updates...

25th may 08
Today, I am writing for the purpose I started this blog for. So that I can write whatever I want to.. to talk to someone whom I do not know, so that I can talk my heart out..
Things started going a bit wrong on Friday when we received an email saying SS is leaving the organization. First I thought this was a joke. Everyone thought this was a joke. How could this happen. I had imagined that we will be giving a retirement party to SS in this organization.. I never thought in my whole life that he will resign.
It is so difficult to imagine the company without him. He was the person who recruited me. He was one the person to whom I had become first close with. He was the person who has made my survival in the company so easy and comfortable.
It is difficult to imagine not seeing him in the bus and show me the most interesting news in the news paper as soon as I entered in the bus.
It is difficult to imagine not having his jokes and ‘expert comments’ around us.
Kay was most upset. He has been a sort of mentor for this. Of course she will be…
Still, acceptance has to come. I mean, this is going to happen in the end, irrespective of us accepting it or not accepting it. So the sooner we do, it is better for everyone. This is afterall, part and parcel of doing the job.
Things went a bit bitter on Saturday evening when S called up ILs place where they are living right now. things as usual are not going good there. Nothing usual, same things again n again. And then it went to such a level that they now want to live independently. They are tired of their sons and daughters in law and want to tell them, that it is their house we are all living in and it is their (ILs) right to do whatever they want.
Well, as far as me and S are concerned, we never denied this. I was telling S since a long time that we should leave this place. No matter if we have to live in a rented house, but we should move out of here till the time our relations ( I mean my relations) with ILs are good enough that when later in life, we will have to meet, we can atleast share a laugh.
Finally, yesterday night, S agreed to this. He decided that now it was time for us to move out, to face the facts.
He called his father today. He told him the decision. And his father said, ‘how will you manage to move out within 30 days?’
His father didn’t even say, ‘don’t go…!’
I should be happy when I am getting to do what I wanted for so long. But with this attitude, tears sprang to my eyes. If I felt so bad, I cant imagine what S must have felt. He understood the change in my voice when he told this to me over phone in the afternoon. And then he said, ‘may be, he didn’t say what he wanted to say.. he might have been very upset when I told him this…’
How can I believe this after knowing them for so long? I admire S’s patience and the will to convince himself that his parents really love him and care what he is going through.
We are starting the house hunt today. There is no point waiting. The sooner the better…

This is going to be a new life. Some new challenges. Some new experiences. I hope I have enough strength to go thru this…

trying to be regular here now...

B is not in town and RI on leave too. So a bit of more work to do. things are very hectic. By the time i reach home, i am half dead and i have no energy to cook. now a days we are eating out 50% of the times. yeah. pathetic and not at all good.. i know.. but then there is no energy to stand in the hot kitchen and cook food. though only, we are two at the moment. i am surprised at myself when i think about the situation a couple of months ago when i was going home everyday and cooking food for 4 people. still with me and sushil, i dont even cook the entire meal. Anyways, i think i am just getting a bit lazy.
things at office are good. my work is being recognized.. only thing, it is being recognized as some one elses work. i thought i wouldnt care, and then finally it is my achievement. i thought that the satisfaction of taking some one along and grooming that person to become independent in the organization will be much more than getting the credit yourself. but i was wrong. i felt bad seeing my work being appreciated in front of me, but not as mine!
well, this was my plan in the first place for things to happen this way.. but it seems that the results are not going to do me much good in the end and it shouldnt have been this way at all!!
yes, i am being selfish.. and all i will suggest myself is to sleep over the issue. and tomorrow morning, i will have put all this behind and will move on ahead...
thinking deeply, i will say that i do not regret the decisions i have made. if i would have been given a second chance to change this, i wouldnt have change a thing...
things at home front are going good.. ofcourse they will go good.. until the time my ILs return! if S reads this, he will say i am being very mean and they dont 'create that much of a mess' in my life that i have to be so blunt about it.. in a way, yes, its perfectly true.. all that happens is that in the morning you get up, see that the kitchen you had gleamed spotlessly just last night, is in a mess again. milk is kept on boiling on a full flame. so is the chai brewing on the other burner. milk has been spilled a bit. then you open the fridge and see that there is already half a litre milk in there which had been boiled the previous day. but then, that has become stale and now cannot be used (in my minds eye, i see so many people across the world who dont even get to see milk, let alone drink it!). MIL is sitting in front of the preparation surface in the kitchen such that you dont have enough room to make even a cup of coffee...... you leave that thought, get going, get ready and leave the house finally leaving that steamy hot cup of coffee which otherwise you would not miss.
evening you return home.. the T.V is in full volume. ILs are shouting on top of the volume of the television set at one another.. each and every room of the house is now in a mess.. you bed has been strewn with washed clothes. so before you even sit down, you have fold them and pile them in one corner. you are wishing to have a hot cup of coffee.. to sit and relax for a while.. but then you see that it is already 7 o'clock in the evening and you have to cook a full meal. so you go to the kitchen.. first clean up, then cook the food, serve it, eat it, then clean up again. this eats up 2 hours of my time. and by 9 o'clock, i am in no mood to do anything else but to go to sleep....
weekends is no fun as well.. ILs dont like the fact that i invite any of my lot at home.. so i go out.. anyways i cant even watch T.V. on weekends, as the television set is running all the marathi channels and saas-bahu soaps.. switching the channels is strictly prohibited. so i atleast escape from cooking (mornings) on those two days. and then again, monday starts.. the same cycle does on and on and on...
yes, so S is correct.. i dont need to make a fuss out of it... they dont create any mess in my life!!
however, i might be a little biased in my belief for the way they have treated me and my family in the past. still when ILs are at home, i dont have to care about the couriers that arrive in the afternoon. i dont have to care about the timings at which my baai is going to come. i dont have to care about the LPG cylinder that comes to my home in the afternoon when I am bound to miss it. i dont have to worry about the house at all...
still i wonder sometimes.. what is better? having these many benifits along with the side effects or having nothing at all??
Debatable.. and i am in no mood to debate right now..
its 4.45 in the evening and my eyes have already grown heavy. A nice, fitful sleep, while going home.. that is what i am looking forward to now..
it was nice to write so many things after such a long time.. i should get more regular here, no?

If you think you can...

If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don't;
If you want to win but think you can't,
It's almost a clinch you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost;
For out of the world we find
Success begins with a fellow's will;
It's all in a state of mind.

Life's battles don't always go
to the stronger and faster man,
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can.

updates...

This week hasnt been that fantastic.
It didnt start that well on Monday... our canteen project was scrapped. after all this work, it was realised that we afterall might not have that kind of a budget availability. Kay was not at all happy with it. She was visibly upset over it and she didnt mind showing it too.
i, on the other hand, was not so upset when this was announced. i didnt feel this was correct though. and more than upset, i was feeling cheated and angry. and then i did what i do when i am not in the right state of mind... i kept quite.
Kay was all the more frustrated with this. I was not reacting to what was being told to us. it was a typical 'management talk' meeting. and i hadnt expected this of BB. not at all...
'your efforts will not go waste...... now we are all prepared with the ground work..... and now we will get the budget sanctioned officially for this.......'
YEAH RIGHT!!
so... this was a major blow on monday. I did cool down during the day and the next day i was completely normal. BB was trying to talk more to us during the day trying to judge the impact. but well, atleast i am an established actor in these regards, not to show my feelings or give transparency of my thoughts to anyone. and even if i did, i knew it was not going to help.
so, monday started with this and on wednesday, we had the news of our colleague passing away. the impact on everyone was ofcourse tremendous and still hasnt faded away......
one more news... RI resigned. So there are going to be a lot of more responsibilities that are going to come my way. ofcourse there is the new recruit added to our group. but still, she or me, we both are quite inexperienced to handle what RI is handling right now. No need to give us a chance.. i can guarantee we will screw it up! its a crucial job and needs atleast 8-10 years of experience in this field. So we yet do not know who is going to take his place. i just hope he is as nice as RI is. because who ever that is going to be, i will be working very closely with him / her.
Today is going to be a busy day. i have 3 engagements and all this evening. one, our college group get-together. second, sushils friends wedding and third, a play to watch at night.
and then tomorrow, at 5.30, the clock starts to run.. the 5 busy days at office begin again...

A loss....

One of my colleagues passed away. Today, in the morning we got a call saying that the doctors have given him two hours...maximum...
And 10 mins ago it was announced that he has passed away.
Reason? No one knows. He was admitted in the hospital last week for a viral infection. First was diagnosed for Jaundice, then for Dengue and then for Rickettsial fever. But, I suppose neither of these three was what he had.
What ever he had caused a multiple organ failure. He was on the ventilator. Kidney, liver, lungs were non-functional. He was unconscious. He is survived by his wife and his 8 month old son. He was just 31 years old. And he had come to work just last Wednesday.. and then, he was all well... but within a week... in a week, he is gone... he is just gone...
I didn’t know him that well. I didn’t have many interactions with him.
From whatever I know, he was a good person and this shouldn’t have happened to him and his family. His son definitely did not deserve to lose his father at such a young age. When he grows up, he wont even remember his father well. He wont remember what kind of a person he was. He will just have a photograph, framed and hung on the wall as a memory of the person who brought him to life...

May God bless his soul and may God give the strength to his family to move on…

Happy news!

Its the time where things have finally started going the correct way! (Touch wood!)
I am getting the expected responsibility in the office. i am doing a fair job. i am enjoying what i am doing. i finally feel 'set' in my career for the first time since graduation. i feel satisfied with what i have in my professional life.
On personal front, things are going good. me and S are finding enough time for each other. there are no invasions in the privacy (oh i wish it remains that way! ;))
i just got a call from S. He got his assessment results. well, he has been graded a rank higher than what he was expecting. and he is one of the few cases (who have joined recently in the company) to have got that! Oh i am so happy for him. So, tonite is going to be a celebration day. Co-incidently my maternal uncle is also in town and we all are going to go out together.
At the end of the day i am getting satisfaction of having done something valuable during the day!!
it feels good....

Updates...

Nothing has changed. Everything is normal!
We had a puja on sunday at our place. Not many people were invited. Just my parents and sushils side of the family. Sushil side of the elder family did arrive in time. The puja was planned for 12.15. It did start on time too. but the younger generation arrived just in time for ....... well.....lunch... at 2.00 p.m. they missed the puja.. intentionally or unintentionally, well, i dont know that and i dont care what the hell they do.. so, basically, you know... nothing has changed.. everything is normal.. and like a stupid person i was seeing a ray of light at the end of this pitch black tunnel.. at the back of the mind, i knew that when i would emerge out of the tunnel, it was going be a pitch black, moonless night anyways!
If i dont care about this then why the hell am i writing about it? Well, just because i want to keep this in my memory long enough because it did hurt S very much! and as i said a hundred times before, i hate seeing him hurt like that. so, thinking of some sort of vengeance.. vengeance is sweet! no?
Oh! i have become so bad!!
The accident issue is still not coming to rest. now the two wheeler person is asking for the original hospital bill inspite of the fact that we have paid it entirely. reason: he has to claim the insurance (for himself). Otherwise, he says, we will come and beat S up....
its a tough decision, but then i have decided not to relent to the request. why do i do everything that pathetic person asks? i have asked S to ignore all the calls and not talk to him at all. if it extends, we will just lodge a complaint with the police. One scratch on S, and i will make sure that man is destroyed for the rest of his life. its time probably i start trusting the police force of India and go and ask for help, the legal way!
Lets see what all happens..
Between, i got company in office. a new person just joined in my department. A female, my age, my batch (from a different college and course). No one knows whats her role is going to be. She is however on induction currently. RI is all the more confused.. he's sitting away at the other office and is totally unaware of the scene here! he shud be back this week... and then things should start to unfold.
I am a bit scared currently. there is a lot of expectation from me. i mean, people here want to push me ahead in my career. i am being trusted and given a lot of responsibilities. and that, is sort of scaring me a bit. what if i fail to satisfy all these expectations. what if i make a disaster?
God help me! when i shud be happy i am feeling sad and nervous. i think i have the illness (its some sort of depression..i dont remember the name exactly) which is mentioned in one of the Sydney Sheldons book (the other side of me) as i am showing all the symptoms (literally!!)

A project......

Here, again, i am doing projects which have nothing to do with my job profile. But, have a lot to do with my personal interests. These are the kind of projects that capture my attention instantly. Something, i really love to do...
okay, this is not something great. Actually we are planning to give our office canteen a makeover. currently, it is in a wonderful shape. but it would be so for new comers like me. for people who are seeing it for the past 11 years, it has definitely become very boring and dull and gloomy!
So, how did i get into this? actually it was across the table when we were having breakfast. there had been an audit of the canteen few days previously and it was found that there could be a lot of improvements. well, so we were eating and BB suddenly told MM that the wall between the seating area and the kitchen needs to be transparent so that the kitchen wud automatically be spick and span. so, MM suggested that we need to change the cutlery and furniture as well.... actually need to change everything..
we were 3 females sitting on the table apart from this lot and BB suddenly announced that renovation of a place like canteen is best done by ladies. So the ladies sitting at that table at that point of time got the job. it was me, k, and moe
we had our aamby valley day coming closer and we had to practice for our dance too, so we accepted the target at that time but gave a farther deadline.
Aamby valley was over and we had to act now because everyone was asking us for the status of the project that was handed over across that breakfast table!!!!
So we went on a expedition to all the canteens where our caterer serves to. and, we were depressed seeing that. we'd thought, our canteen was out of the ordinary, exceptional.. but the canteens we were seeing were far better. of course they were all just 2 years old and ours is almost 11..
anyways, so we started with a list of things we saw and some photographs to back it up. We visited 3 places that day and the last was canteen of a school called Gurukul. It was amazing! the school in itself was amazing. The facilities and also the fees are ofcourse exorbitant. its a residential school and later i was wondering if at any point of time i would be able to afford the fees if i want to send my kids to that school.. well.. may be.. hopefully..
So, after seeing the canteen and kitchens in all the areas, we started our journey back and got stuck in traffic for over an hour and a half! that was the irritating part of the day. but rest was great!
so we got a general idea of the latest trends and started renovating the canteen in our minds eye.
We made one more trip after that and went places, mostly to the suppliers seeing the various types of cutlery that would be available. it was hot. stuffy. but we had a very good biriyani that day which practically compensated everything else. Lastly we went to Big Baazar to find the largest variety. the entire day seemed waste as we realised we shud have visited big baazar first!
Anyways, so all the data gathered, we were then planning to visit Mumbai to see the crockery and cutlery because it would be around 30% cheaper there than here. but, that never happened cauz BB thought, we were breaking our heads too much on this project. So he asked us to present the data we had gathered and then hand everything over to the company who manages our canteen facilities to do the rest!
well, then armed with the rapidly made presentation we headed upstairs to show it and then came the unexpected. Phones were dialled and within a minute, all the managers in the company arrived to have a look at it. i have never seen people assemble so fast. ofcourse when the boss calls you, you better be there!
So, only the presentation done, we were not at all prepared to speak in front of a dozen others. 'Phew! alright, lets get over with it'
and then, we began. Hardly any questions, many nods, many smiles..... we were succeding..
everyone liked our ideas. appreciated what we had done. gave their suggestions and some tight deadlines too! We were ecstatic!!
one comment, 'you are really taking efforts to do all this. and you have done well. just remember that after all this is done, people will still make annoying comments'
Well, we already knew this, but we really appreciated him telling this!
afterwards, there was a definite upswing in the mood and somehow this has boasted my confidence which i had sort of lost during past couple of months.
So now, we are on mission canteen with a tough deadline to meet.
The joy of creation is lovely. we are not creating anything, its just a renovation... but... well, lets say creating a new canteen. I hope it turns out to be beautiful...
this will definitely be an experience which will teach me a lot of things and which i will remember for a long long time..

Trapped...

The silence.. the silence before the storm. That’s what I am feeling like right now.
Actually, nothing to worry. Everything is going great. But, that precisely is the reason for me to panic. Everything is going fine!!
Why have I become a moron like this?
Good question! I don’t know. I don’t know what is happening to me. There is this connection between me and badly timed depression. And it is getting stronger by the day. Every time, when I should be happy ideally, I feel sad. I feel afraid of the happiness. And I feel so angry.............all the time!
I feel like a bad person desperately trying to become a good person and inside my own head I am unable to communicate what I want, what I want to do, what I want to become, to myself even.
I feel so.............................trapped!!

Save the earth...

Please read here and join in.....
Join in On March 29th, at 8 pm in whichever part of the world you live, turn off the lights. For one hour. One single hour....
Thanks...