New year....

During my irregular being on the blogosphere, a new years post has always made its way through. The year 2008.
it was good. there were many things that happened in this year. good and bad, as always. i started my career with the new company and the growth i have made in this year was much more than i made 3 years combined in my previous years. with that came egos of my collegues. it was a tough time. it is tough rather because the egos still remain. its pathetic to the core. i cannot understand the mentality and dont wish to either. if people are having ego problems, its their problem altogether. not mine!
still i say that professionally it has been really good because i am getting the entire support the management has to offer. they are fully aware of the problems that i am facing. nothings really being done about it, thats a different story. but still, they are aware and i hope they will have some thing in place to tackle this.
i made a new friend who is now very close to me. our families have also bonded quite well. S and her husband get along just great despite the age difference they have. along with friends i made foes as well who were absolutely not happy with the kind of attention and appreciation i was getting. well again, their problem. not mine!
Home front, its going excellent except for the fact that..................... anyways,
but we are doing great. there is a new phase in our relationship which is much stronger, much deeper than it ever was. we have fallen head over heels in love with each other all over again. it feels wonderful. that leaves worries at bay and all we look forward to is spending some more time with each other. its just great.
Anyways,
two new years resolution is to save as much money as possible and to make our lives financially very very very secure.........
and to stay happy no matter what happens in life...
Wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year!!

The year that lies ahead....

Home....

Loud TV, people raising their voice on top of the TV to get heard, but don't turn the volume down. either of the two people constantly occupying the sofa. the sofa being covered with strange colored cloth, news papers strewn everywhere... welcome to the house where i live. i don't call it my house because it is not my house. it is my in-laws house. and it is far from being called a home. evening doesn't bring the joy of going back to where i belong, because the feeling of belonging itself is absent. an incentive to return back is just that i would be with S.
things are planned ahead. things which S wants to happen desperately and is very adamant on. just today morning i heard a conversation of his parents and that made me feel so bad. if u have to see profit making parents, i can give the perfect example. business extended to family as well. with this realization came a resolute. a firm resolution for which i have to work. hard.
the thinking loop began and again i prodded my past to give me the answers of why i was so foolish back then and didnt do the things i should have done first given my background. for example, buying a house. i didnt do it then because i was so foolish (i cannot find any other reason). and i cant do that now because the prices are now out of my reach. had we done some systematic investment then, we would have been in a very comfortable situation now considering S's plans ahead. well, these are mistakes which are surfacing in front of me and telling me what a big fool i was, rather i am. Just thinking about all these things, i felt a knot in my stomach which is definitely fear. i am scared. of the things that lie ahead. scared of how we are going to manage. i hope it works out.
pray for me. for us.

Known Turf: The incomprehensible and the uncomprehending

All with the same thoughts...
with all the chaos, the panic, the anger, the frustration, the tears.... a voice within agrees with what Annie has to say... 'The incomprehensible and the uncomprehending!'

Known Turf: The incomprehensible and the uncomprehending

Quarter Life Analysis...

I had posted this content which i recd from an email in the year 2006. It was incomplete.. and now the complete version follows -

The Quarter Life Analysis.................

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like.You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the
greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is
that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.

Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute,
you are insecure and then the next, secure.

You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay
where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you're doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person. You want to settle down for good because now all of a sudden that becomes top priority. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.You begin to think a companion for life is better than a hundred in the shack and for once you would not mind standing tall for that special someone which otherwise you had never thought of until now.You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that every one reading this relates to it.We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out. Send this to your twenty-something friends.... maybe it will help someone feel like they aren't alone in
their state of confusion...

We call it the "Quarter-life Crisis"

once again...

Once again terror strikes the financial capital of India. Once again, a lot of people get killed. once again, a lot of families are destroyed. Top cops get shot. innocent people attacked. this time the targets were foreigners, they say...
Salute to the spirit of Mumbai?????? Again? would the spirit of Mumbai still remain unhampered, unscathed after so many attacks on her? i doubt. its time to step out and realise that saluting the spirit attack after attack is not going to solve the problem.
the gunmen were aged 18 to 25. ruthless, remorseless. the gunman arrested is an 18 year old educated whoever (i dont know what to call him! a kid? it will defeat the trace of innocence we long to see in kids.... so he is a whoever) and he says that he wants to live... (so says the Times of India) bloody hell he wants to live after he shot so many innocent people.
i wonder what amount of brain washing has gone into to turn these so called educated people to turn into terrorists. to make them so hardened to the core that they wouldnt even feel sorry for their acts. I dont understand how they could even believe that they would return back to where ever they came from 'alive!'. would they have really believed that we Indians would forgive them ever and let them go??? just like that????
We Indians.... We Maharastrians... We Marathi Manoos.... Aamchi Mumbai.. i wonder what Raj Thackeray was doing when this attack happened. i wonder what the his so called MNSena was doing when their Mumbai, their Mumbaikar was being gunned down by these unknown people. Why didnt they take the situation in hand now? isnt it much easier to attack people who are unarmed, innocent, terrified than to attack people who are really dangerous? what was MNS doing when the NSG was flown in and they laid down their lives to protect ours. Or did Mr. Raj Thackeray ensure that all the people in NSG were from MNS????? You dont have any right to touch Maharashtra and its people if you dont have the guts to protect it...
I salute to the bravery of the NSG, the Army, the Police, the ATS, the navy, the hotel staff, to all the people who fought for us. I hate to imagine about the families who saw their near and dear ones lay their lives for national security. I know what it feels to sit at home and know that one of your family member is out there in a war for your country.
I pray that such a situation never arise. I pray that there never should be a war. can these prayers be answered?
Media gave a blow by blow account of the happenings of this attack on Mumbai. that was really brave of those reporters who stood near the attack sites and gave the reports probably posing a risk to their own lives. but today, theres a headline, Cricket matches to happen in Chennai instead of Mumbai... Oh.. a real national catastrophe, isnt it? India will be exposed to a bigger threat if a cricket tournament is canceled!!!
Sad situation, isnt it? that some people forget these things so fast in life and all they are worried about is a Venue change of Cricket!

Time...

sleepy

i can sleep at any given time. earlier i atleast required a comfotable bed, today i manage even in the bus while travelling. its past lunch time and now my eyes are closing. i could go to sleep. a nice deep one.
i completed yesterdays post just for the sake that i didnt want to leave it for later. if i would have, i could have never finished it. there are so many posts which i have half left and then never completed! i was half asleep by the time i finally hit the 'publish post' button.
anyways, i am half asleep now too but i have a lot of work to complete. many things to do. should get back to work now.

am back....

It has been a long time and life has been punctuated with a lot of events. Diwali was good. I went to Goa for the first time in my life. With a lot of debates and discussions, it was finally decided to travel by a private bus service. For a change, the bus started right on time. So though the driver took 1 hour to finish his dinner instead of the usual 20 mins, we didn’t mind.
We resumed the journey and barely after 15 mins of traveling, he stopped the bus. After half an hour we came to know there was a breakdown. We were at a distance of about 50 kms from Pune. However, there was no extra bus available in Pune and they called a spare from Kolhapur which was about 200 kms away. So there we were, stranded on the highway in the middle of the night waiting for the spare bus to arrive! It did, after 3 hours and then we finally shifted all our luggage onto that bus and started again. We reached Kolhapur at 0600 in the morning (we should have reached here at 0000 hrs in normal circumstances). The bus stopped on a petrol pump. 15 mins... 30 mins... an hour... two hours... it didn’t move an inch. Well, this bus broke down too.. irritating it was... however, sushil could capture a few beautiful shots of the sunrise.

We finally reached Goa at 1400 hrs instead of 0700 hrs. it was tiring. We took an auto home and I got the first glimpse of Goa. Tired as I was, it didn’t stop my spirits to soar up. The houses, the roads, the weather... it was beautiful! Lunch at home and little nap did a little trick of refreshing us up. Evening, we were supposed to go on a beach, however, we got a little late and it was already dark by then, so we changed our route to Martins corner. It is this famous sea food restaurant there which has served very famous people like Aishwarya Rai, AB, Suniel Shetty, and Sachin Tendulkar and the list is endless. There is this wall with all the photographs... (I forgot to take a picture of that!!)

So we had a splendid dinner. I relished on the fish... it was toooooooo good!!! Then we returned home and slept.
Next day was packed. We had this huge number of things to do and a lot of places to visit. We started at about 1000 hrs (we could have started earlier... anyways) and first went to a temple near Ponda. I honestly do not remember the name of the place. S’s sister had come there so the purpose was to meet them. then we went to meet S’s sister who stays in Goa. We spent the morning there. It was, umm, a bit unplanned but we had to. Then we went to this mess near the Mangeshi mandir to had lunch. The fish fry I had there was A M A Z I N G! next stop was the St. Francis church. Its beautiful!!

Next we started for the Calangute beach. It is this crowded beach with a lot of shacks and lot of semi-nude foreigners. I did not take that photographs and even if I did, I am not going to put it on this blog.
We did some water sports there. I just sat in a speed boat. However, S and Manish (S’s jiju) did para-sailing too. And in the mean time, me and Yaba (my sis in law) sat there watching these firangi ladies in bikinis and wishing we had that figure too... well, yaba is thin.. and by thin, I mean very thin.. oh, to be precise, she wud be somewhere lower than size zero. But still, a perfect figure is still a perfect figure!
The day ended and we saw the sunset on that crowded beach.

I would have preferred somewhere silent, lonely, sitting down facing the sun and closing your eyes when the sun is half set. Closing ur eyes and think about all those things which have gone terribly wrong and then all those which have been miraculously right. Open your eyes and then sun is fully set. But the sky is lit up with the orange glow. It feels beautiful. I first tried this exercise when I had gone to hari-hareshwar with the Cummins group and second time at Diweagar with S. the day ended and we went home. Had dinner (home made) and then we went to see ‘Narkasur night’. It is this big event in Goa where there is a procession of ‘Narkasur’ and a competition for that too.
Last day in Goa was spent at home and we started our journey back at 1800 hrs in the evening. The journey back was uncomfortable but we reached in time. Diwali zoomed by and the holidays were soon over.

Then came the period which I was not really looking forward to. The audit preparations. It did not go as I had expected them too. I didn’t get any help from anyone initially. No support. And the usual unnecessarily proud me.. I didn’t even go and ask for help. I kept it to myself. I struggled to get work done. I failed. I tried again. I failed. Finally, I did it myself. I was frustrated. I was worried. I was ashamed of my self not being able to do anything. Anything at all. I cried, I hated myself, I made a resolute of quitting my position at the end of the audit. Da helped me a lot. But I could not go to him for each and everything. I could not go to Sag for everything too. Going to Sam was not being very useful. The shop floor boys and my new team member helped me. I was aware of atleast someone being helpful. We did whatever we could and we managed to put up some show out there.
Finally in the last 3 days of the audit, Sas came and helped me. He was to present the stuff and he was not ready. No practice, no script, no preparation.
‘your pillar is so weak’
I was tired to hear this. Every time I heard this, my eyes would fill with tears. I felt as if someone is talking bad about my baby. I hated everyone for that. And for the first time, first time, I felt connected to my job. First time I felt my emotional independence collapse. I had waited for this day for so long. But I never thought it would come in this way. I thought it would be a proud moment where I would be praised for my achievement. But it was not.
Finally the audit day arrived and everything went smooth. It was close to perfect.
Isn’t it said, ‘alls well that ends well’. But was it?
I went through various phases during this time. Happiness, laughter, tears, tension – so much I could feel myself shaking, I spent sleepless nights... it was everything.
I vowed not to trust anyone, I vowed not to depend on anyone. I vowed to quit, I vowed not to do anyone elses job, I vowed not to help anyone because they didn’t help me. I vowed, I cursed, I thundered, I cried, I felt so helpless. I felt so angry, all the time!
I realized I was becoming like everyone else. I was losing me.
But I pulled through. I never thought I would, but I did. And now, I vowed to turn things around, I vowed to give my best... I am glad I returned. And I hope that I get better.
The audit day ended with a party. The party ended with a movie. Dostana. We were a group of 10 and a couple of unexpected people joined too. About Dostana, later...
Today we decided to start afresh. I discussed my thinking with kv. He saw some meaning to it. But it was not completed due to lack of time. However, we will continue tomorrow...
Afterall, the work has just begun.....................................

My absence...

its been a long time and life has been eventful. starting from the Goa trip in Diwali to the most awaited audit preparations in the company which is starting of the next week.
i want to write a lot, but time is not so generous. There are many things i noticed, many experiences i got, many friends i made, lots of lessons learnt. i will be back with the full story. soon....