Back and how???

Seriously I have no idea why it never struck me that I even had a blog for the past one year. And having a job is the lamest of all excuses I can claim. And now jotting down something now just for the sake of having 2011 on my archives, Shame on me. But I sincerely apologise my bloggie dear for having let her not be a part of my life this year.

Anyhoo..life this year has been a rollercoaster ride. Faced its ups and lows. Went through all kinds of emotion. Pretty much like every year. And this May marked a year of loving and caring, fighting and apologising, getting onto each others nerves, of being me and A together. And this is December, so this is 1.5 yrs, next May it will be 2 and the one after that.......just kidding. (you really think I have gone out of touch...me too). Anyways the best part of coming-back-now is that I am now thinking in terms of words, just like ol' times. Getting into the groove.

So this post is all about updates, crisp and clear.

Since the last post, I went on from jobless to jobful. Again. On the other side of the counter of bank. Yep, I am now a "Banker". Enjoying all the laziness and uneargerness of a clerk. Just the way I wanted. March saw KK and Kamini getting married. So we are roommates now (before you think anything else, just reminding you that our husbands have gone sailing). April saw Roger coming into our lives and sharing a space with Richie. Both don't realise that they are Dachshunds, and bark as if they are Bulldozers. I guess, by now A is really convinced that I can look after a dog, his biggest passion. I dread his dream of opening of a kennel with a minimum of 10 dogs.

And yeah of course April was also the month of accident. A suffered a hairline fracture while I being on the 'lighter' side had a parabolic fall, thus making me less prone to injuries. My specs, our phones escaped the tragedy but my heart-shaped white gold ring didn't make it. May...I told you already. June..nah nothing special.
Things after July has been monotonic. Just the job and a few outings. Not that I want to have another accident and get bedridden, but its so boring. Boring....may be not. Yeah, I do have a boss I could loathe about. Some unique colleagues. More on them in my forthcoming posts. Watch out for more.

P.S. :- No time for rechecking the grammatical mistakes.

P.S.S:- I am still wondering how many of fav bloggers have reduced their writings or completely stopped it. I'm waiting for Shanu's. Want more from Lakshmi, Dhanya, Jibu and everyone. Please write more, you guys. Neha you are doing splendid dear. :)

P.S.S.S :- Still to learn about the new Dashboard.

2009 : A Recap

Year end is my most favorite part of the year. Coz it's this time when almost all the channels and newspapers review the year's happenings and I get to learn the events I missed out. And the most interesting part, they also review the films of the year. Somehow, all are fun.

2009: My Life
Jan-June was the perfect half of the year. I had loads of money eventhough I spend less. (Believe me, I am last kind of spendthrift you want to meet). Had lots of fun. Writing many bank tests, never clearing one. Shuttling between Bangalore and Palakkad for t-interviews. Forum was a perfect locale for t-intrvws, hanging out, movies etc etc. Everytime when we used to go to Forum and see very cute guys I used to wonder, "why is that no good looking guys come for my t-intrvw". Somehow I always used to land up with someone who has height issues or be not my type (as in looks). May be marriage wasn't my cup of tea, I thought. I haven't seen any other girl working so hard to get married. But only one thing kept me on- There's only one life and as far as I'm concerned I'm not going to marry twice, so the decision has to be a full-hearted one, something I won't regret later.
July-Dec, I knew what was it like to be jobless again. My new arena was CAT. Meow. While I was getting coached, there was parallel search for a spouse. And it all ended in September. And it was all sudden. Got engaged in Oct. After that it has been a monotony of exams. But it was during this year I lost a person close to my heart. My Grandma. It was a wednesday when she left us. And the wednesday previous to that was the day when I visited her. Even when I was sitting in the bus after hearing the news, I imagined that when I reach there, she will be there to greet me as always. You haven't gone Ammamma, you are there in my heart and my thoughts and you'll always be there.

2009: The world around me
Every article I read about the calendar events of 2009 had a significant portion for Obama. WTF. Its ok to say he got elected as the 44th President of the US of A, but then you can't comfortably forget the Manmohan Singh Govt. was re-elected in April. I just have to remind these guys that Obama is the Pres of USA not of the world. Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize. What for? For having "Change" as his Campaign tag. The nominations for Nobels are done in Feb and I can't stop wondering what this guy did for the one month he was in the post which earned him the nomination. May be I should also get a Nobel, I have been running a frigging blog for over a year now!
Berlin wall's 20th anniversary. Do anyone care eventhough everyone knows that the wall is still erect in the minds of Germans. Asterix became 50. So did Kamal Hasan (50 years in Cinema). I kinda started admiring him a lot these days.
This year saw a lot of deaths. Michael Jackson passed away. I still remember the way I sat for hours infront of the TV not believing he died. The void created by his death would never be filled. Great actor like Nagesh and so many veterans of Malayalam film industry passed away. The death of YSR also shocked me. During the two-day search operation, I was hoping the search squad would find him alive.
Indian cricket is all being prasied for their top spot in test cricket. I still can't understand what the fuss is all about. There are only 10 countries which play cricket and you're making a big deal of it. F**k. Roger Federer earned his 15th Grandslam (Whatever!). All I'm missing is Rafael Nadal's magic in the clay court.
Copenhagen summit was the top-flop of the year. Hundreds of dignitaries landed in the city for the summit in their separate jets, which naturally added to the pollution level. No legal binding and kill Kyoto was the main agenda which most of the countries totally agreed on. India said it would reduce some pollution level by 20% and wouldn't allow any supervision of any sorts. US in return showed some old stats and said it would also reduce the levels. When the mathematicians calculated the stats later, they found that the Americans had proposed a 4% reduction while they actually had to reduce 40%. Funny, Copenhagen also had groupism. Many countries had secret meetings on the final days. Now we have a BASIC four- Brazil , South Africa, India and China. Next year you can expect some fantastic five, sagacious six too.
Ajmal Kasab has learned the tactics now. He's now playing with Indian Judiciary. He says he hasn't ever seen an AK47 in his life. "Thanks, yaar. We know it was your ghost who posed the CCTVs with an AK47. "

This is not the end of the recap...the flashback will continue.

Its one whole year.... and I'm all happy

Nov. 6, 2008 :
As any other day, I am sitting in one of the invisible corners of the ODC. Chatting with Pattar as usual. We 3, Ammini, Blore and me, were allocated 3 different systems. We are done with the trimurthi mail of the day. Phase 2 of the internal project had started and it was the demo time. Which meant a whole lot of free time for the new project mates. Ammini was with Oku and Blore googling. It was only a few days before, I came to know that blogger can be opened in the office. I had started scribbling on my previous blog. "But I need a new one. A fresh start, so to say". I told Pattar.
Even the name of the new blog should be different. Something that conveys about me.
"The Desultory Mind", said Pattar.
"Hmm... thats a nice one. I think I'll give it a shot", says me.
But what to write. Not politics and Not movies. May be later on but not the first one. Introduce myself? Who the hell am I to do that? Besides, nobody is going to read it, then what is the need of an introduction. Evenmore, I have done that in my earlier blog and that's enough.
Then. I remember one thing. How much I hate Bangalore, its climate. I sneezed. Thats a good start. I can go on and on on that topic. Sigh.

The very first thoughts...

*The very first picture that comes to my mind everytime I hear Bangalore is the one in which I, Amma, Achan and bro were standing infront of the Christ College and two girls passed us. One was in mini-skirt. The other one in a red top and trousers. That is the first I saw mini-skirt live. I had been to Delhi and Chennai a lot before this but never saw someone wearing mini-skirt to college. (This happened back when I was in my 10th grade.)

*The day we reached Bangalore. We went to shop some regular stuff. At the shop, we asked, "Bhayya, dress clips hain ?". Bhayya replied, "Dress clips alle? Ithu mathiyo?"(Dress clips na? Are these enough?). We literally frowned!

* Crossing the signal infront of Forum, we noticed some guys. When we walked past them, they giggled "Kollaamketto"(Nice ones!!). It was we who used to say that dialogue when we were in Hyderabad. That reminds me, we are in Bangalore, an extended Kerala.

And hence Bangalore Times.

P.S. :- Its been one year and so many things have changed. Even my attitude towards Bangalore. I love the place because of the nostalgic memories it is associated with. I still hate the climate though.

While I Pen Down My Year- Habsiguda Dreams (Dedicated To Lallu And AM)

I have been slow on blogging for a few days, bcoz I found no topics around me that much interesting. While my problem was finding good topics, but our Obamamol had no problem in creating new and baseless stories. You can read more of such stories in kelly's life. One thing that makes me awe her is her creativity, the pace at which she creates stories and link-ups. If only I were her, my blog wouldn't have been so stale.

Its the year end and I am going home for christmas and so here are the few days I get to bid bye officially (in my blog) to 2008. Even though I will back on 30th, but party-sharty karne ka time hai... blogging ka nahi. And this is a year and not just a day or a week to bid bye in just one blog. This is the year when I had transformed totally from a student to a professional, when I earned money and gave my first salary to my parents with great pride, when I was benched with my talent, when I started blogging, when I made friends for a lifetime and a year when my dreams became sky-high.

I travelled through the limits of Hyderabad. Stayed in atleast 3 places there. Hanged out in most of the possible places in Hyd. And then ofcourse, we came to Bangalore and doing shopping every weekend(ofcourse it is a credit card shopping, who got the money to shop in debit). I think I am in the making of a shopaholic.

The golden era of our Hyderabad life started of at Habsiguda. Even though most of our batchmates were staying at Paigah Colony, we five of us found this hostel which was very close to our training centre. Me, Blore, Aanakutty, Lallu and AM. AM was our collegemate (whom I had never seen at college) and Lallu belongs to my hometown. Lallu was in her post wedding days and was a lady "devdas" of being separate from her husband. But nonetheless, she was not a married girl who would always be in phone and won't enjoy with us. We never had the feeling that she was married and not "free " as we are. Most of the boys in batch including Paachu fell in love with her at first sight , they were so dissappointed when they came to know about her marriage.

I won't ever believe that AM is a grown up girl. Everyone in her batch compares her with the character of Revathy in Kilukkam. She fells flat when she sees chicken (Poricha kozhide manam!!!!!!!!!). The best part of our stay at Habsiguda was that we never had any problem in adjusting with anyone. We just blended with each other like coffee powder in hot water(Sorry Guys, I didn't get any other anomaly). The Secuderabad city was atleast half an hour from Habsiguda, but we managed to go there most of the weekends. Thats where I learned the abcd of shopping, General bazaar being our usual destiny.

Even movies were something everyone loved. Me and Lallu used to watch movies in her lappy. She has a good collection of dvds with her. We loved to dine at Suruchi, have snacks from Baker's Chariot. Last year we celebrated Christmas and New Year by buying cake from Bakers. It will be one of the most remembered New Year parties in my life. We threw cake over each other and danced all night with other hostelmates. Really a golden day of my life. :-)

When we moved from Habsiguda to Dorms,we five were in five different rooms, but still we were inseparable. We used to get together very evening to have dinner and then sit in front of the reception discussing different things. More than we knew about our batch, we knew what happened that day in Java batch(Lallu and AM were trained in Java, we 3 in dotnet), what all PJs were told that day and so on. We used to have a round table conference. Colonel, Tuttu and Ramettan also used to be there. I remember when one day Colonel had 3 rounds of meal in dinner during that conference, 1.when he came alone, 2. when we 3 came and 3. when Lallu and AM came to cafeteria.

I still remember the day when we made Deeps tease Colonel by making her sing "Pavizhamalli Poothulanja..."(Deeps is from N.India, so doesn't know Malayalam). Also we assigned more than two boys to a girl or its better to say, more than two boys were interested in the same girl. Colonel was after a girl who looked too gud, but for her smile. And then he again got hooked up with someone in Gym. Thats how he also became known as "Gymman".

:-) Those used to be the "THE DAYS". All I wish is to live those days once more. There are so many things to write about the year and the life in hyderabad. Watch out for more.

Wazzup Blore!!!

After having tea from the cafeteria, me, Blore and VP (I am renaming you-know-who) went to the 4th floor for signing out for the day. As usual the papers were with RB. Don't mind, this is the system that is followed here in our Company- sign-in and out in papers. Ok! before going any further, let me first explain the situation in our office. We work in shifts. Me, Blore and Ammini are in the morning shift and the rest of the beauties in our hostel(this doesn't anywhere mean we 3 are not beautiful) are in the afternoon shift. There is lack of systems (computers) in our ODC and this is the reason why we are working in shifts. But fortunately, since my system doesn't have its counterpart in the afternoon, I continue to sit till 7 pm. And basically my only enjoyment in office is blogging and our Trimurthikal's mail. Even today we launched a mail voicing against the atrocities done by ObamaMol. Our shifts change everyweek. We are supposed to have afternoon shift next week.

Coming back, RB was sitting in his cabin and the papers were in his desk. While we were signing, Blore asked about the next week's shift timings.
Blore : What is the shift timings for next week?
RB(his response was very quick) : "Wazzup Blore? Kab karna hai? Main bhi bhool gaya. GC bhi bhool gaya. Ek kaam karo tum kal mujhe yad dilaao" (Wazzup Blore? When do you want it. I forgot. GC forgot. Just do one thing, remind me tomorrow.).
Again.
RB : Wazzup Blore?
Blore grinned.
RB : Kya haalchaal hain? (hows is it going?)
Blore grinned again. VP had started giggling.
RB : Aap logon ka kaun sa shift hai? (what shift are you people in?)
Blore : First shift.
RB : Tho kyon ab thak rukhe ho?(So, why are you staying back?)
Blore grinned.
Me : We had some work to do. (Duh Huh !!)
RB : Awesome Man......... (As we turned away from him) Chalo Bye.
We couldn't control the laughter after coming out of the ODC. The first thing that striked me was to blog in the different adventures of RB.

We had first met him in Patny office (Hyd) right after we shifted from our HQ. My first impression about him was that he is for sure a "show off". And yup, I didn't have to change that impression anywhere down the lane. One of his main adventures (very similar to AK's in our HQ) is the relocation drama. He used to come every day and ask us to give preference of location - Chennai, Bangalore or Pune. Infact one time when this drama happened, we almost packed our bags to Chennai. And then one day he came up and told us that all are going to be compulsorily relocated to Pune. But in the next few days, we did came down to reality. It was in the climax of one such drama that we went back to HQ instead of getting reloacted to Chennai.

Another of many timepass activities of RB is to make the Benchers to do activities like Quiz, Group Discussion etc. This was the golden period of Blore and Aanakutty. RB used to call Aanakutty as Blank face which was later modified by us for our convenience as Blanky. RB took special interest in both of them and assigned them the work of conducting quiz on some of the days. When they were asked to do some other activities, they re-invented the game 'Ashwamedham', that too in a local style (as in, we now don't have to find famous personalities in 21 questions, but had to find the batchmate in 6 questions). The game which was played by the three of us during training was a huge success. And it was also heard that, boys of our batch continued this game at their hostel as well.

It was because of these adventures of RB that we were quite relieved to go back and report at our HQ. But then there was AK there, about whom I will write later because there is a lot to write about him as well, who was a ditto RB. We didn't have to tolerate much of AK's melodramas since we came to Bangalore within a month.

After a few weeks, when we first saw RB again in Bangalore, we ran different rumours about him. Like he has his girlfriend here so and so and that he will be going by the weekend. But bad news showered over us, when we saw him again coming to our ODC carrying our sign-in sheets. From that day onwards, we have been tolerating his tantrums. God knows, how much more we have to suffer. Anyways, the bad news for Blore is that she has been noticed again. Goodluck Blore!

Anniversary Thoughts

Finally we made it. Its been one year in the company. How we managed it is a different story all together. But nonetheless, it is an occasion to remember, to have fun and also to lookback and relish the memories created so far. Here, I am going to tell a story of a girl, story of her dreams and aspirations, a story of transformation.

She was very happy, on 1st Dec, when she boarded the train with her parents and families of two of her friends at college. It was quite unclear to her, not even the station where she had to get down. She just had a slight clue that that day atleast 30 of her to-be-batchmates had boarded the train. But she didn't know anyone, nor did her friends. Although there were communities in Orkut through which she could have known others in the train, she hadn't cared much for that. As a bunch of boys passed her, she remembered a face from whom she had got a friend request at the last moment. It was AN(Now better to call him Chalu Raja). She walked upto him and talked to him. She was introduced to others in the gang. That was the first day.

The following days were filled with more excitment, as she and her friends and their families went for a tour of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. She found the place to be homely one and was able to relate to the city very easily. Eventhough she had been once to city, things now where quite different. She was destined to stay here for sometime, atleast for some months. A little tension of leaving her parents for the first time was also haunting her. But she consoled herself, for it was this life that she always dreamt of.

On 6 Dec, she was asked to report to an office in the city, where she came to know that they will be taken to the HQ of the company which 20 kms away from the city. It was no less like a "Bidaai", when all the parents, particularly mothers, (of girls) shed their tears (well, that is a little exaggeration) when all of them boarded different buses. After a long hour, they finally reached the HQ. She stood with her mouth wide open at the first glance of the conference hall. She was really skeptical about walking over the neatly polished marble floor, lest she should slip.

Guys and Gals from all parts of India were going to be her batchmates. She had never thought of this before. Nor she was aware of the vastness of the company she was going to join. But much to her astonishment, there was only a small welcome message said and they were bestowed a big flat file with loads of papers to be filled in. Thanks to all those papers, at the end of the day when all the formalities were finished, she could'nt even recognise her signature anymore.

That was not the end. 2 days later, they had an exam over the topics they would be taught during the training. It was like latin and american for our young girl, who was not from a CS background. All that she knew about the machine called Computer was that she can operate it on a fine day.

Along came the Induction Day of 10 Dec, They were made to play games, do requirement gathering, logo making. It was a quite different affair from what she had thought initially. By the end of the day she had made some new friends. She was also introduced to some friends-of-friends and so on. And she knew it was just a beginning.

Hyderabad was very similar to any north Indian city. It had its own rich culture. And anyone could survive in Hyderabad if she or he knows Hindi. Thus, our girl was able to improve her long-forgotten Hindi. Hyderabad became even more enjoyable because of her roommates. It was like, they were always meant to be friends. Each one of them enjoyed food and our girl even got a company in seeing movies, of her favourite genre, in her roommate. A few days into training, she found herself in easy conversation with every of her batchmate. Eventhough the initial OLAs and tests had made her nervous, later she got used to it. And she started to enjoy the training. One little fact, once told by her school friend, that "training period is going to be one wonderful period of your career life, never miss chance in it, enjoy it to the max". She always remembered that.

They were given enough chances to enjoyment also. Outbound brought the childishness and sportmanship in everyone, and they were also asked to explore their other talents in Spotlight like singing, dancing and acting.

During the course, her language changed from English to C#(read as C Sharp). To her the word "foreign" doesn't exist anymore, it is onsite. And MCP was no longer Male Chauvinist Pig but Microsoft Certified Professional. She Frequently used the terms OLA, KT etc eventhough she never thought about asking anyone about the expansion.

When the training was completed, she thought it was the end of the great friendship that she shared with every of her batchmate. But it was not to be. She was "benched" and that too for more than 9 months. She completed 1 year, not doing any project, actually not doing anything. It really sucks. But for the friends she is always surrounded with, it was really sucking. For a change, she shifted from Hyderabad to Bangalore, only to find that it is the same there also.

Guys, this is the story with a colorful start and not-so-colorful ending. I mean, this story is not ending at all. This is a continuing story. This is what happens to every girl in this field. You are "TRAINED AND BENCHED" (Courtesy : A friend of mine whose name in Orkut read the same).