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...