Wednesday, December 9, 2009

2 Idlis and one vada

There was a recent concern about a miscommunication that was sent to a bunch of people ( i being one of them ) . It was regarding a recent policy change which failed to be implemented uniformly resulting in a lot of noise and disturbance among the crowd.
To me , this was one of the manifestations of hypocrisy <> is lately following.
Well i dont want to get into the details of the actual problem . But let me tell you a follow up on that request R.

I got a mail from one so and so HR head .
The content was simple :
She was trying to reach my cell phone to update on the clarification i asked the HR .
To give her a call back to [her number] if possible
It is urgent
I called her at 10:30 PM CST today . ( I dint have my offshore call tonight )
Me : Hi this is Indu . I got a mail regarding req <> and to give a call to you in this number .
HR : Oh yes . Indu . I have been trying to reach you .
Me : Sorry about that . There was some issue with my mobile connection last week .
HR: Tell me Indu ... Tell me <>
Me : I guess you wanted to talk about the request <>
HR : Oh yes . Indu could you please hold on for a while .
2 Idli and one vada . ( repeating 2 more times )
Me : !!!
HR : Tell me Indu
Me : <> I can call at another time if you are busy right now.
HR : Oh thats ok . You can tell me . and regarding the request <................................>
me : ...
HR : ...
me : ....
[Clinging of plates announcing the arrival of the 2 idlis and one vada ]
HR : May be then i can call you back at some other time . blah blah ... asking for time .

HR ? MBA holders ? working for reputed company ... 2 idlis and one vada.
Rightly said they are the ambassadors of the company's current status.

The White Life !!!

So it is all back .. the days of freezing winds and snowy roads and shivering life. Perhaps in such a weather what I would love to do it to just remain under the comfort of my quilt and just pull it over my face and go back to sleep. My bed is always warm enough to put me asleep …
Today was the first snow in Bentonville .. and as I was sipping my morning tea I could see the snow starting (the first particles of snow dancing in the air ) . First slow and then thicker and intense.
The muffler , gloves , thermals and jackets to hug me from all around and I walked to my car to discover that the doors were jammed. It was a new info to me that the doors would get jammed in snow . At first I thought my key stopped working and tried a couple of more times ( remote and manual ) to make sure that there was that tick sound of opening the lock.
I tried my best to pull the door open ( hoping that the door handle will not get detached ) . Standing in the snow with my laptop bag on one shoulder it was not very comfortable to pull the door any harder .
Luckily the door on the opposite side opened to let me into the car .
It needed some circus to finally get behind the steering and to jump over the gear box with all the winter clothes wrapped around me .

The next effort was in the parking lot trying to open the same jammed door. For a moment I thought I will have to walk back carrying one of those doors ( the jagathy image ) to office , or even the doors slamming against the adjacent parked cars ..
I was lucky enough to get the door opened after a lot of pushing and tapping and praying.

And now to go for lunch I am not sure if the doors would open when I walk all the way till the parking lot .
So .. it is all back .. the months of shivering cold white life .

Monday, November 23, 2009

Good News ???

I wanted to plan for newspaper daily. For the past several months I am not even knowing what is happening around the world . Well, international big news I hear people discussing and then I go and search in the internet to know more of it . There was a time when I used to regularly check the Malayalam News links . But it is the same old news and I feel it meaningless reading them esp right in the beginning of a day .
Politics , corruption , murder , … Doesnt the news ever change ? Every day these are the static things . They form the frame and all the other news just fits into this frame. It is sometimes scary to read them and I think it is better to be ignorant than reading unpleasant news right in the beginning of the day .

But these are not the only happenings in this world . There should be some rule to collect just the good news on the front page of every newspaper. Waking up in the morning and reading of a gang murder even before you have your tea … is like starting the day upside down. The first news should be positive , should be full of energy and hope … and there should be a page for potitics ( where the vomit of who said what , allegations , power plays should be dumped ) , and a page for all the bad news just like they maintain a dedicated page for the dead.
I am sure it would be possible to find all good news and put it in the front page . I believe things would have got better by just emphasizing that in spite of all the bad there are still a lot more of good happening around.

With my morning tea I want to choose my News. When I read about blood and murder how can I start my day good .
Even now I see some political statements , some gossips , some allegations … that’s the first punch of energy you take with your morning sip of tea .
Rape , Murder , loot , politics , eve teasing , injustice … Why should they be advertised when nobody is particularly given a good BIG punishment as much as the hype in the newspapers ? I feel it is like saying ‘There was a gang rape.The victim was murdered and the culprits walked out of the game with no sufficient proofs’ …or sentenced for a 2 year imprisonment ( vacation !!!) …

Of Dragon flies and Scorpions

I am an expert in giving advices. I really can motivate others( really!! : ) ) . Examples , similes and metaphors come so spontaneously that most times I myself become a listener to myself . It is like what Portia said in Merchant of Venice ..
If to do were as easy to know what is good to do .. then chapels would have been churches and poor man’s cottages prince’s palaces ‘ – word by word Shakespeare did not write exactly like this. But it means the same anyways .
So at times I listen to a portion of what I tell others and it helps me to make churches out of chapels.
And the images and words which I tell remains somewhere deep within me that when I actually feel low they whirl up and kind of lift me up to make me feel better .

I assume that with every good positive thought a new dragon fly ( minnaminungu) is born in your heart . And with every negative thought a scorpion . And at the end of everything my duty is just to kick out all the scorpions and to have just dragon flies within me – It helps me keep out anything negative now . I would rather not have any thought at all than a scorpion in my heart . I just want my heart to be lit with dragon flies flying all around.

When you feel low , Treat yourself . Get yourself an ice crème if you are not on diet , a dress if your salary if not over , or even a cup of tea with ginger and spices . Or watch a good comedy clip . It some how makes you feel so good. Happiness cannot be bought , but there are a lot of affordable things which can give you happiness – It helps me at least.

When you think that you are caught in front of a boiling volcano with just the heat and the lava , tell yourself that it is the most spectacular sights you have ever seen. You will have just one more minute left to live . But I would rather spend it happy , excited and satisfied than be worried and depressed . –It has helped me take a turn away from the volcano’s heat to drive home safe. If I had stood there and cried, I know it would have just swollen me up. – It feels great to be happy .

Cherish the smaller things . The best happiness is given by the smallest things . And I don’t want to miss the bliss of having them. So I tell myself not to overlook the smaller things . It could even be a smile of a kid who passes by you in the store , or the sight of your favorite book on the bookshelf , or even a talk with a friend with you have not spoken for years. –It recharges me at least .

If you should lose something , you would lose it one day . So there is no point in holding on to it and worrying if you will lose. Just let things go … and you would feel better than holding on to it and worrying. As long as there is nothing you have to do , nothing expected from you and nothing under your responsibility take your grip off and relax. –It has at least helped me to take one scorpion out of my heart. The pain of losing however big or small is just a reaction and it is just natural and the fault is not at your end . I wouldn’t want to compromise the happiness of the remaining years for just this small bite of a scorpion .


The biggest Guru as far as I have seen is experiences. And I don’t miss the lessons most of the times. Every thing , every one and every moment teaches us something new . And I just take down the lecture notes … I know I will need them someday to tell myself when I need the wisdom.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Grass is greener on the other side.

For a really long time I thought I wanted to be alone. I thought I loved solitude and that I could find happiness in sun sets and flowers and stars and all that was abstract around. To an extent it was true – I could spend all my time in admiring the sunsets and flowers and abstraction. But it took me time to realize that it was not what I loved to do. It was perhaps a filament of my imagination and the pseudo personality that wanted abstraction.
Now I like groups , people , noises , laughers . I love spending time with others rather than sitting alone in my room and typing blogs. Perhaps it is because I already get more than enough time with myself alone and more than enough of silence every day that I want people around all the time. Even if we don’t talk , just the presence of another person in the house makes a difference .
When I am alone, I keep cleaning the house. I love it actually . Vacuuming , cleaning and washing clothes . The feel of a tidy house is very good . But time is still left even after all the work .
It is just human tendency to look for what we don’t have and think that what we have is not what we want . When I was staying at my valyammas house for a month I used to feel that life was becoming too fast . There were always lots of people in the house and there used to be conversations all the time. There used to be guests ( relatives ) most of the days … and I felt that I was getting too tired of the noises.
But looking back , I feel it is the noises and hectic schedules that we cherish the most. The silence and the solitudes just form an insulating layer in the memories .

These days when I see a good dusk , I just watch it and leave it with normal eyes. I don’t want to think philosophical and wonder about the wandering streaks of clouds that reflect the sun rays and make them look beautiful . Most things I just watch and leave.

In my project team too I am the only person who works from my office . I sit in an aisle which doesn’t have any people to whom I can talk to ( at least no girls with whom I can chit chat ).Other than the technical follow ups and official communications there is nothing I can talk of new dresses , new gossips J and new recepes . I think in a normal girl conversations these just comes in without even knowing .
I try new things in my room to kill boredom. I clean , I re arrange , I decorate … The feel of a new face to the room is happy . And then when I am tired, I login to gtalk and start talking to some long lost friends who are equally jobless on some other part of the world . I browse through their albums and wonder how fast their kids are growing.

Today I am planning to get some roses to keep near my pooja room. It is a new craze every day . Some times ice cream , sometimes dolls , some days dresses and today it is roses. And all I do is .. I just enjoy them to the maximum – be it ice crème , dolls or dresses.
Some times happiness is in making my room untidy . I just dump clothes and papers casually and feel it cozy to sleep in a messy room. Making an untidy room tidy is an art .

Sunday is almost half gone and I am determined not to sleep my day off.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

The Ghost in my kitchen.

I am not really scared of ghosts and I don’t want to think that they are significant enough to be thought about a lot. And that is the reason why I avoid seeing any horror movies to keep any threads of imagination that could make me feel scared later. It is the imaginations that used to make me scared once upon a time. … like the rustle of dry leaves , the shadows over the windows and, when I am scared I imagine faces in the shadow and foot steps in the winds.
Imagination just keep flowing and from somewhere deep down the archives of memories it will dig out some images to make my situation worse.
For the past one week nights are scary. By somewhere around 12:00 Am I hear noises in my kitchen. To avoid feeling scared I go to sleep early only to be woken up in the middle of the night. Day before yesterday when I was half way through my sleep I heard my roomie knocking at my door rigorously. I switched on the lights and opened my door and saw her outside telling me that there was something in our kitchen. Obviously if someone is woken at the middle of the night and told that there is something on the other side of the wall , anyone will get scared. We went slowly ,switched on the lights , opened all the doors and cupboards . There was nothing . And that is even more scary . if there is nothing what could be making the dub dub sound at night ?
The noises repeat . Last night too I was woken by this dub dub noise in the kitchen .
I dint dare to open my door and remained under my blanket . I just messaged my friend that there are noises in the kitchen and that not to keep his mobile in silent mode ( just in case due to some celestial reason me and my roomie should run out of the house to the cold cold night outside ) .
I must tell u that it is after a very long time that I am feeling this scared. I kept hearing the same dub dub in the kitchen . I don’t know from where this scene in ‘Sixth sense ‘ came to my mind – The image of the pale bloody woman preparing dinner and saying ‘Dinner is not ready’ to the boy.
I pulled my blanket further over my face and kept praying so that I would fall asleep somehow.

I know ghosts don’t interfere much with the living . I have never seen any inspite of the fear I used to have as a child. I could never see anything anywhere at any time even when I had gone near graves on all the odd times of the day .
Right now it is the imagination that is the problem.. And perhaps because I have nothing else to worry about .. so I just keep listening to noises which probably are not even worth listening to .

So tonight let me check if I can scoff at the ghost who cooks in my kitchen when the lights are switched off.

Monday, November 16, 2009

A Verse for the DM

I see the mighty waves spilling above the sails
Roaring insane to pull me deeper into the seas
And I see the captain smiling at them composed
To shy away the tempest resting beneath the waves .
That which gives us a breeze of hope , a strength
to assure, beyond all that seems daunting around
that we still can make it beyond the crimson lines
With just that gaze of him beyond the sails ...


Well that wass a verse written as a momento for our DM on his visit to our client location. The irony is that i knew nothing of him and this is perhaps a hypothetical situation of how a manager should be .
But it was good to see my verse on a beautiful background , framed and given to him and to hear it read out to the crowd by him .
Knowing the least about him .. still what was amazing was his memory power. He seemed to know the complete history about each one in his unit..personal and professional records.
In these times when people prefer to forget most things about others , it is good to see people maintaining their memory updated.