why so excited??

because im leaving on a 3-weeks vacation..yes you heard it guys...3 f$#@ing weeks..fully planned 3 weeks..ok not exactly fully planned..planning anyways kills the fun..but you know, macro planned.

First week keiku has school, so i finish all the bank & official work, shopping, hair cut and all the things that she wouldnt enjoy..and partying. Next week, completely dedicated to her which translates to watching too much ninja hatori and perman. Last week is a little hazy..i know im going to some place with friends..where? when? i dont know.

The main downer is that my new year wont be in mumbai..you see Im taking a week off to attend keiku's bday and I had to give up my new year in mumbai for that. but a girl has to do what she has to do. and ill finally be going to nandi hills and coorg..so i guess ill make up for that to some extent.

That reminds me of the places ive been to in recent past.
1. Do you remember you holding your dad's finger and going sight-seeing (or when you are a little older, not holding his finger and maintaining some distance so that you can check out the boys/girls). I remember that and so it was a very proud moment for me when actually I took my dad sight seeing to Mysore and Srirangapatnam and in blore. I made all the arrangements, plans and i PAID. I also took him shopping to benetton and got him the coolest shirt and trousers only to hear "itne paison mein main car bhar ke kapde le aata"..yes daddy thats why ill buy you what you wont buy yourself. To conclude..im proud. see the smug look?


2. I went to hydi to meet god gulty. he was getting married and it had been 3 years since i saw him. all i can say about that trip is: bad choice of mode of transport. I went by volvo and yeckk is the only word that describes it. I shudder now even at the mention of volvo buses. Ofcourse, it was kind of worth it as i spent one good day of catching up and drinking with kapil. Ive never longed for a bath more desperately. I scrubbed and scrubbed like in those 'iski kameez meri kameez se safed kaise?' ads (not the clothes, i scrubbed myself), washed my hair, put all the clothes that had come in 1 meter radius of that seat in the washing machine..and only after that did the demons of the volvo disappear. To conclude..I swear never to travel by volvo buses again.

3. The third place is closer, around 15 kms or lesser from home..sanky tank. This was the same place I and su had gone to some 11 years back..though i dont remember anything from that visit except that there was boating..maybe. the place,my guess is, is now completely revamped. this time around it was early morning, we were on honda activa, had tea at a roadside shop..it was good fun. Then we walked around that lake..er pond..er some-dirty-water-in-man-made-pit.

The best part comes after we reached home and suzie thought that i should try to ride the activa. considering that its been ages since i last touched a bike, i knew from the word go that it was going to be fun. initially my legs were the accelerator and the brakes of the bike because my mind refused to lift my feet off the ground. suzie was in full mind to switch to this mode of riding as he figured it saves hell lot of fuel. finally i lifted my feet, went for some 50 mtrs and decided to take a u-turn. Now, i dont have any misconceptions about myself. so i got down and tried to maneuver the bike..the satanic bike couldnt stand my good intentions and somehow started speeding and i couldnt control it. At that very moment, evil won over good in dramatic contrast to popular belief and i let go of the satanic bike and it fell. i could hear its ha-ha-ha types laughter in my head. That was the end of my adventures with Satan. To conclude..next time around ill get a more docile bike.

4. This one is not a place i went to..but something i wanted to mention. I was talking to dennis last week..yeah the same dennis who had said something i found very sexist and had berated him for in this blog itself..he was like he doesnt understand that men want independent, good looking, smart, confident, working girls, who can take care of themselves, are well educated, get well paid and blah blah..and then even expect that they would be virgins..hahaha (laughter because thats a joke). I liked what he said though i have no opinions on that..i mean as a girl i never had to worry about my partner's virginity coz i had no choice but to go by his word..which if you ask me, can be a very unreliable source. Its like:
girl: are you a virgin?
boy feels: (yeah i have slept with 543 girls and being a boy i can do that and get away..god wanted it to be this way..otherwise he wouldnt have made it this way..so damn you feminist, im going to heaven for following God's path)
boy says: no baby, you are the one i love and i swear its you and only you.


I guess ive rambled on enough. Now im looking forward to the infinitely long drive to the airport. Agreed its long but doesnt seem that bad when you are going for a 3-weeks' vacation. (I know ive said it 31000 times..touch wood!!)

Why so serious?

Because my besssssssst friend got married :( Actually 2 of them but this post is for Rajesh Garg...God i called him by this name all this while. I shud have given him a nick name like raj or raji or reggie or...where am i going? OK thats not the point.

The point is ill miss him..not that he is here in blore. He is in mumbai. But still. The point is i dont like change of any sort and this is a big one. The point is he was always there for me. And the point is, im afraid, thats all a thing of the past.

My dreadful year in Powai Labs..the only good thing that came out of it was I got a friend like rajesh..We used to order and have lunch together..i guess thats how all this started. And we started talking and became friends. Then our legendary ceo had to stick his dirty nose into my business and he asked me..in his words.."please keep your friendships in office discreet"..bloody f***er.. I guess that was the day, I and rajesh went out for the first time for a coffee. So much for discreet, Mr ceo.

Legend has it that that was the turning point of this friendship. Then, one day, I was in distress and needed a place to stay in for a couple of hours. Rajesh had keys to the office and he was kind enough not only to open the office for me but also to give me company. And when I didnt want to take certain calls on my cell, he very willingly gave his cell to me for hours together. Not to mention, he is blessed with magical powers to get you any Gorforsaken song/movie/software you want on this planet or from other planets/stars.

Now, when the story has reached a stable point and we are all thinking, "wow Rajesh", let me tell you that Rajesh is from IITB and a 'nerd'. This guy has a problem..of (not) speaking up though he is the most amazing listener. I can recall conversations of over an hour where the guy didnt say more than 2 and a half words. And thats why I always preferred to meet him at IITB. What with all the mosquitoes, atleast he wont be able to sleep. :)

So our angel wanted to know whats up with me and why im all in a mess and stuff..and like i said he has a problem with directly confronting me and so he does a bit of legendary Godgiri and HACKS into my mail account..so he's not such an angel after all..

and yeah then we have our fights and arguments and i try to reason things with him and wow never to speak to him again. And in exactly 1 week i was speaking to him again coz he was too good a friend to lose and he made it so much easier for me now that i didnt have to tell him anything..he found out on his own.

Thats our little story..

And it has only got better with time. There have been so many occasions when I have just 'felt' like speaking to him..and I have literally ordered him to come below his house at as late as 12 in the night..and not even once has he refused. I remember when I had an interview to prepare for and I wanted to study C++, he and I literally snuck into the IITB library (we were not students then). And it was all his plan. And then again, the night before the interview, we were sitting on a bench on a road side under a street light at 12 in the night, studying (he was teaching, i was learning). Who would do that for me?

He has listened to my sob stories sitting on a bench at IIT lakeside. And he has listened for hours..with interest, never complaining, never getting bored (atleast not making it obvious). And I have loved talking to him.

I guess I cant really mention all the times he has been there for me (because i can only type so much). He has been my banker, my teacher, my lunch and dinner buddy, my shrink, my sounding board. And all this within minutes..because I have always called him up at the last moment. Like I say, he is my 911. And I can proudly say, he has never let me down. He even cooked lunch and got it to office when i was not well..God will I miss him..

So now you know why I am sad when he is getting married. When i say sad, I really mean truly genuinely sad. I know many people have given me gyan on how true friends are happy when their friends are happy and all that jazz. But im sorry, im not that good..call me selfish or what you may..but im sad..It was inevitable and it had to happen and I knew it all along. But still...

Who will hand out a handkerchief to me now?

home sweet home!!

im back from my extended diwali vacations...extended why? coz i went for 6 days came back after 13..cool isnt it? it was fun...more so bcoz i went with the mindset that its only 5 days to complete every damn work...did so...and THEN extended my stay...so for the next 7 days i was completely free..

and my dad left for haryana and then i was completely free and completely alone in my favorite abode..ofcourse with keiku..she was the reason i extended my vacation after all...

and i celebrated diwali with all my family..everyone was there...my sisters came down with their families...dad was ofcourse there..we burst a lot of crackers...(courtesy avi)..it was a good feling...full diwali types...what with me wearing a sari and all, crackers, the family dinner and family drinks :P...

ok so after lazing around for the rest of the week, i came back to bangy on monday...su was here and she stayed with me monday night...by the time she came, everything's closed in this village so i took her to the barista in Leela...and then we were so sleepy..i with all the travelling and she ..i dont know why...BUT trust me to pep things up...i gave her, lets say something, with red bull...and we both were awake for hours after that...2 hours definitely...

morning she had to buy authentic bangalore bakery biscuits on her dad's request and she left in her pursuit and i came to office not before making her an offer she cudnt refuse...sickheads..only to drop her to the airport...you see this village has its airport in another village almost 50kms away from main city....what were they thinking??

and then next night i was watching fashion...

that concluded my 2 weeks of holidaying and outings...and with complete rest (read washing clothes.. in the washing machine ofcourse, cleaning kitchen, cooking, cleaning house, changing bedsheets) over the weekend im settled back into my village lfe...sigh..till next mumbai trip...

why feeling like such a fool??

coz when u realize that what you always thought to be the answer, is really not the correct answer, infact you were nowhere near the correct answer, you generally tend to feel foolish. and in this case, i not only felt foolish, but also very uninformed, amazed and appalled at the same time.

what actually led me to feel all of the above goes like this:
last weekend i attended CRY's volunteer program..(now dont start with my reasons and interests in attending it...lets say this is my last ditch effort to be like the super super rich types..angelina jolie kinds...social work and all that jazz..:P) ok enough about that.

coming back to the meeting..the presenter was going over the statistics of how children in India are malnourished and uneducated and stuff...there was this very normal statistic..that 54% (or 80%..i dont recall) of girl students drop out of school after VIII standard. this was nothing that shocked us or anything..its like common knowledge..everyone knows that lesser number of girls join school in the first place and if they do, compared to boys more number of girls drop out. yeah so you know it, i know it. big deal.

then the presenter asked us, if we could figure out why this was happening?
what do you think is the answer? why do 54% of girls drop out of school after VIII std?
think.....

the answers from our group went something like....

• parents dont want to invest in their daughter's education.
• parents feel that a girl who has to marry and ultimately take care of her house and bear children doesnt benefit from higher education. basic education is like okay..but she is not really going to become a scientist, is she?
• financial constraints
• lack of awareness, illiteracy of parents
• and blah blah

so what do you think was the answer to the question.

The real reason turns out to be quite unlike any of the above. The real reason is that in rural India, there are very few high schools, probably 1 among 2-3 villages. So these girls who are like 12-15 years old have to travel more than 8kms to reach school. and obviously parents feel its not very safe. we really cant blame them, can we? moreover most of these schools dont have proper toilets which makes the matters worse.

I, for one, never was aware of this. To think that girls want to study, parents are ready to send them to school but there are no viable options for them. pretty bad, huh?

enter angelina jolie.....
nah! we all can do something...our bit...after all system/government/state is only as bad as the people...

best driver award goes to.......

whats up with me?? the kind of things i struggle with..my latest problem is that if im in a vehicle..2-wheeler, 4-wheeler, whatever (planes not included)..i have to be in the driver's seat...yeah exactly, thats my problem...if im not driving, the other person is just not good enough...they are either too fast, too slow, too close to the other vehicle, too inexperienced to judge if the car in front of us is slowing down, too late in applying brakes, blah blah....

i always feel i could do better and if they are not driving my way, then they are wrong...i cant relax..my reflexes keep acting up...have you ever brought your right leg to slam on the brakes when you are sitting NEXT to the driver? I have...

its always been my problem...i have always had a list of people with whom ive not had to worry if they are driving/riding...maggi, abs, bug, cao, jat, taxi drivers, auto drivers (they drive everyday through the same lanes, they are pros at this thing..afterall they are drivers)...

but lately it has worsened beyond a point and i just cant overlook it now..what really bothered me was when the other day i was not comfortable when abs was driving...now, come on..he used to drive before i learnt to drive and he has never been involved in an accident..not so much as even a scratch on his car...and there i am feeling, "ooooops..why is he so close to this car?" "why cant he apply brakes?" "why is he trying to overtake the bus?"...really, the guy deserves better than this!!

and bikes are an entirely different story...i just dont feel safe on a bike...no matter who is riding...it was not the case earlier..for 2 years i have scanned every street of mumbai from one end to the other on a bike...as recently as 6 months back, i have gone with jat from powai to nerul on his bike and i was quite okay...but here? now? no way...there's no way i can sit on a bike...sitting on a bike makes my adrenaline rush, my heart starts beating faster, i keep my eyes shut tightly and pray to God i am safe...wierd, isnt it?

so it all boils down to me driving (i dont know how to ride bikes) every time i am going somewhere...i reason its better to be in-charge and take a little more effort than to sit doing nothing without having peace of mind..because when im driving im very confident, i feel in-control and safe...i drive extremely well. period.

too much self-belief or too less faith in other people????

friend evaluation!!!

There were these blasts in bengalooru sometime back..just so happened that i didnt come to know of them till people called me from mumbai...:)

i was really puzzled on seeing some n missed calls on my cell...(yes, when in office i keep that angel on silent mode and leave it on my desk if im going somewhere)..let me not digress coz that phone can be the main lead of a post of its own...it is the source of joy, surprise, anger, disappointment and other 1430 emotions for mortals like me who have most of their friends and family in other cities...

so, coming back...(after saying let me not digress and still digressing)..i had these missed calls on my cell...along with messages like...'r u alrite?', 'r u alive?'...
and i was like.."yeah, wishful thinking! im not dying before killing all of you."

and then i saw this mail and it all fitted to make a complete picture...ohhh so it was not like everyone had a premonition of something adverse happening to me at exactly the same time...(though that would have made for a more interesting blog post)...

and it was really nice to see all these people trying to call me, get in touch with me...after a point i was like..today we'll know who really cares and who doesnt. let's see who doesnt call me today?

So, dennis messaged..i guess he was the first one..bugs called, salz called, Mr cao called...(so that covers my family)..., abs called, jat called..(he covers rest of my family)..reggie called..even sun sent a message...that pretty much covers everyone around me...

only person whose call i was waiting for and who very non-chalantly crushed all my hopes was su...i guess she assumed that the lone woman who had been killed in those blasts was not me..probably going by probability she was right (she's an engineer after all)...but that call would have done lots to kill the ache in my heart...:(

core dump!!

have been home for the whole day today!! very unlikely for me..
have been watching TV for the whole day!! totally likely...
have been watching movie teasers for the whole day!! again totally likely...

and the songs that i heard...the lyrics...trying to say so many things...some boring, run of the mill, some stirring, others bizarre, strange....some make you want to strangle the lyricist, others make you wonder..how did he come up with this...

some that stayed with me through the day were

"chalte sarak sarak ke, dekho ye lazy lamhein...palkein bhaari bhaari ye lazy lamhein..." unusual...what a way to describe all the sunny, summer afternoons...and evenings..and mornings...what the hell! all lamhein are lazy for me...

"aye hawa ja use chhooke aa...woh kahan hai bata" ...ive heard something like this before...

"my heart's crippled by the vein i keep on closing...you cut me open and i keep bleeding love...keep bleeding, keep keep bleeding love"... i liked this one...bleeding love...and no this one was not on the TV...

"you're a part time lover and a full time friend...i dont see what anyone can see in anyone else but you"...the 2nd line is SO complicated...i had to hear it n times before i could come up with a meaning for it...but im stuck with the lines....

"sach hai na...jo tumse aise baat kare...jo tumse itne paas rahe...woh ya toh mere jaisa ho...ya main hoon..." i like the confidence...:)

"dil kabhi ganda, kabhi hai nek banda...dil ka bharosa kaise koi kare...dil hai thanda, kabhi hai atom bomb sa..." i really agree with the dil ka bharosa part...how do you trust your heart and feelings when they are so fickle???

"...gud ki bheli hai tu...mujhko bhi ye gud chakha ...bekaar kyun hai rakha??..."
huh??? what dude??? what were you thinking??? im sure she's putting it to better use then to give it to you..

"shamiyana meri ye baahon ka..aashiyana kuchh begunahon ka..." what thought!!

and ofcourse this one has managed to stay with me for such a long time now...
"rehne de mera ye veham pe hi yakin..na ja abhi
pyaar ki ye raat hai..ab na ja
chhoti si ek baat hai.. ab na ja
pal do pal ka saath hai..ab na ja
jaadoo si ye raat hai..ab na ja
behne de jahan bhi le jaye zindagi..na ja abhi"
euphoria rocks...

and i should sleep!!!! yawn!!!!

something i can live without...

this is another one of my stuck up posts...last time i decided to write fun stuff...but no..i guess i AM stuck up!!!

so i am at this coffee place with dennis...and i dont know how we come to the topic of our parents and the love, respect, affection in their relation...and ofcourse 'indians' that we are, the question of abuse had to come up..and so it did...and we both, very candidly accepted that yes we have seen it in our respective families...

but i guess the similarity ended there...coz though this guy was very pro-mom and my-dad-is-wrong types, he said "maybe our dads were supposed to do that"....and ive not been able to decide whether it disgusted me more or surprised me more..

SUPPOSED to do that???? supposed to treat a person like she was not a normal human with normal desires, feelings, emotions? supposed to suppress her free will? supposed to treat her as your personal slave, like she's born to sacrifice, born to give up? supposed to do that???

im not going on a personal war against this guy,,,he's a good friend and will be...but this is the general mindset we have..its not about him...its about us...

i wonder if dennis was a girl, would he still say the same thing? and i wondered if my partner abused me and then someone said to me..."listen dont make a fuss about it...you're just a mortal and probably he's supposed to do it", what would my reaction be? i know what it would be...

i would say...when i was probably 1 minute old and my mom held me in her arms for the first time..she would have looked at me and thought that i would have a beautiful life, she would have hoped that her little child would live a life better than hers, a life with love, affection, laughter, dreams, a life that every mother's every child deserves. she would have wished for me, every happiness that she could not have. And so, i would not take a single minute of abuse because i owe a beautiful life to my mom....and no one is 'supposed' to take it away from me or from her.

really, i wonder what kind of society we live in, which still lets men be bastards...

move on..

ive written quite some depressing posts..and im not happy about it. imagine i coming back to read my posts at the age of 40 and all i see is these dull depressing, saaaaaaad posts...wont speak much about my 'young' days...if im still young that is...imagine what a 40 year old would go through on realising that her life's best days were spent living a depressing life and on top of that even writing about it.

so for the sake of 40-year-old-me, ive decided not to write depressing posts now...

was speaking to a friend yday...and happened to breach the subject of 'hum dil de chuke sanam'.. yeah that movie which has managed to make me cry 3 times...actually everytime i saw the last scene. when salman is finally finally snubbed. yeah snubbed, what else?

everybody found peace...the wife, the husband, the director, the indian mentality (wife sticks to husband, doesnt go with former lover)...but what about salman...my heart always went out for him...always..

maybe he was wrong to have lacked the conviction and gone...but whatever happened was due to lack of communication and some silly fights. I always felt that it was unfair. ok you fight, ok there is miscommunication...but if that had not happened, those two would still be together...so salman shud have been with the girl...not someone who comes into the girl's life and tries to help her find her love.

this other guy was a means..not the end. yeah then it would have been unfair on him but the degree would be less...he barely knows the girl and never felt that she loves him back...so the hurt is less.

but then what the heck...i hope salman became a rockstar and had hordes of girls following him..robbie william type...and he stayed single and had orgies till he became old enough to settle down...and then he found some perfect girl and they lived happily ever after. (and yeah good luck to the sad, boring housewife and sadder, more boring lawyer husband leading their sad, boring, mediocre lives)

yeah because from what i know..love and people you love are totally replacable...if you think you cant live without someone or someone is just right for you...its just what you think...not the reality...its just about moving on...some are good at it, the others take time but everyone is capable of it..and true love is a joke...so like in the ad thats showing nowadays...move on, man...

at the end of one month..

i have moved to this new place...and i dont like it at all..its quite depressing really..and i dont know why..im so far from my zone of comfort..im so far from "my" place...back in mumbai it was like this is my place my home..i knew everyone...there was not a time i went out and didnt meet 5 people i knew...i knew the roads, the shops, the shopkeepers, the parks, the coffee shops, the malls, the theatres, the cool places, the uncool places, and ofcourse my fav place, IITB...where i would go when i was feeling low and wanted to be alone or when i wanted to talk my heart out...

and there were my friends...i was never alone..anytime of the day or night i had someone...i want to see a movie, i had someone...i wanted to shop, nah i usually shop alone..its better that way...i wanted to go for coffee i had someone..i wanted to understand something technical, i had someone...i wanted to party, i had someone...i wanted to just not be alone at 12 in the night, i had someone...i wanted to kill time before going home i had someone...i was too tired to cook and wanted to eat outside i had someone...

and there was my family...if there is no water supply in my house i would go to my sis' place..if i was feeling lonely i would go for a night out to my other sis' place..if there is no dinner at home again my sis' place...if i locked the house keys inside, my sis' place..boring evening, sis' place...no reason whatsoever, sis' place.

whats really surprising is when you are so far away from home, its interesting to realize, whom you really miss..gives you a perspective on who's really important to you...atleast i know now...really, i never thought i would miss some people as much as i do. but it makes me kind of happy because i dont miss some people as much as i thought i would..

it balances out in the end...you win some you lose some...maybe ill get to like this place over time...i have this thing of clinging on to things, to places, to people because change makes me very, very uncomfortable..i would just continue to go the same restaurant, same theatre, same mall, continue to work on the same tool..basically i have too much inertia...

but now that ive shed that inertia and come all this way, maybe things would become better..atleast that's what i thought when i took this decision...though im really miserable now, im hoping for the best...the true optimist that i am...God has something good planned for me..maybe right now not the favorite one, but im His child...

and thank God for cell phones..:)

"shlitzy"

i have to put this in black and white..it was quite amazing...i have never interacted with a firang in my life...(2-3 sentences exchanged in an elevator or coffee shop dont count) ..so here i was face to face with this firang, german to be precise, and i had to speak...it never hit me till that time that it might be a problem conversing with him since i shuffle between english and hindi almost 3 times in every sentence...and i did that with him also...i was like "those guys pick up the 'saamaan'.." and had to then re-phrase my sentence after seeing the look on his face :).

that said, it was a very interesting conversation....

the best pieces went like this:
me: "I have my car parked in galleria" (this place is 15 minutes walk from my house).
"could you please repeat that". I actually thought he didnt understand my
accent. but the incredulous look on his face is indescribable. so im like "my
car is parked in galleria".
"you walked from your house to galleria, thats walking distance".
yeah i know its walking distance but why would i walk this distance. but the guy
was shocked to hear this...something which was quite normal for me.

he: "if you dont go to office, how do you spend the day?".
"I sleep in the afternoon so that takes care of two hours"
again that same amazed look. "you sleep in the afternoon? you do that when you
are above 40...that time you need an afternoon nap. you should be full of
energy. you should utilize your time"

he: do you have a preferred bollywood star?"
"shahrukh khan" ..without even a moment's thought.
"ohhh...thats surprising" ...full of sarcasm.

me: "you should learn hindi...that way it'll be easier for me to communicate with
you"
"thats quite egoist of you...but even i feel i should know hindi"

he: "chalo" and i was like it should be "chalein?" because..'chalein?' is a
question, 'chalo' is an order.
"ohh then i'd always use chalo"...yeah wise guy.

and i picked up a bit of geography too...so to round it up it was quite a different experience...one that actually made me come and jot it down.

and if you are wondering why the blog is so-called...the word is german slang for 'chinkis'...my first german word..ofcourse after achtung!