When one went on an outbound with team

Tweet

The day began at a very nervous pace for when was the last time one woke up at 6? A push, dash and wash later one was yawny ready to begin the 3 day outbound that one was going on with my colleagues. An hour later than scheduled we were all neatly packed in the AC bus ready for a lullaby which would sound the dong for slumber. Sometime into the journey and there was an uprising among some of us to do better than dream which gave rise to some really dumb charades. A short break of fast later we fell into patterned rounds of card games in which some lost money some won and one other was left holding nearly two packs in his hands in a bid to bluff. We reached the sanctuary by mid afternoon. The sprawling place did not give us any hint of the jungle lurking outside. After a fine meal and some fine falls orchestrated at the hammock the guys found themselves in the pool. They were trying to play some kind of hand football or basketball or fight-for-the-ball. From a giant turtle wading through the waters ball in hand to catfishes fighting for a scrap of ball, it was a complete picture of team work. For some others siesta, shade and cycling beckoned.

One rode the bicycle after so many years and the fact that one could balance on it after a quaky start was enough to have made one's brother proud.

Awhile in the pool for the girls and we got out with the promise of making it more fun the next morning. In the dark night was our project's post mortem. Thankfully it wasn’t as grim as the setting and went on amazingly mature. The end result was such a criss-cross of lines and circles and scribbles on paper that one hopes the genius who created it will not go bonkers un-knotting it! Frantic search around the periphery of the dining hut yielded the place where one could "catch" signal on one's airtel phone. After a call to assure dear ones that one was missing them a lot it was back to having fun.

We went around the place with the fear and also hope that a snake would cross our paths.

When one discovered the futility of this we decided to retire for the night.
The next morning shone its shine with a lot of vigor for this was the first time one would get into a swimming pool. One felt extremely light headed and bodied in the water. Splashing about, playing "Monkey" in 4 ft of water and moon-walking across the pool was amazing. For the uninitiated "moon-walking" is what non-swimmers do in a pool. One of us swam, one of us discovered her fins, one of us grew a swim-wish and one kept cycling in water and felt like a mermaid.

The rest of the day went in training ourselves about something we haven’t quite figured out.

After dinner one group decided to not sleep. And found it very tough to come up with alternatives. Twenty questions was evoked but turned out that one can’t guess one's own trainer's name even using a hundred questions! Then we zeroed in on Pictionary. Now this can be a very gentlemanly game but not with our wild eye gestures and assertion qualities with pencil and some zooky movie names. One could even spot a straw coming out of an ear and going into the body of the sketch of man - and this was the realization of "I". Lateral thinking is all about Pictionary. Or wait is it the other way around? We had a giggly time just laughing at each other's sketches though. While some of them could simply make do with tick marks, some had dashes the size of the word. Hilarious, I say!

The next morning was a regular group photo/individual photo session coz we were returning.

One heard the guys had a blast playing polo in the pool early in the morning. One was fast asleep but one can easily imagine it would be like what was described earlier about the first day.
All in all it was a very nice, laugh out loud trip :)

You don’t need Kerala for rejuvenation therapies!

Hip hip hurrah!

Brain ka Noodle

Tweet

This week has been one big drag on me - well, workwise
I cant seem to concentrate.
I cant seem to use my 'intelligence'
I cant seem to do any research
I cant seem to give status updates
I cant seem to jot down meeting minutes
I cant seem to do anything


Everything seems to end in a blur of personal happiness.
Its weird how when one is happy, everything else seems to be irrelevant. Even though my paisa vasool happens coz of those irrelevant things!
My only hope and wish is that everyone including my boss understands this ebb in me!
As for me am fervently hoping for tomorrow evening to cast its holiday spell on me

Ich liebe es

Tweet

I've got blisters on the soles of my feet
I can't walk but am trying

Today is one of the happiest days of my life!
So what if I had to walk 2 kms in the hot sun
So what if I couldnt get a single bus to my destination for one and half hours
So what if they all whizzed past me later in quick succession
So what if they dint stop when I waved
So what if I couldn't get an auto on the long winding road
So what if I got bathed in mud
So what if i got tanned some more
So what if i got blisters on my feet
So what if i am limping now

(Not to mention all that hubby dear went through)

I and my hubby are proud owners of a house today.

An aashiana which we can call our very own.

Tra la la la

As they say in german "Ich liebe es"!

Story of Chaos

Tweet

Traffic jam (whats new?)
After waiting for 20 mins at one spot, the bus lurches ahead and sees "road" at the end of the tunnel of mess.
The irate bus driver gestures "what the! what the hell do u think u are doing"
Traffic cop (balancing himself at the edge of a median-type stone) gestures back "Thale ketthogidhe (Going mad). Nanannee mele yerasbidthare (They will send me only up) saar. Adjust madkondu hogi"
Bus driver feels more sympathetic towards the cop than himself.

Not a single word is spoken though. Power of communication.

Ho-hum

Tweet

I just saw that I had last posted here in Aug! What did I do for a whole month? I am not sure I have even come here more than twice. Thats really bad for a blog that you own yourself isnt it?
We shifted to a new workplace this week. Honestly my first reaction was "Its congested". But that is kind of the patented "first reaction" to any new workplace rt? After spending sometime here I realised that the place is big enough for me. I mean what do I really need in a work place? A computer, a telephone, a place under the table to store my stuff and some place on the table for the mess I tend to create. Oh yeah a roof over my head and a constant access to a tea vending machine!
My friend once told me that when her father asked her what her brother (yet another software engineer) does at work she tried explaining about programs. But when it went at the 30000 height she told him that he sits in front of a computer and kot-kot-kots.
Hmmm I think that sums up a software engineer's work life. Come in the morning kot-kot-kot unlock system, kot-kot open mail, kot-kot-kot-kot and some more furious kot-kots later mails answered. Then coffee breaks, meetings, kot-kots, yak-yaks, a final KOT of relief to lock system and go home! So with this purview do we really need a huge space to call our own work station? Na-ha!

Taking Dr. Mallya literally

Tweet

Background :
Biocon Ltd chairman and MD Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw interviewed UB Group chairman Vijay Mallya on the ills of Bangalore and the possible solutions for The Times of India and this particular part has relevance to what I want to say :

KM : How would you tackle traffic congestion in Bangalore?

VM : Bangalore needs to demarcate its Central Business District and use tolls, congestion fees and software to regulate traffic in the CBD. Cities like London and Singapore have successfully managed traffic congestion through these methods and I don’t see why we can’t do the same. Autorickshaws need to be confined to suburbs and banned from the CBD. We need to introduce car pool lanes on Hosur Road and Whitefield Road to ease traffic density. Bangkok has transformed itself from a mega-traffic-jam city to a free-flowing traffic city through a network of tollpaying elevated roads. We need to borrow from successful ideas and not try to reinvent the wheel. We need to implement the Metro and the Mono Rail projects at breakneck speed. Schools need to manage traffic in a more responsible way. We need more multistoreyed car parks. We need underpasses and overpasses to regulate pedestrian traffic and we need to prevent stray cows and dogs from impeding traffic as well!

CM : He hotly refused to burden the citizens with more taxes.

My take:
Day before yesterday our office shuttle driver decided to take a short cut through a layout in Whitefield to avoid all the traffic logjam on the now internationally (in)famous Marathalli bridge. So, there we were sailing "smoothly" through all the pot holed roads, which is the fact of life for most inner roads of Bangalore layouts. Suddenly we saw a group of guys jumping around on the road in the distance. We did not understand till we came up to them that the war dance that they were performing was to ensure that any approaching vehicle stops before it hits them. Ok so we dint have a choice but to stop, what with two over-enthu guys gleefully blocking the narrow road. The other two guys approached the driver and demanded Rs. 10. Our man was confused. Then one of the guys was kind enough to explain that it was (....now listen to this....) the "toll" for using that road! Many vehicles (cars, tempo travellers and the ilk) plying through erstwhile quiet neighbourhoods near IT hubs have become a menace for the people living there. The narrow roads are not tarred and with every passing vehicle a fresh drift of dust is ushered into every house. One cannot forget the noise pollution which the first-geared vehicles produce. Sometimes there are traffic jams even on these "short-cut" roads. Understandably the frustration of the populace mounts.

We got away that day without paying the ten rupees either because the guys were sheepish about their task or the driver was too much of a match for their wit.

Bangalore's citizens, even if its only jobless opportunist youths, are taking it into their hands to implement what Vijay Mallya suggested and what the CM would not! Is it the correct path? I dont know. I am not here to judge. Nevertheless, kudos to their guts and entrepreneurship!

Long Live Bangalorean Enterprise :)

These are a few of my favourite things

Tweet

My current passion : ACCESSORIES!

Hoops, danglers, bracelets, brooches, bags et al....I love buying these and I love wearing/using them even more! My folks tell me I spend way too much on them but ab kya karen control hi nahin hota ;)

Bijou-Brigitte- For glittery, bling bling, colourful and sheer varrrriety this is a must go. This chain is not in India though. I love their gift wrap li'l bags the most!

Sia Art Jewellery - Its an Indian chain. Amazing ethnic stuff you get here! But it all depends on how much you are ready to shell out. The lesser the money the plasticky the look gets.

Jute Cottage - Jute jute jute jute wonderful jute! Its in Bangalore.

Ballyfabs - The Jute Shop - I know there is one in Spencer Plaza in Chennai but not sure if they have opened one in Bangalore. Delightful shop! Designer stuff I tell ya..

Any of you reading this post is welcome to take this forward and blog about the shops you keep going back to, the shops that you buy most of your accessories from!

When Bruise Lee was in my next seat

Tweet

Continuing with the in-flight experience...

When I am totally awashed with tiredness and long to rest, I always get a seat which is next to a fat person who is occupying half my seat or I get a "middle" seat and then my space gets encroached upon by two people or I have to cope with a bawling kid beside me or a sprightly kid behind me forever kicking my seat. When people sit beside me on a flight they like to assume that I am actually half my size or so I think, otherwise how can you explain the phenomenon of "elbow space". I never ever get to rest my elbow on my seat's hand rest - someone else has got there before me.
(I have a theory about how to solve the elbow space problem without losing out on the number of people you could stuff into economy class. Will tell you as soon as I can make sound a little less crazy).

The experience I am going to narrate now is a greatly different from what I have blabbered on above.
I got onto this flight. I was in a very happy state because, even though I hadnt managed to get a window seat even with my best am-a-good-little-girl smile, I had procured an aisle seat. Sitting on the aisle requires a lot of precision. Precision on where exactly you could place your legs without tripping anyone walking by and still make use of the luxury of stretching them out. Oh! you dont know how rapidly the air hostesses and stewards move about. I have personally seen a steward emerging from the first class section to economy, tripping on an aisle passenger's foot and landing on his nose half way across the deck. If I let myself ramble on, I can write reams of irrelevant stuff can't I?!!
So, I got to my seat and it was a three seater. There was a girl already at the window seat and nobody in the middle seat. I waited with bated breath to see if somebody would come to occupy the seat but very soon the plane's doors were closed. I turned towards the window-seat girl and gave her a triumphant smile. She dint understand the reason but she returned it. I explained to her very shortly with actions. I kicked off my shoes, lifted the seat handle and occupied half of the middle seat. I almost felt royal! The other girl was quick to grasp the meaning of this extra comfort and followed suit. We sailed peacefully through the air till I started to slumber. I dont know for how long I had slept when I woken with a huge thud on my head. In my sleep I thought the plane was crashing! I flared open my eyes and found myself looking straight into the window-seat girl's eyes. She was as bewildered as I was. What I found even more shocking was how I found her poised. She held the back of my seat with one hand and the seat in front with the other, her legs in the air. I was totally confused by now as to what was going on. All I could understand was that the thump on my head was beginning to pain a lot so I rubbed it. The girl sheepishly told me sorry and ran off in the direction of the rest room. As I became more awake I realised what had happened.
I was in deep sleep, so deep that my mouth was totally open. The other girl wanted to desperately use the rest room. She felt saddened at the prospect of waking me up from my meditative state so she thought why not try to get past without disturbing me.She recollected all that she had imbibed from the crouching tiger kinda movies. She hoisted herself in the air and would have landed safely on the other side of me, had she not misjudged the size of my head. Somewhere in the process her hand hit my head squarely on top and left me with a huge sore bump! Weirdness can only happen to me really! I mean, I get one and a half seats, and still I have to contend with those. Maybe I should just get back to remaining awake on flights.
Also, I want to thank the Lord for making me thick headed enough to suffer only a pain. But with my current track record in remembering things I would never know even if I lost some memory anyway!

On top of Bangalore

Tweet

Bangalore - I think that very soon we might find this word in the dictionary as a synonym for traffic jam. The only thing that comes to mind when you think of this city is the snarling honking abusing polluting snakes of vehicles. From the drawing room discussion to the stand up comic traffic jams of bangalore have become a hot topic. Everybody has an opinion about how to build flyovers. Everybody has an opinion about how to control traffic. Everybody except the city planner and the traffic cop!
I am not writing this piece to crib about Bangalore's traffic. I think terabytes of data are already being used up for that purpose. What I want to talk about is a different view of Bangalore.
Its not that I was seeing Bangalore for the first time from the air but somehow this time the experience was different. You may attribute it to the fact that I had to endure endless traffic snarls to get to the airport that day but nevertheless the view from top was breath taking.

It was like long snakes zigzaggedly going through a forest full of fireflies showing them direction :)

The roads of Bangalore which look so complicated and messy when you are on them looked so easy to use and beautiful from the top. Minus the view of potholes the roads looked like heaven. I have seen other indian cities like Chennai and Mumbai from the air but none of them have the quality that Bangalore does. This is purely a Bangalorean's opinion so you are to call me prejudiced. Bangalore doesnt look like the jungle Mumbai does or a mess of criss cross like Chennai. It looks calm and serene. And the traffic it just looks so well disciplined. No matter if the car I am seeing from above as gliding is actually a call center cab overtaking a volvo from the left while trying to avoid the motorist to his left, it all looks well coordinated from above. Calm and composed is how I see Bangalore and I love it.

I now see the wisdom in the fact that lot of great devotees have written odes to God asking him to come down and have a look at the world. Well, if I am getting the view of serenity from a plane at 35000 ft, I can well imagine the grandeur that God would be seeing from way way way above us all.

Happiness is...

Tweet

Sleeping for an hour more everyday after the alarm rings (Heaven!)

Heavy rain outside, Inside : cozy sofa, ------------------>(Use your imagination instead of picture)

hot cuppa tea, excellent conversation
(tra la la)








Heavy mist, me and my favourite guy
(muaaaahzz!)















Stretched out in bed with a good book and a salt-and-peppered totapuri mango slice (slurp!)







This was her idea...carry it forward if you like!