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!!!