Keeping Promises

The previous post was written on a day that changed my life forever. Its a long story....

I have been meaning to restart this blog ever since I found out last year that I was pregnant. This blog was meant to be a chronicle of my journey through this unique phase of my life. My own laziness prevented me from spelling out those ruminations. In those days, I had a lot of routine visits to the doctor and everything was going fine. January 2nd, the day I wrote the previous post was yet another routine visit. It was my 37th week and I was a day away from going on maternity leave. Soon after writing the post, I went to see the doctor. The visit was eventful because the doc found a complication and recommended that labor be induced as soon as possible. Two days later I found myself in the hospital and a day later my little baby girl was born.

Here I am five weeks later, sleep deprived, exhausted and at the brink of falling apart. Yet, I could not have been happier. She has given all of us so much joy that words are not enough to describe. It is hard to explain the feeling of knowing that a tiny person who cannot communicate in any other way but through crying is dependent on me for everything. Each cry means something different and I cannot decipher it all. Despair sets in and I try my best to help her. It works. And then when she smiles, I feel like I own the world.

I am going to call her Lio - why? That's another post. Right now, all I can say is that she is the best thing that happened to me!

I promised myself more than a year ago to get back to blogging. I even wrote a post but never posted it. This time, its is not going to be like visiting the gym five days a week for the first three weeks of the year and then forgetting it. This is a fresh start to blogging after more than two years. Life has changed a lot since the last post ~ for better or for worse, I want to chronicle it all.

New beginnings can be quiet, short and unnoticed. But as they prolong their lives, it becomes a habit that one cannot let go. That's what I want this blog to be once more.

Like the courageous little hobbit Bilbo Baggins and the ever ridiculous anti-heros of Dhoom, I promise to be back.....

The rise and rise of the shower curtain industry

The rest of the world has suffered from recession, job cuts and all sorts of miseries, but there is one industry that has quietly gone from strength to strength. The shower curtain industry. Whoever talks about their Return on Equity or Asset Turnover? Do we see their ads on TV? Do they feature in the S&P 500 index? No, no and no. Yet, this industry is booming thanks to strategic alliances, partnerships and ignorant buyers like me.

Here's how it happens. You buy a shower curtain because it looks good and because the leasing office made a surprise visit to your apartment a day after you moved in and reprimanded you for not having a shower curtain. Now, you fear another suprise visit, so you end up buying a really expensive shower curtain. Then a friend of yours tells you that you should buy a liner to protect your expensive shower curtain. You go ahead and buy that too. Observe what happens after 2 years.....

Strategic Partnership A:
In a fit of sudden philanthropy, the leasing office offers to upgrade your apartment. You get a brand new bathtub, which shines so much that you can literally see your face. You do not realize that the bathtub has been polished and so now, it is super slippery. Soon, the inevitable happens. You slip and fall while taking a bath, taking the shower curtain along with you. It is ripped apart. You need to buy a new shower curtain. The bathtub industry gets a cut from the shower curtain industry's profits.

Strategic Alliance B:
You have not been analyzing the price changes in the shower curtain industry, so you realize to your dismay that the price of your old shower curtain has now doubled. So, you buy an inexpensive shower curtain to defray your losses. Now, every time you take a bath, you look at an inferior curtain and sulk. Then a second time, you fall deliberately in your bathtub, taking the shower curtain with you. You end up buying the old (read expensive) shower curtain by paying through your nose. The shower curtain company makes 2 sales instead of one.
Then one day, a friend who has been hearing about your habit of crashing into the bathtub regularly, offers a suggestion. Buy a bathtub mat. That would save you from falling. You buy a mat. It has to match with the shower curtain color. The bathtub mat industry gives a cut of its profit to the bath tub industry and to the shower curtain industry.

And so the industry booms. And we try to learn from our mistakes....

How often has it happened to you that you are in a group of people who are so much more smarter than you are that you feel stupid? That you feel lost and are overcome with hopelessness?

Don't ever be overwhelmed by anyone. If somebody knows a few things that you don't, chances are that you know a few things which they may not know. Like making the perfect spanakopita or singing a raga perfectly or even helping strangers in the middle of the night.

The trick is to absorb the positive energy that smart people emanate. To use that energy to strive for improvement. After all, being with the best makes me better"

So long and thanks for all the fish

Good-bye sweetheart. It was nice while it lasted but all good things must come to an end. I have now found someone else.

I cannot say exactly when we first met; because I have heard my friends talk about you since time immemorial. We were those young, reckless, carefree souls in college that adored you. I never imagined that of all of my friends, you would choose me. I was very shy in those days and although I knew so much about you, I did not venture to reach out to you myself. Then one day, a friend pushed me into doing it. I simply walked into your life and asked for friendship. You took a while but offered me much more than that.

We’ve been in this love-hate relationship for six years, so it feels difficult to leave. But I have to go – its better that way for both of us. I loved you when you introduced me to new friends, your work and your life. You gave me the recognition that I had been yearning for. I felt secure because I was with you. I felt proud to be associated with you.

Sometimes we fought; over misunderstandings, over how you treated me and how you cheated on me. I felt I deserved more and you did not always think so. I used to feel stifled and you insisted that it was the best thing for me. Sometimes, you were rude to my friends, you walked out on them – it was me that was hurt.

But there were times when you showered me with gifts, took me places and let me a live a life that I had never imagined. At every step, you cared for me, ensured that I was looked after. To me, you were a parent, a friend, a lover. To me, you were my identity.

Good-bye TCS – my first job. Because of you, I have made friends for life. From being a shy insecure young girl, I am a confident professional. I loved being with you and I am sorry to leave. But life does not wait for anyone – I have moved on to greater challenges. In the coming years, I shall try to be a better person, resilient and worthy of you. Perhaps one day, you’ll find me so attractive, that you’ll want to court me back into your life. Until then, I will wait….

Living life by quarters

Some people, such as my boss, live life by quarterly targets. He knows that he needs to meet his sales targets in order to keep his job. I have no such qualms. Yet, I live my life by quarters too! Twenty five cents at a time. Five of these can give me one load of washed clothes in the laundromat. Another five can help me dry those clothes.

Ever since my room mate and I got rid of our washing machine, life has not been the same. About three months ago, both of us decided that we needed to move into a different place. The first thing we did in the pack-up process was to get rid of the washing machine and dryer. We were consigned to using the local laundromat for washing our clothes. It was temporary we thought. After all, we would move to a new apartment that would have a washing machine and a dryer. Then our plans did not work out and we stayed on, sans the washer/dryer. At first, I found collecting quarters such a tiresome activity that I resorted to washing clothes by hand (like the good old days when there were no washing machines) but I could not keep up with it for very long. Soon I had a pile of clothes and no time to wash.

Now, having exactly ten quarters every week is not easy. It means getting rid of plastic money and using cash for all your transactions. I have not done this for more than a year. It boiled down to going to the bank on Sunday morning just to withdraw money and have it changed into quarters. It meant buying coca-cola from the gas station on late nights only to ask the cashier to return all the change in quarters. It meant putting dollars in the vending machine and asking for coin return (this almost never worked).

Woe betide! One day, I had managed to collect exactly ten quarters by 11pm at night. I loaded my clothes into the machine. I was supposed to leave on a flight the following morning, so the clothes had to be washed. As I put the coins and started the machine, something jammed inside and the machine would not start. I was left with only five quarters and a choice between not washing any clothes or washing the clothes in a different machine and hunting for quarters the next morning so that I could dry them. I chose the latter. Even badly begun is half-done.

These days, I had started maintaining a quarter bucket - a plastic ice-cream bucket. Whenever I get a quarter, I drop it into the bucket. I wake up in the morning and check my bucket. If the coins are any more than 10 at least, I am happy for the rest of the day. I can spot the glitter of a quarter from a distance. I don't like the look of any other coins, I hate it when people give me 2 ten cents and a dime - I grin sheepishly and ask for quarters. In the interest of humanity, all the cashiers of my grocery who know my obnoxious habit of asking for quarters ( I do it so that I may wear clothes that do not stink!) have now started refusing me all the quarters that I ask for. I usually get 2 less than what I need. We call it the law of demand and supply.

I have realized that I am living life by quarters

A bad day in office

I lost all the games that I played on the computer. My win percentage is now at 26%

I seemed to all but lost interest in this blog that I started nearly six years ago. It may not augur well for my readers (do you exist?) and me, but I am trying to make amends. I have just quit the job that I started six years ago. It was out of boredom in office that I had decided to chronicle my life and everything surrounding it out here. This blog was my outlet, because when I looked out of my office window I saw concrete buildings instead of the great blue sky. Now that I have quit that job, I somehow feel that this blog and everything that tied me to the umbilical cord of that job are being torn away. Three of us started blogging together and two of them gave up eventually. The burden of carrying the practice has fallen on my unworthy shoulders and I find the cross heavy to bear. Hence, this reluctance to blog, to ruminate and to write.

This blog was my lifeline, but recently I found another one, a better one - a husband. And a new beginning. Not a new job, but I am finally doing something that I have wanted for the last seven years - to go back to school. In an ironic way, my posts were a constant reminder to me that life would go on..ob la di..but I was not chasing my dream. Now that it has been fulfilled, should I shut shop?

I am still wondering...

Silent Prayer for the Faith Departed

In the land of plenty, the young lord Hanuman is hoisted under the rear view mirror of a car ready to make the huge leap of faith over the G mountain. This time, he's not alone. A Toyota Camry is his vehicle of choice. Recalls notwithstanding, he thinks he can beat the sun to Olympic glory.

For want of a nail...

And so the kingdom was lost - well this sums up my story. I woke up this morning determined to eat healthy and started my day with a glass of warm water for breakfast.

Lunch time arrived, having wrapped itself in a cloudy mist of nothingness and disappeared before I could realise. I had controlled my pangs of hunger until then and eaten a very healthy meal.

By afternoon, I thought that I had been such a good girl that I could surely reward myself with a packet of baked potato chips. And so the down slide began. After an hour, I thought that a donut could do me no harm, so I ordered two - triple chocolate flavour.

Then I had a mocha ice cream shake because I wanted a drink.

Then I had a papdi chat because I wanted to eat something Indian. The papdi chat was ordered from a sweet shop and I ended up buying a few ladoos and gulab jamuns (all for tomorrow)

By the time I got back home, I thought one gulab jamun could do me no harm and ate a ladoo and a gulab jamun.

As I write this, there is still some time for dinner and I am willing myself not to eat anything more tonight.

Moral of the story: Never skip breakfast.

When you find that the janitor and you wear the same jacket to office everyday you realize that
- you live in the land of equality
- its time to increase your winter clothes budget
- you must learn to avoid the janitor's broad grin every time she looks at you

Telephonic Craper

Yesterday at work over a phone call after thirty minutes of fumbling

SR: Anwesha, why have you mentioned XXX in your document? Clearly, it should have been YYYY
Me: Er...because we thought that maybe we wanted to do XXX and not YYYY
SR: It does not make sense to me. Please discuss this with your team before calling us to a meeting. You are wasting our valuable time.
Me: Er...TM actually knows what this is supposed to be, but she is on vacation
SR: Then we'll probably have to wait for her to come back. What you are saying makes no sense

A day later. TM has been recalled from vacation

TM: Before leaving for vacation, I explained very clearly to Anwesha what was required
Me: (unmuting the phone) And I explained to SR whatever I understood
TM: okay, let's go over it again. Now SR, we want XXX and not YYYY because we want to do XXX and not YYYY. Does that make sense?
SR: (long silent pause) Yes.
Me: (having forgotten to mute the phone) WHAAAAAT? that's exactly what I told him yesterday!

Silence

I mute my phone

Silence

I glance over my shoulder. J is giggling. Obviously his phone is muted

Silence

I am oh so embarrased

SR: TM, your team members were NOT able to explain what they wanted. Now that you have explained it, I understand perfectly
TM: Oh SR! We have been working together for so long and somehow you always understand what I need. Giggle giggle smile smile
SR: Yes TM. I am glad that you are back!
Me: (phone muted) &^&%@#$!#@@#!@#@$">%^&^&%@#$!#@@#!@#@$

Spiltsville

Today, I spilled cough syrup over my dress in the morning. Most of the bottle was empty by the time I realized.

Later, I spilled super glue over my hand. The glue dried over and I had white scalds on my fingers for the better part of the day.

In the afternoon, I accidentally struck my favourite coffee mug against the sink and chipped off a portion of it.

In the evening, the pencil heel of my sandals came off while I was walking.

What's wrong with today?

Lettuce See

Is there anyway that I can differentiate lettuce from cabbage just by looking at it? May I avoid the ordeal of cooking a lettuce like a cabbage only to discover that the blasted object does not mellow like cabbage and is therefore not a cabbage? Yesterday, I spent 30 minutes trying to make a cabbage curry out of this lettuce. Lettuce stubbornly refused to get cooked. I am pretty sure that I picked this thing up from the section labeled "Cabbage" in the grocery store. Proves that even the folks who stock cabbages and lettuces everyday, cannot differentiate, leave alone lesser human beings like myself.

A Shade Lighter

My bad habit of leaning over the bath tub to apply nail polish on my toes got the better of me yesterday. The bottle of nail polish slipped from my hands and fell over creating a visual imagery of modern art on the snow white bathtub. I was aghast, but I did not despair, for I was armed with the greatest weapon known to womankind – the nail polish remover. Slowly and steadily I cleaned all traces of nail polish with the reliable bottle of acetone. Anybody who has benefitted thus and in many more ways from the nail polish remover will surely agree with me that its inventor deserves an award. Not just any award. Since, we are in the realm of inventions that have conferred the greatest benefit on womankind; I will stop short of nothing but the Nobel Prizes. According to me, the inventor of the nail polish deserves the following Nobel Prizes:

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Whoever thought that acetone could remove polish, clean dusty tape recorders and what not, must be applauded for this great discovery. This is nothing short of miraculous. A dire warning to those people who are still looking for ways to remove turmeric stains from cotton clothes, chocolate stains from the carpet and petrol stains from jeans. Perform or you shall perish!

Nobel Prize in Physics

What a simple application of Newton’s third law. For every action of scrubbing the nails, the polish wears off. How straightforward and sublime. At the same time, acetone is precious – it vanishes into thin air if not given due respect. Cover the bottle and it remains, discover it only to see it vamoose. Perhaps it is time that we went beyond the laws of gravity and relativity and graduated to exploring the laws of respectability.

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Imagine the uncle who cleaned his ancient tape recorder, the sour girl friend that changed her nail polish to brighten her mood and you have the elixir to happiness. Forget about the brain cell researches that will never finish, the path to happiness is the joy of applying nail polish remover.

Nobel Prize in Literature

Poets with happy mistresses and novelists with clean bathtubs will be inspired to compose their best when tranquility reigns supreme. And if there is anybody who should get the credit for this, it should be the muse, the great one who invented the nail polish remover.

Nobel Prize in Economics

This should be easy. If I hadn’t been able to remove the stains from my bathtub, I would have to resurface it. And resurfacing hurts my pocket and the environment (don’t ask me how). The nail polish remover will eradicate poverty among the teeming masses of people who will apply nail polish when they do not have food to eat and keep themselves distracted. Water scarcity will no longer affect us. A coat of water proof nail polish over a bucket of water will ensure that the water will never evaporate. The world’s welfare will lie in the hands of the humble nail polish remover

Nobel Prize in Peace

Judging by the high standards of the people who have been winning this prize in recent times, this is going to be a difficult decision for the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Consider this, your wife does not like the colour of her nails, she buys a shade of nail polish. She applies it and does not like this color either. If there was no nail polish what would she do? Hell hath no fury as a woman enraged. The war in Ramayana was fought because Ravana enticed Sita with an exotic shade of nail polish but could not supply her with acetone in Ashokvan when she got tired of the shade. In the light of these startling revelations, we should award the Peace Prize not because nail polish remover has actually prevented any wars, but because it has the potential to prevent wars that may occur in the future.

Amen.

Can anybody help me create a map please?

What I want is a map showing directions from location A to location B. I want the street names close to location A to be clearly visible, but the map should not be zoomed to such an extent that the highways/main roads close to A and B are out of view. I do not want any additional text in the map. The image should be self explanatory.

I am rather poor at drawing maps and pathetic with tools like MS Paint. I do not have Adobe Photo Shop and I cannot use 3D Max. So, is Google Maps the answer?


Apparently not. I tried to draw directions from the bus stop on the main road at location A to location B. I placed a pin icon over location B too. But the map is incomprehensible to a generation that has grown up with clumsy straight line maps drawn by amateurs like me. The main obstacle to understanding the map is the presence of too many unnecessary roads. Nobody wants to know whether these exist. They are a clutter. I only want to see the main roads and the streets leading to B. If this map is printed on paper, it will be visual gibberish to all but myself. Is there any other software that can help me?

More gloom

Please read the previous post.

Another call, this time at a well-appointed time, when both parties are in their senses.

Video enabled voice chat - marvel of technology. Delight and boon for the parents, bane for me.

Ma: So, I got the zardosi saree. Look (saree draped over the mater's shoulder). Isn't it a beautiful color?
AC: It looks ugly blue.
Ma: No, its Cadbury blue with golden and silver embroidery. Just like you wanted!
AC: Cadbury blue? Chocolate or Dairy Milk paper cover?
Ma: Yes, Dairy Milk paper color.
AC: You very well know, that with that particular shade of blue and embroidered silver thread, I will look like a piece of chocolate wrapped in yards of punctured paper revealing the inner silver foil.
Ma: Do you know how expensive it is?
AC: Can you please return it?
Ma: I cannot. I have got it hemmed at the ends.
AC: !!!!!!!!!! when you called me up at 6 AM the other day, you had already bought the saree and hemmed it? And still you wanted my opinion????
Ma: Do you have an opinion?
AC: Yes, I will wear only a burnt orange colored saree.
Ma: What is that color? Never heard of it. You will wear Cadbury.
AC: I give up!

Impending Gloom

Phone call from the mother at 6AM in the morning:

AC: Yawn..Heluuuu
Ma: Are you still sleeping???
AC: No, I got up an hour ago, went for a morning jog and did some yoga. Now I am taking a break. So tell me.
Ma: Okay, good. Do you like zardosi work?
AC: Whaat?
Ma: Would you like to wear a saree that has zardosi work?
AC: Yes, whatever that is.
Ma: Do you even know what zardosi is?
AC: Ofcourse, its those things where they use dollops of gold and silver coloured threads to embroider the saree, making it look like a circus tent.
Ma: And still you want to wear it???
AC: Yes, I'm going to be in the center of a circus - might as well get noticed.
Ma: Has your taste changed in the last one month? You always liked drab and dull colours!
AC: You were the one to call me up at 6AM in the morning to ask.
Ma: I only wanted to make sure.
AC: YES YES YES. I WANT ZARDOSI.
Ma: You have changed so much.


Click on the other side. Line goes dead.

I have been delightfully lazy and deliciously lax about posting on this blog. However, life has not exactly been uneventful.

The mouse incident tormented us for almost a month. Like their human counterparts, American rats are extremely persevering and clever. So much so, that my rat (yes! I have become possessive about it!) evaded rat traps, consumed my biscuits but avoided the rat poison. When it did not find any food in the kitchen, it vented its anger by chewing the insulation in my oven and made my kitchen very very messy. Like a true jungle animal, the rat also marked it territory by leaving its droppings around a section of the living room. Ugh! Why am I discussing this? I finally exploded and spoke to the apartment manager. I do not know what he did, but within a week’s time, there was no trace of the rat and my food was safe once more. Moreover, he even called me up to inform that the rat had been captured. Say, it takes an American mind to catch an American mouse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, I have been trying to lose weight without any success. The parents and I have been visiting all sorts of places and the part of travelling which scares me is taking photographs. My face resembles a carved pumpkin in all the photographs and the losing weight may show a 'Ray' of hope. So, armed with a TV channel guide, I have selected a time when ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ is aired and visit the gym to burn a few calories while gaping at Ray Romano and his extended family. Working out takes a back seat but I enjoy my thirty minutes to mind refreshing comedy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Pardesi pardesi jana nahi. Mujhe chhod ke…” – only these days I sing the same song substituting the word ‘Pardesi’ with ‘Desi’. I have posted ads all over the Internet looking for a “female” flat-mate. I am not racially prejudiced, but I would prefer an Indian female, because of the cultural familiarity. Unfortunately all the responses were from “male” desis and even a few “pardesi” males. None of them had any issues rooming with me and for a while it seemed as if I was being very fussy, considering that I was faced with a plethora of choices. I finally managed to attract an Indian family who wanted the entire apartment, or so I thought. Just when I made all arrangements to move out to a different accommodation, they backed out of their plan. Sigh sob. Is there anyone out there???

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pesky, irritating office colleagues are getting increasingly curious about my personal life and where I see myself a month from now, three months from now, one year from now and for eternity. I believe this is a clear indication that a) they do not have enough work to occupy their time b) they have exhausted all their curiosity about the rest of the lambs in office and have finally turned to me c) they don’t think I am capable of carrying a conversation about any topic which may be of general interest. That does not augur too well for me, so I have decided to make the best $33 investment of my life. I am joining a speaking club, so that I can learn the art of talking back to the curious gawkers and nosy parkers who want to know what size clothes my teddy bears wear. I shall be quick to answer and my witty sarcasms shall be the byword of the office. Beware!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More on pesky colleagues, but this time he has made life unbearable for me even without speaking to me. A certain gentleman who sits in the cubicle across the aisle speaks English with an accent that is simultaneously horrible and fake. What’s more, he speaks very loudly over the phone and he seems to be on the phone all day. He claims to be a DBA (database administrator) but I have never seen or heard him do anything remotely related to work. To my embarrassment, I discovered that he speaks my mother tongue Bengali and I can follow every word of his conversation. I have let it be known that I speak and understand Bengali, but I don’t think he cares. So, by now I know everything about the ongoing divorce of a friend of his. I know how he and his wife feel about it. I also know that he thinks he is the soul of a party because every Thursday he calls up every Bengali denizen in town and plans a get-together with them. Sometimes I wish I could gag him up and leave him in the janitor’s room where he would be discovered after a day.

Life is not good to a girl…….

The Undiscovered - Part 1

When Douglas Adams claimed that rats were the most intelligent of all species and that humans were mere subjects of a massively big experiment to find the answer (42) to the ultimate question (no one still knows what it is) he was absolutely right. Rats are a menace. They are cunning, scheming, opportunists and they never forget. I have lived in wooded areas all my life and have had to deal with rats, mice, moles and their cousins gatecrashing into our house everyday. Whenever I am asked to recall the most horrifying scene of my life, I always talk about the huge mole that darted across my study room just as I was about to go for dinner. My father once called a few men to help clean the house. They brought down the TV carton from the loft. I was ten years old then and was watching them as they opened the carton. One mouse after the other kept popping out of the carton. Illegal immigrants, living without visas, they took little time to run away. My uncle-the fearless was once bitten on his foot by a rat in a hotel sometimes in the Garwal district of Uttaranchal, while he was on an office visit. He refuses to go there anymore. My mother vividly recalls that a rat ran across the bed one morning, stopping to check if her toe smelt of food. In short, we have lived most of our lives in mortal fear of recessions, bombs, religious riots, power-cuts, water scarcity and rats.

Some time ago, when I moved to a place half-way across the world. I thought the rats would carry on their nefarious activities at any place in the world but this. After all, immigration laws are really stricts and no one can escape from taxes. I heaved a sigh of relief and slept well at night. Until last night. Shifting noises from the kitchen closet and unusual sounds made me nervous and doubtful. I decided to indulge in guerilla warfare and hid in my bedroom all night, having made sure that I was locked safely in. This morning, as I checked cautiously, I realized that the enemy had left behind his marks. The room was infested with droppings. Things were lying upside down and the sack of rice..oh grief! The kitchen closet is well, a small room with a washing machine and a dryer. The closet however is generously endowed with lofts and storage areas. In one of these lofts, my parents came up with the brilliant idea of establishing a mini-temple. And who should live in the temple but Lord Ganesha! Ma and Baba have energetically argued that when Ganesha is around can a mouse be far behind? I have tried to point out the 20lb sack of rice that has been strategically placed near Ganesha and bears cut marks now, but my words have fallen on deaf ears. A search is on for a brave heart who will bell the cat..er rat. The fear has come back to haunt us.

To be continued....

Working Hard