Work n Life

2012-01-22T11:16:00.002+05:30

Funny that I have not written after that last post about my leaving my first job - I joined and left another one in the meantime...Right now, totally jobless, and hence have time to spare to type a few lines.. where I've not been active for a LONGGGGGG time!

It is almost a month since I left my job, truly this time, but have not missed having a job.... yet!

Gains - Have made trips without thinking much about what work is pending, when I should apply for leave etc., Taking care of the needs of the house and family without having time pressure, spending a lots of time with Kim, able to handle the unexpected events like dropping her in the dance class at short notice, and unexpected holidays and her programs, not getting irritated with her when she finds something and gets engrossed while I ask her to do something else, more flexible on timings to sleep, exercise and take naps in between :) and generally being cool most of the times! At times, I feel that I've still not learnt to utilise the break:(.... Everyday is a learning....

Loss - interactions with friends/colleagues at office which leads to learning in someway or other. Sometimes browse too much of TV out of boredom....Spoils your day....

Anyway, have decided to enjoy this while it lasts :D

2011-04-06T22:05:00.005+05:30

I don't seem to find the right words... Two weeks from now is going to be the last day at this office. Am feeling sentimental. These days shifting jobs is not such a big thing.. everyone does it once in every few years. But close to 13 years in one place - it grows on you.... Not that I've been at the same location with the same team, but more or less, I've been with the same product all through out.

Just out of college, 15 of us were chosen to be in the team with a great person, who had the idea and believed in us to get the idea into an actual product. We all learnt from him and from several others, seniors and juniors, who joined the team as the time passed. Everything was new (atleast for me) and we all believed in the idea and were completely enthusiastic to deliver what has been told. As any new product idea, we saw it getting different names, positioning, technologies - frustrating when you had to cope up with the speed of the change - but it all helped us learn. I've been lucky to have been part of the delivery, implementation and testing teams over the years which has shaped up my career.

I have had my ups and downs, have made my share of mistakes, have had in-numerous fights with teams, have had fun, have made friends ...

Personally - I owe lots to this place - I met my husband here ;)

When I completed 10 years here, friends who had left (who were part of the team of 15) commented that I will retire from here. I believed that I will do so even 5 months back!

Hmmm.. but then things change, priorities change and the change itself starts to happen. I am going to be in a new city, new job, new language and new culture.. Yes i've done it before, but without the job part... That comfort is not there this time :(. But as usual, the adventurous me thinks Change is for good and is going to add more to my experience, maturity and growth and so... am all ready to face yet another challenge!

2011-01-13T20:39:00.002+05:30

Happy New year and to all the folks who celebrate Pongal - Happy Pongal!

Resolution for this year to blog more than last year... Let us see how this goes :)

My second post for this year would be the US experience... Have been collecting my thoughts over the last few days (may be weeks) and will 'key' it all soon... Watch this space!

2010-10-30T22:16:00.002+05:30

Daily Horoscope of facebook - This is what I have been thinking about today!

I have become a 'facebook' addict and everyday I look at the daily horoscope. I feel happy when I read something interesting or nice (It also gives a thrill to read the next days horoscope at 7 pm IST). I dont give a damn whether it actually happens or not, but generally it gives a good feel to start the next day.

I realised how much my thoughts (may be everyone's thought if they beleive in any kind of horoscope) revolve around what is written and I kind of made it true because of the intense thinking! Yesterday in the daily horoscope, it was stated that I should be careful about driving this weekend. Ever since I took the car to go and pick up Kim, it was there in my mind - how much ever I was trying to shoo it away, it just remained!! So I was EXTRA careful and ofcourse tensed as well. I went to school, picked her up, waited in traffic for a long time to take a cut (all because I was being careful :)) and came to the library to pick up a few books. While taking the car out, I did not realise and hit a old man's scooter down. Completely my mistake and I was lucky on two counts, he was not in a bad mood and the vehicle was not moving. I was going on saying sorry and he just left it with a few lines of advise 'You should also look at the side mirror while taking reverse.. etc.,' and everyone around told me how to reverse :(... But after that happened, I was like 'Oooffff!! Finally it has happened. Now I dont need to worry' and I drove like usual and without that BIG tension that was there since yesterday night....

If I look at the whole thing logically, I just feel that my constant thinking about the mention of accident and the tension that arouse out of the whole thing is what made me hit that scooter. My conclusion: When you read/hear what is going to happen as per your sun sign/jadhagam, I guess somewhere in the sub conscience, it registers. It is always in the back of your mind, you end up thinking about it so much, you almost make it happen - then say what was told was true :)

2010-09-22T22:34:00.001+05:30

You know what I found? August seems to be a month of blogging inactiveness for me.. - Consistently for the last three years!!! Surprising... and I dont think I've an explanation for this! Anyway, but what matters now is that am back...
Couple of weeks back, my daughter did not have school in the morning and my husband left her at her day care (WeCare) 15 minutes earlier than her usual time. Nothing was told to him then and nothing was written in her diary for couple of days. Two days later, when I went to pick her up, I was asked 'Mam, when are you going to pay the 200 Rs'.. I was like 'What 200??!!' Her teacher says 'that day you left her 15 minutes early, that one..'
First thought was 'Wow, 200 Rs? Am already paying a bomb compared to other day cares. Not too sure if am getting everything that was promised. I've never come late to pick up my daughter. She comes from school at 2 and spend 3.5 hours while what I pay is for 6 hours and on top of it, am being asked in a rude tone (may be thats the way this teacher talks normally also, may be lack of confidence over the language) for 200 Rs!!!!'
I told her 'Why didn't anyone tell about this to my husband when he dropped her that day?!' Her reply 'This is what it is mam, everyone knows - whether they are doing late pickup or early drop, so much should be paid'.. I said 'Am not going to pay' and walked off.
After cooling down a bit and analysing it logically, these were my thoughts 'I chose to enrol my daughter here despite the cost because of the comfort that I had with the facilities and the way it is run. There were only two packages one was full day or half a day. I chose the half a day. I dont have any other option now as shifting anywhere else mean loosing that admission fee that I have already paid. Do I have a problem paying 200 Rs - No, then Why am I getting irritated? It is because I was not informed about this when my daughter was left there early and am not too sure about whether informed at all as I remember clearly that there is a fine when you pick them up later than the agreed time. and the way I was told about paying did not go well may be because of the mood I was in or the mood the teacher was in!'
So I paid the money and I told them I will not refer anyone as am not happy with this incident etc., (I guess just to satiate my ego :)) and came off...
In retrospect, I think communication at the right time in the right way is what matters to get any kind of relationship thrive or become sour... More about this in the next post....

2010-07-09T22:06:00.002+05:30

RESTLESS is how I feel today.. Mainly because of work I guess.. May be it is time I start doing something different. The mood is reflecting at home as well. Nothing seems to interest me really, which according to me happens only to people who have let their work rule their life. Sigh!! Time to do a reality check!.

Bigger problem is that I dont think that I can do without the mental stimulation and kick I get out of working. There were times (When Kim was born) when I seriously thought that I should quit and be at home. Seems that I somehow did not get around it which is good.. if I had had, I would have gone crazy by this time.

So coming back to the point, that work has become life mostly, it is time I think of doing something outside work that will sustain my interest by constantly challenging me. Music is one that I've always wanted to learn further, may be thats what I should do...

2010-06-16T22:01:00.003+05:30

A perspective of social networking websites....

On the other day, I was telling my friend that he was never active in orkut and he is not active in facebook either... While I was updating him about what our mutual friends are posting he was telling me about how these things can be received by emails as well and you dont need to read someone else's posts blah blah... so the conversation went on around this and he made a statement 'I somehow feel that people who are very active in social networking websites are having exhibitionist and/or voyeuristic tendencies.. Otherwise why will people be so open about what is happening in their lives and comment about what is happening in others!' - Got me thinking....

Why do people join these websites - I think majority do it out of curiosity to see what is there and also to claim 'I've been there and done that'...

I was very active in orkut and figured out most of my friends had started using facebook and I joined facebook as well. I am very active there as I believe in sharing what I feel with my friends. Dont I've other modes of communicating that? Yes, i can do it through mails, calls or just dropping inif they are close by... but orkut/facebook gives me a wider audience. I post when I feel sad/happy/proud/sick/tired and a few from the network always comment with the right words. I come out of depression/be more happy and feel consoled at the appropriate times. And there is joy in getting touch with your old friends , people from school, college and your town...Being a social animal and living in apartments (most of the time without knowing who your neighbours are) and being online most of your waking hours, what other better mode can be available to make your life interesting?!! i cant think of many...

2010-05-20T08:30:00.004+05:30

13-May-2010

Day started with lots of tension. Previous day my grandmothers doc had met my brother and explained to him about the fungal infection that she had got which had caused the breathing difficulties. She was put on oxygen and the doctor had asked if something happens, whether we want to keep her alive through life support. It was deja vu for us as the similar kind of situation happened almost 4 years back when my mom's dad had a clot in his brain and our answer this time was the same - No, we dont want her to suffer.

Given this situation, we wanted to take her back to Mettur which is our home town 200 kms from Bangalore. We had to shift her in an ambulance with oxygen as per the doc's advise. Kim, myself and my brother were there at the hospital. Patti was conscious, but was very tired to speak. She smiled at Kimaya, and had her lunch. after that, she told my brother that she is going to sleep and slept off. She did not regain her consciousness after that. After meeting the doc once again, finishing all the discharge formalities, we left the hospital at 4:45 pm.. I was in the ambulance along with Patti and driver and my brother was supposed to follow in the car, but because it was peak hour and he had to go and pick up the other patti and Zeta, by the time he was out of Bangalore, ambulance had reached Krishnagiri.

Though I was slightly afraid in the beginning, after an hour of travel, as her condition was stable, I was very confident. I was holding her hand and singing some of the songs that she likes. (more to control the way my mind getting worked up about the situation). We reached Mettur, and were 15 minutes away from home, I called up everyone to tell that she is still stable and should be ok. Just after a few minutes after the call, She opened her eyes, I asked her 'What Patti, we have reached Mettur and in a few minutes we will be home', she tried looking around and then closed her eyes, her breathing started slowing down - I realised that all that I've heard the way people die is coming true infront of my eyes, and am helpless.. Screamed to the driver that her breathing is slowing down, he came and increased oxygen, then did not tell me anything and asked me how far are we from home, i said, may be a couple of minutes, we rushed home. I was patting her cheeks and was continously calling out 'Patti, Patti'... All the neighbours were waiting to see Patti (advantage of being in small town), they saw me panicking and shifted her to her bed and started oxygen again, but by that time, her breathing had completely stopped and only pulse was left. In a matter of seconds, that also stopped.

Later I learnt from the driver that when he increased the oxygen levels, it actually went back into the cylinder (meaning she was not inhaling) and so he knew she was in her last few seconds.

I just did not know what to make of the situation. Did not want to believe that she is gone, also was feeling that it is good that she is gone without suffering. I've been replaying this in my mind several times since that Thursday - it was as if that she held on to her life till she reached Mettur. More I think of it, the more I believe that if you intensely wish for something , it will happen. She used to tell us that she should die in Mettur and even if something happens else where we should take her back to Mettur to do the last rites and that is exactly what she got.... amazing.

The phenomena in itself - being alive one second and gone the next and also the question about the unknown part of what happens to the 'soul' after that - is still lingering on my mind and will be there the rest of my life!

May her soul rest in peace. We all will miss you paatti...

2010-03-31T22:25:00.005+05:30

Hunger makes me angry and irritated, big time!

For the past few days, I've been forgetting my snacks which I try and have at around evening in office, I come back home feeling ravenous. Since my mood goes for a toss, I invariably end up fighting with Kim while bringing her back from day care. Felt sad about that, chided myself for not behaving like a grown up when I know the root cause of my behavior, today, I took my snack(an energy bar).

Got stuck in office , hurried to Kim's day care at the last minute, picked her up and was stuck in traffic also. Finally, with great difficulty, (car stopped twice and people were honking behind me, but I was determined not to stay hungry!), I opened my bag and took my snack bar. Kim turned and saw it. There went my snack - "Amma, enakku idhu romba pidikkum amma, but I will share it with you ". Sharing is something that she is learning newly and reluctantly she gives me 1/20th of the snack bar and with that much going in, my body was screaming for more and the result is - read the first statement!

When I reached home, I was glad that food was ready for the evening, filled up the plate and sat to eat. One would think that my mood would have got better as I've finally seen food! NO....When there are four kids around - one a 3.5 yrs old, two above 80+ and one canine - all trying to grab my attention one way or the other over and above the noise from TV, even before my brain realised that I'm taking care of the hunger, the irritation just ended up becoming exponential. If I look back at the situation it is just hilarious but, believe me, it did not seem so while I was experiencing it. Finally I ended up screaming at all of them at the top of my voice and ofcourse ended up feeling bad - ONCE AGAIN!!!!!

2010-03-03T19:19:00.000+05:30

There are some days when you really feel that you are lost. Today is one such day. I've to keep reminding myself what are the things that needs to be done and have to push myself to go on doing those. I think it is a fight between mind, body and heart. Mind is fresh and clear and ready to go, heart is in its own world and the body tired becuase of the bout of fever and the intake of antibiotics. They dont have an aligned goal(effects of appraisal discussions!) to work towards. Such conflicts makes the day very unproductive as I keep jumping from one task to another OR think that am doing so many tasks in parallel, but not complete anything.In these situations, normally music helps - especially Ilayaraja's, but today that did not help. Tried the songs from 'Kadhaal Vedham' of Hariharan.. This is associated with lots of memories for me, even that did not help much. Finally the only solution was to take the tasks as they come to make the day atleast a decently productive one...

2010-03-01T18:19:00.004+05:30

This years birthday was celebrated with a difference.

I went to Trivandrum to participate in the pongala for Attukal bagavathy devi. Every year it comes around the end of Feb or beginning of March. This year it happened on my birthday Feb 28th. My MIL has been doing it for more than 20 years. She believes in the devi completely. It has gained popularity over years and this year the count was around 30 Lakhs. Ever since I got married, I've been talking about attending one and finally this time I made it.

Our place was in someone's house who my MIL and her friends know for years and they have been doing pongala in this house for the past 10+ years. There are around 11 places reserved our group. Place is around a feet by two approximately which is just enough for keeping the 3 bricks (which is the stove) and for you to stand infront of that. And there is just a few inch gap between yours and the next persons. The necessary materials - bricks, mud pot, Dry coconut leaves, and 'kodumbu' or 'kodhumbu'(this exists in the tree along with the coconut flowers, just could not find the english equivalent!) had been kept in that house a week back. People who dont have any such pre arrangement find it very difficult to get a place. some of them come the previous day and sit in any of the 'allowed' pongala streets/roads...

We packed each of our bags with the 250 gms of rice, a kilo of jaggery, ghee, coconut, water to drink, paper to pack the pot after pongala, some vessels to wash the rice, plates to cover the pots, knife and towels on Saturday. On the day of pongala, we got ready by 4:45 am in the morning. Autos that were booked, a week in advance, picked us up and took us to a place called kaaladi which is around a km from the temple. Police and volunteers work round the clock to regulate traffic. I felt that the whole city understands the enormousity of this event and all were working towards making things done smoothly. We had a glitch - one of the autos ran out of petrol and with gods grace got another auto who agreed to drop us at our destination - I was told that our auto had two first timers and devi generally try to test the faith. At that moment, I just hoped that things will go on smoothly. My problem is that if something wrong happens, then I start attributing every little mishaps that come in life to this incident for a long time..

We reached their house at around 6:30 am. Some of my MIL's friends had reached earlier. Bricks were arranged in a line. All pots were kept on the 'aduppu/stove' after washing, filled with required amount of water, all kodhumbu kept near us for easy access, rice washed and kept ready near the pot - all these activities took an hour and a half. We wanted to have a darshan of devi before the pongala began. I think usually, someone in the group manages to get special passes and hence they go from side gates and finish their darshan in less than half an hour time. Am of the opinion that any darshan, you should go through the hardship everyone goes through for you to value it that much. Also, the positive vibes of the crowd also gets to you while standing and hence you feel good (funda :)). This time, they could not manage any passes and so we went to the main gate, saw the hugggggggeeeeeeee line and returned back as we did not want to miss the start time.

At 10:10 am, everyone was ready and almost waiting for the 'get, set, go' signal. In the temple, the main pongala aduppu was lit and there was this sound of the drums and kolavai along with that which is heard in the places close to the temple and I believe in the places slightly far off, they go by the live telecast... All of us, lit our aduppu from the lamp that the owner of the house had lit and started the process of making pongala - which is letting the water to come to boil, put the washed rice in it after putting a little in the aduppu, wait till it boil and flows out of the pot, add jaggery and wait for the pongala to get done. After that add roasted coconut pieces, cardomom powder etc., Since I've used firewood stoves at home when I was in school, I had less trouble in getting the pongala done with minimal use of resources (I was feeling very proud about it!), while I saw many struggling. Fire was outside the aduppu also for some and for some there was so much smoke. Whatever it was, it was a problem for the person standing next to them. I saw two things that are taught in fire drills being used here. 1. Everyone is insisted to sit as you tend to be less affected by smoke than when you are standing 2. All were using wet towels to safegaurd their eyes and also to be able to breathe in the smoke.

Sun was not too bright till we finished making pongala and there was less wind. I was prepared enough by everyone for the worst conditions and hence it was a pleasant surprise. After finishing the pongala, it is just closed and kept on the aduppu. Fire is also put off. The house owner was serving lunch after hers was finished. While there were some in the group who doesnot eat till the neivedyam is over (which was scheduled at 3:15 pm), since I felt guiddy even during the middle of when I was making it, I decided to go ahead and eat. HAd lunch and waited for everyone elses to get over. Refreshed a little bit and went and stood in the longgggggggg line. It was organised so well that in an hour, we had a nice darshan and were out. Waited for the neivedyam in the main sannidhi and waited for the 'potri' to come to our place and sprinkle water in our pots. Since they make it a point that every single pot is offered to the god, thousands of potri's go around all the places where pongala was put and the entire process is managed within a couple of hours.

As soon as that gets over, people immediately leave. Police and volunteers everywhere to regulate the traffic. We had a flight to catch at 7:45 pm and hence took off as soon as the neivedyam happened. Even with couple of traffic jams, reached home on time, packed our luggages and reached airport just about half an hour before the flight departure! All through the way back, there were several people distributing juices, watermelon pieces, water to all the devotees.

I was just amazed about the planning and execution of the entire phenomena. Hats off to the organisers!

For me, this is the first time, I've ever done something so spritual in life and I kind of felt so contented...

2010-02-23T20:51:00.006+05:30

Got this on mail today. LOL!!!!!!

2010-02-19T22:30:00.003+05:30

Her looks and hugs when she is afraid, her smile when she is happy, her expression when she is shy or sad or hurt, the gleam in her eyes when she is about to do something naughty, her laughter when something funny occurs - It is all worth a fortune and hope I will remember all these even when she grows up...

The way she holds my hand when she goes to sleep, the way she looks at me when she is hurt -thinking that my words and hugs will heal her, the way she holds me tight when she is afraid thinking that I will protect her from every evil in the world - the way my heart feels in those moments is something that I cannot describe in words..

The pride and joy that i get when I see her solve a puzzle, learn something new, dance, sing etc., Now I can understand that tamil proverb 'kakaikku than kunju pon kunju'(loosely translated - even for a crow its child is the best in the world). Hope I just encourage her to do things that interest her and not push her to something because it interests me.

My daughter.. she is the best in the world. I love you Kim. Thank you god!

2010-02-17T21:25:00.003+05:30

Very emotional day today. After so much of thinking, I made this trip with my brother in the morning to attend a wedding. Had to really push myself so hard as I had hundred reasons not to do it - like it is in the middle of the week, have to wake up really early in the morning (at 2 am) as it is an early muhurtam etc., etc., But my heart was telling me that I somehow should make it and at the end, I am glad I did it!

This is a wedding of the daughter of a family friend. We stayed in their house for rent from when I was a few months baby till I became 8. And even when we moved to other houses in the same town and finally to our own one, the relationship continued. The uncles and aunts got married and they had their kids and we all grew up together and as friends. Once i went off to study and then to work, it kind of has been a diluted relationship (and there were tiffs between elders on numerous things and they kind of agreed to disagree and parted) atleast from my side. We used to meet rarely, but used to get updates from parents and other common friends about the happenings and whereabouts.

I was touched by the number of people who love me unconditionally and I was feeling bad that I have not taken too many minutes in my life to tell them that I remember them and I cherish all the memories. There is this aunt who used to feed me and play with me and keep my engaged and consider me as her eldest daughter - I realised that I've not seen her in 16 years!!! She actually fed me today also :) Likewise, there were so many - I was really feeling heady after talking to all of them. They all were really really HAPPY to see us after so long. And I'm happy that I listened to my heart!

2010-02-06T21:36:00.002+05:30

Going to try being off facebook, google chat and other chats for a month. Feel that it is complete addiction and am wasting my precious time waiting for something to happen. May be as my colleague says that we are not built to scale up to handle all the intervention that they bring in.
Hope that will give me time to put down my thoughts here more frequently. :)

2010-01-29T23:10:00.002+05:30

When there is a problem, there are three things one can do - 1. think of the problem and start sulking that it has happened to me, why only to me, why others are happy and I got this problem etc., etc., 2. think of what would solve this problem 3. Just ignore the problem and let your life go on thinking that such a problem doesnot exist.

#1: I feel that this thinking makes you get depressed, disappointed and create more problems for yourself. So it is a viscious cycle. You are never going to be happy.
#2: Solution oriented. Anything in life works fantastically if you start thinking about the solution. Sure way of being happy.
#3: Escapism. You think you are happy but you never are and never will be.

There is only one life and why should you waste it being unhappy? Live it and Be Happy!

2010-01-28T23:32:00.000+05:30

It is my third day in Beijing. Just back from my lunch. Temperature outside is -11. It is quite windy. By the time we reached the restaurant my face was numb.As usual, lunch is a veg pizza. Options are eiether a veg sandwich or a veg pizza. Am switching between these two for the last three days. One of my collegues mentioned that we get veg options in the food court that is close by. Need to check that out tomorrow.
Landed in Beijing on Sunday evening for conducting a training about the product that am working on. My colleague and I had read all about the freezing temperature and the snow the previous week, but was not prepared for anything that hit us when we stepped out of the plane. IT WAS FREEZING. I was glad to have carried the extra jacket that I found at the last minute.
Most of us who have come for the training are staying the hotel Crown plaza wuzhou.This is very close to the 'Birds Nest'.
When you step out of the hotel, if you have any hopes about people understanding English, pls. forget it! You can be speaking greek or tamil, they are NOT going understand any word you say. Some of my collegues were so surprised, but for me, I had that shock when I went to Korea, so was not surprised when that happened to us.We went to Dominos for dinner, we spent 15 minutes in various ways (sentences, words, gestures) to convey - that we want something vegetarian, and whether we can order after we sit, and make two separate bills. After sometime, we figured out only gestures work. At one point one of my colleague gave away his receipt to get what he ordered and then to get the receipt back, all three of us were doing everything short of dancing :). But I must say that those people were trying to figure out what we wanted,brought spoons, tabasco sauce, fork, tissues and what not.. Finally I went and took the receipt from their table and they understood ;)
post continued after I came back to India :)...
Going to the training center and coming back was an experience in itself. We got the destination written down in Chinese by the hotel front desk staff and give that to the taxi driver. Same method works to get back. Lucky that some days we were traveling with people who can speak Mandarin and they could explain where we need to get to. Every day, the route taken to reach there used to be different. When you are getting down, asking for a receipt again is another thing altogether.One evening me and another collegue of mine went to the silk market (supposed to get fakes of any branded stuff in the world and you need to bargain like crazy!. Managed to buy an external harddisk, couple of watches, toys and an overcoat. This is the one of the few times I've bargained in my life and also bought things at the price that I thought was the best bargain!!!) and when we got down, paid and asked the driver for receipt.He thought we were bargaining about how much we should pay. The last thing that you want when you are tired, hungry and sleepy is fight with someone who doesnot understand a word of what you are fighting for!!!!!! Man, that was hilarious and frustrating. Finally I pulled the receipt out of that billing machine and then he realised and started laughing. The receipt that I pulled out did not have anything printed was something that I realised only the next day...
And the sad part was that I got two fake 100 yuan notes from Bank of China atm. Am still left with them.
Managed to eat at couple of pure chinese places. Once with colleagues who could speak mandarin and they could get me a egg fried rice - after explaining to the staff that she is religiously vegetarian and she needs a 'no meat' dish. That was yummy after eating bread continously for more than a couple of days.Other time I went with the colleague who explored the food court and ordered seeing the pictures :). Turned out be the best meal that I had a Beijing. Boiled broccoli, carrots, see weed curry, rice and hot water to drink. Absolutely fantastic.
I had a free day on Friday. In the morning I went to visit Forbidden city alone. The taxi guy dropped me off between tianamen square and Forbidden city. Tried walking around a bit. It was an open place and it was too windy. I could not survive a 15 mt walk out there. Ditched it half way, went back to office. The plan was to go to great wall with two other collegues. Took a taxi who asked for 500 yuans to take us to Badaling, wait there for an hour and drop us back at the hotel. After reaching there, he was trying to tell us that we should pay some money and then go and settle the rest later. When we could not understand, he could call some translator through the car phone and could put us through to discuss the terms. Wow, we were quite impressed!
By the time we reached the entrance, my fingers and toes were frozen. It was crazy out there. Since it great wall is at a height, temperature was even lower and the wind was toooooo much. I really thought, we were stupid to have made that trip in that weather.We still managed to climb up a little and were brave to even click a few snaps and some showing our teeth.when we got back into the car, with the heater on, it took 45 minutes for the fingers and toes to thaw! And the thought of having walked up some part of great wall, one of the world wonders sinked in much later. Slowly we were feeling exhilarated!
Thinking about it now, I feel that I did the right thing by visiting the great wall as I dont know if I ever make a trip again to China.
In any case, when I came back from the great wall, I told myself the next time I step out the hotel, it will be to the airport to board the flight to India. I had had enough of the cold weather and all I wanted was to get back and exactly thats what I ended up doing.

2010-01-26T20:56:00.001+05:30

one of the songs that can bring me back from any kind of sad, bad, irritated mood anytime....

Kurai onrum illai

2009-12-08T19:51:00.004+05:30

Reissue/Renewal of passport before expiry date in Bangalore:

If you have a valid visa in the old passport, you have to apply in the regional passport office. It is better to apply before your passport expires as tatkal is not allowed if you apply after it does.

Steps are very simple if you have all the proofs required.

Take an online appointment. This can be taken only between 9:30 am till 12:30 pm everyday for the next day. 150-180 tokens are given for a day. Follow the instructions for filling up the forms diligently.

While filling up the appointment letter, ensure that your name is filled up correctly. You can fill the full name 'fully' or fill up the first name and then fill up the surname in the next field. Other wise, you will have the surname repeated twice.

Similarly go through each and every field value properly before you submit. You can also correct those entries before paying at the last counter, but it is better to review it while applying to avoid any hassles.

Apart from the appointment letter (without this, you will not be let in), copy of first two and last two pages (include the ECNR stamping as well), application form, I had taken one copy of following documents along with original.

- BSNL bill for address proof.
- PAN Card
- Voters id - for checking if I can apply on tatkal
- Degree certificate

When you enter, you will be directed to counter #1 in the first floor for tagging. It is the righmost counter and you will always find a queue there. That person will check all the documents based on the type of application, staple it in order and will ask you fill up the form to be sent for police verification. I was asked to take another copy of all the documents. Photocopiers are available if you come out of the passport office, walk to your right for a few metres and cross the road. If the person at the tagging counter tells a correction, get back to the same counter after you correct, until it is given back to you with no comments.

Once tagging is done successfully, sit and wait for your turn in the next counter. Token numbers are called out and gets displayed in two or three places in the hall.

In this counter, all the originals are checked. If you want to apply in tatkal scheme, you need to inform the person at this counter and any corrections in the appointment letter also needs to be mentioned. If the application is in the normal scheme, i think you will be asked to pay the money in the next counter, and you will be done.

If it is tatkal, there is another person who checks everything once again, and you will be asked to meet the Assistant Passport Officer (APO) in room 11. She will tell you how much you need to pay and when your passport will be despatched. After that you will be sent to counter 8. When I went, the tatkal queue was longer - obviously as the time taken in tatkal is 3 days while the normal one takes 4-6 weeks!

Wait for your turn, pay the money, get the corrections done, and take the receipt that will have the file number.

Using the file number you can check the status online. If there are mistakes, even at that time, you have the option to correct the details as applicable. On the day stated by the APO, you will get your passport.

I had made a BIG mistake though it was just a letter change in the passport. When I filled up the online form, field capturing the Sex was having a default value of 'Male' and I had not changed it :(. So here goes how the correction needs to be done!

Correction in your passport:

For this also, fix an appointment. It is the same process, only in the 'type' you will select it as 'Misc services'. Check the faq for more details.

Fill up the form . Proofs differ based on the correction. Once the tagging was done, I was immediately sent to APO. I think it was mainly because that I applied in Tatkal and had got a correction to be done. APO sent me to the regional passport office who is in the second floor.

For my case, the seceratary called the correction officer. He had a chat with me to understand the correction, made me wait to get the original application, then gave me a slip saying that am supposed to come at 4 pm to the collection counter the next day.

I went there the next day and waited at the collection counter. There are no tokens/queue. You have to wait till your name is called. Names that were called first on that day were all those 'special' cases is my guess. None of the correction cases passport was with him . He then took the file numbers from our receipts/slips and went somewhere. Got a couple of them and distributed. It was like giving orders for hot samosa's and wait for it to be taken out of the pan to your plate... My turn came at 5:45 pm. I checked and rechecked and finally I had my passport! It is a reissue on the old application with this correction with no charges applied as it was in the tatkal scheme. Otherwise any mistake from the applicant side costs 500 Rs.

There was one corrected passport with entries smudged. That was re printed and given in a jiffy!

I hope the information is useful for people who are applying for passport. My first attempt through an agent costed me more than a years time when I gave up and tried and learnt the process myself and got the passport. I feel it is better you do it yourself as the process has been made much easier than it was before.

2009-11-20T21:33:00.002+05:30

Our other kid Zeta, who is a labrador. She came to our house when she was 39 days old. She has completed one year today...

On this occasion, here is a poem that my husband learnt when he was small and remembered suddenly last week. Thanks to the net, we got the full poem.

My Dog

Have you seen a little dog anywhere about?
A raggy dog, a shaggy dog, who's always looking out
For some fresh mischief which he thinks he really ought to do.
He's very likely at this minute biting on someone's shoe.

If you see that little dog, his tail up in the air,
A whirly tail, a curly tail, a dog who doesn't care
For any other dog he meets, not even for himself,
Then hides your mats, and put your meat upon the top-most shelf.

If you see that little dog, barking at the cars,
A raggy dog, a shaggy dog, with eyes like twinkling stars,
Just let me know, for though he's bad, as bad as bad can be,
I wouldn't change that dog for all the treasures of the sea.

- Emily Lewis

2009-11-05T22:11:00.003+05:30

Watched a few TEDtalks @TEDIndia that is happening in Mysore. I used the livestream by indiatimes. It seems that they are doing the live stream only on the first day and last day. I hope with today's response they change their mind and do it for the other sessions as well. Speed was pretty decent.

Facebook had a provision of updating status there, which several people used it like chat window and asusual there were some spammers. Attitude of some of the people who were commenting there was really bad. So after sometime I stopped looking at it. Anything anyone says people had negative comments immediately. They were commenting about their looks, their accent - it almost seemed like people were not listening to what the content or what the speaker was arriving at, but were there just for the heck of it.

Some of the comments indicated that these videos will be uploaded in ted.com by mid December.

I watched sessions starting from Pranav Mistry. I had watched the TEDTalk by Pattie Maes in TED.com about sixth sense, but when you hear it from the guy who has done it, it was a proud moment for every Indian. When he finished his talk, there was the first standing ovation of the afternoon @TEDIndia. What he told in the short interview later is that though several companies approached him, he has decided that sixth sense should reach all the masses and anyone should be able to make their sixth sense and hence he is going to make the software available as opensource in a months time. Thats going to be some kind of revolution. Information anywhere, anytime, and just about anything using any gadget you possess... Wow.

There was a second standing ovation, this time for Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev(Isha foundation), who was introduced as the 'Mystic' man. I've some respect for the yogi's, but somehow, all these gurus of this generation fail to impress me. This is my personal opinion :). One thing to be told - Speeches they make really are TOO good. He could hold interst of a well educated audience for 18 minutes. And he was humorous - "In a contest of Divine Vs Dosa, Dosa wins hands down" and the likes...

The last one was music - wonders it can do to people by Anil Srinivasan who is trained in Western Classical and his friend Sikkhil Gurucharan who is a trained carnatic vocalist. The presentation was not very great though the message was good, but when they let their music do the talking, it was just amazing. Gurucharan sang 'Aasai Mugam Maradhu Poche' a song by Bharthiyar. (Anil was saying this is about the yearning of the poet when his mom passed away - he says "why do I have eyes if I cannot see the one thing that i want to see"- I'm yet to figure out the complete lyrics and see if it indeed means that) and the next piece was 'Sheerabdi thanya kagu Srimahalakshmi kini' an Annamacharya Krithi. I never thought a carnatic song would sound so divine with piano. Gurucharan's voice was so soothing and the piano in background was just right and I was glad that I chose to spend that 18 mts online. Very very nice finish.

2009-10-21T22:26:00.002+05:30

I clogged all the groups I access through my gmail when I tried to send invite to all my 'friends' in orkut to facebook!

This is what happened. I was in one of my vetti moods and I saw a link in facebook that said that you can get in touch with all your orkut friends. Off late, I seem to be more active in facebook - even though, from my point, orkut is simple to understand and work with! - I thought why not try this to get all contacts here.

Followed the steps that were given in the link

- Logged into orkut
- Clicked on 'Friends'
- clicked 'Export to csv'
- It gave me the standard 'donut' message - should have stopped here, but i think it was my fate that I should go through this :(
- Repeated the 2nd and 3rd step
- File got saved

Accessed that file from facebook.

It told me that I'm connected to some of them, not connected to some of them.
I happily sent invite to all those who are part of facebook and not connected.

So far, so good.

Then it told me that some of them are not part of facebook and I should invite. I did not bother to check the ids (obviously because I'm supposed to have exported only contacts from orkut and not from gmail as it turned out :(), happily clicked on invite all...

THen I see mails flying everywhere - official mail id, my husband's office id, groups that I've subscribed to... Bah! so much for trying out something new!!!!!!!!

I tried sending apologies for couple of the group ids as initially I could not understand what happened. Then I ditched.

If you are part of one of those groups, please forgive me. My sincere apologies for spamming your mail box...

I only wish I had a better profile photo ;)

2009-10-16T21:35:00.003+05:30

Feeling bad about couple of things...

one - Kim is ignoring me completely...Rejection from your kid is the worst feeling even if it is momentary.. I should actually be feeling good that I can do something that I want in that time I would have spent with her. But heart doesnot listen - asusual. Am just telling myself I should not shout at anyone as a result. this too shall pass and I will better tomorrow (she will also)

second - she did not get through Deens. first lot of names is out, and hers is not there. Looks like it is becuase that she did not speak a word. That day morning she was pretty ok. We told her that she should answer if anyone asks her questions, but it was a long wait, we ourselves got irritated. by the time we entered the Principal's room, she was all hungry and sleepy. I just hope she will get admission elsewhere.

Hope it is a better day tomorrow.

2009-10-07T22:01:00.003+05:30

Heard about two deaths in office. Somehow it upset me so much, am still thinking about them...

One guy's mother passed away a month back after struggling with cancer. Yesterday his sister's (she is younger to him) husband met with an accident and passed away in the morning. They have been married only for a year now.

Other one - this girl, her parents and her younger sister went along with the other doctors(around 15 of them) who work with her dad (who also is a doctor) went to an amusement park, dad had an heart attack - unfortunately none of the other doctors where around to administer a CPR - passed away. How tragic! He had been healthy and the family had least expected this..

May their souls rest in peace and May God give enough strength to both the families to handle this.

2009-10-03T06:31:00.003+05:30

My paternal grandmother is once again in hospital, this time specifically for the blood transfusion. Her first one happened in August when we went to emergency becuase she was having fever and breathlessness which we associated with her asthmatic condition. It turned out that her haemoglobin was as low as 6 and the reason after a bone marrow test was found out as leukamia. She was there in the hospital for 8 days, had three units of blood transfused and got discharged.

My husband, my brother and I were told by the doctor that the condition will detoriate very fast because of her age (She is 84) and if she wants to make any trips we should get that done in the next twenty days :(. He said she cannot be treated with intense chemo as she may not react very well becuase of her age and also that we should not put her through major pains. "All we can do is to make it less painful and easy for her" he stated. We all are grown ups, have some level of maturity, know that our grandmothers are getting older and they will die one day, but someone is predicting it, it is REALLY REALLY HARD to digest. Breaking the news to my dad was my job. I had to take a day to digest what was told and then told him as well. It was shocking for everyone at home in the beginning, but we all came to terms with the news as days passed. We treated her as normally as possible and did not tell her about this. Maternal grandmother's heart attack, her hospitalisation and her coming to stay with us also helped in a way as the focus shifted.

Just after a month after her last transfusion, on Thursday, from 12.1 haemoglobin count has come down to 7.1. We have admitted her yesterday for the blood transfusion again. Even though we all are trying to joke about it, I can feel the tension at home. I myself, am feeling afraid. I am trying to tell myself she should be ok. But my head tells me that she wont last long. On one hand I want her to live, on the other I dont want her to suffer too much. As my husband says "The greatest gift that you can get from God is that you are living normally one day and just pass away the next. It might be painful for the near and dear ones, but for the person who dies, thats the best that can happen". I agree with this completely, thats why most part of me is now thinking, that she should pass away without suffering. Whenever that happens, may God give us the strength to handle it.

2009-09-29T18:48:00.003+05:30

Watched lots of movies in the flight and watched a movie in theatre after a long time..

Here are my comments:

The Proposal:

My kind of movie. The romantic kind with humour and ofcourse happy ending! I just loved it!

Hangover:

Superb stuff. Very light and again lots of humour.

Rab Ne Bana De Jodi:

Movie was good. But I did not like Shah Rukh playing this role.. Looked so old and just was not right!

Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!

This was one of those stories you watch but dont remember one bit of it! Such strong story line :). I seriously dont remember what I felt after watching this movie. I guess I just killed some time watching it!

JaiVeeru

Typical Hindi 'shtyle' movie. Liked the Veeru character for the Bindas attitude.

Unnai pol Oruvan

Tamil movie. A remake of the hindi movie 'Wednesday' which had Anupam Kher and Nasruddin Shah in the cast. Tamil version has Mohan lal in Anupam Kher's character and Kamal Hasaan in Nasruddin Shah's character. A serious theme but had right amount of seriousness and humour (if I leave out some of the over emotional dialogues that Kamal had towards the end). Liked it very much. Sruti Haasan has done the background score. Non intrusive stuff. Good! But with the amount of English dialogues may not reach the rural audience. I guess it is not meant to be. One of those where subject is serious but you dont get a headache at the end of it :), May be it is because it runs for only 2 hours.

Watched it in the Fame Adlabs in Forum value mall. Small theatre, very comfortable seats.

2009-09-26T05:52:00.002+05:30

In San francisco, have you ever paid less than half of the taxi fare for a ride from Bay area to City ? Are you saying 'Nah, that is impossible!'? Wait till you read this incident below.

Our friend lands from India on a Saturday night for a week long meeting starting Monday. Obviously he wants to spend the Sunday usefully by visiting San francisco city. He collected all the details to go from Hyatt Summerfield suites to Pier 39. His plan was to take a taxi till Belmont and take the train, blah blah. He called for a taxi to go to Belmont. The driver asked him about why he wanted to get dropped at Belmont (Am sure that till date he is regretting asking the question :)).

Our friend tells him the need for doing this. The rest of the conversation is as follows:

Driver: Why dont I take you to the city. You can pay me 5-10$ less than the meter.
Our friend: How much will it cost?
Driver: around 80$
Our friend: No, no, I cant pay that much. my budget is very less
Driver: How much can you pay?
Our friend: Not anything more than 40$
Driver: Pay me 60 $. I will take you
Our friend: No, no... I cant
Driver: Will you pay 50$?
Our friend: Last and final, I can only pay 45$
Driver: Ok.. I will take you.

They reached the destination. Our friend gives the driver a 50$.

Driver: How much should I pay you back?
Our friend: 5$

Poor fellow! He gives the change, curses himself for offering a ride to our friend and goes away.

Is it hard to digest? I know, I know, I felt the same way when I heard it the first time.

And the story doesnot end here - Our friend comes back to the hotel and we all met for dinner. The other colleague who was with him narrated the whole incident to us and while we were all looking at him with total disbelief, this guy says "haan yaar, The driver made me spend 45$ while I would have done this trip for less. Thats why I did not give him a tip". Hah!

Are you asking me if our friend is a Gujju? You are absolutely right. Who else can manage such a thing in a foreign land???

2009-07-12T21:48:00.008+05:30

Kim's third birthday party is over today. Even though her birthday is tomorrow, we had the party - may be I should call it a get together - today itself as it is convenient to everyone and that too a lunch as we needed some breather to get ourselves go to work on Monday.

When we decided on lunch, we had no idea how tough it would be to come up with a menu that can be classified as lunch but also is palatable to the children. Thali and Sadya and sappadu were out straight away because of the number of kids. After a few discussions and checking out various options, finally we ended up with mom-made curd rice, cook-made fried rice, sambhar vada and mini jaangiri from A2B (adyar ananda bhavan), cup pizza from niligiris/masala bread, rose milk, eggless minnie mouse cake from cake walk and potato chips from hot chips.. As it sounds it was hell a lot of food that was around and we felt that it kind of satisfied everybody.

Bro made the invite this time as well with the limerick by Mallu and was appreciated by all. We had mentioned in the invite that people can start coming from 12 onwards, but were still blowing balloons when the first kid and family came in. Luckily they were one of those pretty cool sort of people and so we could make them join in the prep activities...

Since there were only few kids who could understand any of the games, the 5 minute musical chair with laptop's volume for music and 4 kids was not a big hit. I decided against conducting one more game. We cut the cake, had food and I had lots of fun especially because somehow I was not too tensed about anything - may be growing up does that to you ;). Kim is the only one who was dull from the moment the whole thing started till the time we came back home. She was alright before and after!

Several good things - we got some oppurtunity to meet our friends, relatives and the neighbours and socialise a little bit, had fun in the process of planning and shopping (ofcourse the wallet got a lot lighter!!!!), and cleaned up the house - because of the party.

At this point if you ask me will you have a celebration next year for Kim's birthday, my answer would be NO... Ask my aching limbs :)

2009-06-30T21:33:00.000+05:30

I never thought other than the birthdays and anniversary, I will have another significant date in June that I will remember for sometime to come!

Mallu landed in Bangalore from New Jersey on 12th June morning. On 15th (Monday), I went to office asusual, I got delayed for lunch because of some training and I was going to my seat when that call came. The lady on the other side introduced herself as Dr. Rani and asked if Mallu landed by the Air France flight 192 that landed on Friday early in the morning. I said yes. She said that two of the passengers who travelled with him has got detected with Swine flu (H1N1 Virus). She was asking me if he has any symptoms of flu. I confirmed that he did not have any. She told me that the incubation period for this is 10 days and hence we need to get back to her the moment we feel that he has got any signs of a flu! The call was made to me as Rajesh's phone got lost in the taxi from airport.

I being the so calm and composed (?!!) person, started worrying and almost broke down thinking about the consequences if Kim has caught it and about the kids we played with during our niece's birthday party. From then on till his test result was found to be negative on Wednesday night 8 pm, it was one hell of a feeling! I was told by my boss to go home immediately and work from home until Mallu is tested.

On Tuesday after the medical officers gave us a letter, we went to RGICD(Rajiv Gandhi Institue for Chest diseases) and were there till 6 pm for getting the tests done. There were people who were tested positive and who came for getting themselves tested. We had taken Kimaya as the medical officers asked us to get tested as well (both myself and Kimaya had viral fever just then and were left still with cold and cough). After going there we realised that it is a hospital treating all kinds of things like SARS, TB and air born diseases and I was more worried now about Kim than before! A throat swab was taken for Mallu and the docs told us that it will be sent to Pune that night and we were to call them on Wednesday to get to know the result.

I was praying to all Gods that I know and Mallu was quarantined at home. Finally after the agonizing wait, at 8 pm we got to know that he had not contracted H1N1 and both of us were sighing with relief!

In the process what we got to know is this
- H1N1 is like any other viral fever. You get all symptoms - fever, running nose, cough, headache like a normal viral fever
- Like any other virus this also doesnot have any cure
- It is feared because it is highly contagious and people who have to be really careful are the elders, kids below 5 years and the ones who have got respiratory problem as it leads to other complications that can be fatal.
- basic precautions like closing your mouth while coughing and washing your hands as required will prevent it from spreading.

2009-06-11T09:20:00.001+05:30

June 11th

It is our sixth anniversary. All along, I should be truthful to say that it has not been an easy journey. It has been filled with ups and downs, love and hate, happiness and sadness but the final feeling that remains is contentment and happiness of the life that we have shared. I thank god for giving me such a life partner, a friend who I can share anything with and pray to him that he blesses us with many more such years...

2009-05-07T21:11:00.003+05:30

A Girl has a different life before marriage - friends, family, hobbies etc., etc., From birth till she is married, she leads a different life.

When she get married, atleast in south India, she is strongly advised that she should adjust to everything at her in-laws place. She starts considering his family and friends as hers (dont know whether they think the same in most cases :)). When she is adjusting to all these, a few months, is gone without spending much time with her family and friends. Slowly months become years. First the parents push their children for marriage and then start with the gyan about why kids should be had at the right time etc., etc., and feel so happy and thrilled when they have one. (Again I dont know if the couple feels the same way). After that it is child, husband and the family. And then there is work also to add to the fun.

If it is love marriage, then the years that she has spent going around with the guy is again a period that eats up into the relationship that she would have had with friends. When things happen - marriage, kid, promotions - for a period till the novelty wears off, it is great life. Then suddenly the mid-life crisis starts - what is happening in life, why am I unable to connect with people I used to connect earlier, Is this kind of living the purpose of my life, always stressed and irritated etc., etc., There are some who kind of find the threads back and start living happily. There are some who divert themselves into something more constructive and learn to live the new life. There are some who become unhappy and create a unhappy family.

Some suggestions:

Keep in touch with your friends. Find new friends whom you can relate to and share your thoughts.
Re-kindle the love for the hobbies that you had - be it music, movies, singing, dancing whatever
Take care of your health, eat healthy, do some exercise regularly. If that fails, it adds to the frustration
Control your temper. There are times when a small mole becomes a mountain without anyones interference because of the words used to hurt the other party. It is better it is avoided.

Finally, it is easy to be happy. Just take a few baby steps with out getting into why-should-I-do- why-cant-he-do-the-same game.

After writing this, I did a google search and this is what I found about mid-life crisis!!!!

2009-04-23T22:06:00.003+05:30

Finally I've acted like a responsible indian citizen and I've voted. The want has always been there, but becuase of moving from one state to another for the last 14-15 years I could never vote.

This time we diligently filled up the voter id forms (thanks to the apartment association for co ordinating), missed the first few dates for collecting the id, went on the extended end date (will we ever change?!!!), collected our id cards as the first step.

Last two days spent some time on finding out the candidates (of various parts of bangalore. I should say that it was really tough to figure out which constituency we belonged from the net!) and reading their manifestos.

Went to the booth in the evening as we had to attend a close relatives wedding in the morning. Slightly irritating bit was with your voters id, they could not trace you in the list. They spent some 30 mts shuffling through some 'n' lists to say that we need to go and check out with the next set of guys whether their list had our name! Finally we could find someone we know who kind of recommended for us and also for the congress candidate in the process :) in the next stall and those guys found out our numbers and gave the slips with the serial number and part number. Lesson learnt - it is not alone your id that is important, but also the part number and serial number.

Went inside the hall, got the ink on my index for the first time in my life, did the deed and was all smiles when I came out.

2009-03-30T20:43:00.002+05:30

It was another day of general chat during lunch and this is what I've found out. Based on the number of people who participated in the conversation and number of people I can generalise - but to be politically right ;)- I will say that this is what most women do these days:

We take the help that our husbands do to keep us happy for 'granted' big time!
Then we get upset if someday he forgets to do it or relax as he sees no necessity for that task on a holiday or weekend.
Feeling is more of self pity that you have to do what you have to do while he is whiling away his time than he has not done what he normally does!
We expect that if we dont put our shoes in the rack properly, he should do it without pointing out the mistake but at the same time we cant stop ourselves from being angry, upset, use a very unpleasant tone to point it out and on top of it all expect that he should not get angry when he leaves his used clothes on the bed!
Be very patient with any kind of people at office and come and outburst at home and shout at the kid and the husband!

So what am I saying? Is it our own doing that we have so much stress at home and office? May be... think about it. A little easy going attitude and a little respect for the dear ones can go a long way.

2009-02-23T23:09:00.004+05:30

A R Rahman has done it. Being the first tamilian to get the honours! OSCARS for the best score and best song 'JAI-HO'.

We salute you Sir! You have done the nation proud and the entire Tamilnadu happy.

I dont know how much I like Jai-ho over many other great pieces like 'Chinna Chinna aasai, vande mataram, Vennilive vennilave, ennavale, en swasakatre and many other super melodies.

What I heard recently in the theater that gave me goose pimples is our national anthem by ARR - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftD3gDA-5S0

8th March 2009:

Genuine mistake - Not mentioning about Mr. Resul Pookkutty who got the Oscars for Sound editing - one that has happened to entire asia in 80 years. Hats off Sir.

2009-02-23T22:13:00.002+05:30

Am fuming since afternoon today. Reason is this - my cousin sister lost her kid at the last minute as the umblical chord went around the neck of the baby. She was due for her delivery on 25th. Today morning she felt that the baby is not moving. She is educated enough to figure out what that might be, but thought that she will not alarm her mother yet. Waited for a few hours and at around 10:30 had asked the doctor whether she should come for a check up given the situation.

Doc has said, 'No problems ma -may be you will get pain now (?!!!!) so you can wait and then come. Dont worry!'. But my cousin thought that may be she visit the doc in any case and so she and her mom landed up there.

Doctor has checked and then told that the heart beat is feeble, had admitted her in the hospital telling them that she will do c-section. Wont people show some kind of urgency when you detect the situation as 'diminshing fetus movement'? I saw nothing happening when I went to the hospital (I dont know what I should call this place, it is a house converted into a hospital) - my cousin was lying in a cot with her mom, my mom and another aunty around her - every one else kinda know that the baby is gone and they were not ready to tell it to her yet. No nurse, no monitoring and no action. Doc is busy seeing her regular patients. When I went to check with her about what is the condition, she shouted at me that she has already told people and I should go and talk to them to learn what it is! To top it all, there was a power cut and her c-section operation was waiting as there is no backup power of any sort. I agree that pregnancy is not a disease but then it cannot be treated like this either!

Power came at 2, but till 4, operation did not start - must have thought anyway this baby is gone , atleast let me get my daily money - Maddening and saddening. I really really wished that she had stayed in Bangalore for her delivery. Atleast there would have been a try made to get the baby alive. I am told that this one was a beautiful girl child.

We can say all that bull s*** about 'may be this one was not destined to live in this world', ' may be it did something in its last jenma and thats why it did not live', 'may be it is better this way than to have the child for few days, few months, few years and then loose' and so many things like this - but think about this, it is pure ignorance from the mom, mom's parents and the doctor(?!) which has caused the life of this little one. Think of all the dreams that the parents had for the child and the relatives. I can only shed some tears for everyone who is going to be hurt and the little one who saw the world only from the moms womb.

I used to get very irritated about people talking about 'small towns - it happens like this and that' as I'm from one, but today or rather from now on - I will have to think twice before I say anything to defend that statement.

2009-01-28T16:48:00.003+05:30

Old and the new....

My grandmom (maternal) who is 78 years old, reading about solar eclipse that happened on 26th Jan in my brothers laptop!

2009-01-01T15:29:00.002+05:30

Year 2009 - we have a labrador pup at home from 30th Dec last year - 40 days old and has been named Zeta. Kimaya is out of town spending her holidays at her grandparents house. Am hoping that she will like Zeta and they both will become great friends...

2009-01-01T14:26:00.002+05:30

Wish you all very happy, healthy, peaceful, prosperous new year 2009!

2008-11-28T17:06:00.002+05:30

Terror attacks in Mumbai

Nov 26th : It seemed like any other night,Kim slept at 10:30 pm and Mallu was just loggin in to check his mails while we were chatting in general about our days - the first thing he saw was a blasts in Mumbai headline in rediff. We switched on the TV and everything changed from that minute! Till this minute, we have been trying to get minute by minute update on what is happening.

Am reading stuff, listening to those reporters, people who have got rescued, listen to those officials from all front - My heart is going through several kind of emotions - first and foremost -rage that we, as a country, did not have enough information to stop them while they had planned it so brilliantly and even had a recee, fear for the people who are still stuck there, tears for those who have got killed and for their families, salute for those who have been at the field from NSG, army, navy and the police force.

I dont understand how some fellow human beings are built in a such a way that they dont even have any remorse to use their own kinds as shields, kill people and create terror in minds and lives of people. Get trained and live and die like this! Why? What is that they have gone through or what is the kind of motivation will anyone have to get into situations like this? What is that they acheive? In the last two days, there have not been any demands made by these guys - what is their aim? I really really dont understand, but am amazed at the planning, execution with such precision and the resilience that they are showing. Why cant they do some thing constuctive?

While am writing this, atleast at Oberoi-Trident, situation is under control. Media has been doing (sometimes overdoing) their job. While am very happy to be kept updated by the media, when I read that these terrrorist have got satellite phones and their counterparts outside are updating them on the commondos position from what is seen on cable TVs, I did not want to hear more news! I just want those guys to be caught and the people rescued.

May god give mental strength to those who have lost their near and dear ones and I pray for those who have got injured to get well soon and get over this trauma.

2008-10-05T21:22:00.002+05:30

What is about mom-in-laws and daughter-in-laws? There are different views and different scenarios - From whatever little I've seen in my family and friends circle, I believe no one is fundamentally bad to start with. I, being a DIL, I feel that it is all in your mind. If you really think that you want to make it work, then it will really work and you can enjoy a good amount of friendship/companionship with your MIL. (which is true in all kinds of situations!).

Couple of reasons why the DIL should want the relationship to work 1. We are the ones who are getting into a whole new situation, and hence we should make up our mind to adapt ourselves to the new family, new culture, new restrictions/freedom etc., etc., 2. MILs are atleast twenty-thirty years older and to break something that they have been following for somany more years is not very simple. Easier is for us to have an open mind.

First impression is the best. The moment you build the intial rapport with the small and simple things that you do, (ignoring the jibes or any angry words, if any, during the period), then they also welcome you with open arms. If this is not done, then it is the egos that fight and at the end neither of you are happy and dont forget that there is a man, who you both love the most, who is suffering a greater pain

While we have so many things to adjust, MILs also have to adjust to the fact their sons time/life is not shared by them alone. That is a big adjustment at that age. Again, they are not fundamentally bad - for some, it is the same kind of treatment that their MILs gave, they behaved as expected and hence want the new entrant in the house to behave!, for some, it is their nature, they want to rule the house because they have been doing so for so many years and cant tolerate any change, for some, even if they are ready to adjust, the DILs give them a miserable treatment, they turn hostile! And last but not the least, the friends and relatives who look for an oppurtunity to break the relationship a DIL and MIL share for their benefit.. Beware of those!

There may be some cases, where the fights/misunderstanding are situational - like you have had a bad day and a comment, which on normal days, either of you would have not taken seriously, will become a biiiiiiggggggggg issue. I am a strong believer that if you adjust a little and let them know that you are not going to change their relationship with their son or take away their importance in the family, everything is fine. And also, it is better to have a good fight or discuss things openly instead of keeping it all in your mind and create a disaster at home when u vent it out!

All said and done, it is a delicate relationship and so, handle it with care for your own happiness and your family's.

2008-09-23T22:18:00.002+05:30

How does a kid get his/her values in life? As parents, what do we have to teach the kids? There are several opinions - some think that they have to teach all that they know and have learnt to their child, there are some who think that the kid should learn on its own as experience is the best teacher and there are some who are always confused about what to teach and what not to teach.

More often than not, I've always felt that it is my values which is being thrust upon my child as I react to things in a way that I know, I learnt and I like and sometimes others also like. Reason being, I know I've acquired only some of the qualities/values because of the up bringing. Others, which is a larger percentage, are what I've learnt through the mistakes I made or by observing others around me at various situations and considering what appeals to the mass or through the books I read. And I feel that schooling is also an important part as if a kid doesnot have a good teacher or good learning environment, there is no good values that is learnt by the kid.

One of my colleague was saying that every time he takes his kid along for shopping - even if it is grocery shopping - he ends up buying a toy for the kid. Reasons can be many but the most important thing is that he can afford it because of the software world where a more than decent salary is being paid.

I know that we dont hesitate too much to travel by air if there is a necessity and we are used to decent hotels, posh residence, domestic helps and two tier AC coaches. Till I joined work, I've never experienced any of those. But my daughter is experiencing what I would have , still consider as luxury at the age of 2. What would be the impression? What will she think if we have to travel by general or second class with people sleeping on the floor and seats dirtied with food etc., etc., What will she think if she goes to a place of a close relative who doesnot have a house with facilities that she has at home? will she ask embarassing questions like my colleagues son asked when they visited her sisters place which had only one toilet and he could not believe that everyone was sharing it?! Will she appreciate the taste of thattu kadai or will she look for star hotels where she can fine dine?

Questions, questions, questions which only time can answer.

2008-07-02T23:39:00.004+05:30

I went to big bazaar in cosmos today. It was decently crowded and three of the counters were open for billing. After I picked my stuff, I went and stood in one of the queues.

At the next counter, I see this lady with a kid (in another cart) taking out all her items from the cart and keeping it for the guy to bill it. 5-10 mts he finished billing and her driver(I presume) comes with a cart full of vegetables - guys who joined that queue( as that was the shortest )realised that it is going to take some more time.

Then the real fun starts. She sees a couple of packets of rice flour/maida - and exclaims 'Oh, I dont want these - please cancel this'. The counter guy obliges. Then the driver produces a list (I presume once again - that it is the shopping list) - she reads out 'Oh that is dhaniya powder and turmeric' turns to the billing guy and asks ' was there turmeric in the items that you billed?' asks aloud 'Shall I take it and come?' then turns and sees some three four people standing behind her and decides 'Ok, leave that' Then she decided that she has to go through the items mentioned in the bill. Made the guy go to the start of the bill in his monitor and she started reading the item names and quantities loud enough for every body to hear.

People are watching with interest, but she is least bothered. Once all the checks are done, she took the bill. For payment - she started with 'Take this parking receipt' and then 'That coupon - you know that sugar coupon is there na' karke she started searching in her hand bag - another two minutes and searched everywhere in the bag ( I got reminded of one the mails about how do men and women withdraw cash from ATM), and finally produces that big bazaar offer of 1Kg sugar free and then pays for the rest.

Oooof this is the first time I see anyone like this in a super market! Anyways, I was thoroughly entertained and amused!

I had m

2008-07-02T23:33:00.003+05:30

I've started another blog - this time on one of my favorite topic, cooking. May be I should say related to one of my favorite hobbies - eating :). Anyways, my mother has been writing down all the recipes she knows that is needed for day to day tamil brahmin cooking and I've started a blog with it. May be, in time, I will add my own creations. For now, I am keeping it simple. It is named ammascookbook.

People who have been reading my blog ( I dont know if there are too many!!), I welcome you to the world of some interesting recipes. Watch out the space. I promise that I will add a few every week.

2008-06-09T10:22:00.001+05:30

Read this in a mail in the morning. Thanks Agnelo, for sending this.

"It's been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It's a rule. Globalized processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. We have come to possess a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish. They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold endless meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end though, this always yields outstanding results. Said in another words:1. Sweden is about the size of San Pablo, a state in Brazil.2. Sweden has 2 million inhabitants.3. Stockholm, has 500,000 people.4. Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, Nokia and Absolut are some of its renowned companies. Volvo supplies the NASA. The first time I was in Sweden, one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their cars to work). The first day, I didn't say anything, neither the second nor the third. One morning I asked, "Do you have a fixed parking space? I've noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot." To which he replied, "Since we're here early we'll have time to walk, and whoever gets in late will be in a hurry and need a place closer to the door. Don't you think?" Nowadays, there's a movement in Europe name Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart: the spirit of Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week. Basically, the movement questions the sense of "hurry" and "craziness" generated by globalization, fueled by the desire of "having in quantity" (life status) versus "having with quality" or the "quality of being". The French, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than the Americans or British. The Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen productivity driven up by 20%. This slow attitude has brought forth the US's attention, pupils of the fast and the "do it now!".This no-rush attitude doesn't represent doing less or having lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress. It means reestablishing family values, friends and leisure time. Taking the "now", present and concrete, versus the "global", undefined and anonymous. It means taking essential human values, the simplicity of living. It stands for a less coercive work environment, happier, lighter and more productive where people enjoy doing what they know best how to do. It's time to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence of spirit. In the movie Scent of a Woman, there's a scene where Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, "I can't, my boyfriend will be here any minute now". To which Al responds, "A life is lived in an instant". Then they dance to a tango. Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious of living the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists. We all have equal time throughout the world. No one has more or less. The difference lies in what each one of us does with our time. We need to live each moment. As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". Congratulations for getting to the end of this message. There are many who would've stopped in the middle so as not to waste time in this "globalized" world."

2008-05-29T19:54:00.002+05:30

I was reading biexplorers blog and I hit upon Tom kytes blog (the same asktom.com guy) where his latest entry is about how people always talk about their problem without explaining the background, details etc., and assume that who ever listens to/reads it will solve it for them. And some times they also shout /scream as the other person is not doing anything to resolve it (Doesn't it sound familiar!!!!), and I read this from his blog - 'Double double' - very intersting.. Read it and enjoy.

2008-05-28T21:12:00.003+05:30

We know the 'andha kaala' stories like Ramayana and Mahabharata describes how Rama and Lakshmana, the gowravas and pandavas get into gurukul life and how their parents go to 'Sanyasa' life after making them the kings when they come out of gurukul and get married! So it is the kingdom for the children and sanyas/forest for the parents. Then, this was the well accepted norm and everyone followed it whole heartedly.

Life changed after that. After several thousand generations - NOW - history seems to be repeating itself. Kids go to residential schools may not the Doons, but never the less, it is residential schools (Gurukul?!). Parents work hard and meet kids now and then. Their parents are self-admitted/admitted into one of the old age homes (Sanyas?!) and in the process, I dont know who is happy!!!

The recent news I read told me that it is not something that I perceive, but this is what is happening. Houses are designed with 'His' and 'Hers' bedroom in order to let the man and wife have their rest and only visit each other when 'needed' - Hey is this not what was happening then? The king visiting the queen or one of the numerous wives he might have in the 'Andhapuram' when 'needed'?

See.. it is all happening and it is happening in India!

2008-03-05T23:00:00.003+05:30

My birthday was celebrated in style. The only dampner was that Mallu was not around. Normally, I plan and I expect. This time since his travel was planned on 27th, I was so depressed that I did not plan for anything and there were no expectations in my mind. And every year, if it is a working day, I used to demand from everyone in office that they have to wish me as it is my birthday. This year I told myself - 'no such thing, you should behave like a grown up!'. Then it was full of surprises - starting from my collegemate (who seldom remembers my birthday), several people called me, mailed me, scrapped in orkut - I was really thrilled. The biggest one came in form of a celebration at office. We got an order which was WIP for a long time and hence 4 BIIIIGGGGG cakes were ordered to feed us all. When the cake was about to be cut, my boss announced that it is my birthday and I cut the choclate cake and as you would have guessed, almost everyone in the group wished me.

Moral of the story is that when you dont expect anything, whatever happens is extra and you will start feeling elated :)

2008-02-27T22:22:00.003+05:30

It is all about TV ads today. My two cents on some of the good and bad ones. (Which implicitly means that I have become a couch potato and am unable to ignore the commercials as nowadays it is commercials which says - lets meet after a short programme break!) I will specifically talk about two ads, both by banks. The good one is the HSBC stuff - one where the daughter wants to wear the torn jeans and the mom comes and stitches it and for the same subject the green worm ad. Nicely conveyed message - different people have different needs...I feel that the HDFC one on similar lines for their savings account with Eggs is a copy!

The bad one is the HDFC personal loan one - it goes like this. The parents of the family is planning about a house interiors, and then the daughter and the son ask about their demands (Ofcourse all promised by the dad sometime or the other) and when the dad looks confused, HDFC says that he should get a personal loan to take care of their needs! I dont like the moral a bit to say the least. Am sure lots of kids are going to watch it and the parents are going to have a tough time... I believe in living comfortably with what you have and personal loans are only for emergency. This message, atleast for me was that personal loans are for living a kings life even though you can afford it! BAD.

2008-01-23T22:36:00.000+05:30

Chennai Trip

Over the weekend, we drove down to Chennai in the year old Ford fiesta. Took the bangalore-chennai highway vira Hosur, Krishnagiri, Vellore. Roads are as good as (sometimes better) the bombay-pune expressway. Around 350 Kms, but did that in 5 hours with 30 mts break in between including the city drive times. Took a breakfast break at Hotel Tamilnadu, Krishnagiri - This has become the whole family's habit on any drive that crosses Krishnagiri. Food here is awesome.

While going, we started early at around 5:30 in the morning and did beat all the weekend traffic. Had a peaceful drive. Even I got to drive for 30-40 mts. There are four tolls - 25-35-45-30 rupees respectively for cars. After every toll, you can even find restrooms -well maintained ones. So far, I've always been forced to search for a decent hotel and have some snacks on such occasions. One big relief that you dont have to do that!

Coming back, we started in the afternoon at three and when we were out of Kathipara junction it was almost 4:15, and sun was hitting right on our face till sunset. Reached home by 8:30 with a Hotel tamilnadu break at around 6:15 in the evening at Krishnagiri. My advice is that never enter this hotel at this time of the day! While you are eating, you are eaten my mosquitoes. Such big and nasty ones and you are scratching all over yourself in no time.

The only problem in the whole drive is our country men/vehicles/herd of cows in the numerous towns and villages that you happen to pass by before you reach chennai. They dont realise the speed of the vehicle and happily cross at their own sweet pace. They even drive as if they are in US - all in the wrong side! They dont care a damn about their lives. Real scary as if you hit them, you are the one who will be repenting your whole life if something happens to them.

Anyways, that doesnot bother you too much as there is lots of good if you leave this out. Enjoy the drive.

2008-01-16T22:33:00.000+05:30

Today is one of those bad days - Mostly because of the lack of proper sleep combined with anitbiotics. Added to that is couple of problems from unexpected fronts at office and I was really in a foul mood and sleepy when I entered home. After half an hour of trying to get Kimaya understand what I say, I was fed up.

Then there was Andrum Indrum Endrum programme that was being aired in Vijay TV. This is a concert by Ilayaraja with all the leading singers. What beautiful compositions - After I heard a couple of songs, I was slowly getting back to normalcy. Then I was drowned in it.. Any day, any year, i guess, these will give me that kind of serenity that I would need!.

I think Vijay TV aired this program as two parts. I had heard the first set lonnnnnnnnggggggg back and now this. The only problem that I found in the whole programme was Ilayaraja's daughter singing Mayil pola - Oh, that was awfully out of tune and if a person like me who has a little knowledge about music can identify that, I dont know how these muscians on stage put up with that! Am sure that it was something that could have been avoided.

Nevertheless, the nice feeling after hearing those songs, did not leave for a while.. Long live Ilayaraja.

2008-01-04T22:59:00.000+05:30

I had a post on Marlabs's announcement of their new BI head who is none other than my hubby and that was a proud moment for me. One more such moment happened in November end which is this article:
http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/industrymarket/focus/2007/107112704.asp.

This is an article on Business Intelligence in Dataquest's November edition.He has been quoted in 4 places in the article. Needless to say that am really really really SO proud about this.

Thanking God and my lucky stars :)

2008-01-04T22:50:00.000+05:30

Am 4 days late in wishing everyone for the new year in the blog.. but better late than never.. So here is wishing all of you a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year 2008. Asusual, there were lots of mails wishing new year - all kinds of categories - beautiful, funny, sentimental etc., etc., The best new year mail that I got was this...Enjoy maadi...
--------------------------------
Hi Folks !

It’s that time of the year when I look back and want to thank all of my friends & relatives who have sent me emails this past year........

I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat shit in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet towel with every envelope that needs sealing.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it all to a sick girl (Penny Brown); who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $50,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

Or from the senior bank clerk in Nigeria who wants to split $7 million with me for pretending to be a long lost relative of a customer who died intestate.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's novena is going to grant every wish of mine.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca-Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

Thanks to some of you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

And thanks to your great advice, the other day, I couldn’t even pick up the Rs. 500/- I found dropped in the car park because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

If you have reached so far…then here’s wishing you and your family a very happy New Year and may all your
wishes come true…..without having to forward this email as a necessity!!

Have fun, write more original mails and send less of such forwarded mails in 2008!!

--------------------------------

2007-12-20T22:37:00.001+05:30

Yaaahoooooooooooooooo! Am home alone after 1 year and 5 months.... One part of me feels guilty about having left Kimaya at Mettur with my parents, but another part of me shoo shoo's me. Anyways now that I've left her there, there is no point feeling guilty, right. I can as well enjoy this unexpected quiet feeling.

To be frank, I did not know what to do with the time I had for myself with no restrictions.... Yesterday since I was tired, I did not give it much thought. Today I feel lost, though I went and bought couple of books, something to eat, roamed around the mall for an hour, watched Cheeni Kum (some movie, that I've been wanting to watch to see Tabu and even tried couple of times, but with some interruption, I was never successful), had junk and browse net for hours..Ofcourse last but not the least - with teacher... I'm trying to find out hard things that I can do. Hmm... I've grown used to Kimaya being around.

I strongly advocate the thought that even parents need rest at times. It is more because of the guilt associated with leaving the kid elsewhere - not counting schools and play time, makes the parents miserable. I'm trying hard to overcome this feeling. She is very happy there. So why do I crib?? God knows why!

I've, rather, my other part has been looking forward to this break, hence I decide to ignore my part thats been constantly nagging me and enjoy while it lasts..

2007-12-20T22:32:00.000+05:30

The function that did not happen on Nov 19th happened on Dec 19th, that is yesterday. Yes, my dad's sashti aptha purthi went on very well. It was a very small function and it happened at home. Only that varuna bhagawan played spoilt sport and made every place around 'nasa nasa'. I was so happy to see my parents getting married and we were all making fun of dad and mom. Appa was asusual very emotional about the whole thing.

Got home yesterday late in the night to go to office today... Tired and so good nite.

2007-12-11T19:08:00.000+05:30

We had an impromptu holiday last month. My dad's sixtieth birthday celebrations got cancelled because of a death in the family and that happened on the day we were about to leave from here. We had plans of visiting Kumbakonam, Thanjavur, Thirukkadaiyur, Thirukkarugavur, Sembangudi and Nallicheri. And all those got cancelled. Since we had prepared also so much for this absence at office and Amma and appa were so upset, we decided that we will drive down somewhere and have a holiday.

So I chose Mudumalai from three options - Chikmagalur, Mudumalai and Karwar. Since he will be driving, I did not want it to be anything long which ruled out Karwar. Since we decided that we will leave my parents back in Mettur, and Mudumalai will be closer from both ends, we started our journey on Tuesday morning(Nov 20th) 5:40 am from Bangalore. Stopped at Kamath for breakfast. It was a 224 Kms drive via Ramnagara, Channapatna, Maddur, Mandya, Srirangapatna, Mysore, Najungad, Gundelpet, and Bandipur. Till Mysore the road was great. From Mysore to Gundlepet, it was a bumpy drive. Once we enter the forest area, we were back on good roads.

Monkeys and deers were the only wild animals we managed to see in the trip. We took the van safari. As the review in Outlook 32 weekend getaways suggested, it was a bumpy ride and was not worth the money as we did not see any elephant. We did see one, a tamed one in the wild. Kimaya paid attention to the hen that was hanging around the elephant while we were trying hard to show her the 'real' elephant. It was really funny! That apart, it was a great holiday.

We stayed at blue valley resorts at Bokkapuram. (www.bluevalleyresort.com). We were the only ones staying there as it was during weekdays in off-season. Food was made after ordering. Even though the choices were limited, it was good and fresh. There was no TV, phones were not reachable (only BSNL works!). We were surrounded by fresh air and blue mountains. We went for walks, drives, ate, slept, played with Kimaya in the children's play area and played monopoly for hours before sleeping.

Initial plan was to drive straight from there to Mettur via Sathyamangalam on Saturday morning. We realised that Ooty is just 30 kms from Mudumalai and when my mom showed some enthu to see ooty, plans got changed. We checked out from the resort on Friday morning and drove down to Ooty via Kalhatti. There is another route from Theppakkadu (Mudumalali) via Gudalur, but as people adviced that this road is good, we took this even though I was skeptical about the 36 hair pin bends I read about in the week end getaways review. But I was glad that we took that road. It was an excellent drive. Car stopped at two places because he tried to take it in second gear when it was fully loaded. From experience, our advice is stick to 1st gear on the bends. They are pretty steep, but safe as long as you follow the rules.

We visited the botanical gardens and boat house - took the customary walk and the motor boat ride and left from there at 4:30 pm. Had to take a diversion to Kothagiri as the Coonoor road was blocked. Reached Mettur at 9:30 pm taking the Mettupalayam, Annur, Perundhurai, Bhavani route. There were bad patches but overall, it was a comfortable drive.

After staying Mettur for a day, we started early in the morning on Sunday at around 5:30 and reached Bangalore at 10 (Madivala) with a 30 mt breakfast break. It was excellent road all along and we just cruised through.

So all good things (Sigh!) ended and was back to office on Monday!!!!

2007-10-22T14:14:00.001+05:30

I think it is tough to be a working mom. Though such moments like the one I have described below are few for me, the intensity when it happens everytime is too much to handle. I know every working mom in the world can associate with me on the guilt part for not spending enough time with the child.

My thought on this was kindled because of what happened at home on Saturday. I was feeding Kimaya her lunch. Normally this is the task which the maid completes in 15 minutes flat – for her, it is just part of her job and she has mastered it… With me or for that matter anyone in the family, Kimaya takes the liberty of running around, jumping up and down, spitting what is fed - anything that would test your patience. She was doing the same and I was elated when finally there were only two spoonfuls left in the bowl and she looked full.

My mom looked at what was left in the bowl and commented– ‘Give it to the maid, she will finish feeding it’. I got really WILD. I tend to ignore such comments normally, if it is said once, but if the same is repeated a couple of more times, then it gets on my nerve. Luckily I did not start screaming or show my anger – I tried analyzing the situation when I cooled down. I could clearly see that my mom’s intention was, in Kimaya’s usual meal two spoons were left and hence she should not feel hungry. For me, it was like telling me that I did not know how to feed my OWN kid!

It is not only this, but I feel bad and guilty on several occasions. Since the world is full of working moms and at work I share my feelings with some of them, I try not to be emotional and take any decisions hastily. Advice my fellow friends also to be patient like meJ. This too shall pass!

2007-10-16T18:00:00.001+05:30

Can a day have more than 24 hours? I think that’s what we need in today’s world.

I want to spend time with Kimaya, get deeper into the tasks that I do in office, want to learn music, exercise, finish some household tasks, spend time with parents and grandmothers, blog, get some rest at the end of the day and especially weekends. Time just flies, I’m unable to do justice to even the first two in the above line…

I just run, run and run from doing one to another and the thought on the next thing on my mind pushes me to do an ‘OK’ job of anything I do. I know I can excel and do it thoroughly, but time???

I see that most of us prefer watching movies at home over theatres;twenty twenty matches over tests, buffets over elaborate dinner, tinned foods over cooking - shortened versions of just anything (even prayers) as saving time becomes far more important than the pleasure of doing it the old ways. I feel bad that I don’t even have time to talk to my grandma for 10-20 mts continuously nowadays, especially if I go to her place with Kimaya.

Are we really having a better life than our parents/grandparents? With all the improvements in technology, infrastructure, economy, etc., etc.,, shouldn’t that have been the case? I really really doubt it sometimes...

2007-09-22T21:46:00.001+05:30

Travelled from Bangalore to Trivandrum by flight on Wednesday. It was around 4:30 pm when we reached the airport and it was buzzing with activity as lots of flights were leaving that time to various parts of India (in a 15 mt duration there were three flights leaving to Tvm itself.) .

Inspite of being called the IT hub and with so many business people from the world frequenting this, the domestic departure terminals facilities - as I experienced were not even of average standard. We had sandwich and puf after security check, in the waiting area and it was stale. Then was the ultimate - the restrooms - No light, flush was clogging, there was no one to clean - yuk! even now, if I think about it, I feel like puking....

Dont know whether anyone has experienced the same, but i heard from my husband that this airport is the worst!

2007-09-22T21:22:00.000+05:30

Long time and lots to write... Where do I start?

"Kuzhal inidhu yazh inidhu enbar tham makkal mazhalai sol keladhavar" Says Tiruvalluvar - Meaning "People who say that flute and veena are sounding sweet and nice would not have heard their babies talk (gibberish stage)". Kimaya's speech (if I may call it that!), reminds me of that every day.

When I come back home, she starts narrating everything that happened to her (I assume as thats what it looks like) with all kinds of expressions and tones, i understand nothing of what she utters - but it is absolute fun. She attempts to speak everything she hears and she even sings. I am so proud of her :).

2007-09-08T22:24:00.001+05:30

Just testing whether email bloggin works!

2007-08-09T20:45:00.001+05:30

Sometimes things that Kimaya do makes me think that this generation kids want to be independent right from this age. For the last one month, when she starts feeling sleepy, she used to sit on the swing, close her eyes and start singing 'ah ah ah ' in the tune that makes her sleep. We used to sing that for her and for a couple of weeks, she was doing it herself.

She is having a cold, she takes her hanky and wipes her nose herself. Yesterday night was the most hilarious one - She normally has her feed at 5:00 in the morning. She wakes up and starts crying and immediately one of us prepares her feed and give it to her. - Yesterday she woke up, she got her bottle and then brought it to me and woke me up! I was stunned. After drinking she did not want to lie in my lap, got into her cradle and slept.

I'm just waiting to see what is next!

2007-07-22T12:05:00.000+05:30

Kimaya turned one year as per her tamil star on July 4th. We had a party without involving friends as there are too many close relatives around in Bangalore. In the morning we had the Poojas and in the evening a small party with a birthday cake and all...

What I realised is that Mallu and I had to think, plan, organize with our parents inputs but she was oblivious that it was all for her :) So at the end of the day it is all our wishes fulfilled - starting from the candle that was blown till the dessert - It was all our wishes. Am sure she is not going to like it when she grows big and understands how it was celebrated!

We also tonsured her head in Tirupati on 14th, just a day after her birthday.

As she is one year old now, am just looking back my life after her birth. The feeling is sort of mixed. In the intial months, I really doubted whether it was good decision to have a child! It was painful, depressing and I was extremely stressed by the lack of sleep as she had to be fed several times in the night. Though every site about babies and child talk about the depression due to harmonal change after delivery, you dont realise anything till you cross that stage. I've had fights with almost everyone in the family and have felt that noone cares for me. I've given sleepless nights to Mallu. When I look back, I think why on earth would I think like that and it seems very funny.

Once she started sitting, crawling and babbling, things looked brighter. Nowadays she wakes up only once in the night and my husband and I take turns to feed her. Motherhood is enjoyable now. From 8th month onwards, she is learning lots of things and there have been somany developments - her teeth showing up, she started standing up without any support, tries to make us laugh with her antics and in the last few days she is non-stop walking. It is really is enjoyable and she is a stress buster. Everyday when I come back from work, she laughs and just jumps on me and starts blabbering quiet a bit. For that one moment, all the trouble seems worthwhile.

What I've learnt in so many months is to not believe in perfection. I am doing my level best at both work and home but am not trying to do everything on my own. I've some help at home to take care of Kimaya under our parents guidance. It hurts when that lady advices me what I need to do to make my daughter happy, but am trying not to get bogged down by it and take any drastic decision. I feel guilty when I am not at office when my team is working their asses off, but then again, am ignoring the guilt and try to move on.

One other thing is to get some sort of exercise for atleast 30 mts a day by walking some distance from office, or doing some activity with Kimaya. It makes me feel damn good. Mallu and I have decided that we will have our own space and time atleast once a week. When she was not around, it was there in abundance - we had taken it for granted. Now we realise that it is very very important to have some quality time for ourselves to keep our relationship alive and healthy.

It has taken me really a year to realise that motherhood/parenting is an enjoyable experience if you adapt yourself well and try and be happy with the additional responsibility. Happy parenting...

2007-06-06T20:45:00.000+05:30

I cleared my PMP exam on 30th May. I really am feeling great about it as I've done this with Kimaya as 10.5 months old baby, with office work and with Mallu's preparation to go to US. If I've to thank someone BIGTIME for helping through out, that will be Mallu. For all the trouble he took over the weekends to spare me time to study, to take tests, encouraging me when I was down about the whole thing - Thanks a ton.

For all those who do not know what PMP is -- this is a certification - Project Management Professional - provided by PMI. This is valid for 3 years and focuses purely on project management.

There is a 35 hours compulsary session that you should have attended on project management by recognised trainers and that started it all for me. When I was Chennai, there was a session conducted by PELCON, Pune. I attended that and immediately apped and paid for the certification. Could not finish it while I was there and just after delivery. After so many months, the motivation factor was that validity period for the application and fees I paid was going to expire on June 1st week.

Started reading through Rita and PMBOK in April, but was not too serious until I fixed up my exam date. I went through Rita alone once and then took a mock test from pmstudy tp just gauge where I was. Then I went through Rita and PMBOK simultaneously once more. Took another couple of practice tests from Kim heldman's CD. I did not have time to do anything more as it was 30th Morning already :) and the exam scheduled at 9:00 am.

I could complete the exam and review in 3 hours. During the practice exams I found that 20-30% of the my errors were because that I was not reading the questions completely. As most of the questions were situation based in the exam, I think the ones I had made mistakes were becuase of this. Most of the Input, Tools and Techniques and Output questions were from quality, risk, time and procurement. I had done several reviews of these and I think I got all of them right.

Though people were advicing me against taking tests as it unnerves you (Which it did when I passed my first test!) but it gives you a feel of how to get through the 4 hours. It is really tough to have your concentration prolonged for so long! And the tips provided by Rita about the exam day was helpful. I took a break after 100 questions (there are 200 in total), had my breakfast and then did the rest of it. It helped a lot in relaxing a bit.

Thanks to everyone around me who have contributed in this success in some way or other.

2007-04-23T23:02:00.000+05:30

Mozhi - Means language in Tamil. And the movie was awesome. I heard rave reviews about it and was itching to have a look at it and it happened on last Saturday. From the beginning till end, it was beautiful, flawless and it was a joy to watch the movie. Very few movies have touched my heart like this - movies like kannathil muthamittal. They come very rarely and stand in your mind for a long time.. Yes, yes, I will stop going on like this and will give a quick, neat review...

Story is about two friends who are doing background music for movies. Their funda of love is that if you meet THE girl you will have a light above your head and bells will ring :) And our hero sees such a girl, obviously the heroine and falls in love instantaneously. He finds later that she is deaf and dumb. Because she is physically challenged, she feels that noone should take pity on her. Additionally she hates the idea of marriage because of her parents. Then it takes the typical line of hero proposes, she refuses, finally comes out of her cucoon to accept.. In the story to add some spice there are side tracks about the hero's friend, heroine's friend, the apartments seceratary, the professor - May be unwanted, but given at the right amount hence it has not exceeded its limit.

Now, you can say, "Okay, What is great about it? Slightly different story but then the same masala!" - Direction and the cast - Thats what makes it great. Prakash raj and Jyotika are really good. Jyotika just had to act and not talk (rather move her lips.).In the last but one scene where she just breaks herself free of her fears - she cries - that few seconds were amazing - she really is talented!. Prakash Raj is who I call as a complete actor - he can do all kind of roles with ease and in this movie he has done comedy in the supporting role. Total entertainment :)

PS: I started writing this review when I watched it the first time, And finished it when I watched it the second time today. Last 30 mts are dragging and typical tamil movie 'shtyle' and I think it is Prakash Raj's delivery of jokes that made me watch the movie again.....

2007-04-08T22:08:00.000+05:30

I have something to write everytime I go to Saritha's place. This time about Finland. Sari's hubby had just come back from Finland..

It seems that sauna's are integral part of Finnish. Couple of interesting things which he has experienced - Once after a sauna, he has done 'Flying angels' - Meaning, come out of the sauna, get out to the snow with or without a towel based on whether women population is there around, go and lie down on virgin snow and move your limbs up and down - the imprint resembles an flying angel!

Another of his sauna experience goes like this - After a really hot sauna, go to a frozen lake, where a portion of the ice is cut and a ladder is put to let you inside the ice cold water - he had to try thrice to get himself into that water till his neck..

Then the interesting part - Kossu and Salmari. Kossu's real name is koskenkorva - which is vodka made from barley. Salmari is a liquer made out of kossu. I tasted the salmari - excellent is the word for the shot I had. It tastes a lot like Benedictine dom, less strong than it. One shot could be finished very comfortably and with no after effects.

2007-03-30T14:06:00.000+05:30

Got this mail today.. Very interesting. All parents should have a look at it inorder to ensure we do not load the children unnecessarily....

Multiple Intelligences (Source: www.thomasarmstrong.com)
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University, in his book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, and has been further refined in subsequent years..
It suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on I.Q. testing, is far too limited. Instead, Dr. Gardner proposes eight different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These intelligences are:
Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):
Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
Musical intelligence ("music smart")
Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")
Dr. Gardner says that our schools and culture focus most of their attention on linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence. We esteem the highly articulate or logical people of our culture. However, Dr. Gardner says that we should also place equal attention on individuals who show gifts in the other intelligences: the artists, architects, musicians, naturalists, designers, dancers, therapists, entrepreneurs, and others who enrich the world in which we live.
Unfortunately, many children who have these gifts don’t receive much reinforcement for them in school. Many of these kids, in fact, end up being labeled "learning disabled," "ADD (attention deficit disorder," or simply underachievers, when their unique ways of thinking and learning aren’t addressed by a heavily linguistic or logical-mathematical classroom. The theory of multiple intelligences proposes a major transformation in the way our schools are run. It suggests that teachers be trained to present their lessons in a wide variety of ways using music, cooperative learning, art activities, role play, multimedia, field trips, inner reflection, and much more.
The good news is that the theory of multiple intelligences has grabbed the attention of many educators around the country, and hundreds of schools are currently using its philosophy to redesign the way it educates children. The bad new is that there are thousands of schools still out there that teach in the same old dull way, through dry lectures, and boring worksheets and textbooks. The challenge is to get this information out to many more teachers, school administrators, and others who work with children, so that each child has the opportunity to learn in ways harmonious with their unique minds.
The theory of multiple intelligences also has strong implications for adult learning and development. Many adults find themselves in jobs that do not make optimal use of their most highly developed intelligences (for example, the highly bodily-kinesthetic individual who is stuck in a linguistic or logical desk-job when he or she would be much happier in a job where they could move around, such as a recreational leader, a forest ranger, or physical therapist). The theory of multiple intelligences gives adults a whole new way to look at their lives, examining potentials that they left behind in their childhood (such as a love for art or drama) but now have the opportunity to develop through courses, hobbies, or other programs of self-development.
How to Teach or Learn Anything 8 Different Ways
One of the most remarkable features of the theory of multiple intelligences is how it provides eight different potential pathways to learning. If a teacher is having difficulty reaching a student in the more traditional linguistic or logical ways of instruction, the theory of multiple intelligences suggests several other ways in which the material might be presented to facilitate effective learning. Whether you are a kindergarten teacher, a graduate school instructor, or an adult learner seeking better ways of pursuing self-study on any subject of interest, the same basic guidelines apply. Whatever you are teaching or learning, see how you might connect it with

words (linguistic intelligence)
numbers or logic (logical-mathematical intelligence)
pictures (spatial intelligence)
music (musical intelligence)
self-reflection (intrapersonal intelligence)
a physical experience (bodily-kinesthetic intelligence)
a social experience (interpersonal intelligence), and/or
an experience in the natural world. (naturalist intelligence)
For example, if you’re teaching or learning about the law of supply and demand in economics, you might read about it (linguistic), study mathematical formulas that express it (logical-mathematical), examine a graphic chart that illustrates the principle (spatial), observe the law in the natural world (naturalist) or in the human world of commerce (interpersonal); examine the law in terms of your own body [e.g. when you supply your body with lots of food, the hunger demand goes down; when there's very little supply, your stomach's demand for food goes way up and you get hungry] (bodily-kinesthetic and intrapersonal); and/or write a song (or find an existing song) that demonstrates the law (perhaps Dylan's "Too Much of Nothing?").
You don’t have to teach or learn something in all eight ways, just see what the possibilities are, and then decide which particular pathways interest you the most, or seem to be the most effective teaching or learning tools. The theory of multiple intelligences is so intriguing because it expands our horizon of available teaching/learning tools beyond the conventional linguistic and logical methods used in most schools (e.g. lecture, textbooks, writing assignments, formulas, etc.). To get started, put the topic of whatever you’re interested in teaching or learning about in the center of a blank sheet of paper, and draw eight straight lines or "spokes" radiating out from this topic. Label each line with a different intelligence. Then start brainstorming ideas for teaching or learning that topic and write down ideas next to each intelligence (this is a spatial-linguistic approach of brainstorming; you might want to do this in other ways as well, using a tape-recorder, having a group brainstorming session, etc.). Have fun!
(Source: http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm)

2007-03-27T22:15:00.000+05:30

I watched one of the latest tamil movie Paruthi veeran on Sunday. This is directed by a guy named Ameer and the cast includes Karthik (Surya's brother and Sivakumar's second son) and Priyamani.
At the end of the movie I felt really depressed. I being an emotional person, I hate tragedies even on-screen! I was not able to realise whether the movie was overall good or bad. It took me sometime to realise that it was interesting to watch till the end. The last 5 minutes spoiled it all for me.
Story line is this - heroine is madly in love with the hero and is very firm that she will get married to him only. Hero realises only after the movie is half way through. He being the 'Chandiyar' is really irresponsible and lives his life doing all sorts of bad things - drinking, fighting, gambling etc.,. But when they elope and just about to be married, heroine is raped by his friends. She dies and to save her from being portrayed as 'Kettu pona ponnu', he uses an axe and let people believe that he killed her as her dad is planning to get her married to someone else. Hearing this, villagers beat him to death.
Movie is shot in a village and has been taken beautifully.
The dialogues are really crude but close to real conversations in that part of TN. Each and every actor has performed beautifully. Songs are okay... May be if I listen to them a few more times, I may even like one of them.
But then, I am still not able to accept the way the story ended.. Very very depressing.

2007-03-26T12:16:00.000+05:30

Hey, the following links are announcements from Marlabs on my husbands appointment as BI Practice head in the company..His 10 minutes of fame!. Am really really proud.

1. PRleap
http://www.prleap.com/pr/70546/

2.Sulekha News.com
http://news.sulekha.com/newsitemdisplay.aspx?cid=491875&cat

3. Company World News.com
http://www.immortalcompany.co.uk/news/rajesh-ramaswamy-to-head-business-intelligence-practice-of-marlabs-pr-leap-press-release/
4. Fastpitch.com
http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&q=Marlabs+%2BRajesh+Ramaswamy&btnG=Google+Search&meta

5. PR Nuke
http://www.prnuke.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5177

6. I - newswire.com
http://www.i-newswire.com/pr95898.html

7. Computer News.com
http://www.topix.net/business/computers/pr

8. Einnews.com
http://www.einnews.com/search.php?keywords=Marlabs&makesearch=yes

9. Newswiretoday.com
http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/15685/

10. Bangalore News Network
http://www.bangalorenewsnetwork.com/industry/23march2.html

2007-03-23T22:24:00.000+05:30

Kimaya's first tooth has started coming out. Reminds me of a seedling.. I am not able to see it clearly but I can feel it if I put my finger in her mouth. Also she tried doing pushups. Enjoyed my day at home today with her..
She is also crawling. And newspaper shown to her is like a bone shown to a dog.. It is really funny seeing her racing towards it :)

2007-03-20T22:58:00.000+05:30

Can you ever be contented in life? Say that " Hey, I've got everything I wanted. I dont need anything more. Am very happy. I thank god for what he has given me" ? I can't say that. Not always. There are a few occasions when the thought that "I'm blessed" has struck me. One of it is when I heard my maid's story.

She is 23-24 years old. She is married for 8 years - Yep, I also did not believe it in the beginning! Her husband is a drunkard. She has a 3 year old daughter, who she has left with her mom and is working here in Karnataka to earn some money for her. It seems that she has had two deliveries - the first one, a boy, died - in the second, she had twins- one of them, again a boy died. Her marriage was a sudden one. The guy is her relative who was about to elope and then everyone in the family decided that they will get him married to her and stop him from eloping with his love!

I really feel sorry for her and to an extent for her husband. She is like a typical tamil/indian girl. She would not say anything wrong about him and has accepted her life as it is and she goes on...

2007-03-17T22:16:00.000+05:30

It was around 10-10:15 in the morning on March 6th. We both were on our way to office. Our new car (read the review at http://re-view-central.blogspot.com/), which is just about a month was due its first service the next day. While we were on Jeevan Bhima Nagar main road, on which you can never think about speeding in any way, one of the drivers in the front hit the brakes. We also stopped and after a split second, we hit a thud at the back. We were not thrown in the front when we stopped, but we did when we were hit. Now, as many of us would have guessed, it was a Accenture call centre vehicle(vehicle number KA-07 1280) which banged on us.

Then it all started.. Iit is a new car - just over a month old and was bought after so much of research, discussions and planning, anything that happens to it gets into you emotionally. My husband was boiling and when the driver asked him a question 'Sir Ji, Aap ne brake kyon lagaye?(Sir, why did you hit the brakes?) he would have almost hit him. Damage was on three panels - the bumper and indicator was gone and the left side panel and boot had dents. We spoke to the vehicle owner and Accenture travel desk. The owner came and said that he will take it to his brothers garage at Ulsoor and get it repaired.. We told him that cannot happen as this is a new car and took him to a garage in Gitanjali layout just to estimate the damage. They estimated around 18K. Owner was still telling us that he will take it to his brothers garage. We took him to Ford service center as we had to enquire about the procedure to claim insurance, there again the damage was estimated as around 22K. After that, we were trying to negotiate with the owner, but that guy, named Saddiq Sharif (attached his photo - does he really look like the owner ?? I wonder!) just was not stating anything. Then we called up Accenture travel desk and spoke to a person named Mohammed, who actually told us that the solution is to just take it

to the garage specified by Saddiq. I was really wild as am sure if it had been his car for which he paid 8.5 lacs and had not run for even 1000Kms, he would not make that statement. Finally we decided that we will go to police and file a case. While we were waiting for a person who worked in traffic police, but now working in a security agency, come and take us to the police station to help us talk to people there as we did not know the local language, Saddiq and his driver suddenly vanished from the scene. When we reached the station, these people were already there negotiating with the police guys.

We spent almost 2-2.5 hours there, trying to get some decent compensation from these guys as we will be spending on the fibre parts and also will be loosing our No Claim Bonus for the coming years if we claim insurance. Saddiq was adamant that he will not pay anything at all, then said that the maximum he can pay is 3500 Rs. His logic was very simple - if we file a case, that is the maximum expense for him and so he was willing to shell out that much of money. If we do file a case, it seems that we will get our money only after a couple of years. And also that we need to go to the court everytime summon comes and spend on a lawyer. He just has to plead guilty appear a couple of times and leave the rest to the insurance company.. Intially we thought that we should file a case, but at the end, agreed to the settlement.

On the whole, loss in several form - we had to spend a whole day out of office, my BIL and brother had to come out of office to do their bit of negotiation, pay for what insurance will not cover, loose the NCB and whole a lot of emotional pain - was for us and just 3.5K for the guys who did the damage :(

2007-02-28T22:52:00.000+05:30

Much awaited budget is out today. I've been going through the details on moneycontrol.com and here are some good articles.

If you are an individual who is interested in how the budget has affected you go to http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/economy/unionbudgetbasicexemption/whatisimplicati/market/stocks/article/269378

Check out the impact on various daily used items at http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/economy/unionbudgetproducts/whatisimpactbud/market/stocks/article/269387

And if you want to know what was expected and what is the actual in various sector - here is the link:
http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/economy/budget2007indiainc/indiaincswishli/market/stocks/article/269386

Do you tax planning properly and have a wealthy year ahead!

2007-02-27T23:21:00.000+05:30

We all travelled to Trivandrum by air deccan this Saturday. Flight is to take off at 6:45 am from Bangalore. So we all got up at 4:30, reached airport at 5:45 or 5:50. In the entrance of the airport, an air deccan guy saw us and said - Sir, the checkin is almost closed, rush! How can you reach so late??. We panicked, ran without the luggage that was put in baggage check :). The guy at the counter told us to relax and issued our boarding cards. After we went through the securtiy check, we realised that it is delayed and will leave only at 8:30. AFter a long days work at office on Friday, all of us (with an infant and a child ) really had a tough time waking up so early in the morning and here we find that actually we could have slept for some time.. The thought is not so pleasant.
My BIL got irritated because we were hurried so much and moreover, we did not get any message about the delay. As soon as he went and expressed his irritation to one of the air deccan staff, he got the message!!!!!!!! We learnt that the flight is a base flight from Bangalore but there were technical fault in one of the wings and is getting repaired.
We tried to kill time and got an announcement to board at 8:00 am. While we were packing our laptops and another of those air deccan guys came and started - 'Sir, you are still here!! Everyone has boarded and we announced the boarding long back.' and it was just once the announcement was made and we were reaching there just 5 mts after that! All of us got pretty pi**ed off and sort of shouted at that guy.
So, we got to go by a bus where only four+2 were TVM passengers and got dropped. We all felt sadistically happy that the flight take off is delayed because of us (after the treatment we got by air-deccan staff) but that was short-lived as when we reached the air craft we realised that the wing is still getting repaired :)
The story does not end here! After we boarded, just before the take-off people were asked to sit concentrated at the middle and tail end to balance - I was praying to god that we should reach safely and finally at 11:00 we landed safely at TVM.
Oof! What a journey.. will not forget this for sometime!!!

2007-02-18T10:13:00.000+05:30

Time - This is something everyone has been cribbing about a lot nowadays - I say that I dont have time to write my blog, do all the work at office, do exercise, etc., etc., - the list is endless.

Every relationship works only if enough time is spent on it. Be it employer-employee, doctor-patient, lovers, husband-wife, parents-children.

Especially when it comes to work relationships - now it is an established fact that employees leave managers and not company. It is very true. Unless you spend the time understanding the needs of the employee and align it with organisations needs to make it working for both - It never works. Similarly the younger ones - time needs to spent on mentoring them to make them a good asset to wherever they work. It is a long process and time should be invested.

When you are not available for your subordinates and expect them to learn everything by themselves, do whatever you say to them and sort their own problems - then you have a dissatisfied person who will attrite soon. Sometimes even a few minutes of listening to their problems will make you a good boss.

The same thing can be repeated for any relation. But that again comes back to the question of having time. Take me for example - I've all the good intention, but currently I'm guilty of not spending enough time at office because of restrictions due to Kimaya. I feel very bad if I extend my office hours due to compulsion and because of which my parents/his parents need to spend longer hours taking care of Kimaya. It is not a great feeling. Then my personal life takes over all the good intentions. Hmmmmm...

2007-02-18T09:59:00.000+05:30

My husband and I were discussing about the attitude of Indians and Americans when a requirement is put forth of them.

A typical indian mentality is to say that it can be done - even if there is a remote sign that it can be done. Americans start with that it cannot be done. Only after a detailed analysis do they commit.

Moment you say that it can be done, you commit. Only when you get down to coding, or just before you release, do you realise that there are 100 things that have not been thought about - resulting into not meeting customer commitments / delay in delivery. At the end, everyone is unhappy one way or the other.

2007-01-18T19:40:00.000+05:30

"Do you like going to movies?"
"Yes I do"
"Why"
"There are lots of people walking and dancing inside the screen. That's why I like"
===========================
"Do you know what breakfast means?"
"Yes, it is called breakfirst because that is the first thing that you have in the morning"

:) :)

Given above are the conversations that we had with our niece who is four and half years old. Their thought process is so different and interesting most of the times, I enjoy having converstions like this!

2006-12-29T13:51:00.000+05:30

Yesterday night we had a get together at my friend Saritha's place at Cambridge layout. One of her childhood friends Bhaskar, who is working with the Indian Navy had come with his wife Kajal.

We heard about lots of interesting things that happened in their lives.

1. The cycle trip that Bhaskar and Saritha did 10 years back. Bhaskar had come from Bombay to Bangalore cycling for 7 days. En route to Chennai he stayed at Saritha's place. When he was leaving next day morning, Saritha also decided that she will cycle along with him to Chennai. They took 2.5 days to reach Chennai cycling almost 120 Kms per day! What was discussed in our conversation was how it changed both their lives. Bhaskar was calling it a crazy adventure, but I think it shows their endurance and willpower. Hats off!

2. Kajal is a mother of two kids. She was proffessional choreographer and had a break when their kids were born. Now their second son is almost two and she has got back to work. One thing about her which made me admire her is that she took up scuba diving training when her son was 4 months old and got her license for 21 ft diving in two months time. She was telling that she used to come to the room to feed her son between every dive for the test. Amazing.

We also talked lots about the country - economy, military strategies, politics etc., etc.,

One thought provoking thread was - why do dignitaries who visit India also visit Pakistan? Is Pakistan looked at as a threat or is it to set the perception that India does not mean anymore than Pakistan to them? What if our dignitaries who visit China visit Japan or May be Taiwan also? Will India take that position to send these varied perceptions to other countries anytime in future? I doubt it. What about you?

2006-12-29T13:37:00.000+05:30

I've been eating out a lot here. My comments on some of the places.
Indi Joe: Bang opposite to my office and hence most of the group lunches happen here. Their buffet costs Rs.425 and heard that the menu remains almost constant. Not worth the money, especially if you are vegetarian. I enjoyed the Fig pudding though..

Royal orchid park plaza's limelight: this again is close to my office, but landed up there with couple of our friends from US for dinner. It is also buffet costing Rs 500 (inclusive of taxes.). Spread was excellent. South indian karela fried, koottu, poriyal, salad spread are worth mentioning. The rasamalai was really yummmmmmyyyyy.

Parika, Indiranagar: Had ordered food from there for dinner at a friends place. Pretty decent food.

2006-12-25T18:48:00.000+05:30

Merry X'Mas and a very happy new year 2007 to all of you.

2006-12-11T14:34:00.000+05:30

Its a long time since I wrote anything. Arrived at Bangalore on 27th November. Started coming to office from 6th December.

I've come to Bangalore after almost two years and the changes in the part of the city where I live is unbelievable. the stretch of CMH road starting from CMH hospital till 100 ft road junction used to be a peaceful one. Now I see that it is filled with shops of varied kinds. I went to Urbanite (a family shop) where I bought lots of stuff for Kimaya. MK Ahmed's (they used to have a shop near Viveks further down CMH road) 4 floor shopping mall is really good. I have seen only the first two floors and am pretty impressed. Nice experience!

Traffic is maddening. Unlike Chennai, the number of cyclists are less and you need not fight with the autowallahs for fare. I'm currently pretty close to my brothers place and office and hence have not been on road for more than an hour yet. Touch wood!

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Kimaya seems to have adjusted to me not being there at home during office hours. I dont worry about her too much because we have left her with my parents. The moment I enter the house she wants to be with me - I feel great about it now, but soon it may become a problem!

2006-11-26T17:57:00.000+05:30

Am leaving today from Chennai. I never thought that I will miss anything, but today I could think of 101 reasons why I would miss this place - being able to talk in tamil, autowallahs, food, music on FM, Surya sweets and greens etc., etc., Hmmmmm...

Anyways - will soon start posting from Bangalore. Till then, Ciao.

2006-11-25T00:11:00.000+05:30

When you transfer from one place to another, if the movement of household items are taken care of, then it is a BIG relief.

We are shifting house for the sixth time in the past three years - across cities and within cities. I seem to know the Things to be done (TTBD in short), by heart! All the shifting has been done by movers and packers so far and we are not worried about moving our stuff anymore. Our experiences have been very good.

All you need to worry about is the associated things like (I just can't stop myself from listing it down :))

Pay your maid /doodhwala (milkman)/newspaper wala
Redirecting your mails
Cancelling all your phone (landline/mobile) connections
If you feel like it, throwing off the unwanted clothes/storage materials/papers etc.,
Transferring your gas connection/ration card (Why we dont need to do this qualify for a separate post. One of these days I may end up writing that sob story :( )

Today we went to Hutch shop and Airtel to enquire about the cancellation procedure. Was very surprised that they dont insist on written requests anymore. Hutch, for example says that your bills will reach you by email and when you get the new connection, you can email them at hutchcare.chennai@hutch.co.in to cancel it. Pretty impressive development I should say!

2006-11-21T23:52:00.000+05:30

Bought a new mobile phone /handset today. It is a sony ericsson - model w700i (walkman series) costing Rs.12,500.

So far, I always have had handsets that serves the basic purposes - to talk and to send/receive text messages. And was loyal to Nokia.

Have done the basic exploration of the new handset - it has got

2 mega pixel camera
FM radio
walkman
expandable memory etc., etc.,

We decided on this after looking at w550i(rejected because of no expandable memory) and Nokia 7610 (no FM).

I've been listening to FM in the new phone and I've one comment - sound quality not very good if it is on speaker. The head phones is great!

2006-11-21T23:34:00.000+05:30

Yesterday we went and bought woollens for Kimaya from Lifestyle in the Chennai City center mall on R.K Salai.

This mall is a place we frequent, especially to Landmark and Lifestyle - even before the food court and other shops like health and glow, Reynolds etc., started off. I think they have recently opened the movie screens also - we saw the INOX ticket counter.Parking facilities are good (Just after the rains we went there on a Saturday night and had to park at the basement 2. Not a very great experience. But if you can park at B1, then it is cool.) Food court is spacious and the variety that is offered is good.

I was freaking out at the kids section of Lifestyle - we bought lots of stuff that she needs and a few items because we both wanted to :) . If the items are not imported, I found the prices reasonable. So far, whatever we have bought from here - clothes / accesories / household items / kids clothes and toys - quality is great. I just love shopping here and am happy that they have got branches in Bangalore also!

2006-11-19T19:05:00.000+05:30

Today I added the 'as a mom' to the existing title of this blog. I think that will be apt as I'm going to start back at work from next month.

Hope sharing my experiences will be of some help to working-mothers and prospective mothers !

2006-11-19T18:33:00.000+05:30

Kimaya is four months old. She makes all sorts of noises and wants us to understand. She rules my life. Latest is that I can't talk to people if she is not okay with it. (She expresses everything by crying / screaming).

Have been at home for almost 5 months and will be back to work from Dec 6th. I've now got used to doing things when she is asleep - planning unconsciously. Dont know what will be the status after going to work.

We are moving back to Bangalore because as if I've to continue to work, I needed a good support system at home. Leaving the child with a babysitter without any supervision was a definite no no. I dont think we can work peacefully. This is an advice that I had got from several working-mothers. We are yet to look for a baby sitter in Bangalore. The process will start only after we move there.

2006-11-15T23:20:00.001+05:30

Awareness about various investment options has increased over time. Getting the right information at the right time, due to technological development has made it possible.

Bank Fixed deposits have lost their focus as the interest rates have fallen down. Everyone is calculating ROI on every investment made. Hence for the higher risk takers stock market has become a key area to invest and for the moderate risk takers mutual funds has become THE option.

For those who are investing in India in stocks and mutual funds, http://www.hdfcsec.com and http://www.mutualfundsindia.com are good reference sites.

Off late, gold (in the form of biscuits) is looked at as another investement option. I've heard of a person who buys a sovereign of gold every month once the car loan emi got over and another one who buys almost 8-10 sovereigns per year for her daughters.

Now, where should you buy such gold biscuits - should it be from jewellers? or should it be from banks? or should it be from the commodities market itself? I dont know, but for those who want to choose, here is an interesting 'must read' article I came across! It is a real eye opener.

2006-11-14T18:03:00.000+05:30

Today is world Diabetes day. Both my parents have diabetes. Detected almost 3-4 years back. They started with allopathy, having dianil (or one of those brands with same composition) everyday morning and night. Blood sugar level reduced, but they started having other side effects. My dad's body heat increases whenever he has any sort of allpathic medicine, which happened with this also. My mom had guiddiness in the morning and frequent hunger pangs. They were following the prescribed diet carefully.

After sometime they really got fed up and started to look for some alternate medicine to keep it under control. In my home town they heard that siddha medicines is working for quite a few people and started having that (powdered medicinal herbs filled in a capsule instead of the 'kashayam'). The person who was giving them their medicines was not a qualified doc in alternate medicines but an assistant to a doc. And hence their blood sugar level did not reduce, but atleast it did not increase much and they did not have the side effects.

When they had come to Chennai few months back one of my mom's friends told her that her diabetes is fully under control after she took medicines from a Siddha doctor in Vadapalani. So my parents also went there and started taking the medicines - in four to five months time, both their blood sugar and urine sugar have come down (almost 30 points per month) and their health has improved visibly.

Though I'm not a firm believer of alternate medicines, since this has worked for my parents, I wanted to share with you all.

For those who are interested, the doc's address is given below:

Dr. Balan,
15/12, Thiruvengadum Street, (Near MM Jewellery)
Virugambakkam,
Chennai.

Telephone number: 91-44-23774240

2006-11-10T21:40:00.000+05:30

This post is a cut and paste from Mr David Appasamy's blog (a member of chennai metro bloggers site). I enjoyed it thorrroughly!!!

This hilarious article was apparently written by a Dutchman who spent two years in India, as a visiting expert. Not only did he survive two years of traveling on Indian roads, he did so with his sense of humor intact! Read on and enjoy!

“For the benefit of every Tom, Dick and Harry visiting India and daring to drive on Indian roads, I am offering a few hints for survival. They are applicable to every place in India except Bihar, where life outside a vehicle is only marginally safer”

Indian road rules broadly operate within the domain of karma where you do your best, and leave the results to your insurance company. The hints are as follows:

Do we drive on the left or right of the road? The answer is both! Basically you start on the left of the road, unless it is occupied. In that case, go to the right, unless that is also occupied. Then proceed by occupying the next available gap, as in chess. Just trust your instincts, ascertain the direction, and proceed. Adherence to road rules leads to much misery and occasional fatality. Most drivers don't drive, but just aim their vehicles in the generally intended direction.

Don't you get discouraged or underestimate yourself except for a belief in reincarnation; the other drivers are not in any better position. Don't stop at pedestrian crossings just because some fool wants to cross the road. You may do so only if you enjoy being bumped in the back. Pedestrians have been strictly instructed to cross only when traffic is moving slowly or has come to a dead stop because some minister is in town. Still some idiot may try to wade across, but then, let us not talk ill of the dead.

Blowing your horn is not a sign of protest as in some countries. We horn to express joy, resentment, frustration, romance and bare lust (two brisk blasts),or just mobilize a dozing cow in the middle of the road. Keep informative books in the glove compartment. You may read them during traffic jams, while awaiting the chief minister's motorcade, or waiting for the rainwater to recede when over ground traffic meets underground drainage.

Occasionally you might see what looks like a UFO with blinking colored lights and weird sounds emanating from within. This is an illuminated bus, full of happy pilgrims singing ‘bhajans’ or religious songs. These pilgrim buses go at breakneck speed, seeking contact with the Almighty, often meeting with success.

Auto Rickshaw (Baby Taxi): The result of a collision between a rickshaw and an automobile, this three-wheeled vehicle works on an external combustion engine that runs on a mixture of kerosene oil and creosote. This triangular vehicle carries iron rods, gas cylinders or passengers three times its weight and dimension, at an unspecified fare. After careful geometric calculations, children are folded and packed into these auto rickshaws until some children in the periphery are not in contact with the vehicle at all. Then their school bags are pushed into the microscopic gaps all round so those minor collisions with other vehicles on the road cause no permanent damage. Of course, the peripheral children are charged half the fare and also learn Newton's laws of motion en route to school.Auto-rickshaw drivers follow the road rules depicted in the film Ben Hur, and are licensed to irritate.

Mopeds: The moped looks like an oil tin on wheels and makes a noise like an electric shaver. It runs 30 miles on a teaspoon of petrol and travels at break-bottom speed. As the sides of the road are too rough for a ride, the moped drivers tend to drive in the middle of the road; they would rather drive under heavier vehicles instead of around them and are often "mopped" off the tarmac.

Leaning Tower of Passes: Most bus passengers are given free passes and during rush hours, there is absolute mayhem. There are passengers hanging off other passengers, who in turn hang off the railings and the overloaded bus leans dangerously, defying laws of gravity but obeying laws of surface tension. As drivers get paid for overload (so many Rupees per kg of passenger), no questions are ever asked. Steer clear of these buses by a width of three passengers.

One-way Street: These boards are put up by traffic people to add jest in their otherwise drab lives. Don't stick to the literal meaning and proceed in one direction. In metaphysical terms, it means that you cannot proceed in two directions at once. So drive as you like, in reverse throughout, if you are the fussy type. Least I sound hyper critical; I must add a positive point also.

Rash and fast driving: in residential areas has been prevented by providing a "speed breaker"; two for each house. This mound, incidentally, covers the water and drainage pipes for that residence and is left untarred for easy identification by the corporation authorities, should they want to recover the pipe for year-end accounting.

Night driving on Indian roads: can be an exhilarating experience for those with the mental make up of Genghis Khan. In a way, it is like playing Russian roulette, because you do not know who amongst the drivers is loaded. What looks like premature dawn on the horizon turns out to be a truck attempting a speed record. On encountering it, just pull partly into the field adjoining the road until the phenomenon passes. The roads do not have shoulders, but occasional boulders. Do not blink your lights expecting reciprocation. The only dim thing in the truck in the driver, and with the peg of illicit arrack (alcohol) he has had at the last stop, his total cerebral functions add up to little more than a naught.

Truck drivers are the James Bonds of India, and are licensed to kill. Often you may encounter a single powerful beam of light about six feet above the ground. This is not a super motorbike, but a truck approaching you with a single light on, usually the le ft one. It could be the right one, but never get too close to investigate. You may prove your point posthumously”.

Dutchman or not, you have to admit this is a brilliant, satirical take on driving on Indian roads, peppered with some exaggeration!

2006-11-10T10:19:00.000+05:30

Was just wondering about a few things yesterday. This post may not be coherrent or make any sense. Pardon me for that.

If you think that you want to be happy, whatever happens, you will still be happy is what I started to believe. But what I found out is that if you are not destined to be happy, then you will never be. Something or other can come up unexpectedly to put you back in the worrying/negative state of mind.

When your daughter is crying because a cut which is bleeding, how much ever practical you are, your heart rules. And when two people, who are close to you are suggesting two different things at that moment, you are really confused. Atleast I was! Balanced decision and being diplomatic are no where near!

It is very cloudy outside and my mood is also like that. Dont feel like doing any work including taking care of Kimaya. Hope it will get better as the day progresses.

2006-11-07T15:21:00.000+05:30

Forgot to mention about developments of Kimaya. She has started to turn on her stomach quite often. She seems to be very impatient in life. The moment she perfected the turning part, she wants to move.. As she is not getting it, she starts crying. As a third person if I look at it, I really feel like laughing. As a mom, it is very upsetting to see her frustrated. I dont think I'll ever get bored in life for sometime now!!

And in Sa re ga ma pa - little champs, which got over a week back, Sanchita won and Diwakar was the first runner up. As the weeks went by, his expressions became better. And I guess he will be indebted to Zee TV Sa re ga ma pa and Alka Yagnik for this amazing change in his singing. I feel happy for him.

2006-11-04T22:51:00.000+05:30

Today had been a busy day. Went to lots of places with SIL and family. Thought about Kimaya only when she needed a feed. Shameless!! Actually did not want to additionally crowd her when already so many people were around her.
I particularly liked Toys R here which is on Nungambakkam High Road that is diagonally opposite to the Park hotel. Never take kids there - you will have your pocket empty :-). Too many choices. You get everything for kids that you get in a place like US. Amazing... One problem is that you have to go there more than once to familiarize yourself first about the things that are there. Cant go in a hurry. ( May be it was because we went while they were about to close the shop)

2006-11-01T21:21:00.000+05:30

Have changed the template of the blog. I like it, Do you??
While I was reviewing the details of my profile, I just realised, ever since I started writing this blog, there has not been much happening at work :-). I will soon join work and then there may be lots to write up to match the blog name.
Wait and watch!

2006-11-01T20:52:00.000+05:30

When I got transferred to Chennai, the music fest was just getting over. The way things are shaping up, I may be going out of Chennai before the music fest is starting this year...
Anyways, planning to attend a few of the programmes in the November fest. For those who have not heard about it yet , this is the link - http://www.hinduonnet.com/novfestx/who.htm.
Going to check a few things on search engine optimisation. Want to improvise my blog and make people visit it :-).

2006-10-26T18:24:00.000+05:30

Have been doing this and that and keeping myself busy and hence no blog.

Today I went to Dwi which is a place that conducts prenatal and post natal classes. It is owned by Rakhi who is a physiotherapist by profession. She has got a neat studio on TTK Road close to Focus opticals.
It is a one hour consultation and she charged my 200 bucks for that. Even though the stretches are all the normal ones, I think her USP was that she makes you feel very comfortable. After several months, just going out on your own for an hour felt like heaven.
Hoping to do the exercises daily to keep myself fit.. Let us see....

In the meanwhile, I've been eating out a lot. I specifically liked Eden (which is there in Besant nagar and in Nungambakkam) after tasting their pumkin peanut soup and milagu sevai shaslik and Benjarong (on TTK road serving Thai food) for the appetiser and fried icecream.

2006-10-15T19:43:00.000+05:30

Had gone to Trivandrum and came back today. Too lazy to write though have been thinking about writing a lot. Will sort out my thoughts and start writing again tomorrow.

2006-10-01T09:42:00.000+05:30

My boss, who is in Mumbai wanted to go to Thiruppathi. I was calling those agents to check out the rates and other details. One of them told me that it will take 3500 Rs for A/C car and Rs 500/ person for darshan. And then my friend told me to check out tamilnadu tourism packages. So called them up and found out they have A/C coaches running everyday and have a separate queue, so you can finish the darshan in maximum three hours.
Went to their office at Walajah Road. Service is very good. Also found out that we can book online. url is www.ttdconline.com.

2006-09-29T19:10:00.000+05:30

Repaired my grandmas harmonium a week back. This was given to my grandma by her dad when she was 8. Now she is almost 80. I really felt thrilled when I saw her so happy when she played it again.
Inicidentally a couple of days back, I was chatting with Mrs. Uma Devarajan, who is a founder member of Vishranthi - a home for destituted women. She was telling me the story of how this was found with just one patti who was made to stay in a rented house. Now there are 160 pattis there. when I told her my wish to visit them sometime, she was telling me about how glad the pattis are when someone come to the home to visit them and the amount of enthu they have in doing any kind of activity. Planning to visit them with Kimaya.
I always have a great respect for old people as I've lived with my grandmas and grandpa. They are really fun to live with. My grandma for example can relate more with this generation than my parents do. You learn a lot from them.

So since the harmonium is back, I have started learning carnatic music again... ( I dont know how long my interest will last this time!!).
Started understanding the funda behind raga and thala. Trying to practice atleast once a day.

2006-09-17T20:33:00.000+05:30

Day before yesterday, our house owners younger daughter came and told us that her sister is unwell. She said that the doc has said that her sister has some kind of phobia and she may come to our place and demand that she will take the rent from now on... In five mts time, the whole family came upstairs and as the younger one had warned, her sister told my mom that she will take the cheque and demanded for one for the current month. My mom spoke to her nicely. After a while, she just roamed around the house and went of. Since I was feeding Kimaya, I could not speak to her.

Later the house owner mami came to our place to check whether we are shocked. Since we knew that her elder daughter had some kind of psychiatric issue, all in our family took it as just another incident of the day.

Gist of mami's talk was this - Her husband had been very strict and dominating in the house with his wife and kids. There had been incidents where he had beaten up his six month old child because she took one of the papers he had kept. They are all completely under his control and starting from who should they talk to, where should they go and when etc., etc., - everything is done as directed by him. Because of which the elder one is really scared about everything and anything and the younger one is slightly better because of the friends she has got.

I really cannot understand what makes such people act the way they do. Was he treated the same way in his childhood? What is it result of? Before his daughter is treated, I think he should get treated.

2006-09-14T10:37:00.000+05:30

Kimaya's first travel by train on Aug-27. Went to my home town Mettur (Near Salem) with her. First one hour was terrifying as she did not stop crying. Once she settled down, journey was okay. Stayed there till Sep 13th. That's why no posts. Mettur is still just more than a village. When I was studying computers and email were unheard of and while the world is talking about WiFi, net cafes are still on dial up. I feel life here is healthy as you get fresh air, fresh food, do lots of physical activity, and less stressed. I realised that how much better you can be with less of TV and shopping. (Cable gets switched off every time it looks like it is going to rain and shopping here means only for necessity. ) Can u believe that a couple can live lavishly if they have 2K per month!!!!
I think Kimaya also enjoyed her stay here as she could see more open space. amount of time she spent in the cot in the verandah would have been more than the time she spent inside the house.
My brother and I feel that whenever we come to this house, our mind becomes calm.
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Kimaya has been trying to turn and lie down on her stomach. Amount of effort she puts in to acheive it is amazing... Her complete focus is only on trying that. This single mindedness and hard work seems to wane once a child grows up to become an adult!

She turned on 11th September. Felt really proud that she could turn :-)

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