Happy Diwali

Happy Diwali My dear Friends
Hope this festival of lights fill your hearts and lives with light and more light, bringing you out of the darkness.
God Bless You All!

The view outside our window…

There is an empty rectangular land right across the road in our apartment. This place is always visible from our window or the balcony and has been left unattended since we came here.

Most of the time in the year, it is covered with green grass, shrubs and herbs. It has a few Eucalyptus trees in the edge, bordering our apartment and a few old houses built for God-only-knows reasons, which are half ruins now. It also has a Christmas tree right in the middle of it, but I have never seen it being decorated in any of those Christmas celebrations over the last few years.

During the winters, when the shrubs are dried up and half dead, some people with torches in their hand would come and set the entire area on fire - the shrubs, half burnt by the scorching sun burn like hay stacks. It becomes a mini forest fire, every time they do that.

Every day, one would see cattle, a bird or a couple of squirrels playing around the bushes or the roof of that nearest house in the field. There would be a regular chameleon, changing its color every time I look at it, over the boundary wall that bifurcates the two properties. It has a lovely eco system in itself and with a cup of tea, when you stand in the balcony watching these tiny world, you would feel calm, silent and happy.

And the days went by…

Today morning, there were a few people with a few more hands who inspected the entire field and they started cleaning it up. Till now, they have only cut the bushes around and the work is in progress. We are worried if this small (read Big Property) piece of land is also going to give away to another sky scrapper (what if it would be only a few storied high building) and we will lose this view and the animals leaving there – forever!

It did not occur to me, until when my wife, in the afternoon, suddenly asked, “now when the cattle return, what will they have to graze on?” And I involuntarily replied, “nothing. The cattle won’t return!”

Sad but true – once upon a time, when the apartment we are staying in was not built, this place used to be a similar place too; actually even better. We heard, there was a vine yard at this place. And now, that place has given in to a 4 storied tall concrete building, accommodating more than 200 people.

We are waiting, with a hope to be able to see the ever playful squirrels and chirping lovely birds and the horrible family of chameleons, for some more time; hope we get to stand in our balcony and count the grazing cattle, for some more mornings.

Back to the Garage...

I am back to the Garage - where it all started!

Well, I left Genpact and joined HP last week and it has been good since then. The one and half years I spent in Genpact were rewarding, enduring and a learning experience. I wish to continue working with the same vigil in this new assignment too.

Coming back to HP is like coming home. The office is far from home, no doubt, but since the fate is changing, I will get used to it too...

My old pals - many of them - are in this new office, where I joined. This feels better, when I know that I am not alone in this new unknown place. Hope this change will bring in better things in life.

Wish me luck people, as I start my new journey...

Cheers!

Gokarna – Travel Log (Part II)

Gokarna – The Stay

While walking down the stairs, while keeping an eye on the morning sea, we never thought that our stay in Gokarna is going to be that awesome! There were about 50 steps down, which reached to the sea shore – and guess what? Just there, as the stairs ended, we find the very first resort – the Namaste Café. The boundary of the resort would be no more than 25 feet from the water – believe me on that. It was literarily an ‘on-the-beach’ resort! The beach was rocky and if there would be a higher wave that breaks on those rocks, the water would splash inside the resort for sure.

We went into the resort and headed through the cafeteria towards the reception which was amongst the various rooms available in there. We enquired and checked a few rooms, which were not in a condition that we were hoping for (luckily) and declined those. Then the receptionist, far from being friendly, told hesitantly that there were a few cottages also that were available. We were asked to walk up the hill to reach to those cottages.

Not the best of lodging that you would find in similar places around the world. But having said that, Gokarna is not the costliest place too! There are mosquitoes, spiders and rats at large too, but with the experience that you will have on the beach, these things are ignorable. We already had that in mind while planning for the trip and based on that, the cottages were better off. We took one.

SPIDERS: To tell you something about the spiders there – those are not big spiders like the tarantula or something like that. I saw plenty of smaller spiders, but they are very quick. We booked the cottage and kept a pair of trousers on the rope hanging outside, in the veranda. We got freshen up, took bath, got ready and came out – in about 20 minutes – and there was that huge a web woven around the legs of the trouser, that that portion was completely whitened!

MOSQUITOES: There are mosquitoes for sure and whoever tells you that there are no mosquitoes, has not visited the place. The hoteliers will give you mosquito nets, but most of those are torn and have big holes in them. We covered that up with a cloth, lit a coil and put the fan on full speed, and that helped!

RATS: You need not be worried about rats if you are going for a short visit, for about a week or two. They stay mostly outside the cottages and if you spill food around, there is a possibility that you would see them loitering around you.

CATS: Where there are rats, there are cats too! The same is true here. There are lots of cats around. Not as many that could scare you, but enough in number to creep below your chair when you might be sitting in the veranda with a beer in hand in those slow afternoons or relaxing evenings.

There are plenty of similar resorts in Gokarna and majority of them are ‘on-the-beach’ resorts. We got in to this resort because we heard, read (and later saw) that it is one of the bests that you can get there. This resort is on the Om Beach. There are many more resorts on that beach. Moreover, there are a few more beaches, like the Gokarna beach, Kudle Beach, Half moon & Full moon (also known as Paradise Beach) Beaches. There are beach resorts all over those, except, I guess on the Gokarna beach, which is near the Mahabaleshwar temple and is considered to be more auspicious.

There are also various other inns and hotels in the city, but living in these places will not give you that ‘on-the-beach’ experience, for which Gokarna is famous.

The food at Namaste Café is also great. You will get a wide variety and I have seen people staying in other resorts having food there, with us. That is commendable indeed.

That’s all that I could recall about the stay. We will see what all are there in and around this Namaste Café in the next post. If you have any queries, please put a comment or write to me…

Gokarna – Travel Log (Part I)

Gokarna – Reaching there…

Hello, my dear readers.
This gives me immense pleasure to bring to you a description of my visit to Gokarna, a place of beaches and joy. I would call it more of a place where you go, relax, enjoy and come back with some memories that would, for sure, stay for a long time. Gokarna is a small town in Karnataka, along the coastal hilly region, unlike other coastal places in India. We went there a few weeks ago, just for a few days. I will try to put together my memories and recall the incidents that happened over that weekend, for which we were there. I am not going to write about the history or archeological importance that, without any doubt, the place has and concentrate of showing you around the place through my eyes. If you want to know more about the place just Google it or check this Wikipedia Link.

I had a holiday in office on Friday and I took one more day leave on Monday. So, we have 4 days to visit and come back. I and my wife started off from Bangalore on Friday evening. There are lots of ways to reach Gokarna, but we chose a bus ride, since they said that it is about 12 hours journey from Bangalore to Gokarna. However, upon reaching the place, we found out that it was about 9 to 10 hours journey, plus couple of hours that the bus took to move out of Bangalore. The bus ride was ok throughout as the crowd, conductor and the driver were cordial and pleasant – and horrible in the Ghat sections, where the bus was just going the slowest and driving me crazy with the hair pin turns, rough roads and rugged terrains. The moment you step into a bus to Gokarna, you are bound to find a foreigner in it. This happened both while going and while coming back from the place.

Well, we reached Gokarna at around 8 o’clock in the morning. The bus dropped us at a place from where the town starts. There were plenty of auto rickshaws waiting for the tourists there and a couple of shops, which just opened, offering you the morning tea. As people rushed towards their destinations, we thought to have tea and take it easy.

It is important to tell you here, that we did not book any hotel/resort
beforehand and looking at the crowd and their anxiety, I came to know that most
of them did the same. It was a bit of off-season, I believe and hence, I would
suggest enquiring and booking a stay before you reach the place.

After having tea, we took an auto to the ‘Om Beach’ – the place to be, while in Gokarna. The fellow took Rs. 140 to take us there. We wanted to check in at Namaste Café, a place which is talked about augustly over the internet, but less did we know where it stands. We asked the auto driver to take us to the Namaste Café and he said that it is ‘on the Om beach’ and took us there. That was a bit tricky as we did not know where to find a hotel which may be situated anywhere near the beach.

Anyways, resting ourselves on our intuition and luck, we carried on in the auto and got dropped at a place on top of a hillock. The driver said that the auto would not go beyond this point and we need to walk down a concrete staircase, which he showed to us later, to reach the Om beach. Seeing us confused, he said that once we reach the beach, which was downstairs, we will find Namaste Café and if there are no rooms in it, there are multiple other resorts, again, ‘on the beach.’ We paid him and started walking down the stairs, as we could see the morning sea to our other hand. From the top of the hillock, the driver also showed us a place from which the entire Om beach was visible – the beach in shape of an Om! That view was so soothing that the entire travel fatigue went off like dolphins in the sea water!

Oops! Did I say dolphins? Well, we will have to talk about that at a later part in this travel log. Wait and watch - more to come!

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The entire travel log will be published in parts in the coming days.
Stay tuned...

A day in my present life…

I was going through a blog today and came across a nice article. The blogger wanted to start working out and get in shape. The article was quite long and it took a good time to complete reading it. You can also read it here.

While going through, the part where the blogger talked about a day in her life attracted me and made me write this. A day in your life – how is it? How do you spend a regular day in your life? That changes quite often and for some, I agree that it changes every month, when their shift changes in office. Anyways, it has been long that I have looked back and thought something like this – my own day. In retrospect, when I look at a working day in my life, it would be nice to know. Let’s see how much I can recollect…

I start the day at about 11 AM or earlier, as I wake up. Next two hours, is the part of the day when I LIVE at home and laze around. This includes freshening up, having breakfast, browsing the internet and watching TV at times. I would like to get up and go to take bath at 1 PM, but recently, I cannot think of a day when I was able to do that. I end up leaving the computer seat by 1:30 and get into the bathroom. By 2 PM, I get dressed and almost ready for office. Within another 15 minutes, I would finish my lunch and board the cab to office. Then, till 1 AM, when I normally return home, the day slips away and the night awaits me. I get to be awake only for an hour or so, when I take dinner and watch TV, before I go to sleep. This cycle repeats when I work in this shift at office. May be things will change when I change the shift, again.

Now that I have written it all, let me read it once…

…hmm… not much happening!

I want to incorporate reading and doing some kind of freehand exercises in this regime. I want some time to write regularly too. I want some time to play on the piano and some time to just sit idle and admire the world and the happenings around me. I want some more time to… well, no point talking about that, you see. I am already running short of time!

There are many things on the cards. I hope for a better tomorrow to come – soon! Hope I will be able to make some time then and do, at least a few of the things that I want to do. Home – office – home is something that I would not have encouraged myself to do, had I been given a choice. Life has become like that and is actually a boring one.

Need to shake a leg or move a stone or two to get my life lifted to something, which I will not call a boring one… hope that happens!

I am waiting…

Carry a calm head on your shoulders

Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn't more complicated than that. It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it. ~ Sylvia Boorstein

It happens in time when you are very stressed out. There are lots of things to do and you do not know where to start. There are lots of decisions to take, and you do not know which one to make. There are lots of issues around you and you have no idea what can resolve those. Those are the times when we feel most stressed and do things that mostly sound weird, seem bizarre and are actually the creepiest ones!

What to do when you find yourself in such a situation?

Well, I am not sure myself and I am not the person (as of now) who can tell that too. But the quote above is nice and has attracted me to end up writing this.

They say, time will let you know. Yes, it will! We need to look at things that are our control and do what we can do, rather than speculating about things that are done by someone else. We have no control over that – why should we waste our energy thinking about what that ‘someone else’ can and would do, and get stressed? Let time tell.

Let us take it as it comes – this moment, this smallest unit of time is there to be lived. It may be unpleasant and unwelcomed one, but live it. Face it and learn from it, for this is all that you can do.

Global warming? I can’t help it much, other than planting trees in my back yard. Do that part, which is under your control. If it is needed to blast a nuclear bomb in some weird place of the desert to reverse global warming, certainly you yourself cannot help it. So, plant a tree; grow a herb, switch off your refrigerator when not in use and turn of the engine when you are stuck in the red light. And? And enjoy that moment, live it and learn from it.

Do not reject the moment you are dumped into. You would not have controlled it anyways. It had to come and it had – you just move on! Take whatever you would love to take from it – at least a learning that would make you know what to do the next time you experience the same situation.

Take a deep breath. Let time come to you with news, with ideas and with resolution. Do your bit religiously and with dedication. Leave all else to time and just wait and watch. I am sure there are more interesting, evolving and astounding things that are coming to you, brought to you exclusively by TIME!

Chill out and go fishing. Cheers!

Water problem in our apartment

There is no water today. There was no water yesterday, almost for the entire day. Not only in our flat, but this situation is also present in all of the flats in the apartment. It has been like this for some days now. At times, water would come flowing and then the taps will get dried up.

I talked with the supervisors here. They said work is going on and showed me a group of people working. They also added that the motor was conked out and it would take about 30 minutes to get it to working.

I was a little more curious and I was strolled down to talk to those who were working on the motor. They surprised me, when they said that they are checking if there is water in the bore well! They said that it is a possibility that there is no water, and the water level might have gone down and hence, the motor is not able to pull the water up to the tanks on the terrace. They are checking the water level and then, they might start pulling water to the tanks situated near that place, in the basement. May be from there, another pump will pull water to the overhead tanks!

I asked them how this happened. They were smiling. They said the well was not dug as much as it should have been...

If whatever they said is TRUE, then we are in huge problem. This is not a temporary problem that can be solved without digging further into the earth, to reach to a safe depth. Hope this does not turn out to be so...

Scary!

5 years of nuptial clasp

One by one, the days passed. One by one, the months passed too. And now, when I look back, I see that one by one, 5 years have passed. 5 years of love and togetherness. 5 years of my marriage – our marriage!

This day in 2007, we – Maitri Majumder and I, took our second step towards a life full of love, togetherness, gratitude, tender & care. All the baby steps that we took, during the 10 years before that date, were only to get us to this stage, in life. These years have shown us many facets of life and made us stronger and brought us closer in many respects!

Thank you God, for giving all that you have! We will always be grateful to you.

Thanks to our parents, who are, in many ways and now more than ever, pouring their blessings on us.

Thanks to all our friends, without whom, this would have been tasteless, colorless and odorless!

May God bless us with many more such stages in life. May God bless us with love and togetherness – more than yesterday and less than tomorrow!