The year 2008

Last year when I posted this I had scant thought that yet another year will pass by andddd it will be time to post another year ending thingy.

Hmm.... the end of this year does not seem like the end of a year at all. Partly I can blame it on the fact that TAMIL NADU SARKAR DOES NOT GIVE LEAVE ON 1st of JANUARY COS THE NEW YEAR BEGINS WITH THE TAM NEW YEAR. Grrrrrr......
Another reason might be, there were many things which were evened out in the year that I don't have any thing to anticipate in the coming year. There is nothing that I have planned and have to execute it next year. There is nothing that I have executed and have to await the results next year. Most of the rough and tumble happened in the year itself.

• I got married
• 2 of my closest friends got married
• I was able to trot around the country with my better half
  
• I had a splendid and a pretty educative year with my in laws ( education about the traits and quirks of the people who are to be my family hence forth :D )
  
• I moved in to a new firm and got used to it pretty decently.
  
• Got to spend awesome quality time with my parents and had helova lot of fun
• And the bestest I had a neice, the cutest thing on earth currently :)
  

Touchwood to all that ( I am superstitious in this) I hope I am able to post a placid post next year too. Wish all chancing upon this post a wonderful and glorious year and hope the new year with a new government down the line also brings in a lot of peace and prosperity to the country.

Take control

There is one thing I sternly go by - your life is your own and you should take full charge of it.

I lately heard some instances about a close acquaintance having some problems with her in laws - mostly mother. Its the usual, but way too trivial. The mother in law seemed to me a typical mother in law straight from the movies of the genre of Lalita Pawar. Now she does not help an iota in the house work, expects daughter in law to do everything from kitchen to clothes along with juggling an IT career. She goes to the extent of not taking proper care of her little 8 month old grand child. And to add insult to injury, lady goes on to blame daughter in law for everything, accusing her of not managing the house properly and to top it all accusing her of "torturing" her.

What I felt most unbecoming of a woman is she goes ahead and talks ill about her daughter in law and the alleged ill treatments heaped on her to all her relatives.

I was C-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y appalled by all this happening even today. I was shocked and felt very shaken. One thing that struck me was - what is the son of the house doing? Yes point taken the lady on one side is your mother, but cant you see the person being victimized is your wife? Yes it is but obvious to not notice the minor mistakes of your own mother, but come on is nt there a thing called conscience which says - Woman you are wrong there. I seriously wonder if the guy (and I feel many guys) is bereft of this sense because of the loyalty towards the mother. But I personally feel, if the guy chooses to turn a blind eye to something that is so blatantly wrong, he is a complete wuss. (Excuse my language, but I guess I am way too angered)

Even if not the son, at least the father in law should curtail his wife and speak out when she over steps the border. But no, I wonder what made this "educated" retired man take cover under a newspaper. I wish a lightning would strike him.

If not any of them, then I feel the girl should stand up - for her, for her child. Shes got a career, got independence, and got a life of her. Its mandatory for her to respect elders and in laws, but its not written any where to take allegations lying down. I am not sure why some girls agree to some things when their heart is not into it. I feel its your own responsibility to lay things straight from the beginning. My mother always advised me, never treat your mother in law any different from me, else you will always feel the difference. And never be a different person there, else it will never be a home for you.

Every one should be aware of a daughter in laws individuality and respect that. I hear complains from some of Ks friends who are girls, that their mother in laws don't help at all and they find it real tough to handle house and work. I feel, ya feeling drained is ok, but if you are not able to take it then say it. Unless you tell there is a problem no one will get into ur psyche and pump it out. If cooking twice a day for husband and in laws is taking a toll on you, either ask your mother in law to help a bit, and if she is not in a position - GET help. Hire a domestic help. Do something. What good is coming out of bitching about your mother in law and complaining. End of day, you go tired to an unhappy domesticity.

This is not the adi manav age that girls dont have an existence. No asked you to follow the rules of Manu Smriti which says a girl should be depended on her father in childhood, a husband when married and a son in widowhood. If we choose to have such a life, we have no one but ourselves to blame. Seriously, if you dont assert you have a backbone, people will assume you have none and walk right over you. Take control gurll.

Ps. I am not sure if I am writing a politically correct post, so the views I hold in this post are entirely personal one. I am not being judgmental. But I welcome the views of other, if they can help me see the issue in a different light.

Spreading some Christmas cheer

Christmas is just 2 more days away. The roads are resplendent with shops selling the stars, the lights, the Santa caps. Office is gearing up as well with most afternoons having one game or the other.

I also thought of spreading some Christmas cheer.
So here s an award for my favvie bloggers (and the names are in no particular order)

1. rENU- I love your blog for the conviction you bring into it. Your posts resemble my thoughts to a great extent and I also love the small instances you quote, the details you write about, the mundane actions which reflect your thoughts, I love your blog for the nuances they hold.

2. rAAJI- I loved your blog since I read destinations unknown. I hope I got the title of the post correct. And have loved it ever since, cos its a blog which gives me the intermittent dose of love. :) Your posts about love, college, friends open the window to a thoughtful, sensible and sensitive soul and I simply love your posts.

3. aSHMA-My best friend, how would nt I love your blog. :) Your blogs reveal a self of you which comes only when you write. I would call it the writer self :D where you are much less impulsive, much less stubborn and much more eloquent. I love your blog.

4.sHALOM- Our association has been very short, but still I have been hooked onto your blog since I read-The making and breaking of besan ke laddu. I dont remember how I reached that particular post, but thank God I reached it. :)

5. cHITRA- You post hmm... once in a blue moon. But they are equally eagerly awaited as the regular posts. Your posts ring of reason and logic - 2 things I simply adore. Post more often cos I love your blog :)

Okhay...
Now your turn to spread some Christmas cheer. Go ahead, share the award with people whose blogs you love :D

Picture this!

Been tagged by Renu & Shalom -
The rules are simple:
Answer the questions below and do a Google image search on your answer,pick a picture from the results on the first page, with minimal explanation

Get Set Go!......

1. The age you will be in your next birthday:
Hehe acting coy for once ;)

2. A place you’d like to travel to:

Dunno why kinda have Jaipur in my to be visited list. It crept in maybe when I was studying Rajput history in Class VII. Over time the desire to see the place has taken firm roots.

3 . Your Favorite place:

Would have preferred a better definition of place. Among the places I lived in would rate Hyd as the highest.

If by place it was meant spot its this -


4. Your favorite food/drink:

You guessed it! Ginger tea :)

5. Your Favorite pet:

6. Your favorite color combination:

Red and black :)

7. Your favorite piece of clothing:

8. Your all time favorite song:

9. Your favorite TV show:

Currently

10. Full name of your significant other:

Cookie JAR :D thats what I currently call him. Earlier he was bebe :)

11.The town in which you live in:

Chennai :)

12. Your screen name/nickname:

13. Your First job:

IT Professional :|

14. Your Dream job:

Inspite of such headlines somehow the job of an IAS officer is a dream job for me. May be because seen how much power (for good as well as bad) one can wield. You can actually serve the country and make things better (Needs a lottttttt of spirit to be true to the profession but then... )

15. Bad Habit you have:

Seems like a esoteric answer eh? Actually I made a search on "show all my emotions on my face". Liked this pic the most of all that came on the first page :D

16. Your worst fear:

17. The one thing you’ll like to do before you die:

18. The first thing you’ll buy if you get $1,000,000:
A B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L house right in the lap of nature

Abbbbbb kaun kaun karenge yea tag???

Ok.
Shylu
Satish
Rajesh
Ashma
Niceguy
You are the chosen ones :D Dont ask why I chose to punish you guys :) Thats my discretion.

Tagged by Satish

Quite an interesting tag by a fellow blogger Satish. This is how it goes -

These are the questions which I got to answer......

1. Your Oldest Memories
My memory is veryyyyyyyyy weak but there are quite a few of them - bitter sweet ones. But here I will narrate one that is I suppose the oldest of them all.

One of them was being bitten by a dog. Well yes I have been badly bitten by a dog - And here is the story of how it happened. I was at a neighbors place, and was 4 years old. I was playing on a swing in their house. Close to the swing was their pet dog, I do not remember the breed of the dog. All of a sudden, the dog pounced on me, bit me on the leg and pulled me from the swing. I fell with a thud and let out a wail which caused the family to come rushing by and rescue me. Post incident, I remember the gauges, bandages, the 14 injections, innumerable trips to the hospital and me loosing a lot of weight and sheen. I have a snap of mine in that stage and I look like someone suffering from malnutrition.

PS . I have a scar in my leg where I was bitten and I still love dogs a lot.

2. What were you doing 10 years ago
Hmmm 10th December 1998, inspite of being just 2 days away from my budday, I think I was studying for some exam :(

3. Today - Your first thought in the morning
AH! I slept well. It was 5:30 in the morning but still I strangely felt well rested. Maybe office work, the absence of the house maid as well as mother in law tires me so much that I sleep like I have been drugged. I had hit the bed at 2330 but still woke pretty refreshed. Touchwood! Hope the trait continues.

4. If you build a time capsule, what would it contain
My favorite books, some of my favorite snaps of family and friends, my blog in print version :D

5. Tomorrow - Next year, same day
Again making plans to celebrate my birthday maybe :)

6. What do you see yourself doing 14 years from now.

FOURTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN years did you say? You mean Lord Ram would have completed a fultu vanvaas!! Well 14 years from now, on this date I would stilllllllllllll be planning on the celebrations!! But this time not just with my family, but with friends and their extended family and by extended I mean with their hubbies/wiffies and kiddus.
I would love to see myself in an occupation rather than a job 14 years from now, but my attempts to go on an alternative path have failed. So I believe IT is the way for me maybe.

Ab meri baari meri baari :)

I would like Ashma, Renu, Abhishek, Daydreamer, Sanjay, Nitin,Ekta, Raaji and I'll try 2 be truthful to do the tag.

Daag acche hain

Yesterday was a funny day. It started with a big quarrel with K and that too for a petty reason. The reason being - my cell phone had gone kaput!

My Sony Ericsson W580i had been giving me lot of troubles. It used to hang intermittently, mostly when I needed it most :| - so much so that many a times I had to remove the battery to re start it. Removing the battery itself was a tedious task and a separate story in itself. Sometimes removing the battery and re inserting it would not work, and we had to take it to some store for repair. Some pricks and pokes by the mechanic, and it used to come back to its senses. As I am writing this, I remember, the very first day I carried the phone, it got stuck by the time I reached office! After some months it had stopped charging from the ac charger. Well, not a problem, I used to get it charged from the USB charger - a process that used to take 10 times more time than a standard ac charger. But me being lazy and the cell phone being pretty much indispensable, decided to go ahead with the arrangement.

But................ yesterday the cell chose not to get charged from the USB point. It in fact decided to get discharged when connected to the USB port! ARGH!!

I lost my cool and was fretting and fuming about loosing my communication channel. Since the phone was a recommendation of K, he took it personally that I was indirectly blaming him for all the inconvenience. This lead to a war of words, some hurtful some sarcastic.
We started for office after the peace resolution was passed.

But then, the whole incident had kinda bummed us out a bit.
Evening coincidentally, we were able to meet up at a common point. And guess what, K had got paan for me - something which I have a weakness for :) And as we were walking to our home, K said shall we have dinner there? And by there he meant a street side place which served noodles and other dishes which could be made in a jiffy. We were an oddity there, in our formals and office luggage, and sitting on run down plastic chairs with most of the other clientele being there for the pricing of the food ( which is very pleasing to the wallet ) was a good experience. It was an impromptu plan for us and the food there turned out to be too palatable. It was a treat worth having.

After savoring egg fried rice, cauliflower manchurian and one plate of scrambled eggs, we marched forth home. Thats when K gave me the choc he had bought. :D A walk through the streets of Besant Nagar while munching on a choc - Awesome is the word for it.

Sometimes if minor tiffs end up in such superb evenings - I think its worth the pain. You see Daag acche hain!

PS : This post was meant to be posted on the Thursday - the 4th of Decemeber. But work at office held me back. So yesterday in this post refers to 03.12.2008

Recent update - I have given my cell phone for repair, I miss it tremendously :( Am using a Nokia oldie model and that in turn makes me realise how used to I was to the facilities of the other phone: seems water had gone inside the charging pin and I will hopefully be getting it tomorrow.

Bangalore Express

I like Bangalore a lot. That's the place I got some real sweet and sad and warm and tingly memories associated with. And with my best friend A being there, it makes the city all the more welcoming.

Last weekend we made a short trip to the place. And it was a trip full of sweet nothings.

Friday evening was remarkable enough, when all of a sudden, dark clouds gathered and it started raining. And some rain it was, with blinding lightening and ferocious winds. I was all prepared and agog to scoot home soon so that we could be off to catch the train with lots of time to spare and I had promised A some snacks and savories, but seeing the downpour I felt dejected - it was gonna be a close call yet again :( with no time for purchases.

Then all of a sudden, I spotted a girl. Seemed to be a faintly familiar face, someone I had met while traveling in share autos to office. I gave her a buck tooth smile, but she never returned it. Ahem! Wrong number mebbe. Then after sometime she came up and said, did we meet before in a share auto or something? I was like Ya Lady! She was pretty petrified by the way the downpour was shaping up and tentatively asked me - shall we try to get home in this rain? I told, if you have an umbrella to get us till the main gates without soaking like rats, I think I am brave enough to face this rain. So off we went with a flimsy umbrella... and that poor thing was twisted beyond redemption thanks to the winds :(

We managed to get autos and reach till the penultimate stop for me. It was a pretty interesting ride too where I got to hear her love story, wedding plans and future programs. Once I reached the stop, my cell phone was ringing and guess who was it?! Hubby Gubby! He was close to the terminus.

So we met with the music of La la la la la la la la la la ( music of Sagar movie fame) :D We had tea and bread pakodas at a tea stall..... Hmmmmmm mild drizzle, K for company, warm tea in one hand and bread pakoda in the other ........ hmmmm heaven was close :)

Grub done, we ventured ahead. Caught the bus which would take us home in the nick of time, so much so that, we stepped into the bus at the same time and were stuck for a few seconds at the door :D Making a fool of oneself and still smiling at it - I am excelling in this talent I feel.

Journey itself was a little bit painful since all of a sudden I was having a headache - maybe a sinus prone person like me could blame the rains for it.

Sat morn as soon as we reached Bangy, the ever food loving K escorted me to a restaurant near the railway station. We shared a plate of uttapam while the most lilting songs wafted. The song that made it all the more special was Dhaage tod laao from Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. A personal fav.

Reached the destination and woke up dear darling A. And got on with the usual chatter chatter yak yak. A apart from sharing many of my opinions and tastes, also shares a penchant for getting the cold virus. Achoo Achoo Achoo she went hitting sixers and boundaries till noon. Thats when we decided to have a low key day. 3 of us generally lazed around in front of the TV, chatted and dozed intermittently, ordered and had some delectable sandwiches and noodles. Finally at 2000 we stepped out of the house to have death by chocolate - a lovely sundae at a nearby shop, which is a major hit with K since it was the very first dish I had shared with him. Once back, we guzzled generous portions of awesome ginger tea and emptied quite a few containers of snacks and savories :)

Time passed just like that, chatting,surfing the net, seeing pics of each others friends on Orkut, that A and I scarcely realised it was close to 0300 by the time we hit the bed.

Sunday started late, cos obviously we woke up late, were super lazy and there was some or the other thing on TV which was making us sit in front of it. Finally at 1400 we set forth. Again rains played spoilt sport. But inspite of it, we managed to make quite a few purchases. With her wedding coming up, A had quite a bit to do. But alas:( Still, what we accomplished within the 5 hours, was no mean feat.

Back home packing done, we had some pastries and puffs at a nearby bakery. It was really nostalgic to say goodbye, hmm, goodbye to miss A for the last time.

At the station, both K and I were reminiscing the 2 jovial days, we did not do anything, but still the time spent was so special. In the reverie we noticed that there was no sign of the train, though it was expected to depart in 15 more minutes. Thats when I spotted that we were facing platform number 6 rather than 5 (The setup is a bit weird, you cant see the platform number 5 though technically its just behind you. ) So we sccccccccccccccccccrammed to the other platform and got into the train Jab We Met style ( Ahem no no the train had nt started yet :) )

The rains and cold climes had forced me to take a couple of medicines to ward off the headache et al. But thanks to them, I slept like a dead decayed log!

When embarking on the journey, I had armed myself with the fully charged digicam for a lot of clicks. Ironically, dont have a single picture - but enormously precious memories.

Friends are the family you choose - you are an integral part of mine dearie.