Greener Pastures...

People are quitting every other day and the number is only increasing. Half the mails in a day would be for the parting gifts and sendoffs. People's farewell mails are sounding very much cliche, with some of them being the exact copy of another. I won't blame them of course. Who the hell cares anyway! The moment someone announces his retirement, you become worried for a while but then you also know he can't help it either. For the pittance that they get, any hike outside would be lucrative enough.

Two of my peers are travelling and are in the thick of things. Both of them depend a lot on me to help out on functional issues but I know I won't get any credit for that. Sometimes petty thoughts cross my mind that why I should be helping them so much when I won't get anything in return. But I feel silly about myself the next moment. What is life if I had to think only about gains all the time! That would only make me unhappy, right?

I generally talk to some of the people among our support staff. Today I had gone to the small cafeteria on our side to get coffee but the milk wasn't pouring out properly. The lady in charge tried to correct it for a while and said the pantry one was better. I agreed with her. She continued and said but it is generally very crowded. I agreed again. Then she said in a complaining tone, "but you never go there. I've never seen you!" I didn't know what to say for a second. I mean, I couldn't imagine that someone really kept track of me like that!

Pani Pani Re...

It burns in the daytime and rains like crazy in the evening. My cold is just refusing to go away. Native is very cloudy these days it seems but no good rains yet. Hope it'll be a good monsoon this year. I hate mother having to worry about that well in the summer.

The first time we had trouble with this well I remember very well. I think none of us will forget that year. There is a bore well nearby but mother thought it wasn't respectable to go fetch water in the daytime so in the nights when the whole neighborhood would be ready to sleep, we four would start off with pitchers towards the bore well. Pappa would be doing the pumping, mother, V and I at regular distances carrying the water home. It was quite a tiring thing to do for a whole month with the water quantity not being great at times. Sometimes we even had to return empty-handed and try later. And then, just when the summer ended, mother was down with Typhoid. When I think of it sometimes, it feels like a nightmare.

When I was a kid and we were in the rented place, our well always used to go dry in the summer. It was an event for me to go and look at the water going down every morning. Clear water would turn muddy and one day the pitcher would hit the rock at the bottom. Then it was time to go to Anuradhakka's place which is about 100 meters away for the drinking water and the plantation well for other things. Anuradhakka's well is a huge one and I've never seen it in bad shape even in summers, thank God for that. They were very nice about it and though we felt a bit apologetic in the beginning, soon got over it and treated it as our own.

I think we as a people will have real trouble with the water soon. Already we are over-dependent on the tankers in our area with every other day one bore well being drilled. There is bound to be water-scarcity soon.

There is a rumor that they are going to salvage an old lake in front of our house. I didn't even know it existed!

Passing Years...

At home with a slight fever and not at all feeling guilty about it. I mention guilty because I have a boss who I've never seen taking a sickleave! Actually work has become a bit monotonous of late - the same old issues, spools, debugs, sqls and solutions. But I'm also sure if it were to change drastically - say my work is full of java, I will hate that too. It's silly but that's what I am.

Once in a while life becomes better though - like when I get into arguments(some of them quite bad) with some of my senior colleagues who think they know everything and I win the battle. I love it! But the frequency with which I'm getting into such situations makes me wonder sometimes. I mean, do I have a short temper or do they? But with me it's always "give respect, take respect". People who start off on the offensive with a "what do you know!" ring tick me off immediately. It's easy to make it a gender-bias but I've not yet taken it that way. May be they curse me behind my back but at least people come across better next time.

Then...my mother has an aching leg and I'm pushing her to see the doctor immediately. What with all the recent terrible illnesses among our family and friends, I'm a bit skeptical but I hope it will not be anything major. Was just thinking about her and realized that I've hardly done anything for her. One of her longstanding wishes is to visit Kanyakumari and I want to do it this year. I mean, I'm someone who keeps dreaming(only) of travelling all over the world but have hardly seen anything within my own country, state or even the district! My mother keeps bringing it up but when we go it has to be full family and one or the other gets into some busy schedule. But this October, we shall go!

The kid is in my native place and getting into fights with my mother every other day, mostly over buses. His craziness for buses gets manifold there because most of the private buses have pretty lights inside them. Whenever a bus he covets is denied to him, he calls me up and says, "If you send me here next time!!" but we both know how much he loves the place.

Hungry now...with no maid for a month, we both are finding it tough to manage home. But I've forgotten how it is to eat outside and cannot give up home food. So here I go...