babies! it gives u sheer happiness to see the plants u planted grow healthily!



Work front.. currently in the status of "bewarse". Absolutely no work but I somehow manage to spend all the 8 hours in office without getting bored. Theres so much to do other than work friends!! Got rolled off from the proj on 30th Nov and have been projectless since then! Attending some arbit trainings now and then.

so Life's actually going good with no work but still busy!

Miss you sweetheart!

Holded hands..
Tight hugs
Gentle kisses
Naughty smiles
Sweet nothings
I miss them all.. I miss you!

Jab We Met!

One of my friend called me up today and we were randomly chitchatting about arranged marriages and stuff. She asked me how I decided on this particular guy out of the whole lot and all this discussion drifted me in to the past.The memories still fresh in my mind and feels like we just met yesterday!
7th March, 2003 , the day I fell for someone special for reasons beyond my comprehension..
Dad had arranged for a meeting with their family at a common friends place in Hyd. I agreed very reluctantly as I didnt want to make daddy angry and I actually didnt have any strong reasons to say NO.I dunno how but mom somehow convinced me to wear a saree and make a pigtail out of my very short hair! I was looking funny enough for them to reject the alliance, thats what my mirror told me!
They came at around eleven in the morning,Naresh along with his dad, mom, younger sister & grandpa.There was this killing silence in the beginning as soon as I entered the room. I started feeling very awkward.Then people around me were trying very hard to break the silence and make Naresh and me talk. Arbit discussions about politics, traffic in Hyderabad, traffic in bangalore then draw a comparision between hyd and bangalore,Climate in bangalore. I found it hard to stop myself from giggling. Either people didnt know what to talk or they didnt mind talking anything!From from those generic topics, they became a lil specific, specific like, questions about my work, his work, how many leaves he has , how many I have, how many holidays do we have etc etc!Total waste of time and energy! I could sense that his mom was continously looking at me and may be even others and that made me more conscious!I wanted to look at him but wanted to avoid others gaze, rather didnt want anybody else to know that I was looking at him! Highly impossible I realised and then I was left with no other option but to become shameless and stare at him :) And to my surprise, he was not looking at me! He was more than shy to look at me. He preferred looking at the roof, the light, the fan, windows and the aunty who was serving sweets.It was probably his shyness that made me more shameless! I started staring at him shamelessly to see when he would look at me.Sweets, salted Kaju and soft drinks/tea was served. I was given prior instructions that even if I was tempted to eat what was served, I should not be even looking at them.. forget eating!There were several other instructions also, most of which I didnt follow.. Intentionally/Unintentionally. One of the instructions was that, I shouldnt sit with one leg over the other. I shouldve both the legs grounded. I didnt realise when I had gone in to my Rajni Style of sitting!
After all this dramabaazi, people realised that we should be given sometime to "interact" with each other. Sigh! I was waiting for him in the room and what do I see! His sister came along with him! The last thing I was expecting to happen!3 of us in the room and someone had to break the silenceand it had to be me! The first question I asked him was Do you know cooking?I still dont know what made me ask that question!!! Dumb me! They were shocked and surprised for obvious reasons and then on the conversation went for for about 15 minutes. Then I guess people sitting outside could no longer wait and all of them entered the room.Then what.. neither could he ask what he wanted to ask nor could I!
and till today.. we are making up for that! :)

When the Going gets tough, I start running!

This week has been a little tough on me. not yet recovered from the travel sickness.Back to back journeys week after week, life suddenly looked difficult. Thanks to the Karnataka Rajyotsava holiday, life bounced back!

Did Attla thadhi on sunday, full day fasting for a foodie like me huh! fasting followed by a No reservation sleepless night journey!Now may be looking back at the journey, I would say it was fun, romantic one! How often does one get to share the berth, and have a synchronized, cozy sleep(Lack of it!) with the loved one :) After reaching home from station(not less than an hour) , I had to cook Veg biryani for the office potluck :)
Follow it up with a long day at office analyzing some damn non existant issue! After all this, to everyones surprise, hubby and me had the enthu to head to the theater and watch a movie 7 to 10 show!When it comes to watching a movie, nothing else makes more sense than watching the movie!
Ok.. after the movie, if someone asked me head straight to bed, I wouldve loved it! But no, we had to pick up my Grandparents fromt he airport at 1:30 am in the night!We went to a friends house near to the airport, did some tp there and went to the Airport by 1:15 am. Thanks to Murphy's law, Grandpa & ma were the last ones to get their luggage and come out of airport at 2:40!1 and half hours on a cold night waiting at the airport! there cudnt be anything worse at that point! But one glimpse of Grandparents was all worth the effort! Its not very often that we get a chance to host them.
3 hrs of sleep and I had to wake up again to prepare lunch for grans. Office, work, then again cook for dinner.. it almost seemed never ending for me! Taking them out for dinner was one option i was having , but they just didnt want to eat out!I had no energy left to indulge in the long chat with granpa. I wouldve loved it if someone cooked for me and I had all the time to sit and talk!
Wednesday was juggle between office, home, Rly station, back to office, and then to Dp's house for dinner! All that was on my mind was sleep sleep and more sleep! The thursday holiday was more than welcome!!!