Thanksgiving

OK I hear that and I agree that it is not October in Canada or November in US . Come on! We are in India! [You can see the "d" because of my favorite pink background :)]. That does not mean I can celebrate it in May. Moreover I am a pure vegetarian and hence

" No Turkey Business"

Then next question - " Why this post?" and the answer is " Generally" :D

Now that we are set for Thanksgiving let me start by making it clear that here " I am the post creator and hence I will be giving away all the thanks to God". You can do it after reading the whole thing. ( if u feel like)

I shall start with the highest intensity of Thanksgiving and go down the lane so that when u finish reading you'll feel light again like you are doing now.


Scene 1: Physiotherapy centre

I shall start of saying "Thanks" to you for raising those eyebrows wondering if something is wrong with me. Chill! I am fine. I had been there with mom for her treatment. I also got to meet this 25 year old fair and beautiful ( they don't go together always) girl waiting for treatment. My first blame was towards the long sitting hours in AC offices which could screw up your backbone. But I soon realized that was not the reason why she was here. She was a victim of "Muscular dystrophy" . Yes I too remembered Vidya Balan from Guru. But here there was no Madhavan to love her and take care. Her parents though very rich never found peace of mind because of this. She cant sit straight and her spinal cord is totally useless now. She always needs help for the basic things we do with ease like urinating. Being a girl I tried to imagine what she would do during those days which are advertised as " way to freedom" by Shhhh ( Whisper - if you did not catch the euphemism).

I don't dare to describe her problems any further. It is very depressing.

I thank GOD for giving me an intact spinal cord !!


Scene 2: A road on the way to office

I am running late to office. You may ask me how is it possible in the era of Fle?i timings ( that ? is x which became too fle?ible). Well, it all depends on how your teammates are -early birds or late lathiefs.
On the way I see a house ( I am not sure if I can call it a house because all it had were three walls - two of bricks and one of mud and a roof of dried up coconut leaves). Immediately my mind thinks of the time when Bangalore was flooded due to imbalances in nature created by man. It should have been terrible! What are they doing? Brushing teeth with some coal and bathing in dirty water? Are they cleaning themselves up or making themselves dirty! Should I mention how they would eat?
God! How could I crib about the hefty salary I am paid?

I thank GOD for making me capable of meeting the basic necessities of food, house and hygiene :)

Scene 3 : Diagnostic center

Ok Ok. Again nothing wrong with me. Its my mom again. She had to go through a blood test. Now it is not about any of the patients there. Let us think "Out of the Dabba" ( I hear it too often now a days). It is about the people who conduct those tests in the lab. I talk to a person to find out his " job profile". He comes at 7 am in the morning traveling 10 km to this center and he is welcomed by whole lot of SHIT. Yes, I mean it in the literal sense. He has to examine hundreds of different stool samples and he does it the whole day. So he gets to have his lunch break, evening tea everything in between. I think how could anyone aspire for or choose such a career and within seconds my "SANE" head bangs me on my head ( outer surface) and says " Stupid! Do you think he would if he had the freedom to do anything better?" Roti, makan, kapada ke liye kuch bhi karna padtha hai. Ab to aadat pad gayi hogi.

I thank God for giving me a job that I enjoy ( I may not express it always !) and can do sitting at home or in an AC room.


I don't have a favorite number. So I don't stick to the same number of points. You need not expect 5 because of my previous blog or 4 because of the previous previous .. n times blog! There is always suspense [:D]. I decide to stop with three scenes :)

Now that I am done, you can start your Thanksgiving.

"Happy Thanksgiving "

Only Love is Real

Wondering how I got romantic after Chicken Pox? No, it is not a side effect of the antivirals I took. But I can say it is a consequence of Chicken Pox because how else on earth could I get so much time to read this book titled "Only Love is Real"? I swear even I had not heard of it before. :) It was not all that great that I talk about it in a post. But there were some lines which can switch on some romantic switches in you. So without wasting time I am going to copy those lines here.

1. Destiny dictates meeting of soulmates. We will meet them. But what we decide to do after meeting falls in the province of choice or freewill.A wrong choice or a missed chance can lead to incredible loneliness and suffering. A right choice, an opportunity realized can bring us profound bliss and happiness.

Not so romantic is n't it? May be I can call it a foundation stone :)

2. Soul recognition may be immediate. A sudden feeling of familiarity of knowing this person at depths far beyond what the conscious mind could know. At depths usually reserved for intimate family members. Intuitively knowing what to say, how they will react. A feeling of safety and a trust far greater than could be earned in one day or one week or one month.

I don't seem to be moving ahead from foundation :(

3. Passion in a relationship cannot be artificially created. There can be respect, and there can be compassion, but the chemistry has to be there from the start.

Hmm.. Started talking about Chemistry haan :)

4. It is delusional to believe that this passion, this soul recognition and attraction will be easily found again with one more person. You do not run into such a soulmate everyday, perhaps only once in a lifetime. Listen to your heart, to your own intuitive wisdom when making important decisions, especially when deciding about a gift of destiny, such as a soulmate. If you rely exclusively on the advice of others you may make terrible mistakes. Your heart knows what you need.Your heart will find it inconceivable that you will not be together.

Hmm.. some dose of Hindi movie dialogues :)

5. When your intuitions, your gut feelings, your spiritual heart all know beyond any doubt, do not be swayed by fear based arguments of others. Sometimes meaning well and sometimes not, they might lead you far astray from your joy.


May be.....

At the end of it, it was not all that romantic :(
I don't know why I felt so while reading the book.

Chicken Pox for the Soul

Ladies and Gentlemen! I am back like a Phoenix after staying away from BLOGSPOT for some time now. There is a small difference though. :) Phoenix comes back from ashes but I am back from the crusts of Chicken Pox however gross that may sound. It is said " Truth is always bitter " but it can be gross too sometimes you see. Since I am back I would like to start the resurrected [Seems like GRE prep is helping :)] blog with a bulleted list of things that Chicken pox taught me in life. Sounds interesting? If not you can stop reading here and move on to an alternate tab in your firefox browser. [ If you are not one of those outdated IE fans :) *]

1. Things take their own time baby! Patience!

"Ah this is chicken pox". The Doctor said with an air of confidence as soon as he saw the blisters on my hand. " No need to worry. Rest of the blisters will come up in another 5 days and then crust and fall. You don't have to do anything except taking some antivirals. You better don't do anything. If you try to scratch, break the water bubble or pull the crust, it might leave a scar!" Does not that sound terrifying for an Indian girl yet to be married ? :"> [ If you did not get what that is, it is an emoticon showing me blush ]
So there started my week of idleness and vettiness personified making me arrive at this macro theory about life. You will have to wait for the dark clouds of problems you feel helpless about to move away. No use trying to meddle with them and turning them into a permanent worry. Just be calm and wait for them to pass on. As someone said - " This too will pass". All problems are like blisters of chicken pox which appear and then go away. You just have to wait with patience. I bet you did not like the comparison. But you know you cant help it if you are still reading it. This too shall pass :D because we move to the next point.

2. Keep it short!

That was not for my blog. No way! I am not keeping this post short. May be next time! The point I am trying to make here is it is very common for people to shoot a formal question to you when they call you or meet you. " How are you ? " if they do not know you are unwell and " How are you feeling now? " if they already know it. Poor souls. What else can you expect them to ask? But do you really think they are interested in your details of experience of illness ( Chicken pox in this case) ? I bet for a big "NO". So keep it short and learn to say " I am feeling better". That would make both of you comfortable. You would not want someone to hang up or get out and think -" Why the hell did I ask?", would you?
* This rule applies to all kinds of illness that affect human species

3. Your Share is yours!

Wondering what this means? If you are, my intention of writing the title in a cryptic way ( if you can call it so ) is successful :). If not, OK lets move on.
How many ever people you have surrounding you, helping you out, running up and down to get things done for you, Baby! it is real/cruel world. You must go through your share of pain. You cant give it away and there is no alternative. I am not preaching about KARMA here. Hmm May be something like that. Stating this principle at a macro level would look something like this - " YOU CANT ESCAPE WHAT YOU ARE BOUND TO GO THROUGH. THERE IS NO LUCKY BUSINESS".

4. Stop cribbing !

Yes, I am saying this. you can pinch yourself painlessly twice :). OK since you are done, I can rephrase it. It is very painful to be idle all day. So better enjoy the busy schedule you have and appreciate it. Next time I meet you neither of us will say - " I am sick of my hectic schedule". Done? Can you believe I got jealous of people slogging out at my office? I did :) Of all those people running up and down buying grocery, paying bills, cleaning house and on the lighter side playing badminton. It is not fun at all to lie down for hours. You may wish for it when you get up after a 5 hour sleep but I bet your wish will exponentially decrease and be zero beyond 15 hours may be.
Not to forget the cribbing I did last time at the office restaurant. After having plain curd rice for 7 days I feel like kissing the hands of the guy who sells the combo meal at office. [Caution: Dont take it in the literal sense! ]


5. Identify your friends ! Soon.

Testing times they call it. I think it is called so because such times are the ones which conduct a free " No fee " test for all your friends and hand out the results. You can get a filtered list of friends who care for you and for whom you matter. You need not wait till Chicken pox for this. Any kutti testing time is also fine :). Identify those gems and treasure them without ever forgetting that they have passed the test.


I think five should be enough. I am grateful to you for reading till here. So for all the beautiful people who got the patience to endure till the fifth point from the first point, here is an offer. You can read one more personal realization :)


6. I love coffee! I missed you :)

Thats all from me now. See you. Buh Bye!

*Disclaimer : Opinions expressed in this blog are purely personal and are not chargeable under law according to the fundamental right of freedom of expression

Resolution to Realization!

Late to Bed, Early to Rise, Long travel and hours of staring at the flat screen monitors is what describes the lifestyle of the IT employees. So what do I do to stay away from high cholesterol and diabetes in my old age? I don’t have enough time to exercise or to go to a gym." Use stairs and avoid lift" is what my friend told me. I made this my New Year resolution. After all it is only 2 floors I thought. As usual when I went to the staircase with bubbling enthusiasm this morning, I saw a queue. "Did all the people in the building make the resolution?" I thought. I got reminded of hospitals which make patients wait endlessly as a strategy to increase the revenue by worsening their health during the wait. Government offices which make people go through 10 different queues to hand over a card that is not even 10 inches long. Long Queues in front of temples – Thayaar on Tuesday and Friday, Shani Mahatma and Hanuman on Saturday, Raghavendra on Thursday. Why don’t people go and see these temples on other days? God is available all the days but people wish to see only on the so called ASSIGNED days! Then the whole purpose is gone. You are more worried about who is barging into your queue than God you want to see or the prayers you wish to offer! After a brief travel in my thought world I increased my height by standing on my toes get a peek into the problem of the day. I could see thousands of A4 sheets forming a carpet on the staircase between the ground floor and the first floor.

Probably the guy who was carrying the same in a carton could not find a place in the lift of the decent managers of Multinationals and to add to that his bad luck- the smaller lift designated to such backbone workers was under maintenance. Could he have waited till that got sorted? Of course "NO". Would it not create havoc in the MNCs if there were no sheets to take print outs of the e-tickets, Bank account statements and last one – some work related docs which people in vain plan to read while traveling? So he decided to carry it up using the staircase for one day because his life style does not need resolutions like mine. He missed his breakfast hurrying to work and when his strained muscles failed to support him further, gravity took over.

So what was happening now? He is picking it up probably 20 or 30 at a time, forming bundles of hundred and placing them back in the carton. What are the people in the queue doing? They are watching him do it and waiting for it to get done so that they cane move up the stairs. Some at the bottom decided to break the resolution for the day. Some at the top could not help but give in to the steely resolution of the people behind them in the queue. The speed at which the worker was picking up the sheets can be approximated as 5 seconds for picking up 30 which makes 15-17 seconds to reach hundred and then 4 to 5 seconds to bundle it and place in the carton. So for around 3000 sheets he was carrying it would take 600 seconds! That is 10 minutes. May be the people watching all this did not do this elaborate calculation. It would have been much faster if at least two more people in the queue had lent a helping hand. What we need here is not probably Maths, we need to be human to understand it. All of us were born as naked babies in a hospital or a house. The difference could be the hospital bill or the house furnishing. But are we not equal as God’s creation? Is it ego that stops one from going ahead and doing some work that is meant to be done by a Level 5 worker? Would one not have jumped and grabbed an opportunity to do something that someone two levels higher does? In my view a person who can do his work as well as those of ones lower than him in hierarchy with pride has a much better caliber than the one who sits at the top and claims that he has the right to order because he has the capability to handle the job at any level.

I go ahead and make my way 10 steps through the queue. This is the only place where I was not stopped from barging into a queue. I start picking up the papers and bundling them and I realize my speed is much lower than the one who did not have his breakfast. My 50 Rupees breakfast or the IIT brand mind did not help me here. Still I was happy I did it up to my ability. My intention to break the ice failed. All I got even after that was a couple of quizzical looks and a set of people who were busier on their cell phones not to notice it!

The Evening of Eve

"Black and White" – Rating ** said the newspaper last Sunday. I did not give much thought to either the title of the movie or the rating that day. But today, when I started thinking, I realize it is not only about colors, God’s creation has always struck a balance – whether it is day and night, Birth and Death, Man and Woman. Did I say woman? That brings me to what I have been thinking about the whole day, nearly one week after the "International Woman’s day". Both men and women are God’s creation. It is a well known fact that they are different, their needs are different, and their roles are different. Where does the problem lie? The problem arises when we as individuals fail to take cognizance of our as well as others’ abilities and limitations. Why do I see so many women’s forum and councils coming up while I hear of men’s council only regarding sports? We all know that March 8th is International Women’s day. How many of us know that the first Saturday of November is International men’s day? Probably very few. What is the need to have an international day for women? When I posed this question to different women the answers I got were – "Because the rest of the 364 days are men’s days" - "We have been oppressed since ages and we need to rise now"-"Men have April 1st and we have March 8th". What were these people trying to communicate? This is precisely what I wanted to find out by attending a Women’s forum meeting devoting 4 hours of my time. If I could learn a lesson or become aware of so called "women-specific" problems, it would be worth it.

I walked in the corridors of a five star hotel searching for the venue of this meeting like I used to search for the train compartment in the last minute during my college days. This search was easier because the decibel levels act as indicators of gatherings of women. So here I am amidst women of age ranging from early twenties to early forties. So it was obvious that women specific problems would be a function of age and I got excited looking at the spectrum I was exposed to. This is how the forum meeting started – "Welcome to the gathering FREE OF MEN" and a wave of giggles traveled through the room. My expectations committed suicide jumping down a valley like Hrithik Roshan in Dhoom. That was shown in slow motion at least; here I could hear a THUD sound. "Is this a Women’s forum or an anti-men forum?" I thought and stopped myself thinking that it is too early to jump to conclusions. 15 minutes into the address that the head of the forum gave I started contemplating – "Am I very different from the other members of the fairer sex? Why am I not able to enjoy the *alleged jokes* or *gossips*?" I heaved a sigh of relief when I was assured that there are >1 people who shared parts of my experience. Is this session for bitching about men or development of women? Why do I see common needs of men and women in the agenda for women forum? Leadership skills need to be enhanced in both men and women. Both need mentoring. Both need to do good financial planning. Both need to have good health. By putting these as women-specific agenda, are we not widening the gap? I see more dissociation in the company than development. Are we not repeating the historical mistake by discriminating now in a different way? But whom do I shoot these questions to? After all I am also among those who do not want to take the risk of antagonizing the majority.

What are we trying to address by calling this meeting and inaugurating a forum? The women specific problems I can think of are –

Women have been assigned the job of managing the household and nurturing kids for ages. Now they are taking up an extra job which is perceived as "job" in the real sense by the world. That does not mean they resign their previous job. A woman will have to continue with the old one, probably she can have an assistant which could be her spouse or mother or the legal mother. Extra load means extra problems.

Strangely, maintaining the household has never been considered as a job because it does not have monetary returns. If it was considered as a significant contribution to run a house, we would never call only CEOs as achievers without House wives anywhere in the run for the title. It is human nature to pamper the ego by achieving great things, receiving rewards and recognition. Women are also human beings which is why they also entered the race in the corporate world. Women are taking this up by choice. Due to the extra load they do face more pressure. Bearing a child is one of the important stages in a woman’s life. She definitely more corporate maternity leave to take good care of her health, she needs more time to devote to the baby as a feeding mother, she needs cooperation from the company to take care of the baby till it is on its own. "

I don’t see this in the agenda though everyone talks about it.

Women are different from men physically, biologically and to an extent psychologically. When God did not create the two equal, it does not make much sense to claim equality too. Rather what each individual should be claiming is Opportunity and Rights Commensurate with abilities. Just because Kalpana Chawla went to Space, all women can’t. For that matter, all men cant too. Each individual has a set of unique abilities, talent and limitations. If an individual is not allowed to achieve up to his/her ability it is unjust irrespective of the gender. So what kind of woman rights are we talking about? It is not that all men or bad or all women are good. Men have their own set of problems to deal with. Let us look at the other side of the coin. Being a woman has its own advantages –

A woman can call it a day anytime; she will not be questioned by many. But do men have that luxury? If a man quits his job, he will be labeled IRRESPONSIBLE and WORTHLESS. "He is supposed to earn for the family". Actually if we look at it, it is an initial condition problem of distribution of load. The cart of home needs two M wheels – Maintenance and Money. Long then, job did not mean resting on a ergonomic chair with only two parts of the body working – Brain and the fingers. It meant roaming in the hot sun, lifting loads of weight and sweating it out more than the current day Gym. Commensurate with the physical strength of men and women it was quite logical then to distribute it that way. The Stereotype has just continued till this day though times seem to be changing pretty evidently.

How many times have you as a girl felt relieved or as a guy felt jealous when the Physical training sir gave 2 rounds as punishment to girls and made boys run 10 rounds in school?

How many times have you spent a minute appreciating the variety of choice women have in terms of clothing and accessories? Do the shopping malls have anything more to offer to men other than shirts, T shirts and a pair of trousers? Sadly they had to resort to earrings, chains and pony tails. :(

How often do we talk about the tax exemption or the favors we receive from people from various rungs because of the universal bias towards the eve?
It is just that women have the amazing quality of amplifying the lack more than have. I don’t deny that we have women suffering from dowry deaths, prostitution, and lack of freedom or education in the Indian society. But definitely corporate women forum meetings will not cater to those people.

We will not achieve anything by putting down men or boasting about our strengths. At the end of the day we are going to go back home and have a coffee with a father or a husband. It is wise to understand the composition of the universe and that men and women are like irreplaceable pillars of a building. We as human beings (Does not matter whether it is a man or a woman) should recognize the success rate of working together rather than secluding ourselves and fighting for nebulous rights.

Alas! All I enjoyed was the Vanilla ice cream! :D