Lost .. and Back!

So I haven’t written in a really long time. Blame it all on office. The new project requires me to be on a client network and it doesn’t allow me to blog. Yes! It’s always the work! And don’t even get me started on trying to blog at home. I leave office at 7 PM on my lucky day and between Sanjay’s homework and my home-work ( ;) ), I have no time left. I sleep as I walk into my bedroom.


Hmm.. Work’s going ok, and my increment was decent. It was actually the first decent pay hike of my entire career. So that’s some happy news there!

Proving that if you are committed towards something, you will find a way to do it, I have now started taking driving lessons, for car, of course! All this while I lamented the fact that I am never going to find time to learn car driving, and then one day, it dawned on me, that I must learn it. And here I am, taking lessons at 5 AM. Yeah! You read that right, 5 AM!! I am back home by 6 AM and can continue other activities (which basically involves cleaning, some cooking and getting Sanjay ready for school) un-interrupted!

Been reading a lot. Recently read Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies”, Arnad Ray’s “The Mine” , Lance Armstrong’s “It’s not about the bike.My Journey back to life” , Subroto Bagchi’s “Go Kiss the World”. And now, I just started “Shantaram”. So yes, my literary connections are still ok!!

I could write a review. Hopefully in the near future…

Hope everyone’s doing ok.. and Hope to write more..

Random

1. Life is going on as it usually does. It is smooth, and touch wood, no one has hurt me emotionally in the recent past. That thought makes me smile. :)

2. I am doing some nice things and helping people with whatever I can in my capacity and that makes me smile. No, I am not dong charity, but I am helping my friends and family in any which way I can. And again that makes me smile, because it is not something I thought I had it in me to do. Little things, small efforts and it brings a smile on another person's face and that makes me smile.

3. I have become too much of a motor mouth, and I hope I don't end up hurting anyone.

4. Yes, my blog universe comprises only me and me! So let me give a little space to others too, Sanjay has become a bit of an artist, and I think he might have taken that from me, considering how even my husband's hand writing doesn't qualify for modern art!! If he likes it, I just might enroll him in art class. May be , may be not!! So far it is just school for him.

5. My sis is almost in the fag end of her pregnancy. I will take off from work and help her while she is in hospital for her delivery. I am excited about becoming chithi all over again. My sis says her back hurts and she didnt sleep the whole of yesterday night. hmmm... i didnt have these when I was pregnant, but neither did she with Sriram.. So anyway, I am excited.. I hope for a healthy wonderful baby. Chithi loves you already!!

6. Recently I asked a very basic question on computers to my bro-in-law. And a few days later, I taught him something he didnt know. And then I realized, everyone doesn't know everything. It is ok. We just have to make everyone'e knowledge universe richer by sharing.

7. This weekend, I went for a function without my faithful driver, the husband. So on the way back, we came with one of my husband's cousins who is new to Chennai and was counting on me for directions. The directions I gave him took us from one end of the city to the other. Lets just say we saw all the landmarks in the city as we figured our way home. It was hilariously emabarassing when I admitted I have lived in Chennai all my life. Why , simple Why, can't I give directions??? I don't beleive in taking no for an answer, but this is a skill, I am so very pathetic at!! Well, I guess I would just have to convince myself saying that, everyone doesn't know everything!!
:)

Sudden thought of the day

You know what amazes me about teaching and learning, the fact that by sharing, it grows. It’s like you share a little bit of your treasure with someone else, and now you both have equal pieces of treasure. Yours is not any lesser, and yet you have transferred a bit of your treasure. In fact, when you share, your knowledge grows. It’s like one ignited mind, setting another on fire and so on and so forth and the whole world is illuminated, with no one losing so much as a flicker.How wonderful is that?

I know it is an obvious fact, and has been said before and all that. but still, how amazing is that? :)

What goes around... comes around

When I travelled to Greenville, I was worried about reaching the hotel from the airport. I had requested that someone come to pick me up, but nobody agreed. They said the hotel would provide a shuttle. But only they wouldn’t do it at midnight. But I felt it futile to ask again, so I left it. Why was I concerned? I was landing at 11 PM and was worried. If it were day time, I wouldn’t be worried, because I have visited US before and have an idea. I could just go and get myself a taxi. But I was worried about going alone at midnight.

I told myself that if I didn’t feel confident enough, I would just wait at the airport and then leave when day breaks. It was in the immigration queue that I met another Indian who was to travel to Greenville in the same flight as me. I was worried I might miss my flight and I was asking him for time and that’s how I came to know that we were travelling to the same place. We met again in the plane and got talking. He said that they were going to hire a car and that we could go together. He was working at the same place that I was going, and was staying the same place that I had to go to. So I was happy. Well, at least I wouldn’t have to travel alone. And you know what they say, known devil is better than unknown angel. Not that he was devil or anything… 

So we got off the plane and this guy has his luggage missing. He has his GPS in it and hence he can’t take a car. Without GPS, how would he know which way to go? Better still, he and his companions don’t have any dollars on them. Their company had not given them cash and were yet to load cash on their traveller’s card. So there they were option less. 

So I waited for them and paid for the taxi that we took together. I felt I must do it for them. For it could have been me, stuck there like that. Only, I checked if my traveller’s card was loaded before travelling. I was alone, so I was more than prepared.

I felt nice about helping people like me. They stayed for a week and left.

And in my team here, there is an Indian girl. I am getting trained by her. And she is such a sweet girl. I was just telling her that I am settled fine, but just that without a cooker, it was taking a little longer to cook. And immediately she gave me her electric cooker. And to top that, yesterday they took me out for shopping. I had such a nice time. And am so grateful.

It is nice to see people willing to help. I felt Indians abroad were not helping fellow Indians as much. But this just proves me wrong.

And when I think about it, I felt what goes around , comes around. And that we mustn’t think about helping others. We must just do it.

On Women in Workplace

I am still jobless in my job as I wait for a new project. I am supposed to be making use of this time to study. I do that to about 50% I suppose.

So I have been up to other things like taking off, reading the Millennium series of books (which I really liked BTW for the characterization of the heroine), attending training sessions and some random meetings.

Today I got the opportunity to attend a meeting on inclusivity of women in workplace. It was a discussion where a person from an external organization was recording our inputs. Hopefully the organization will leverage these inputs to create a more women friendly workplace.

This meeting was an eye opener of sorts for me. I knew women had it a little difficult in career. They have these innate breaks – marriage change/break, kids and all that. And they have to certainly take the bigger load at home and work-life balance is important for women. I hope there comes a day when men will realize the importance of time spent with family and when work-life balance will not be a women only issue.

As such I find my organization very employee friendly and I like the work culture here. There is a saying that your job is only as good as the last manager. My last manager was very good. It’s sad that the project had to end. So I don’t know what I am headed for.

So coming back to the meeting, there was the initial introductions where I ran into my first shocker. One person introduced himself and said among other things that he doesn’t have to worry about work-life balance because his wife is a stay at home mom. I mean seriously…. What about your duty as a father to your kids? We need to be good at time management and strike a good deal when it comes to work-life balance. How could you not bother about it?

But I won’t generalize men like that. For that matter I hate slotting/categorizations of any kind. There are all kinds of people who may not fit to definitions. For people are not words in a science dictionary. There was this other person who spoke about post maternity support for women. A guy speaking about a facility where women can pump milk, now that’s real nice. I used to pump milk in the rest room till Sanjay was 1 year old.

One Hr lady said that some Project Managers request that they do not want women while hiring for positions. Some others said that they do not hire women who are about to get married or are pregnant. Apparently they are too much of a risk for the investment made on them.  What about men who shift for better prospects? It is a known fact that at least where I am located, women are a stable resource; they simply do not jump as many jobs as men. But well, looks like some prejudices do exist.

It is a little depressing that the next time I attend an interview, they will judge me for more than my answers and this happens everywhere probably.

I think the answer is when men take equal responsibility of the house, that’s when there will be equality at work. That’s when everyone will look for work-life balance. I see this happening more in the west, in the developed nations. Again I can’t generalize for I am speaking from my interactions with a limited set of people.

There was talk of mentoring women. And then one person said that women are of three types: career oriented, working for the heck of it, working for money. It saddened me to hear this categorization. I work because of the sense of self that it makes me feel. I feel like I am doing something with my intellect, learning something, growing in my own way. Does that make me career oriented? No, because given a choice between a fantabulous job that forces me to work in some other country’s timing and a job with little less prospects where I can keep decent timing, I would choose the latter. For me, family is first, while I will always do complete justice to my job. I won’t work from home if I want to babysit my son, I will take off, because that is the more responsible thing to do. I take my work seriously, but I am not career oriented, neither do I work for money. I work because of the way it makes me feel about myself. As simple as that. I told him outright that I feel offended when someone slots women like this.

I am no feminist. I don’t understand what feminism is all about. I only believe in one thing – equality of all humans. Which is why I won’t treat my house help any different, or believe in caste or such things. Which is why I can never understand how some people feel superior to others. Which is why I will value my four year old son’s opinions and thoughts, or any child’s for that matter.

It was an eye-opening experience for me. Also it reinforced my belief that nothing ever goes waste. In the meeting, one Project manager said there was an opening in his team. I was all gung-ho till I found out that I have to work in UK timing, which won’t work for me. So I am back to square one. It does get a little frustrating when I get serious. But otherwise I am liking this free time. Only I must must make better use of it!

J

Procrastination

You know, you have ambitions, lofty ambitions. This is not bad, but actually pretty good. You set your sights high. You know you have it in you. You are past self-doubt, but you are not brimming in self-confidence either. You have judged where you are, and what you can do now. You have your lofty goal and you know the distance you need to travel. You even see the paths and auxiliary paths and fall-back paths all intertwining in the map of your mind. You know what you can be, if you reach where you want to reach. It’s all unfolding nice and clear in mind’s eye – the series of actions, you need to do. You know and you have read it all, that the first step is the biggest and the most difficult. Finally you are prepared; you tell yourself, that today’s the day. Today, you make your first big step.

Your hands reach out to begin the task. And suddenly they shrink back, overwhelmed by the gravity of this step, the responsibilities it will bring. A sudden doubt may be. And you put it off for tomorrow. Just a day delayed for destiny.

Perspective

Like all things that I end up buying, this was unnecessary. But I still bought  myself a pair of slippers/sandals (excuse my lack of knowledge of fashion lexicon), while my eyes were looking through the store to find a pair for my mom. My mom and I, we both have large feet, India size 9. So it is a little hard to find footwear for us, and fashionable ones that.

So I was happy and all that , that I found something suitable and feminine and reasonably priced for my LARGE FEET.

When my sister had come down to my mother's place and I visited her, I convinced her to buy a pair. She probably doesn't need one now, what with the fact that her feet will swell up soon enough thanks to pregnancy, but who can resist a good pair of beautiful footwear.

And so we were done with the purchase. The salesman, using his well practiced salesman technique, inquires if I need a pair too. I am still not wearing precious new footwear and walking around in old ones.

I smile at him and look into his eyes and tell him, "Well I just bought the same pair from you a day back".

And he smiled back in recognition and said - "Oh Yes! When you walked in, I thought that the footwear looked familiar"

Prediction?

I was inspired by the following to write this post....

Dear Taurean, Wednesday, 8th June
Life is all about getting it right and in the process giving yourself the luxuries of making mistakes and learning from them will help you all round, a family gathering celebrating a happy event means entertaining and a late night, enjoy.


i wonder if i should beleive in this...now isnt my own destiny in my own hands and in the choices i make? but i belong to a country and community where most decisions are taken based on horoscopes and such things.....
my question is, is there a predefined destiny for any one of us? isnt the outcome simply dependent on the input? hardwork never goes unrewarded......so if i work hard enough, cant i have anything i want?
my way of wanting things is by not letting go and by letting god know that this is what i want....or should i heed all the negative signals and give up??

okay, if the post seemed incoherent so far, then i would try to start making sense here on....

The thing is how can somebody determine our destiny by looking at a horoscope....how can they say such and such things would happen with a certain degree of certainity? i wonder....

further, why do our prayers have to be in a language that we do not understand....
like sometime back i was asked to do a pooja for raahu ( one of the navagrahams, 9 planets..dont ask me anything more, i can predict that you will not get the answer) and given some slokas..the point is how does this work? why cant i just pray to raahu in english in my terms...the way i want to...why cant i say..
"hey raahu, i am in my 7th semester, kindly help me get a job?"

or why at all should i pray to raahu, why cant i just pray to any power i have faith in? wouldnt my faith be rewarded if at all...

and what if i was among the multitude of people who just beleive in themselves and not in god( even that is a different manifestation of faith), then why cant my faith be rewarded?

i beleive that we can do anything we want to do with faith and it will reap rewards.... it doesnt have to be done in a particular way....we can speak to god or any thing we beleive in , in our own way...please god please god..would do..wont it......?

yet whatever it is that i am asked to do, like praying to raahu, guru, tom , dick or harry..the thing is i do them becuse if that makes somebody happy, i might as well do it and whatever i do , i do thinking that this is going to help me..... i still try to infuse my faith into it...still when i sit back and think about the logic, i just dont seem to get it!!!!!


Disclaimer: these are just my ponderings...i do not mean to hurt anybody's religious sentiments. To each, his own belief....

Love is unconditional when...

Love is unconditional when........
.... you cry with them when he / she is in pain..not because that will affect your life but because you feel that pain the other person feels..
.... when he/she talks with you about the problems at hand, you do not think how that will affect you, but what can you do to rescue him/her
.... when he/she comes to you for help, you do not blame them but listen..just listen and make him/her feel better
.... when you take upon responsibilities and make promises that you do not have a clue as to how to fulfill,but you do so just to make him/her feel better...
and may be you would fulfill them too....somehow...
.... when you do not expect anything in return of the favours but just that him/her should be happy forever....
.... when you do not have an ounce of jealousy at his/her happiness...and continue to wish them well....

That was my thoughts on that....it is nice to know that most of us are capable of unconditional love...not only love of the romantic kind...also the love and care we have for our family and friends........

and how does unconditional love spring?.....
it springs because he/she would have done something to affect our lives in a very positive way..and may be this unconditional love is just a form of gratitude..........