Ajji

She had 11 grand children. 5 grandsons and 6 granddaughters... but she always believed it was a mistake. 1 girl was to be a boy.Me. And she was not very discreet in making her opinion known.. Every time I would walk, she would say, I walk like a boy-"rough".. My way with my hair, boy-cut always.. and my clothes (nothing irritated her more than this.. not even my hair).. and add to it the fact that my mother had a bad time when she was expecting me (a supposedly sure sign of me being a boy!) Yes there was a mistake. She was to have 6 grandsons and 5 granddaughters. She was the single most worried person about my marriage. Even now, when she couldnt talk and was critical and had to write on a slate even for water, she wrote asking about my plans of marriage! Such was her dedication towards the topic of marriage and children. and not just of her own but of her neighbours, her cousins, her students, their cousins and their neighbours and everybody human in this world.. When I quit Infosys, she called me up to threaten me not to quit till I get married. When I was a part of the boat club she would scold me for being into a sport so 'non-girl like'. Our whole family revolved around her and going to Mama's place will never be the same again without her constant frustration regarding the colour of my dresses and my hair. She will be missed by the students who still came to her with scholarship math problems She will be missed at every wedding that will happen in our family (she used to have a very special glow when she would be attending any marriage :) She will be missed by all the jewellers in Jalgaon (she was oh-so-fond of jewellery) She looked beautiful when she went. Completely at peace with herself and the world. May her soul rest in peace..

Jung personality test result

"Questor". High capacity for caring. Emotional face to the world. High sense of honor derived from internal values. 4.4% of total population. Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

Inspiradora

Courage to teach

I have somehow always managed to remember mother's day-thanks to all the hype and hoopla that preceeds it, but somehow, due to some wierd reason or the other, i always happen to remember father's day till the day before, but forget on that very day! this is what happened yesterday too.. and our stupid newspaper guy did not drop the newspaper too (else i am sure it would have had enough reminders in the paper) so well, here is for my him - As a kid i remember, he would make us read the newspaper, one fine day he would suddenly ask, so whats today's headline, for the start? and we would all look blankly at him, murmur some replies n get spanked from him. what is the big deal we would say.. but i know the value of it today. As a kid i remember, when he would scold me for not being polite to guests, I would hang my head and not look at him, hating him at times for these stupid things.. what is the big deal I would say.. but i know the value of it today. As a kid he would sit by me, till i finish my plate of all the things i hated to eat, i would then throw a fit and shout and cry, why do i have to eat what i dont like? there were times like these when i feared him, when i loved my mom much more than him, when i thought he loved me less, when i thought he was downright heartless, i know his soul must have bled, to know what his children thought of him, but that did not prevent him from being him, coz he wanted to prepare me to become me.. he knew the tough way was the right way indeed.. and feared he not to take it in his tread.. all i would say is thank you dad for for never giving up on the jerk that i was and thanks for having the courage to teach me, in the best possible way that there was... i know the value of all the spanking i got from you today.. hope you had a happy fathers' day. your stupid daughter

To Mr. Nishit Pillay,

You dont know me, but I know you pretty well. So, before you start wondering what all do i know about you, let me tell you, we still have not had the time to sit and 'discuss' you. But i somehow know you coz you are Mr. raji and we have discussed Mr. Raji at length many times before. There was one question that haunted us 'ek insaan ke saath zindagi bhar kaise reh sakte hai!!' but now that raji has decided that she wants to be with you zindagi bhar - there has to be something about you. yeah and of course - you have to feel utterly superlatively privileged that she has decided so. I mean really.. Hope you do realise that you are one damn lucky guy :) However here are a few things i need to warn you of - Your life will never be the 'sane' again.. really. You outta get accustomed to insanity now. n i mean it. - The knowing raji process is going to take years! and that is what will keep your life full of surprises for long - She can be utterly cruel at times. but when she comes around being cruel,she will be a double sweetheart.. :) so remember this always whenever she is being cruel (will make your suffering easier) - last but not the least, She will always keep getting sound(?) advice from the likes of us. So i guess i must warn you of us too So all in all Mr. Nishit Pillay, you have chosen to love one of the most awesome persons i have ever met, your life will be very beautiful now on.. so get on with it.. and enjoy it totally.. Congratulations to you :) God Bless..

Great Food, AC and weekends…

Three things I like about being in an MNC. Food. Doctor, Me and Meeta never spare an opportunity to boast about the way this company keeps us well fed… Then there is the AC. I know you would say, what is the big deal about the AC? But honestly, for someone who is not used to the Mumbai weather, an AC is the most beautiful thing that happened to human civilization... And then there are the weekends! Infosys taught me to appreciate weekends a lot. Weekends are like a weekly festival . They motivate you to work through the week. And here, with its 5 day working week, makes me love it all the more... Add all these together, plus good pay, nice work culture and there is nothing that you would not like about it! BUT… Yeah there is a ‘but’... I still can’t get over the corporate phobia. I cannot work in a corporate setting. Despite the AC. Despite the weekends… (Anyways what are weekends? The very fact that people look forward to weekends – despite good food, despite AC - so eagerly, proves the quality of work they get to do) Reason 1: The Boss Yes the primary reason for I not wanting to work in a corporate is the ‘boss’. I don’t like bosses. I just don’t. I don’t like to take instructions. I don’t like to prove myself to someone. I don’t like someone assessing me, apart from me. I don’t like the way people work here – to please the boss, to get noticed by the boss... to prove it to him that you are worthy (of what I don’t know)… Reason 2: 8 hours People work here. They really do. But whatever work I do can be very well done in 4 hours instead of 8. Then why can’t I do it in 4 and then be free for the rest of the day? Why do I have to be here for 8 hours, even though there is not enough work to fill the 4 extra hours? Ans : the boss – to prove it to him that you are there. Working(?). That you are there shows you are committed to your work! (???) I fail to understand the logic (if there is any) behind this. I want to do a lot of things in my life. Work will be a part of it too. Those things are equally important to me. Not more. Not less either. If I work efficiently, and finish all my work in 4 hours, and then give the rest of the time for my other interests, does it by any way show my lack of commitment to work? Reason 3: work In Infosys I did testing, documentation etc. Here too I do that. I guess almost 50 % of my work here is an ‘insult to my intelligence’. When I say this, I know people in love with the corporate would argue saying, ‘that’s ok’, ‘taken’... ‘You can’t possibly get everything....’ But well… I do want everything. I do want to use my complete intelligence and yes I do want to stretch my abilities – by abilities I don’t mean my time management abilities or my documentation abilities alone.. I believe I can do work which is more intelligent. So all in all, my last efforts to fall in love the corporate culture seem to be going down the drain too. I really really had hoped I would like corporate somehow – as much as my mom would like me to like this coz she is scared of the one question that I am scared too – ‘If not corporate then what?’ And the weird answers that I give her for this question frighten her! But guess she will have to live with her fears… Corporate still doesn’t seem to be for me... PS: Any efforts by anybody to prove me wrong above are sincerely welcome.

Miss being homesick

this is what happens when you stay away from home for so many years.. you forget to get homesick at times. I mean if my summers would have sent me to gurgaon or Kolkata, i would have been hostelsick, collegesick (i know surprises me too..) but not homesick. it is wierd but it is as if there is no particular place i belong to.. no particular people i am used to. it is me, me and only me who is constant.. the rest keeps on changing.. movin.. 7 years 7 hostel and innumerable different people.. gues ultimately a stage has come when any type of constancy in my life makes me feel uncomfortable.. It makes me sad. Have I come so far away from home.. that it makes me homesick nomore? that i actually miss being homesick! I so wanna be homesick again...

In wasteness lies the beauty of life...

"There are some people who fake it, some people who try too hard to make it yet there are very few who really live it.."

This priceless quality of wasteness, in today's world of competition and perfectionism, is rare.

Being a waste simply means doing only the minimum (or even lesser) required in any situation.

Be it anything..

Now that is where the whole trick lies.

A waste, over the years, develops his instincts to such a degree that he can simply sense danger.

In any situation, a waste will keep going down n down till he smells danger and there he stops.This is the 'minimum effort level'..

And needless to say, to develop this instinct/skill is the toughest part of being a waste.

That is why some people never make it to even fake it....

A waste literally lives life 'on the edge'. When a waste does only the minimum, he barely keeps himself out of danger. He stands exactly on the periphery. It is on this periphery that each an every ounce of his effort makes a real difference. And this is exactly what the waste really really enjoys!

It is at this edge that waste gets the highest ROTI (Return on his time invested).

He laughs at those people who strive too hard to stay within the safety limits.

He simply sees no sense is putting efforts to be in the safety zone, coz the ROTI on that effort is certainly much too low!

He prefers to use it instead for some other activity. Pleasure is also a return.

He gets a better return on his time thereby. So after doing the minimum to keep himself out of trouble (but not in the safety zone), he invests the rest of his time and effort in having fun! He will do all those things that others will not, coz they are too busy fighting to get inside the safety zone! But remember, insuring yourself, reduces the return big time.

And that is where the wastes triumph and the others lose.

Of course very few apart from the wastes themselves realise understand this philosophy and therefore are blissfully unaware of the opportunity cost of their overpriced safety.

Of course a few privileged people like me, who get to work with the wastes, realise the magnificence of this simple philosophy. This is when the wasteness is said to have rubbed off onto them too.

However, there is a continuous struggle between the waste and the non-waste, especially when they are to work on the same thing. This is where the genuineness of the waste is tested.

With two entirely different philosophies at work, one can imagine what would happen of the work!

In this quest, the non-waste puts in his best effort to do the work his way. To do so much that it is well inside the safety zone, and pushes the waste to do so too.

A fake waste will give in at a point in time but never a genuine waste will succumb to it...

In fact he will show the non-waste the fun in keeping things ‘on the edge’. Of course, the non-waste will refuse to acknowledge it at first, but over the time, the true and genuine beauty of it will dawn upon him in full measure!!

It is at this point that the waste has his laugh....

When he sees that he has managed to show a person a more fun way to live life..

When he realises that he has proved it yet again that......

... In wasteness lies the beauty of life

Any resemblance to 'The Waste', who i have been working with since the past 1 yr, who gave me a learning experience not in how to do things, but why it is best at times to not do them, is not coincidental...

Seriously a 'niche' lesson that was I must say... :)

friends

I wrote about my teacher, i wrote about my parents.. i wrote about my life and my God.. I did not write about my friends.. Wherever i went, i have always had friends who were classified crazy.. and 2 gems in this category are Neha n Raji (names have not been changed to protect identity coz honestly, they take pride in being called mad..) Whenever i write a post on my blog, i wait for raji to comment.. and the last post i wrote, i got pure gaalis for my post.. her perennial conundrum has been, why do you think so much? why? why? why cant you simply be happy? and i tell her i am.. but the poor female worries.. and then takes a promise from me that i would write a happy post.. i thought i will write a post dedicated to this crazy female called raji... i though of what had we shared in those almost 10 yrs that we have known each other, and i am amazed it has been only 2 yrs that we have really been together! i mean after that it has always been a long-distance relationship ;) but what a relationship it has been.. we have shared innumerable secrets.. and coz these things cant really be put on a blog, i will write of the other things that we have shared - crushes... (yeah i know raji will say i stole the idea.. ) We, alongwith 5 other girls in our class in JC had a crush on 1 guy.. imagine 7 girls, 1 guy... we did all sort of crazy things, right from signing on his roll no everytime attendance passed our bench first to downright adam-teasing at times.. we would fight to park our bikes next to his, and we would at length discuss him right in front of him! Today when i look back i wonder, why exactly him?? i mean really.. he is so dumb!!! but naah at that time, it was 'him' all the time.. i remember when one day raji saw 'dumbguy' with his girlfriend and came us told us, all so dramatically and we were all so heartbroken... :) not that we gave up on him.. but still.. and then one fine day, there was this another fellow.. honestly he was the most handsome guy we had ever seen in our college.. and he always wore clothes in the combination of 'blue and white'.. and contrary to our 'mr.dumbguy' this guy was damn smart.. 'blue n white' knew exactly how handsome he was and therefore was a snob.. there was this once when i was going on my bike with mom sitting wid me, and 'blue n white' crossed us.. and boy oh boy, i kept looking at him till my mom had to tap me from behind n tell me to 'look in front while riding' we were so mad that we would, during the 12th paper, run to his classroom to have one look at him, for good luck!!! :):):) i mean really, for all the good luck that he gave us, he passed 12th std with 45% :) and then to continue the streak of craziness in my life there came neha.. now she deserves one (or in fact more) entirely different post(s) altogether in my blog... its been wierd but it is as if our lives are linked.. me, neha and raji.. whenever i want some (un)sound advice, i can count on these two.. whenever i want someone to assure me that what i am doing is not bad, i call up these girls.. they are exactly those friends who will stand by me when the whole world will shun me coz i am doing something stupid.. and surprisingly, we always find ourselves going through similar phases in life! i therefore pray that these two girls be forever happy, (for my sake)... I have marofied a lot of senti to neha, when we left coep hostel, i mean all that rona-dhona and senti gifts and cards and what not... to tell her what she meant to me n what she will continue to mean... but i never really got an opportunity to do so for raji.. not that i intend to do so now, but yeah all i say is thank you both of you for adding the widest and the brightest streak of craziness in my life, it scares me to think that without you, i would have been a completely normal female!

I would have been...

I do not know how many people experience this.. you do things coz u feel it has to be done, that it is the only right thing to do, coz your heart tells you so.. and then you sit back, to analyse why exactly did your heart say so! and now that you have listened to it, and acted the way you have, will you ever regret being impulsive? This is exactly what i am doing now. Was just going through the album of a friend in IRMA. And as it always happens with me, I realise that i would have been there. In those photos. standing with my arm around smriti... outside the mess, cutting cake for someone's bde.. I would have had a completely different set of friends. Life would have been so so different. Just 1 decision. and there r loads to come. Scares me to think "now i am going to make decisions bout my life.. and it is going to go the way i make it go!!!" damn damn scary. one decision and here i am @ bajaj. What made me take this decision? i must confess, it was impulsive. My logic said stay, do not go.. my heart said go... it was as if it said "Go... u dont know what is there.. i know better.." I wondered how could that be possible, but i did not argue. coz i have stopped arguing with my God. but i know i still have not come to accept his absolute supremacy in terms of my decisions. even while coming to JB, i fought.. i gave my sound logic of how it would surely help me better if i stay back.. in the long run... but still it said.. "go" and here i am. if i would have not come to JB, i would have looked at the website and wondered, well i would have belonged here.. i would have though of mumbai and would have thought.. hmm... 1 decision and i would have been in mumbai... now, for every decision i take, will i be going through this depressing process? yes it is depressing. will it so happen that one fine day i will be so happy with my life that i will look back upon something i gave to be whereever i am and say "hmm... oh thank God, otherwise i would have been there!!!" will it become so routine to make big tough decisions that i will actually stop getting into this process of looking at where i would have been had-i-taken-that-rather-than-this?? I do not know. Landmark forum told me to be into the decision that i took coz i took the decision. but it gets tough. you really cant help but wonder "what if...?" today i wonder, "what made me give up AI?" i say again it was God who told me... he dint say no.. but he dint come alongwith me. This one decision was the toughest one in my life... uptil now. 25 days of turmoil. sleepless nights.. depressing mornings and listless days... and then one day he told me he aint thinking it is a good idea. and there it was! oh so clear! he dint say take this up.. he said dont go for it. and i did not. uptil now, i have never regretted any decision my God took for me. and i sincerely pray, i never ever regret this one too... lot at stake, left a lot... a dream washed away.. a dream given up on... in the hope to create something more beautiful, in search of new dreams, new wishes to ride upon. the path is dark, unknown and hard, the road more travelled though it is, my dream is distant and blurred.. dunno where i am heading towards, dunno where i go from here.. but my God has told me to do this, and that is what i have done, laid my faith totally onto him.. the day he disappoints me, there wont be any me..