Blast from the Past

Some photos from the time we went to Hyderabad and some sort of pilgrimage around in Adilabad. It was a lot of fun, great roads and seems long long ago already.

Public Gardens, Nampally.

Qutb Shahi tombs, Hyderabad

Kuntala Waterfalls!!

As you can see, no water in the waterfall in October. The place looked grand nevertheless. 

Looking Back

While reading Oliver Sacks' The Mind's Eye, I suddenly realized that the problem I used to have in my high-school days was Visual Migraine. It used to start off as mild throbbing at the corner of an eye and then slowly develop into some fast moving layer covering the whole eye. Then a blinding headache would start and the whole thing would last for an hour, usually culminating in vomiting. It happened once during a class test but other times too, like reading books in the library or while relaxing at home. I don't remember going to the doctor for it and thankfully it vanished before I passed out of high-school. I remember waiting with dread for the headache when the throbbing began....

Word Bug

The kid is bitten by it. Till last month she was pestering us to read the stories for her and now, as if she was touched by a magic wand, she wants to read them all herself - her books, newspaper, my books and everything. She wakes up in the morning and with half-closed eyes, clutches a book and comes to sit on the bed to read. My mother is the most affected because she hates it when kids don't come to food on time and now she has two to shout at.

This is the week of anticipation - of new salary numbers - and next week I suppose will be that of mixed reactions. I know the juniors have got it above expectations this time but as for ourselves, the rumours are just not optimistic, except for cases of resignation. It will be tough to digest for many, especially because there is almost zero chance of another hike next calendar year.

And we are all set to travel to Kanyakumari next week. Family joke is that we should tell everybody only after we return because it was postponed twice already, last time because another train derailed the same morning. We are excited again!

The Mind's Eye

Yet another young colleague of ours passed away yesterday after he attacked people around with a sword and was shot by the police. Twenty six year old, cheerful in the office but depressed about some personal matters it seems. A Telugu channel called him Software Psycho and irritated me thoroughly. But I don't understand how these young fellows, who are so active on social media, fail to turn to even a single friend for a serious discussion on life and the merits of it.

I don't have too many friends and I have my moments of unhappiness and sometimes, continued unhappiness but one can also derive solace, if not joy, from various other things in life and also the fact that one's alive itself. I guess we are always racing against time and planning too much for the future and present is only the stepping stone for that bright future and it does not matter much.

Rajani is my friend in the workplace and strictly so, for various reasons. We became friends almost instantly and instinctively and after more than two years I feel secure in that friendship. The current 'regime' does not believe in building inter-personal relationships within the team and on the whole of the floor there is hardly anyone I want to talk to. So I wait for Rajani to appear on the scene and share my thoughts with her and we talk silly, serious, work and otherwise and my boss once observed that on the lunch table we talk as if we are going to solve the world's problems(I didn't know others observed!). We belong to opposite camps politically and sometimes fight bitterly on our 'ideologies' but both of us acknowledge that we are not convinced of the merits of either. Anyway, I can go on and on but it's just that I'm glad to have met her finally and the only thing that will make me sad when I leave the place is being separated from her because I somewhere know that we are not going to be in touch outside, strange as it may seem. 

Warm

It's like we moved directly from September to February. Absolutely no sign of the winter, the chilled breeze that makes you hug yourself or the benign sky. Will we have it this year at all?

I've stopped walking to the office. Not by design, but just that I can never reach the backgate in time these days. And it's just that I don't feel like starting early. And just that I don't feel like going to the office anymore. It's never happened to me all these years but here it is. So, this time when I say I want to leave my job, I really mean it for the first time.

My husband is obviously baffled by my sudden lack of enthusiasm to work - not so long ago he was admonishing me severely that I take my work too seriously - and I'm not able to articulate the reasons. I guess I like to feel ownership towards what I'm doing and somewhere people don't want to give me that sense of ownership and I lose any feeling of achievement, however small the work may be. Anyway, time to rest for a while, hopefully. I know the kids will be very happy and just thinking of that I smile already.

I'm embarking on 'War and Peace' and I hope to continue and finish it. I love Russian novels by default and I find the characters strangely familiar. And it's like they speak for themselves and the author is merely chronicling them. SK says he doesn't like them because he finds it hard to remember the names but I have absolutely no such problem.

Mourning

SM, who I worked with till last Friday, is no more. He committed suicide late last night at home in Chennai. People say it is to do with his upcoming marriage with a girl his parents didn't approve of. But how does one come to terms with such an explanation when the guy we knew was confidence and cheer personified? He joined our team only some months ago but had made good friends with some of his age and they are not ready to believe me when I tell them not to call up his mobile. He was soft-spoken, committed to his work and intelligent and I was only thinking last week that he would shine here. Don't know what unhappiness was bubbling under that smile and who he thought was going to be happy now.

Love in a New Language

It's amusing to find that Kannadigas are increasingly finding it difficult to express love and related matters in their tongue. For example, in small towns and cities alike, I see people using Love and Lover extensively and far more comfortably than Prema and Premi(when was the last time I heard these words from someone other than in movies?). But platonic love, Preethi, is not a problem. And in Cities, we hardly use GanDa and HenDati these days and I think Husband and Wife will be replacing them soon elsewhere also. But why?

P in Beirut

One of our guys left for Japan yesterday to support an important upgrade. Needless to say, all of us are very excited. We have had partners coming down for a few weeks to do some hands-on and they were wonderful but the real test for us starts only next week. 

Reserved

Some of us ladies had a 'chat' with HR yesterday, on how to enhance women's representation in our workforce. The numbers are abysmal right at the base and all the more so as you go higher. My friend A was of the opinion that we should put women in projects with higher visibility thereby giving them an opportunity to shine and also, when there is a contention between a man and woman for a promotion, the woman should be promoted.

I don't agree with her on this because it sounds like discrimination in its own way. It still upsets me that my boss neglected my eight months of good work just because I was on maternity leave for the next four months and I lost out on jobgrade movement because of that. But I should've thought about it right then and discussed with him so I consider it my fault also. All I want is level playing field in the workplace - today, there is a culture of staying late and some mental points given to people who can put in long hours in the office. This straightaway puts women at a disadvantage. Set the right timelines for a project and evaluate people fairly - by the quality of the work they do within the deadlines, that's all. But our people take sadistic pleasure in asking for late nights, weekends and no work from home even on a Saturday! I see women who were the best in their teams leave, just not able to cope up with this kind of regime and how does one evaluate such losses?

Instincts

The other day we went to this mini-theatre by accident and found that it was screening short-films on wildlife. One of them was on man-animal conflict - leopards straying into human 'territory' in North India. It was going on expected lines, with people chasing the animal out. From past experience, I know it's a touchy subject with the kids and I was on guard, trying to explain both sides to Anu but I knew she was getting agitated. Finally, the beating of the leopard started and Anu went wild, shouting through her tears, "Ask them to stop it! Oh, that leopard should kill them all!" Half the theatre turned towards her and the lady next to me patted her back with an understanding smile.

The Tamarind Seed

I don't find any ideology that I want to subscribe to, no personality worth following and I don't see religion transforming me. I want myself to be passionately involved in something, anything and I don't know what that is. It's like I'm just waiting for that thing to come long and jolt me and I doubt that that will ever happen.

Fussy

I hate people fussing over me. Oh, you have a bad cold, take this tablet, go home, sleep, can I drop you home, can I get something for you to drink, don't go in this rain and stuff. I want people to leave things to my judgement. Unfortunately, some men think saying all these things will make women very happy. Irritating!

The Good Old Doctor

I'm on leave on account of terrible cold and a little fever and I used it to watch Dr. Zhivago. The CD has been with me for at least 10 years now but I somehow had resisted watching it before. I guess I had just then watched Lawrence of Arabia and just didn't want to see Omar Sherif in any other role...

Lost in Translation

The first mail that I saw today -

 

"Hi madam,

I am writing to inform you that today I am not coming to office because, I am suffering from cold and fewer, so please consider this mail as my leave request and apologize me to take sudden leave."

Home Again!

Painting is all over and it finally feels like home again. All the days that the work was going on it was like the house belonged to all the things rather than us - furniture, utensils, books, clothes, beds...we've managed to order them better this time. And last but not the least, a big box for most of our books!

And the best part, the sun is shining too!

Forewarned!

On Friday morning, I was hurrying as usual to catch the backgate open when I saw my neighbour D in the corridor, talking to her friend. I had just said Hi to her and continued when all of a sudden I just slipped and fell. It wasn't much of a fall thankfully, with only my left palm bearing the brunt of it. But D would hear none of it; she was very concerned and said I couldn't proceed without sitting and sipping some water. She said it was a bad omen and it was a must to go back home and sit for a while. I protested as much as I could and the only concession she could make was to take me to her friend's home instead. I sat there and admitted wholeheartedly that it was my fault that I walked so fast; I never started in time. It was all agreed that it was a sign of something worse that would've happened on the road. So by the time I thanked them and got out, I knew the backgate was out of my reach and I finally reached office half an hour late, walking precariously on the mini-precipice that once was a footpath on BEML road and cursing all the omens.

Evolution

In the past -

Rishi : Anu, what do you want to do when you grow up?
Anu  : I want to become an apple!
          I want to become a biscuit!
          I want to become a butterfly!
          I want to fly to the sky and sit on the clouds! But will there be toilets there??

Now :

Rishi : Ani, what do you want to become when you grow up?
Anu  : I want to become a princess!
Rishi : No, you can't, because Baba is not a king.
Anu  : Okay! Baba, can you become a king soon?
Baba : But Ani, I thought you wanted to become a bird!
Anu : (Laughing) Baba, how can I become a bird! You know who becomes a bird? A chick! Don't you know?
Baba : Alright, but I doubt if I can become a king.
Anu : Alright, I want to become a horse then!

Gloomy

I don't know why there is no pressure on Saudi Arabia to take in the refugees. For that matter, Saudi doesn't seem to be pressurized to do anything.

Rain is just not letting up. It's been a week since the sun shone brightly and what with our painting and everything, we are just about managing to be sane. I'm going to discard a lot of things that I discovered while shifting things. But so much of our possessions is books and it's very hard to come to any decision about them. 

Small Expectations

Daughter  : Aayi, smell my cheeks!
Mother    :  Mm, it smells delicious! What did you apply? Let me guess...soap?
Daughter :  No! Guess again!( Gleeful laughter)
Mother    :  Powder!
Daughter  :  Yes! (Claps and skips away)


Daughter :  Baba, smell my cheeks!
Father     :  Hmm (tearing himself away from his cellphone)
Daughter :  Baba, smell my cheeks!
Father     :  Hmm, yes!
Daughter :  But Baba, don't they smell good? (Frowning)
Father     :  Yes, wonderful!
Daughter :  Alright! (skips away)

Sweet-shy

We have had so many sweets and chocolates in the last two months that I hate the sight of them now. But unfortunately the festive season is just getting over and we invariably feed the guests with sweets and they return the 'favour'! On top of that, my mother has learnt from somewhere that sugar causes Alzheimer's and one somehow swallows the ghee-laden sweets just out of a sense of charity. I'm done with them for another year, surely.

Rishi has made us all very happy by learning to make the pizza all by himself. Of course I do all the dirty work later!

Feeling Light

It's a wet DeepavaLi this time and celebrations are mute by comparison. But it's still feeling good inside, coming after the Bihar results. It is one thing to brush it aside when people who don't matter protest - people like directors, writers, scientists etc - but quite another when the electorate says it, right?I think it's a good breakpoint and we should all come back to the things that matter.

We are growing quite a few things in our balcony these days - mostly by accident. We changed the mud in the pots sometime early this year and it's been quite a boom after that. It all started with two mini-watermelons and then came the Mangalore cucumbers, bitter gourds, capsicums, cherry tomatoes and the regular ones. Not to mention the flowerpots and kaake haNNu.

Glimpses

South Africa and India play the first Test match, I'm on leave and yet cannot watch the match! The innumerable cracks at home are finally being filled and the house is in a big mess. No question of stepping in front of the TV. Thanks to StarSports.com, I do catch some action and now find that SA are all out just when I was planning in my mind that they would have a lead of 40. Disappointing, because at this rate the match will be over tomorrow.

                                                    

Turning Things Around

I've been given a new task by my senior(my boss's boss) but I have a feeling that my boss is just waiting for me to do it badly. He's not given me a single person who can do things independently and I've already had arguments over the timelines. The coming days will again look to spoil my life domestically and I should be careful to have a balanced approach.

Sounds so much like a weekly forecast or something?

Walking in the Rain

It rained like punishment yesterday. When I had lunch on the terrace, it was like sitting inside a waterfall with light and sound show around. In the evening it subsided, but not enough to get any auto to go home. Then I did the inevitable - walked home, feeling lucky to be at a walking distance. I had a good time actually. But I will carry a raincoat today.

Dive and Save

I came to know this phrase only recently. When my boss told me that there was going to be a "Dive and Save" for one of our colleagues who had sent resignation, I was like, "you mean saving the team, right?". We don't need to pretend otherwise, not at the moment.

I keep getting dreams of going abroad these days. Sometimes all of us, sometimes alone. And I'm all anxious and excited. I don't think it's anything to do with the fact that I am actually getting more travel offers than ever before but their sudden appearance is baffling. It must be just the near-impossibility of the whole thing. I mean, while P says he would take up more onsite stints - short, of course - willingly now onwards, the moment I mention anything remotely like a travel, he becomes all stiff and hot as if I've packed my bags already without telling him. I know my limitations and I've refused enough requests already, even the interviews outside Bangalore, just so that I don't trouble anyone. But can't for once someone say it's alright and if the push comes to shove they would take care of the kids in my absence? No, I'm to feel guilty that my boss even mentioned such a thing in the first place.

I wish I had travelled a lot when I was single. Now it's become a near luxury to travel anywhere without feeling the burden of it.

Train of Life

We are going to my husband's place next week and Rishi is highly excited. He used to be crazy about buses once and now it's trains. He knows almost all the stations in the country now and he cares not where he's going, as long he reaches there by train. His dream is to visit a lot of cities in the coming year and I suspect it's only because he wants to travel using different trains, like Shatabdi, Duranto, Rajdhani etc.

And I asked Rishi why not planes and he said the journey got over too quickly and you didn't feel you went anywhere. I had read Sir Mark Tully say that and I told that to Rishi. He liked it very much.

A lot of things to finish before going, both at home and office. It's always like that, anyway.

Gandhi Jayanti

Anu is very excited about today. She called it Gandhiji's birthday festival and wore a new dress. "I can't wish him happy birthday, though. Because he's in the sky! Not dead, but just standing in the sky, along with the Spiderman!"

There is This Guy I Know...

...whose house is not more than 200 meters from my grandmother's place. He must be 40 now and I spent at least 30 days a year in my grandmother's place for 15 years of my life but I still don't know his name. This is a little unusual because we mingle quite a bit as a community, especially in summers when you almost customarily have some or the other reason to get together.

Anyhow, I don't know his name and that may be because he was shy and he didn't like to attend these functions. I myself hated them when I was a kid primarily because I had no company. My mother abandoned me those days, being busy helping in cooking, whether it is was our house or someone else's. I didn't expect Pappa to give me company anyway and I had to suffer the ignominy of tailing my cousins(all boys) hoping they would include me in their ventures. I only remember one occasion when this guy was supposed to be part of one of our games - he had promised he would come - but finally backed off for some flimsy reason. I remember being disappointed but I also already had the impression that he was an arrogant boy.

My next encounter and I guess the only other one I remember was much later, when I was probably 20. I was returning from my uncle's house and the shortcut ran through this guy's area. The sun was just heating up and I was humming something as I was careful to navigate that rough terrain. Then I sensed someone's presence nearby and when I looked up, this fellow and someone else were digging something and they had stopped to stare at me. His companion told him something, possibly about me, and he continued to stare and I realized then he was one of the best looking guys I had seen till then - tall, tanned and lean with good features. Anyway, I let the gaze drop and continued on my way and in subsequent years, somehow forgot that he existed.

Last April, when I went to my grandmother's place again, we had a function there and the same day was his niece's wedding. So as it happens, many came to our house for dinner instead of lunch. My cousin and I were in the hall doing something and this guy entered. I think I had a moment's trouble in placing him - he had shrunk so much. He was all muscles and bones and big eyes. Actually coming to think of it, most of the people are like that around there - they work hard in their plantations and they start young. Anyway, everybody had dinner and I didn't hear him talk at all while all around him people chattered about the happenings in the world. After the dinner, he suddenly came up to me and talked - that he sometimes visits his sister in Bangalore and I don't remember what else. I think I was still feeling sorry.

Next day we again met over lunch at a function in a neighbour's place and we happened to sit opposite to each other during lunch. He kept staring at me and I was wondering if he too had an image in his head and that had changed now.

Mass Hysteria

I don't care about Digital India as long as we have mobs killing people for eating something and we give that itself as an excuse for the act.

Strange Thoughts

Sometimes life is so strange and mechanical that all you seem to want is someone to smile with and someone who seems to care about whether you are upset or happy; even if you are not really sure if that concern is genuine.

Small Wonders

Anu watches Mahabharata on TV everyday with my parents and she knows the characters now. It seems on Monday, after having listened to Duryodhana and Bhanumati's conversation for some time, she said, "This Bhanumati has been speaking to Duryodhana for so many days yet she does not know his name! She keeps calling him Prabhu!"

Hindustani in my Blood

Listening to Pt. Venkatesh Kumar on TV and mesmerised totally. I think I'm born to like Hindustani Classical Music and to me, there is nothing more beautiful than that. I'm born in Karnataka and it's mostly Carnatic music all around but that's never interested me. It is something to do with the Uttara Kannada connection and the Havyaka roots I guess. The head and the body start swaying automatically and I can go on listening to it forever.

Rain Again!

It's raining as if pouring out all the pent-up frustration. Like it's June. Like it took pity on us.

Tithi

I'm eagerly looking forward to the release of Tithi, the movie which won the First Timer's awards at Locarno this time. Mandya Kannada is something special as such and to have it spoken by non-actors would be even better!

Recall

Pappa and Aayi want to attend Swara-Suprabhata tomorrow - a Hindustani vocal concert at 7:30 in the morning and I just called up Sapthaka to find if the tickets had to be bought - the newspaper didn't say anything about it. The senior person who picked up said they'd never organised anything with tickets so far and I didn't know what to say - I just said it was our first time with them. Then as it usually happens in Bangalore, he asked me where I was from, when I told him my name. I told where I was living but I should've guessed it, he wanted my native place. I said Honnavara and he was happy, he was also from there. Then I knew he wanted to talk more and I handed over the phone to Pappa and then they proceeded to realise that they had met before. And guess what, he was the father of Dhananjaya Hegde! Suddenly the melodious voice from my childhood rang in my ears again - Navibbaroo Andu HoLeya DaDadalli Nindu....beautiful memory and I still remember the young boy's concert very well.

Taking a Break

I knew I hadn't written all these days and when M brought up the statistics to highlight my absence, I was embarrassed. I really can't define what had kept me occupied all these days. May be just that my mind was a plain mess, may be it was lethargy, may be it was just the lack of time...anyway, I want to pull myself back a little bit at a time.

I told you that my old boss was leaving and he offered to take me along and I refused, right? This was way back in January. After that a whole lot of things happened and I've not come home before 8 o'clock after that. :-) Does it define everything that entailed? I don't know, but that summarizes a lot of things as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, for the next two months I got a new boss, a guy who knew nothing about what we were doing and whose boss didn't think greatly of him. So for some time, we were under the dual pressure of teaching him things and delivering 'better' because he wanted to gain his boss's confidence back. But before he settled down, we got another new boss, this time a guy from the 'other side', the guy with who my peers and I had quite few differences in the past. But for some reason, the same peers and also some of my seniors thought I was going to be singled out for some bad treatment by this new guy. People spoke to me and said I should be careful what I talk to this guy and disagree with him as less as possible, knowing my reputation of not always agreeing with my bosses. Some of them even called up and laughed at me and asked what I was going to do now. I didn't know what to think.

Now, after about three months, I still don't know what to think of him. He was very nice to me to start off with, we had or rather I had a couple of rounds of fights subsequently, we get along splendidly most times but I'm still not happy. I'm feeling like the proverbial donkey with a thankless job. My personal life is almost zero and I'm becoming a workaholic but with no satisfaction by the end of the day. So, now is the time to do something about it, right?

A Little Misadventure!

I was about 7 year old then, Manjanna 8 and V had just crossed 2. We were in my grandmother's place for the summer as usual and Manjanna's and ours were the only families in by then. Our coconut plantation was the best playmate we had - we created frog-leaps in the backwaters that ran through the plantation, we made tunnels in sand, we climbed the young coconut trees, we exchanged stories(mostly exaggerated) from school, we chased away the stray calves and so on. The cool breeze and the calm environment was so inviting that many a days we went home only for bath and food, that too when someone came to call us.

One of the afternoons like that, we were there and there was nobody else around. Our youngest uncle had gone home just then for bath and we three were roaming around. Noon time usually brought the water up till the embankment and that day was a little more than usual - we couldn't see the stones marking the embankment. Manjanna and I started splashing the water with our feet, not really bothered about V and we were hardly at it when I realized that V was drowning! All I could see was her face and two hands stretched upwards and I just grabbed one of them. But she was too heavy for me to lift up and if not for Manjanna's strength, I don't know what I would've done. We brought her up, shaken but not injured much except for a scratch on the chest. We went home immediately, asked V to keep mum about it, told whoever questioned that V's clothes had got wet while washing her hands! I was very proud of V for being so brave and supporting of the whole scheme and it was not until the next summer that we became over-confident and bragged about it. Of course we got scolded badly, but I guess that was more out of relief than of anger.

Red(-Letter) Day!

I've decided to switch to reusable sanitary pads. I'll try them first for home usage and then upgrade to all days. I know there will be initial trouble with drying them out, changing and cleaning them but yes, I'm determined to make this change back.

I say back because actually I'm not new to them. I used them till I was 18, primarily on account of economy and I had to pretend I knew what they were talking about when my high-school friends went and bought disposable sanitary pads from medical shops, wrapped in black covers. Actually in a place like mine, disposing biodegrades is easy - we just turn them into compost for our trees - but we just didn't know what to do with plastic so cloth pads actually suited us. But I became conscious of 'better standards' when I started my Engineering and switched to the dumping kinds. Now it's just turned a full circle for me I guess.

But I also realize that if you really want to make a difference to your surroundings, it's not enough if you just tick your box and say I'm done. You'll have to persuade others to do it too. I don't know too many people who I can talk to about changing sanitary pads but I want to talk about reducing plastic usage though. When I went to my place this time, the edges of our grounds were littered with plastic and it almost made me cry. People like Auntie are already actively involved in reducing this but universal apathy, she says, is frustrating. There are problems at every level. Usage of plastic covers is very very high(I found chips packets the major culprits) , people don't even want to segregate them(especially the urban population) and then finally dispose them anywhere they please. So, the obvious first step is to reduce the usage itself, right?

Relief!

K L Rahul, finally! People were almost treating him like a crook and finally some breather. Now all sorts of connections are coming out - people who trained with him in Mangalore, people who knew him in childhood etc. I have a connection of my own - I studied in the college where his father teaches! I wonder if he was one of the kids who used to come near our ground with their bats.

Where Do I Go?

At crossroads. Do I take the road that is supposed to hold promise or the one that love? My boss asked me not to lose sleep over it but I couldn't help it.