I dont remember the last time I cut my birthday cake at home, must be Class 6, and I think after that it was the final year at College, I dont remember even that very clearly, being April born, my birthdays are usually sandwiched between exams and results ! Again, I dont remember when we started celebrating birthdays and cake cutting again. I think Stick and R got me a cake for my 2006 birthday, it was a memorable evening followed by a more memorable dawn sandwiched between a 8month pregnant R and a skeletonish Stick.

For my 2007 birthday,  I invited myself back to R's place, bcos I wanted Mihika to be part of my Birthday celebrations. 2008 was the dullest birthday of my life, but I was glad  to have family and friends who understood me so well. And I think after that, I have made sure we celebrate each of our birthdays more regularly. 

The birthday party apart from buying cakes and gifts, usually involves making of the birthday bakra which requires more precision and planning than our work tasks even. Everything goes usually fine around the year, until its turn for my birthday. Being the most connected person to every one in the gang, its a pain for my buddies to draft their answers to my queries. So what happens eventually is, all of them start avoiding me couple of days in advance planning to escape my inquisitive questions. I try maximum not to spoil the show, but somehow I land up in the wrong place, wrong time, wrong person, and eventually end up carrying my own birthday cake to the party. 2009 was almost close to a surprise birthday party, I knew they put in lot of effort for the surprise thing, bcos towards the end of the cake cutting, they all left a sigh of relief.

Time flies, everyone has family commitments and we decided to leave birthday parties to family business. However this time I felt Vee deserved a special birthday cake atleast, not only for her, but atleast for the group to meet together once again. Birthdays somehow have a magic of unifying people spread across. There wasnt much planned to fool Vee on her birthday as it was already a belated one. However stick was consistent in turning up late for the event, which was like, we all getting fooled with her promises..usual stuff..

The highlight of last evening was the Strawberry Crush from Cake Walk. We have been avoiding strawberry all these years. Somehow Strawberry gives you reminiscence of all those cough syrups, gelusils you gulped down when as a sick kid. 2010 being a new year, we wanted to remove the mental block of avoiding Strawberry for a lifetime, so we went ahead and ordered one. Well, Cake Walk cant come up with something really bad. It wasnt bad but no where close to our regular chocolates or  blackforests..  The other one we tried for Stick's birthday couple of months back was Blackcurrant, which wasnt very bad either, it was atleast a welcome change and more for my picasa album covers. :)
( Cake Pictures Behind )

I remember this funny thing which happened at Stick's Birthday. Instead of admiring the gift we bought for stick, everyone was busy with their fingers on the Bubble Wrapper, bursting tiny little bubbles. I guess, each one of us have been there,  when as a kid, we pinched those tiny little bubbles to burst them. Some things never change though we grow older. Little Mihika was also amazed with her self discovery when she found that these bubbles could be make sounds when they burst. I had to stop her from exhausting all the bubbles, bcos I wanted to wrap the gift back for Stick. She kept pleading to let her do it once more which seemed to be going endless.  I wanted to shoo her away, but I didnt want to kill the child within. Some things are irreversible.

A month back I promised myself to be more regular here after I realized I have missed updating quite a few things happening in my life. Though there isnt anything significant happening either, but once in a while scrolling back to older entries is a lot of introspective and fun read.

8.3% of 2010 done, and I have not done much to change my life either. January has been a mixed bag. Capturing some of the updates..

• Started the New Year being sick , which meant, I was healing myself back to good health while the rest of the world was partying around. Luckily, I utilized the idle bed time catching up with folks I havent talked to in a while. I also spent time getting to know few of my online acquaintances and knowing them has been good so far.
• At work got a big blow, when the account I was working for decided to roll back projects for this quarter. Being project-less, I started brainstorming on career opportunities elsewhere and also re-consider my UK migration, both of which I put on hold again. Thanks to one of my team's older projects getting into rough waters, Being a senior team-mate the only thing I could do was to offer help and hijack some work/tasks into my kitty. And I have been busy again at work since then.
• I got a shock of my life, when I realized that I have 10.5 days of Casual Leave which I have to exhaust before April 2010. Thanks to my over protective Leave Budget, now I dont know where to head to unless I elope with someone or somebody kidnaps me.  I wonder how they treat your absence when you are kidnapped ? I dont have company to plan a vacation at this time, and I am too lazy to exhaust all leave sitting idle at home. I am apprehensive about business decisions taken in my absence. Right now, I have decided to dis-integrate the CLs into multiple 0.5 days and take random leaves from work.
• My friend Vee's sister Kochu whom I have illegally adopted as my own little sister,  got engaged on 26th January. I wanted to do a separate photo-session about the event and blog about Kochu, unfortunately I couldnt make it to the engagement either. The wedding will be another and the last opportunity. Kochu has been my personal dentist as well, now you know why I claim her to be my little sister( yes, I get discounts on my dental bills :)) Jokes apart, I have never enjoyed any of my earlier dental appointments as much I sit front of Kochu. And yes, she is so patient with my queries, that she answers all my questions seeing my eye movements though she has sharp instruments stuck inside my wide open mouth. 
• My record of being portrait photographer for single eligible women is on a new high. Anybody whom I take a portrait pic for shaadi formalities, gets hitched asap. As I am beginner now, the services are free of charge.  Just as Kochu is my personal dentist, I call myself her only personal and official photographer :) And I have 2 more added to the list now. I am awaiting confirmation on the engagement news from them too.
• We had our company Annual Day Celebrations on 22nd Jan at Clarks Exotica. Most of the women junta I knew were part of fashion show or Dance competitions, and since guys would want to share their own jokes in such events, I was quite doubtful about finding the right company to spend time for the whole day event. Luckily, the MC was none other than 94.3 RJ Prithvi. He kept us ROFLing for the whole day that I forgot I was sitting admist a crowd of unknown faces. I did click few portrait photographs  for some eligible single candidates there too :)
• There has been a new addition to the "Pinto" family. Cousin A and wife D were blessed with a cute little healthy baby boy on 28th January. Its nice to see Uncle D spring back to life after being promoted to Grand-Dad. Its been more of grandsons than grand daughters in the family so far. We will soon run short of flower-gals in the family for the next wedding !

New year is the best time to wipe away the guilt of not having accomplished what you planned to do the preceding year. It's like a renewed chance, an unwritten book, with all pages blank, and its left to us on how we want to fill it.( It is a coincidence, they just started distributing desk calenders and diaries just when I finished typing the previous line). 2009 was an okay kind of year. Family, friends, work, health everything has gone through the regular sinusoidal syndrome and back to normal now.

Most of the things I began in 2009 are half done. I just need a little push to venture out and try new possibilities. No special resolutions for 2010, life is a continuous one and our needs and priorities keep changing. Over the years of failing to keep new year resolutions, I have realized finally that we are given a fresh start not only at the beginning of the year, but almost every day when we wake up.

There are lot of opportunities, possibilities, interests to pursue, hope to try them and not regret wasting time 300 plus days from now. ( Few of them - Photography, Blogging, Learning new technical stuff, travel, weight_reduction etc etc )

Happy New Year all of you :)

Food and Transport is free at work since Monday. Which also means, employees will come, go, eat their breakfast, lunch at the timings decided by the Management. Well, since I stay close to work(7 kms), I still have an option of choosing the facility based on my convenience. It is wise though not to miss the free things in life.

The first time, I heard this news, I was quite happy welcoming the change, I planned to convert all my kitchen time into fitness time. Man proposes, laziness overrides better. 3 days since the change, all idle time has been converted into sleep time till now. Well, new routines take time to set in, I hope it does soon.

We also have this beautiful message which flashes on the Intranet Homepage with "Your Today's Time-In is " and they have separate color for Early(Green)/Late(Red), which will haunt you for the rest of the day if you are late. And then we have this My_Attendance_Report similar to your school report card, with detailed late time and cumulative late time minus some 101 flexible_working_hours_limit parameters. Well, the report card does not tell you that irrespective of flexible timings, if you come late, you miss free food, the token system shuts down at 8.15 am sharp. Interesting Math, the HR, Facilities and IS teams can expect a good hike this year, and the rest of us folks, dont miss school anymore.

And since food is free and its the first week on free food, we dont see the house-wives's husbands with Tupperware tiffin boxes anymore. We stand along with them in the long queues. Some people though continue to bring their food. And the general junta looking at the statistics of men carrying their home-cooked food made an observation that, we now know whose wife cooks really good. The rest seem happy to be off their wives culinary skills experiments ! I also met somebody extra-ordinary who still brings his wife's morning cooked upma but eats his free breakfast and lunch at the office cafeteria. He eats his wife's food as an evening snack, bcos the evening snacks are paid and not free.

Well, not to mention about the extra calories I am consuming in the form of parathas, oil and sweets. I do have considerate team-mates..Like today, they let me eat only a spoon of carrot halwa and leave the rest to the bin. I am blessed with diet-coordinators around! This blog post evolved out of self-sympathy actually :)

This weekend, I invested a lot of time talking to a broader set of friends whom I never get to talk to usually and the discussions revolved around the way I badly handle relationships. I do not know why I havent written much about any serious relationships here.. either bcos nothing took off very seriously in the first place except my feelings, or may be I feel embarrassed to write about how low I treat myself to make relationships work and how I never learn from getting hurt repeatedly.

Every relationship requires a lot of hard work from either parties and more of forgiving yet not forgetting. Not forgetting so that you dont hurt the other person again by doing the same mistake again. All this applies after knowing a person well and when you have committed yourself to the relationship.

What I fail to understand is how do you measure how much you can forgive a person when you are just getting to know the person. Every time somebody hurts me, I blame it on the premature going-to-be-a-relationship phase and tend to forgive the person, only to be hurt again. I think I love myself when I am being patient with people without knowing that I am doing more harm to me than any good to myself or the person. I set an impression of being a door mat where one could dust off his frustrations and temper on me. And who knows the person may not be taking me as seriously as I take him or the relationship. May be most of my getting to know people is based on online acquaintances and I shouldnt be reading between the lines, fishing for love or emotions ! Who knows the mistake is on my side, getting emotional with people who are just looking to spend some online time together.

Every person, every relationship is different, but I am angry with myself for not being able to identify the pattern of getting hurt over and over. The only good I can do to myself is by not giving anyone the power to hurt me( which I will be soon forgetting). Rather than getting sad about people not understanding me, I should learn to discard them off my emotional bandwidth ! There is already too much to deal with in life... Respect and treat yourself the best :)

And its good to have friends to talk to. Atleast you know not everyone thinks you are bad :) Thank you my dear friends :)

When people move out of livejournal/ blogging, I have always thought they found something better to do which kept them busy.  I always believe there would be no such day, where I would dis-associate myself from the LJ world. LJ is a sort of relationship I build with myself, relationship I create and build with people I meet here, and a kind of virtual diary where I pour out myself here which is neither strictly private nor something  where I want everything I say to be heard. Though there is no classification on what I ramble here, I can share thoughts about some things here, which I might either want to just share here or know your opinion about. I really dont know how to define this relationship with myself and my blog-world.

Every time I login to the internet, the first thing I access is my Gmail followed by livejournal on an adjacent tab. I do not know how life would be without logging into LJ. I have been quite passive in my posting and commenting for some days now, not bcos I have nothing to share, just that life got clogged with too many things together, new activities, which I couldnt handle well myself. I was too stressed to handle things myself, and though I knew solutions myself, I was really experimenting with them.

At work, I was nominated to be one of the 6 people put together to organize a Day-Out event for 200 people. We had 2 months to begin with the plan. What followed was nothing but pure chaos as some people were intelligent enough to step back and some people found this as an opportunity to step in and dominate others while doing minimum work.  There were still some people, who were successful enough to maintain a High-Z state, not bothered about whats going around. Well, I did nothing but slog and run around stitching together broken links. Work suffered a lot during this time period, but since one is part of the core team working towards the event, nobody really complains.

At the end I have my own pending work piled up, innovations yet to be put into existing work, new work sitting on my desk, bills waiting to be cleared up, and the worst of it, my personal satisfaction of the event execution being a poor 5.5 on 10. Every thing has a good lesson learned in the end, so I wouldnt complain about the whole thing, as my awareness on Transport, DJ/MC, Gifts, Prizes, Audio/Video, Snacks, Resorts/beverages etc have improved quite a lot since then. Next time, I deal with similar people, I would learn to be more assertive rather than wait and watch the fun / hope for things to improve on its own.

Now back to work, Excel Sheets and Bills replaced with Grey linux terminals !

Project related stuff has taken a back seat, but I am tied up with a lot of other responsibilities. I realize, I have a long way to learn and effectively implement multi-tasking. 

It is ironical that when your younger sibling is given the first chance to drive dad's old car, you feel humiliated to be a co-passenger. But its a moment of pride, when your younger bro takes you out as a co-passenger for the first ride in his brand new car :)

Parents will be here for couple of days. So yesterday, took them to meet little Mihika. Surprisingly she wasnt very shy to meet Dad for the first time. She entertained Dad showing him all her coloring books and other accomplishments. So when Dad was pointing at his big tummy and asking her whether she has anything like that, she snaps back "Noooo, Oh, but yeah, I have a bum though" .

Some of the choices I have made in my life, I have regretted later bcos I didnt think about myself then. Even now, its difficult to understand how I can put somebody else before my own needs and that too for no gains in return. I think, I am making a judgment mistake.

Thanks to farmville keeping me entertained most part of the day, I either get too busy farming or too tired post-farming. I know its a lousy-brainless game, but then as long as I do not flood people's walls on facebook, I am quite happy keeping myself busy in my farm. Well, I should be quitting in a fortnight or so and get back actively into the  LJ world. Looks like too much farming has got a lot of weeds into my brain, though I read LJ friends page, I do not know what to write/comment or share my thoughts on !

To begin with, last week, I got one more beautiful little gift waiting for me as I returned from work. Remember this post, where we were supposed to make something by ourselves and dispatch it to the first 4 winners :) Well when I got dianaparadise's gift, I thought she was the only hardworking person who took this up seriously and kept the promise. Well, rechristened  is not far behind, she sent me this cute little bunny and a more precious hand written letter. It was nostalgic to read a hand written letter addressed to me after a really really long time. The only personal letters I get these days, is limited those from the banks, and ever since all the saving the environment sensation began, I comfortably switched them to the electronic mode.


Thank you rechristened, both these gifts mean a lot to me, especially when you promised all the people on your journal a gift, unlike most of us, who limited it to 4. I have been planning to write this thank-you post for quite some time, well, I did a mistake by doing it in installments, I charged my camera batteries last week, and just when I decided to take pictures today, I had a tough time to get the two of them clicked. The batteries died eventually. 

( Image Behind )

The last four lines at the bottom of the letter is so true. " LJ has made us realize that friendships can form and flourish between people who have never met or spoken to each other" ! I have resumed completing what I began as a gift to my LJ friends, I hope, I complete it before this year ends.

A friend was trying to recollect the name of a greek symbol he came across some document he was reading. He tried to explain to me on phone how it looked like, I came up with a lot of guesses and just realized I have forgotten a whole lot of other greek symbols.

Revisited rho, psi, phi, epsilon .. Interesting how I use none of them these days !

Click here for a re-visit !

It has been hectic few weeks so far. I have a lot of catching up to do on LJ Friends posts,  updates, pending bday posts. Work is finally through, and I have a sense of accomplishment on all the targets I had planned for when I began this project. It has been a true learning experience technically as well as personally. 

To begin with, I started off with a professionally younger team and found myself, facing a generation gap issue. I started experiencing a major difference in the attitude and priorities between my team mates and myself. And when you are new in the company, people seldom want to accept you in the first round( for technical matters). It took a lot of self-learning to master the practices here and the get the confidence of the co-workers right. Only recently, I realized, all of us are to be blamed for this professional mis-match. Just like each of them have their plus vs their minus, I had failed too in getting my expectations right to them. Somehow, they had a feeling, that I was always there to undo the crap they do irresponsibly. What followed was, late-night works, and sleepless nights, dreams about your work crashing etc. Well, contrary to this, there was this person, who wanted to dominate everyone else in the team. Things reached to such an extent that my team started fearing this person's physical presence itself. I have some bit of friendly talk to deliver to this person, about the right spirit of motivating team-mates to work. I am also learning to amplify and use each of my team-mates's positive energy in the direction best suited for the project activity. It has been a late learning, but better than never.

I had also forgotten to update that, in between all this chaos, I was also awarded an award  " MD's Appreciation Star Award" for an earlier project which I had done here in the first quarter after my joining. Being the last person to join the Group, to be nominated itself was the last thing I had imagined of. I think to be nominated depends on your boss/senior managers from the group, and to get an award among the nominees at the company level, there is a quotient of luck involved. There is nothing extra-ordinary I have done here than the rest of my previous career. Funnily, after the award came in, I could understand how people's behavior to you changes, both in a good as well as bad way. Well, move forward thats the only path I can take now. I got a cute little gold coin as a reward too, atleast that will last a lifetime :)

The few months, I was caught up with work, I have missed some of the finer moments with family and friends. August has been a celebration time with a lot of birthdays and get-togethers, atleast that kept me knitted with closed ones. I hope to get back to the social thing once again. Here I come !

There are some days, no matter how much of work I have, I can leave everything behind and rush out of office. Last monday, our darling Mihika turned 3 !! Thanks to all our prior efforts in introducing her to Birthday parties and cakes, she now understands Birthday is something everyone has/owns. After her second birthday, she was so fascinated by the cake cutting, balloons, and all the attention she received that, she mistook birthday for something like her own copyright event. For her mother's Bday some months back, she sang out aloud 'Happy birthday Mihika.....". She wasnt amused that I corrected her. Couple of days back, for her father's bday , she blew the candle, even before he could aim his breath at them.  A few angry stares and efforts of making her understand that everybody has his/her own birthday, and that she should wait for July 27th, which would be her bday, didnt help either.  We were about to give up, when she shot back at me " Ninni, U Birthday is .....? "  I tell you, you can forgive her for all that she has done before, when she comes up with something as cute as that :)

( More Behind ...  )

Those who know me for some time now, also know that the story of my crushes is a never-ending one. Ten years from now, you will still hear me either talking about a new random one, or turning pages of that heavy book called "Collection of Short Unfulfilled Crush Stories" .  Well, this one is about the office crush. A new job meant,  fresher pastures to look for potential crushes. 8 months into the new place and trying to get familiar with people, and characters, I  couldnt find anybody touching that soft spot in my heart( Well, the heart has gone harder compared to earlier times though).

( Story Behind ...  )

Today was one of those weekends, after a long time, I get to find time for myself. I have been yearning for this day, when I can sit all day at home, and worry about home-keeping. After a busy cockroach-fight in the kitchen until noon, I decided to go for a long walk minus the ear-phones of my mobile-FM. I have noticed that,  when I am on Radio, I do not have this self- talking happening to the fullest during my walks. I also had to pick up a birthday gift for Mihika, who already has a long list of requirements stacked up. I take a bus till ASC centre, and decide to walk to the Crossword at Residency Road.

I walk past Hosmat hospital and just when I cross Symphony, a person stops me and asked me where I work. I asked him back why he needed, and he talked about some investments and ULIPS. Before he could slow me down further, I conveyed to him that I was not interested, and started walking faster. Now, this guy walks along and keeps pestering me for ULIPS, my company name, my visiting card and so on. I didnt want to sound rude, so I politely asked him not to disturb me further, and I walked ahead and took a right turn from Garuda towards Central.

When I walk further, I realize  a pair of foot-steps following mine. Though the road in this area is generally crowded, I could sense his distinct footsteps following me. I tried stopping abruptly and casually looked around, and this guy turned out to be smarter, and he pretended he had not seen me earlier and some times, he managed to disappear behind trees/ autos. I reach Central, and confront him directly, when he appears cool, and I realize, more noise from my end, would put me into an embarrassing spotlight.

I wait a little, until he disappears, and I try to cross the road, hoping, I am just fewer feet from my destination. I set my foot on Residency Road, when I see this guy following me on the other side of the road. I abruptly stop an older person and his son, and explain to them my situation. I couldnt find any policeman at that junction. I point them to this person, and before they could stabilize their focus on him, the stalker makes his vanishing act again. I walk fast further, leaving the older man, and reach the bus stop. I turn around, when I see the older man and his son running towards me. They inform me, that they saw the stalker cross the road towards me and follow me again. Now, 3 pairs of eyes, hunt for the stalker. But we do not find him. After 10-15 minutes of a tiring wait. and an assurance that the stalker might have left the scene, I walk towards Crossword.

After walking for 2-3 mins, I see the stalker again, this time hiding behind another tree. I have given up now. I know, I am not strong as I should be. I should have confronted him. I didnt want a crowd and get him hit etc and all these thoughts of aftermath, of getting attacked withh acid bottles etc etc . Secondly, I didnt want him to follow me in a bus/auto and know the place I live and then torture me for eternity. I only hoped, he would stop his game now. I just hoped, he would disappear once and for all. But I didnt know how !

I was talking to K, on phone, when he asked me to get into a bus and inform the conductor if this guy follows me into the bus. Of all the random buses, that came in, the only bus I went ahead and jumped in was 201 !  Yay, Thank You Murphy. When you wait for 30 mins and when you want to reach home,there is no sign of 201. But when you want to avoid the possibility of a stalker following you/knowing your route, this is the only bus which pops in front of you, when you make that life-saving jump !

Well, luckily the bus was not crowded, so I could make sure, the stalker had not jumped in along with me. But the phobia had hit me really hard that, now, I was scared to even turn back and scan the men's seats again. By now, the fear of the present and future consequences had risen to such a height that, there was only one thing I could possibly choose to do. Get down at the stop I want, and confront him, or hand him over to public/police. I call bro now, thanks to Murphy again, the phone gets hung this time. Thanks to 201 also, whoever made that route, ensured that I get stalked for some more time.  Well, I am sure, I looked at someone escaping from a scene of murder !  I reach CMH road, and by now, I thoroughly search through all seats and make sure, the stalker is not in the bus. After alighting from the bus, I make sure, the stalker is not around. A little while later, I meet bro and we go for a small drive, before reaching home.

After reaching home and updating all friends, whom I called in panic, I now laugh about it. I know I sort of over-reacted and got worried un-necessarily, I also felt, I was reading madness from his eyes, and he looked totally like someone ready to cause trouble.  I guess the random thoughts of aftermath got me quite tensed. Well, I missed my calm evening walk. I will probably get back to Crossword tomorrow  to complete the pending task, but am not sure, whether I would go alone or tag along with someone.

Time : 8:54 am. Its a lovely cloudy breezy July morning. I am walking towards office, making plans of how to wind up work and  other activities dependent on me and leave office at 5 pm latest. I have to take the night train to Chennai tonight, so that means, I wouldnt be seeing Mihika in the weekend, I was making some quick calculations on how to plan meeting the kid before leaving the city for the weekend.
Just one building before the work place, a white man coming in the opposite direction stops his car and informs me about something happening at the office. I could first hear only Swi.. I asked him what swiping was he talking about. I switched off the FM on my mobile, I heard him clearly this time " There is a confirmed case of Swine Flu at office, people are leaving, and more cases are suspected, so why dont you return back" . Well, I knew he was working at my work place , I have seen this person, probably lifts or may be my floor, but I am not sure. Bu then  I am sure, its easy for people to spot me, bcos of my height and recognize me outside work place too. Well his news was sudden, and since I was just a building away, I thanked him and told him, I will anyways walk upto there to meet my boss/team to confirm further details.

Pacing slowly towards the office building, I could see, company buses entering normally into the Office Gate. So I called my boss on his mobile, but he didnt pick my call. Then I called my teamie B, and she confirmed the news and told me, they were all made to wait inside the company bus.
 

After I reached the office, I teamed up with few of my colleagues and waited outside the office building with 1000 other employees. Nobody knew the source of the Information. Finally somebody from the MGMT declared that there was one confirmed case of Swine Flu and that they have quarantined that particular floor and people who are comfortable can go in and work. Well, there were some debates and discussions and finally what we heard was that we could take the day off.

Well 2 of my colleagues came back home with me, and we had a Dosa, Sambhar, Pudina Chutney, Breakfast at home. They have been waiting for quite some time for Dosa bfast at my place. We discussed some of the office tales/gossip and then they left for the day. We looked for more information on the Internet for this particular news. But we havent been able to trace any. Also we do not have access to work-email from outside office network, so we havent received any official information from the MGMT yet.

I do not know the impact of this incident on the remaining employees. Some of us are already feeling sick thinking about the possibility of contracting the flu. I have been having hectic schedules for a month now, and my health and well being has been normally low for quite some time. So, I think my sick feeling today is just a temporary phase and things will return to normal very soon. 

 

I have a number of pending things which have to be logged here, some of which have been some major turning points in my life. Most of the posts come with pictures, and I either forget to upload or update the post.

Remember this post, where we were supposed to make something by ourselves and dispatch it to the first 4 winners :) Well, I have still not reached 50% of the original idea I had planned. Luckily I still remember the first 4 winners of my contest, but I do not remember, whom all, I have to get my surprise gift from :)

dianaparadise sent my gift before even before I had actually started thinking about what to send the winners from post. She sent me this beautiful hand made card, collected all leaves from her garden and when it reached me, I could still smell the fragrance :) Well, I have got musical cards, this is the first time, I got a garden flavored card :)

( Card behind )

Some time, early this year, I had problems with stray cats, visiting my backyard and treating it like a public toilet. After couple of times of stepping onto cat shit and urine, I searched on the Internet for effective ways to keep them away.  Also my kitchen back door, opens to this place, so keeping the door closed, meant less of ventilation. Well, I am no expert in cat traps and pepper spray, but after reading couple of help pages, I concluded that cats are repulsive to certain smells like those of citrus fruits. I didnt have time to run around markets looking for commercial cat-repellent sprays, I tried with Baygon cockroach spray and it worked from day 1. The cats didnt turn up for a while.

This problem went forgotten until Saturday morning, when bro pointed me to a half eaten dead rat and also some cat shit around the same spot. Looked like the cats, have had a major party, bringing in food, making themselves comfortable on the floor mats, and then forgetting about cleaning up the left overs. well,l it was indeed a kitty party. We took turns cleaning the mess. And before going to bed, I used my weapon(Baygon)  again as the repellent. Sunday morning was fine with no traces of remains of kitty parties, or shit.

Monday morning, as I opened the kitchen door, there were patches of dry blood over the floor. Didnt look like that of leftovers from the Kitty party, bcos I couldnt find any rat hair or legs as remains like the other day. Either the prey was delicious for the cats to have cleaned up all the bones, or one of the cats, probably a female one, was menstruating. Well, I spent some good amount of time, cleaning and washing the floor on a lovely monday morning. I have to seriously look for alternatives, if anyone knows of any shop or any number I can call and seek help, please do provide. I do not want waking up every morning wondering what surprise lies on that side of the door.

After struggling for a week, with a bug in the code, when it works Monday morning, its like getting relief from constipation. You know its there, but you dont know why it is not working, and you dont know what the bug is.  And you have that heavy feeling within you. 

Finally got relief today. Damn, only if I could read in between the lines of the error log file. Last week was pathetic, I hope the week ahead is nice :)

Dont know if its the emptiness within or in the house, its been a bit  blank after parents left today morning. The past 2 weeks have been mixed, a bit of tensed especially with Dad getting sick. And to add to more responsibility, bro was not in town,  and suddenly it seemed like a support off. Luckily he came back last weekend, and it suddenly feels nice to have everyone home and in good health. There were some occasions earlier in childhood, when out of a moment of anguish, or temporary kiddish sibling rivalry when I wondered why I had a younger brother, I used to wonder how life would have been without a sibling,  that too a younger one. The equations favored him then bcos he was younger :)  Well, last week, I knew how it would feel like, when you suddenly feel all alone especially with ailing parents, when you cant outsource your worries. Friends are supportive and loving always, but family is family.

Dad as usual gets tensed when things dont go punctual. I had booked for a taxi to the Rly station for 5 am for the 6 am train. From 4.45 am, he has been panicking about the taxi not arriving. In between desperate calls to the taxi office, the only thing I hoped was for the taxi to make a magic appearance. With all the chaos, the milk boiling on the stove, spilt all over the kitchen. The story of the milk is another one. Since Dad was advised for a regular exercise bcos of being over weight, I allowed him to venture out yesterday morning to get the milk for the day. Well the person who was supposed to return with 1 litre of milk, came back home carrying 3 litres of milk. Yes, thats my Dadda. And I reminded him that they were traveling back the next day and I should prolly shift to a whole milk diet to consume the extra 2 litres all by myself. Well, Dadda had other plans, he says, " its okay, we will make Payasam " . Well, now, we know how the overweight thing came up ! The payasam plan was safely ignored or forgotten.

So it was good that today morning some of the milk went for a toss. And after they left, I had a huge task of clearing up the kitchen. Cleaning up is a good way to divert sadness/emptiness. But then, I did remember I am home alone, when I put back those extra crockery, until they return again.

Good thing about being alone is, getting back to the Internet network, and also catching up with many friends post as well as pending posts to be logged.


Work has been the worst this whole week. I guess, there will be such low points now and then.

It is only in the Lift you can smell a combination of stinking shoes, unwashed socks, bad breath, shirts perfumed with sweat, oily unwashed hair, body odour ...

And its only the lift, you meet all the junk heads working in your company. People on phone, blocking the door wondering which way the lift goes, people who dont get out of the lift bcos they were either talking, or dreaming or on phone, people who barge in without letting others to exit, people who have a fantasy to press random buttons and make the lift stop at all unwanted floors, Well, its a jolly ride till the 7th floor. If only,  I had the stamina to take up the stairs, I would have avoided this.

If the CEO, gave me the choice to lay off people, I would take him on the Lift and show him how much cost he can save !


Meme time, add your other frustrating lift experiences as comments !!

Its day 5 at the Gym and considering the aching muscles, it has been good so far. The last time I was in gym, it was 2 years back, and I was not this heavy then, and since the gym was outside office, I wasnt feeling this uncomfortable with my huge body especially wearing the gym clothes. Now, I accompany my junior team-mate B to the office gym, who is very fashion conscious. So it also means, I did some weekend shopping for more gym clothes and accessories.

Did I mention that the gym clothes I used 2 years back, are shorter for me ? Well, I am sure, I have not grown taller. If that was the case, the never-ending search for the right and tall guy is going to take much longer. I started analyzing why my clothes got shorter, and I was not very glad to hit on the answer. When one grows broader, the clothes have to cover larger area width wise,  and so they cover lesser length wise ! Huh . Well thanks for standing 176 cms tall, people who see after a year now, do not complain/exclaim that I have put on weight, its only me, who worries, bcos I carry those extra 10 kilos now !

So during the weekend B and I went shopping for clothes with contrastingly different specifications. She was looking for extra-small and I was looking for X-Ls. And I usually go for the unisex varieties bcos of my height. She also made me buy some hair bands and other accessories. I have not started wearing them yet. Well, she does, and she looks like a typical Anushka Sharma of RNBDJ. Good in way, it adds a glamor quotient to our otherwise boring gym. I need the motivation to jump around, otherwise, there is no fun jumping around fat masses during the aerobics session. 

And now, it seems the fashion factor is hitting me too. I am bored with my gym clothes. And since its mid-week, I have no time for a dedicated shopping spree either. I regret those many times, I was offered t-shirts at different office events, parties, contests, I always opted them for bro or Dad. I have no interesting t-shirts :(  And somehow, I didnt want to hit the gym today with my boring t-shirts. Its pay-back time, So I opened my brother's wardrobe and looked for t-shirts which can be used as unisex. Also, for the ones he wouldnt mind donating it to me.  I finally got a t-shirt sponsored by "THE WEEK" . Good enough for today, now I know what to do in the weekend. 

 A month back I spent 4 days in exhaustion for getting things in order for an impulsive decision. After applying for the VISA, though I doubted my own application, I didnt bother much about it, bcos I knew if I did, it would weaken me further if I fail. I never prayed once for a successful processing, though in between I got anxious and kept tracking the progress on the VISA office website. And one of the worst fears was, what if they called up my present employer for a background check. My friend had a similar call for the same VISA, and when his manager inquired about it, he was lucky to fool his manager with some other reasons. I know, my manager cannot be taken for a ride that easily. And when I havent really thought about the migration, I do not want to ruin my manager's hope about me staying here for a long time.

So yesterday I got a call at 9 am from the courier office. I was already on the way to office, so I could not collect the passport. I got a bit anxious bcos I had to wait till evening to know the news which could be either ways. I called up Vee, who helped me ease out, and after reaching office, I forgot about it until I reached back home and started following up with the courier office. May 1 being a holiday, I didnt want to sit whole of the day waiting for the courier till Saturday . At 10 pm, I got the courier. There was some confusion with the consignment number, so while the guy was checking it up, I didnt want to get anxious, so went back to the kitchen to do the dishes :)

After he left, I held the cover in my hand, mumbled a small prayer which I dont even recall now. As I opened my passport, the first thing which fell out was my passport photo, and I got a shock which made me weak, wondering if my application was rejected. However the shock didnt last long, so I pulled out other papers to find out why they rejected my application. I already set my mind to appeal for it. I couldnt find any papers other than my original documents. So I opened my passport again and found the VISA on page 17. :) I think they usually return photos :) I didnt know that. My mind was calm, I looked at the VISA for some time in silence. I realized then that there is actually nothing forward to look to, I do not have plans yet, I am yet to make plans, it had been a long day already, so I left the passport on my table and retired to bed. Plans can wait, or they can evolve,  I anyways have the keys to one of the roads of my future. I need to choose which road.

Co-incidentally yesterday I completed 6 months at my current employer.  I didnt realize it, until I got a confirmation letter from the HR eod.  Though transition from probation to permanent is usually sequential, with the economic conditions around, anything could happen. I am glad, nothing untoward happened so far. This is key to another road ahead.

I do not believe in Astrology though I try to analyze people and their sun signs. But they say, the positions of planets favor when it is ur birth month or sun sign phase, so good things happen. And bcos of this reason, over the years, once its April-May I always turn positive about the decisions I make and their outcome. Be it planetary influence, or the positive thoughts, things have been good so far. Everything is falling into place so far.  

Last night when I was just about to hit bed,  my college batch mate Vin caught me online. We were class mates at Engineering for the first year, later we were divided into different streams, he was into Mechanical. The first time I knew him, I thought he was a "Vaaye-Nokki" ( One who keeps ogling at girls ) , bcos he was desperately trying to hit on my beautiful room-mate Sho, who was not interested in him either. Being the protective and motherly room mate, I always tried to keep him away from Sho.

Later Vin changed his strategy and started acting as if he was hitting on me, so that Sho would get jealous and fall for him. I remember, Vin  looking for me on one of the Valentine's and how I tried avoiding him and ran for my life. We all knew it was for fun, but Sho and Vin werent a  couple then, not until we graduated. I do not know what happened after college days, I knew things were serious between them, only when I came to know they were together in Dubai and were getting married despite religious conflicts, family honor etc .

Today they are happily married and are blessed with a beautiful daughter Tina. And Vin was multi-tasking while baby-sitting and chatting with me, Sho was busy preparing for one of her training exams. Vin was telling me that everyday Sho cursed all the people in her company for making her read through Aircraft engineering. I had a hearty laugh, bcos Sho was somebody who couldnt sit with a book under her nose in college days even. Sho and Liz,  my room-mates used to sleep all through the exam days while Vids and I spent many countless nights burning midnight oil. They in fact, brought special Dunlop Mattress from home, bcos the hostel beds were not very nice to sleep for long hours, especially when other kids were putting on the light and studying :) I remember, as we were the first batch for the new syllabus, the important questions under different categories could be easily guessed. Sho and Liz would wake up around 5 am on the exam day and start studying, while I did the revisions for the important questions. They always passed. Vids and I always wondered where this was leading to. 

Even before any of us had jobs, Sho was already employed with Dubai's best Airways. I remember when Vids and I discussed how getting good ranks and marks didnt matter once you are out of college. Today Sho works as an Electronic Engineer for Dubai's world famous Airlines. But she thinks, she is not able to grasp things on her training manuals, bcos she didnt read anything properly in her Engineering days. Vin says, Sho feels atleast if she had worked hard then, it would have been easier today. Vids are you reading this ? Sho repents now ! But little does Sho know, it really does not matter what you read in Engineering or vomited on the answer sheets. Bcos none of us are really working on what we read those days,  though fundamentals remain same.  On second thoughts, may be Sho is right too, she is never used to sitting in one place with a book in her hand, so its definitely a task to prepare for the training sessions now. When she was 18-19, she cursed the authors of our Engineering reference books as to why they couldnt keep things simple, today reaching 30, she curses all the training staff at her work place.. Heh.. Life sometimes brings you back what you dont want.

Today is International Dance Day. For all you Dance lovers, you know what to do next. My team mate has been pestering me for sometime now to join her for some Dance classes. As I already have my evenings packed with loafing around and disturbing friends, their parents, their kids, their servants and in some cases neighbors too, I had not given her my whole consent.

Co-incidentally today we bumped into the idea of joining the office gym where we have aerobics classes too. Well, its 2 years since I last visited a gym, and the weighing machine numbers do not leave me content either. So today we enrolled for our gym and aerobics class. I am eagerly looking forward to this.

Today morning when I went to pick some tea from the pantry, the glass table with a borken sharp edge(kept for news papers) tore my salwar and also a little of the kameez. And it also scratched my leg slightly. I managed to temporarily staple the torn cloth. I am angry with myself and also with the facilities team here. I raised a call report asking them to either remove or replace the table, bcos it could be more dangerous for someone else. I dont think they understand.

Btw, I was not dancing around in the pantry, I was just trying to quickly scan the newspaper and was standing and reading the newspaper when this happened.