विवेचन

बहु जैसी कोई सुखी नहीं ,

बेटी जैसी कोई दुखी नहीं .

बेटा जैसा राम नहीं ,

दामाद जैसा श्रवण नहीं .

मां जैसी भली नहीं ,

सास जैसी छली नहीं .

भाभी जैसी तनी नहीं ,

नन्द से बनी नहीं .

देवर जैसा शकुनी नहीं ,

भाई जैसा कृष्ण नहीं .

पिता जैसा दशरथ नहीं ,

श्वसुर जैसा धृतराष्ट्र नहीं .

संतान जैसा कर्जा नहीं ,

और जीवन से बड़ी सजा़ नहीं ।।

---अनन्या 

Ten things to remember

1.       This is your own battle. Fight it with grace. YOU CAN DO IT.
2.       Don’t expect anything from anyone. No one will help you. No one ever did, except a few. Remember those people and be there for them
3.       Don’t let things and people bother you. Always remember that you have a long way to go; these little distractions are meant to pull you down. You do just what you are meant to do.
4.       WORK is your first priority. Everything else comes after that. ALWAYS remember that.
5.       Everything is achievable, including the impossible deemed by others. You have done it in the past, you can do it now.
6.       Be in touch with your inner self.  Don’t rely on outside world for help and support. Everything is within you and you are not alone! Not even for a moment. The great power of energy that is there, remember it often and take cues from it.
7.       There are people and situations that are worse than what you have. Remember that always, and be thankful for what you have. Very soon you will be glad you did that.
8.       Sometime from now, all this will be so easy that you will be smiling doing all of that.
9.       Don’t fret over little things. What is bound to happen will happen. You can’t prevent it!
 No matter what happens STAY COOL

Jara nach ke dikha!

So what is dance by the way!! Wikipedia defines it as a form of expression, social interaction and as a form of non verbal communication between humans.

In common parlance it would be an expression of Joy or Fun, because you see so many people  dancing in parties, dancing in marriage ceremonies, or  dancing  just like that.

I am ok with people expressing their joys physically like that. What bothers me is when people start pushing other people (people like me ) to do IT. While I am not against dance, I am not so much of a dance person really. I would rather do a Nawab Wajid Ali Shah and watch people dance , than exert myself. Also because I am very lazy, so for me the concept of joy or happiness lies in reading a good book, listening to good music or just talking to good friends or may be trekking/going out somewhere. That brings me more fun and joy  than shaking a leg.

And I had always been like that. The numerous  ragging sessions at several  colleges and innumerable parties could not help me change my ways. And whenever I tried ( I have everything left, including two left feet and two left arms !) it would be so clumsy, that in all that mayhem, for the risk of not injuring anyone, I thought it would be in the best interest of everyone that I leave the floor.

But life has its own derisive ways. So I married a guy who is passionate about dancing, and not only that, the entire khandan (family) has to break into song and dance routine at every party, function, etc. So nightmare of all nightmares….I was expected to do the same. 

Over time my husband gave up on me, and I was secretly very happy about it :)…. But people never change. So they insisted and insisted even more. And I got away every time, except when  my brother got married, or at a recent family wedding, where there was no escape, really!

While weddings and baraats are still fine (there is nothing better to do to burn the calories from all the good food), I still cannot bring myself to the floor when the party is rather a birthday or some celebration. I still prefer the verbal communication form better.

A lot of times, there are people who understand my situation and they don’t force. They become my favorite instantly :). But more often I keep running into people for whom not dancing with them is an offence of magnanimous proportions. I understand their passion to dance; what I don’t understand is their insistence that everybody present should dance.

Does joy multiply in that case?

Excellent music

A must must watch (hear) : here

End of Hiatus - for now

Have been meaning to write for quite some time now.
Updates are too many and now that i have started to document it, at least the list portrays that I have been really busy. The highlights of the months gone by have been:

December 2009: Quit Job, Visited Relatives, and WE (me and him) were SOBER on new year’s (I know!)...probably that is why this year is turning out to be the driest of all... 

January 2010: Defended my thesis successfully, Got a promise of a job offer (if there is anything like that), thieves broke into my house but the loss was minimal.

February 2010: Brother’s marriage, followed by my surgery

March 2010: Recovery from surgery; trip to home and back; And the highlight was the convocation at Bangalore. I am officially a doctor now.

April 2010: Lost 2 kgs after working out for more than 2 hours a day for 30 days, after which I gave up on all weight loss efforts.

May 2010: A 10 day trip to NYC which got converted into a month long holiday

June 2010: Spent at parent’s place. The best phase so far.

July 2010: Family wedding and trip to Jaipur and back;
Sold off my first bought car;
Packed and Moved from Delhi to Karnal;
Unpacked in Karnal, arranged and rearraged the house at Karnal,
Moved to NJ.

August 2010: For the first half made hotel my home, moved to a friend’s place and now arranging that house; learning how to drive without clutch pedals, and the dilemma of left and right precedence (not to mention that I keep forgetting that wiper is where the indicator lights should have been and vice versa).

September is when we are getting our apartment. So for the next two months, I intend to arrange the house , buy furniture, rearrange again, and so on and so forth.

Since I quit my job, people have been asking me what do I do and how do I manage to spend time, given that my husband travels a lot. Honestly killing time was never a problem for me .
And I never ever get bored. I do find something or the other to do, to read, and if nothing else is there I cook. Its as simple as that.

For now I intend to write more, and read more. So the blog would be updated regularly if not daily. I have also been meaning to start a hindi blog, for the love of language. So would be doing that as well.

Working with IDIOTS

Location update: Lucknow, capital of my home state. (Work related travel)

I had thought earlier that I would never ever write about the people I work with/for. But of late Work related stress due to working with IDIOTS has been mounting up to such a great deal, that writing about it will have some therapeutic effect to some extent (I hope). Resigning from the job is the permanent solution to cure it, and needless to say I am evaluating certain options, but for certain reasons I need to stick around and continue working with people whom I can’t stand. And I am not grinning and bearing it....far from it.

I have worked with a lot of people whom I couldn’t stand earlier as well, and I didn’t have any problems because there was certain professionalism to the manner in which work was done. The problem comes when people you work with, are thorough UN-professionals. When simple courtesy is forgotten, when work at hand becomes secondary to prevailing politics, when you have fibbing colleagues, who are such compulsive liars, who despite being confronted will build on mountains of lies just to prove their point, and when you have incompetent idiots who don’t even want to learn!

How am I dealing with it? Writing about it  and maintaining a lot of distance from such people. If one can’t learn their ways, the best way is to keep far from such people.

Roommates and such

10 years of hostel life comes with its own set of doings, wrong doings, learnings, un-learnings and unforgettable memories, of great friends and sworn enemies.
I look back at all these years and I am quite amazed at the number of friends I have made, though not surprised at the number of enemies /or people I would not even want to know they exist [sic], I have ran into. Enemies are easier to be found than good friends. And if a friend still cares to enquire about your health and well being, after you haven’t called her/him in ages, then that friend has to be cherished truly.

This is about two very different girls who were my roommate at different points in time and shared very important part of my life. I met G on a hot summer day of June in 1997 in Allahabad, and K, in 2001 in BIT Mesra, sometime in November-December.

Interestingly when I met them, I was living alone in a shared room (actually it looks like a déjà-vu now). I am usually a friendly person, but tend to put my guards on only when someone has been very nasty. Immediately before I met these girls, I have had some very B*T*H kind of people around me, and hence my guards were intact. Needless to say, I was rude, direct, and not the usual self.
I don’t know what prompted them to stay with me (I would never know). I can only hope it was something more than the issue of unavailability of rooms other than mine. Over the year and half I spent with G and approximately an year with K , our relationship blossomed. With both these fabulous girls, I rediscovered friendship and learnt to trust people. We laughed, cried, ate, sang and danced, shared secrets, advised, and had lot of fun together. Those were indeed the unforgettable days, which I have spent with G and K respectively.


After coming to Bangalore, I got out of touch with these gals within couple of years (lost mobile story). It is a long story of how we came in touch again. But we did, and I learnt that just as I was eager to reconnect with them, and tried getting in touch with someone-who-might-have-her –number, to googling the name, and school details in sheer anticipation that google/orkut/facebook might link us up again; they also tried as much.

I cringe at times when I think of how terse and rude I had been to them initially for no fault of theirs, while they defined the meaning of friendship for me, and they still do. I feel like a mean person and I wish I could say sorry. I try but cannot bring myself to it, and I don’t know why.

I do thank God for blessing me with such people. I don’t even know if I deserve them, but I certainly know that I cherish them.

Justice OR the Lack of it?

Some time backthis was in one of the news section (blink-and-miss) One more proof of how easy it is for wealthy and influential people to commit a heinous crime and get away with it. Clean chit to Business man charged of murder and child abuse has been given by none other than CBI, who, last heard, could not solve this case because it was bungled up

A quick search on the internet reveals that Pandher had well established political links.

Justice is pricey and difficult impossible to get for common man.
It takes excruciating long time and is denied most of the times.Though it might work well for some people who want to be tried in India.

Isn't the time we rewrote the preamble to the constitution of India? (coming up in the next post)

Of Fire Alarms and Maids

On my penultimate day of this US trip, I decided to make dosas for breakfast. Normally I would have made oats, or poured milk over cereals, but this was out of extra love for DH who is going to be alone here for next 2 months, since I am leaving this weekend.
So long story short, dosa batter was lousy (the dosa batter that the Indian store @ Chicago stocked was way inferior to what we used to get in desi stores in Dallas). After couple of sticky, broken to bits dosas, I finally made a round thick one – similar to set dosa. After I sat down to eat, and had barely finished one, while browsing the net, the fire alarm went off. I had forgotten to switch off the hot plate!! The greasy pan was smoldering; the kitchen chimney fan was still working but couldn’t suck the smoke out. I turned it off, opened the windows and contemplated about the futility of desi cooking in American kitchen.

Another day at a friend’s house, I was heating (Note: not making!) frozen Nans and Parathas, and had forgotten to switch on the chimney. Within minutes, the alarm went off. He later told us that the same thing had happened when his parents had come visiting. This guy goes to office and his mom decides to make parathas for breakfast, oblivious to the instrument of fire alarm. As expected the alarm went off, and the guy was telephoned. He instructed on phone to switch it off. Later (since desi cooking can’t be without fire and smoke), this guy wrapped the fire alarm in layers of cling wrap!! The cooking resumed without any hassle, however maintenance guys on discovering the ‘preserved’ fire alarm, did sent across a notice of fine.

I am glad that for the next couple of months I can cook without worrying about smoke and fire alarms, and that I don’t even have to cook and clean back home. I am back to India....where maids/household helps are so quintessential!! They say living is easier/better in developed countries. I vehemently disagree to that. Living is so much more convenient in India. Everything gets done on phone..grocery, plumbing, milk, vegetables, and heck! even currency exchange and routine blood tests. There is a home delivery/service for every single thing that you can think of, and every work (except your job, of course) can be outsourced. Cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, you name it ; you get it done! Even your religious obligations are outsourced, I have learnt!

The only trouble I have is of traffic and driving on pot holed roads. But that is not so tough baby!

Life after marrying an MBA

1. Everything in your life will be planned, note everything. Starting from how should you be spending your holidays/weekends to your life post retirement. All contingency will be taken into account and scenarios would be carefully thought of and accounted for.

2. Every expense (past and future) will be in some excel file. There will be a trend analysis of past expenses to group the heads where you can optimize (read: cut your budget). Future expenses like loan payment will be analyzed in at least 10 different cases with different rates of inflation and growth rate of salary.

3. Every purchase you do will be carefully examined to see if one is receiving the true value out of it. Market research will be promptly done (with full reviews) and finally when the right deal is there, Bang! You definitely get what you needed, though it might take a while. But remember, RIGHT Deal...that is the key word here.

4. All travel would be in a true tourist style, sneakers, caps and maps in place. You do have to utilize your time, you can’t waste it by lying holed up in your hotel room reading....

5. The air travel will be planned such that the mile summary reads higher figures, so that when the spouse has to travel, you simply convert the miles and buy tickets. Learn to ECONOMISE people!!

6. All talk you will have with your spouse will be peppered with top-line, bottom-line, Scenario-planning, Budgeting, Pro-active, tactical, ideate, and not to forget STRATEGIC!!

7. If you happen to invest in some life insurance scheme or some mutual fund scheme, be prepared to see the sales guy/s get hassled by your spouse’s deft use of MS excel to show him that the product that the sales guy is selling is much inferior to that of the rival’s.

8. Also (in continuation with point no 7) be prepared to see a lot of sales people for that one product which you had seen on TV and wanted to invest in.

9. TV viewing would be limited to business news, and your spouse mood would fluctuate with the stock market. Learn to be sympathetic when stock market falls, even if it does not concern you.

10. Last and most important is MULTITASKING. You will get used to your spouse answering the calls, making you a drink, writing a mail, and using sign language to communicate all within the same span of time!


All this will continue even if you try explaining and instilling the notion that however thorough we may plan, life is unpredictable. Learnings of a B school gets ingrained deeper.