Bhopal Chronicles

So here we are at the end of another chapter. I came here 8 months ago, with a lot of apprehensions in mind. I hadn't lived with family since I was 15 years old, so I was a lil scared. though I was glad that I'd be by myself  without a social circle harassing me and demanding my time and attention.

 

Little did I know that I'd miss my friends and the otherwise annoying acquaintances so badly. This did not mean I had enough time to read and pursue hobbies. I spent most of my time loitering with momma and going mad at these local markets where you get the most exquisite of stuff. If I were to rate my stay on a scale of ten, it would be a 7.5 (Poona - 9/10    Hyd 6/10. Other places do not need a mention.)

 

Here are some snippets from my stay -

 

Shopping - This place has no Shoppers' Stop for your air-conditioned shopping pleasure. But those lanes at Chowk Bazaar, Peer Gate. Lakherpura and New Market can rob you of your family fortune and leave you asking for more. The stuff here is dirt cheap if compared with bigger towns. Handicrafts,  footwear, garments, tapestry, home décor - you name it and you get it (in such variety that the inability to buy them all is frustrating!)

 

Food - There is this lil place called Swad Bhandar where you get the yummiest samosas and mirchi bajjis and jalebis and gulab jamuns in the world! A sumptuous brunch-ish breakfast for 4 will cost you 50 bucks. Yes fifty INR. The chaat, pani-puri, local flavors of soup, alllll the bhajiyas and makke di rotis and chhola bhatura and puri bhaaji and juice and lassi… oh God! Oh I don’t mean it is road-side food all the way! The palaces turned into hotels - Jehan Numa, Noor-Us-Subah, Imperial Sabre - they are kickass too! Just by the way, I am a vegetarian and they say I haven't lived in Bhopal if I havent tasted the nawabi kebabs. So you can imagine.

 

Friends - One and only Sebin. I bumped into him somewhere like we were destined to meet and he was my thread to sanity. Not a single soul I had here to socialize with. We've done not many crazy things if I were to compare with my Poona/Hyd etc days but my memories with him are some of the fondest. Oh him being a bassist in a local rock band also came handy. He kept me up-to-date with all the developments in the world of rock!

 

Studies - well the idea was to chillax and take GMAT. It turned out to be a bad idea. Let's not talk about it anymore.

 

Work - Worked at a start-up and got doomed financially. Learnt the most key-skills of my professional life in that period though. Also learnt that working with a bunch of smartass people at Google is bloody different  than working (read: much more challenging) with a bunch of demotivated, disinterested, passionless people!

 

Blog - I started blogging about 3 years ago and did not write more than 5 posts in a year. Then I created a new blog - this one that you are reading - when I came to Bhopal. And I managed about 135 posts in 7 months. Not bad huh? And I made some new acquaintances over blogosphere and came really close to some people whom I had known earlier. This blog was my lone source of time pass and venting out when I felt my Mom could not take anymore of my nonsense.

 

Now that I am moving on, I know not much will change in my blog - it will be the usual ranting about friends, family, myself, politics etc. But this is a nice time to thank each one of you who have frequented my blog, posted nice comments and welcomed by thoughts.

 

I am moving to a secret location - taking a 24 hour train ride (yipee! I love'em!) and landing in a new world to make a new start - for no particular reason. Just because I feel like it. So this is my last post until say 8th or 9th of this month.
 

So I will see you people soon! Keep those comments flowing. :) 

Freedom of action, not consequence.

Ok I know all the jazz about it being of little consequence when we start pondering over decisions already taken. The deal here is, this one decision I was so proud of until last evening is making me miserable today. Here goes the long story -

 

7 months ago, I chose to come back home and stay with family, after eight long years,  to a rather small town. This small town has no one that I can refer to as 'friends' and a 'friend circle' except for this little college going kid who is my only source of arbit muse.  Now, as most of you would know (personally or through the blog) I have always been surrounded by a whole bunch of  friends - beer buddies, emo buddies and the likes.  I haven't had a routine or schedule per se in any of those 8 years. I haven't slept for more than 4 - 5 hours each night. Socializing, drinking, getting wasted after all demands time!

 

And the days I wasn't socializing, I would either sit at that corner table at Barista - sip Brrista Frappe, smoke about 6 classic milds and either talk non-stop or listen non-stop. (Or maybe read/gaze non-stop.)Then there was always my iPod - fully charged around my neck like a school-tie. If I wasn't willing to get bitten by mosquitoes at 8 PM and drag myself out of the coffee shop, I'd go home straight from office - switch on the little TV, sit on the bean(less) bag or the long comfy cane chair with a drink (smirn-off was ever present in our apartment) and our oh-so-famous eco-friendly ash tray* and get semi high. (More because of the milds than the smirnoff) I would then either make Dal chawal for myself (and if required for NB and cams) or ask Cams to get something packed for me to eat. I would blissfully watch TV, interrupted by ever-welcome phone calls from sister dear.

 

Or sometimes plug my iPod to the huge creative speakers, play some insane bhangra/club music and try damn hard to shake a leg (I have 2 left feet, but I manage dancing at clubs with some close friends.) These were also the times when I would think about the long spans of (not-so)single-dom (that my friends do not comprehend. I have a knack of attracting/getting attracted to Mr. Wrongs.) And then naturally, I like to think of things that are supposed to be more in my control - like higher studies. So there are these recurring thoughts of taking GMAT and fleeing to a far off land.

 

And on that one day when NB and Cams, the catalysts of my thought process were not in town - I put down my papers at Google. I was convinced that only all the stress and pressure of being jobless can make me focus on GMAT. I (wrongly) thought I was done with drinking, smoking, getting wasted. Little did I know that though that wasn't me in entirety, it was a large part of me for sure - No, not the drinking smoking, but I missed being by myself and the randomness that comes along.

 

I was too eager to pack up and leave - and I did. No divine force told me that these are the last few precious months with Cams before he ties the knot or before NB moves to Delhi. And the taking the test and screwing it up like never before, is all history. Oh how can I forget, GMAT also brought along bloody relationship(t)s and dumb, unnecessary heart breaks. Hmph!

 

Fast forwarding from September 2008 until yesterday evening.

 

I told NB last evening how proud I was of myself for having broken out of the Google comfort zone (I still am.) but today - today is the day of reckoning. I am very sure I am stuck in the painful number game (I love my parents just too much to want to break out of it right now.) I am 24, so by 26 I should finish MBA so that either I find a boy or they find me one and then I 'settle down.' Yes, settle down in an ugly and monotonous routine. Like the one I have now - wake up, have breakfast, go to work, come back, watch the same soap on TV and then the same news channel and have dinner and go to my room and either read or blog. Do you see the missing and the most vital element? Social circle and me being me - yes!

 

So now that I can't get out of the number game, the only way out is to give myself a deadline for GMAT, take the damn exam and ace it, meanwhile job hunt at a different place in these economically wasted times. Which reminds me, there is some more frustration - I haven't been paid in the last 3 months and I can feel the pinch/slap/bang/rape that finances (or the lack of them) can cause/afflict. Anyway, coming back, all I can do is bloody focus for the next 3 odd months (HOW?!) and then get the fuck out of this place. (excuse the language, there is no other way of expression that's apt here.)

 

Wish me luck. I am dead bored of the way life's been treating me or vice versa.

 

* I have requested for the photographs. They'll be up shortly.

I am getting used to lovely mornings :)

It was otherwise a usual Thursday morning for me. Mom ringing the calling bell to my room, early morning phone calls, my alarms going off one after the other and me, I was contemplating if waking up at 7 30 am is ever worth it. I dragged myself out of the bed and I saw beauty! It was raining!

 

So if it is a North Indian December morning, it is anyway chilling. Temperatures are usually around 10 - 11 degrees which is considered to be quite pleasant in India. Yesterday morning, was one of the foggiest mornings ever and it was coupled with rains! The scale had dropped to about 5 degrees ( at 9:30 am) which is below any normal standard.

 

I went down to the kitchen and there was a hot cup of tea waiting for me. And dad was smiling slyly. I knew the plan. We do not go to work. Yes! We bunked office, started the car and dragged mom along. I say dragged because that's what we literally did. We din't let her even change from her night gown! We loafed around for a couple of hours and my sickness was back. So I was home and tucked in like a little child, peacefully asleep for 4 hours. Woke up, took a shower, had lunch, booked a zillion tickets for everybody. (we are all going on different vacations - btw! Delhi, Bombay, Pune, Bangalore - here I come!)

 

The evening highlight was shopping!! I bought crazy Indian wear and I am so looking forward to the weddings!

 

P.S - Those are pictures of the lake, that you can barely see due to the fog. And the other picture is of mom and dad. 

P.P.S - Life is beautiful :) 

Anxiety, stress, low sugar and panic!

Ok I really want to write something here but I am quite tired and lost. So I will copy paste some stuff from my diary. (Yes, I've switched to MS One Note from my paper and pen which usually used to hide in those silly drawers at office.) 

Ok it is now official - I am a 23 year old suffering from severe anxiety and stress.

 

I had a severe chest pain (not a cardiac arrest. hehehe) and short term memory loss. (ranging from a few seconds to about 2 minutes. Not so sure.) This and the heaviness in the head were apparently interlinked. And I was vomiting non-stop. My sugar level dropped to crazy levels making me thirsty as if I am panic-struck in a desert.

 

Then there was alarm at home and rushing to the hospital on Saturday night. After 30 hours of sleep and weird medicines, here I am!

 

I am on a daily dose of weird anti-anxiety drugs.  The doc said I should be glad it is at a level where it can be treated with tablets and I won't need injections. These medicines make me drowsy and that is the intention - sleep as much as I can. Hoping to get back to work tomorrow. God, that was SOME episode of my life!

So that's all that I managed to write in the evening. I am sleepy again but I am glad I could convince my folks against those medicines. I will resume work from tomorrow after having slept for 30 hours out of 36. The medicines were a good way of keeping my mind on mute, but I am sure I can do better than this. I mean I hate to believe I need medications to keep myself under control. I still am the boss of my head and heart! 

There is a whole lot more I want to write about - what I saw on TV, what the doctors put me through and how the anxiety has earned me a nice 2 day vacation at a hill station (yes, I am off for vacation on 18th.) But there is one thing I surely will tell before I finish the post - 

The anxiety attack definitely forced me to re-think about life and what it should be lived for. If it is a good career you want, you should freakin go and get it. You can't substitute a university with a well-paid job.  If you love someone, you should bloody go and tell that person. You can't substitute people just by swapping who calls you up at 1 in the night. If you want to go on vacation, you might as well go for it. A weekend and a vacation are different things. If you don't feel like smiling and putting up a happy face, you don't need to! really! If people can't deal with you being sad, too bad - they suck!

These are things I knew very well even before I fell ill. But I was just doing weird things for weird reasons. I am now accepting myself more graciously! 

These weird anxiety attacks or whatever they are, after all happen when there is too much conflict between head and heart. Neither head nor heart are always logical. I don't know which of the 2 is right, but all I know is there is no point lying to the other. That being sad is human and it is not very important to smile because people think that is how you are. 

My blog will now be more of me in all shades than me in shades of happy pink and purple. :) 

 

Of stupid dreams and sickness...

Ok so sick days are also to be documented here. I was at work today feeling all heavy in the head. I decided to leave office well before time and get home to catch a nap. I shut down my lappy and was startled with some noise. And I realized I had dropped my laptop from a height of 4 feet. Fortunately it is still intact (and so the blogging!) 

I tried very very hard to recollect what I was doing that it fell off. I mean I dont even remember touching it.  I had missed/skipped a few seconds of my life/memory (I hope it is not minutes!) It was indeed very weird! Anyway, I packed my bags, started my scooty and headed home. (Fearing I might end up having another such moment while driving!)

I got home single-piece and scratchless. Within 5 minutes I was off to sleep. And these are the 3 things I dreamt of - 

1. My nails bleeding. All my finger nails were drenched in blood and would not stop bleeding and just while my knuckles were about to bleed something happened and the dream abruptly ended. 

2. Car accident - Dad was driving and someone banged our car from behind. Nothing happened to us but the car had a huge dent. Next thing, he is trying to park the car and actually drives THROUGH a wall! Yes, drives through a whole freakin' wall with the front of the car fully damaged. Both of us are safe and dad did not even realize what he had done! 

3. Mum's bought me beautiful Gold jewellery. I am seeing them when someone I have been thinking of off late (in real life) appears in the same room and starts talking to mom and does not even look at me! 

Finally, I woke up a few hours ago and I now feel so tired and so drained out! It feels as if the dreams took away whatever energy was left in me. 

Sigh! 

Interpretation of my dreams, if any one's interested - 

Blood - To dream that you are bleeding or losing blood, signifies that you are suffering from exhaustion or that you are feeling emotionally drained. It may also denote bitter confrontations between you and your friends.  Your past actions have come back to haunt you. 

Gold/Jewellery - To see gold in your dream, symbolizes wealth, riches, natural healing, illumination and/or spirituality. To see or wear jewels in your dream, signifies a value within yourself or within others in which you admire and cherish. It also symbolizes pleasure, riches, ambition and spiritual protection.

Car accident/parked car -  To dream of a car accident, symbolizes your emotional state. You may be harboring deep anxieties and fears. Are you "driving" yourself too hard? This dream may tell you to slow down before you hit disaster. You need to rethink or re-plan your course of actions and set yourself on a better path.

To see a parked car in your dream, suggests that you need to turn your efforts and energies elsewhere. You may be needlessly spending your energy in a fruitless endeavor. Alternatively, a parked car my symbolize your need to stop and enjoy life. 

... eating seeds as a pass time activity (Not really!)

I dont know what is it with me and killing time. I always find something more  interesting than grabbing those GMAT Books. So the latest on me is this weird appetite for movies. With a whole bunch of crazy friends who have seen insane movies (and taken me for some, at NFAI!) it looks like the insanity is now rubbing in. I am doing late night movies every single night. I now have this list of 'To-Read books' and 'To-Watch movies.' 

I am quite good at making time-tables (and at one point was very good at sticking with'em. Yes.) So I thought it is a great plan to put up some nice quotes, pictures of my dream universities etc in my room so that it drives me to study a bit everyday. Now, since it's me, all these things need to be done meticulously. So I get a sheet of thermocole. This one's gonna be my pin-up board since I don't have a real pin-up board. I have been thinking of getting those quotes, pictures and the time-table all day long. But somehow I just told myself I could finish reading my latest book by Marquez. So after some lengthy reading spree I decided to sleep and woke up feeling miserable since it just occured to me I did not get my pay cheque this month. (ya, I will start 2009 being all broke!) 

So the next obvious thing to do was make dad buy me something so I don't feel empoverished. We went to New Market and I went bag shopping. I did not find any nice ones so instead bought footwear. (Again.) 

Now I am here, after some shopping, a hearty meal and with Torrent downloading 'A Clockwork Orange.' I will meanwhile finish reading Slaughterhouse five. The thermocole can wait until Sunday afternoon. 

I can't help it but bitch a bit...!

I can't help it. Really. I work in a start-up where we do not have our own cubicles yet. We sit in a conference room, all of us, and work. The frustration I go through, working with these guys, warrants a blog post. Each one of these people here is a weirdo in his own way. I will refrain from using names here but here it goes: 

NT - Worked with Reliance group of companies for a long time and once almost said he quit because he was too smart for the Ambani brothers. He steps into office and starts talking non-sense. Today's example - I deliver personality development lessons. (PERSONALITY?! Do you even know what that is?) He spends 5 hours out of 9 talking to customer service of some company or the other. Typical marketing chap - Full of faff. 

CB - He is a Telugu in this land of beautiful Hindi speaking people. He was over joyed to know that I am Telugu too. So much so that I thought he might come hugging and kissing me. (Eeyuuuu!) I do not feel an iota of happiness on seeing him. People who know me, would know how secular I am and do not believe in regionalism. Anyway, he smells of something between Pan Parag and Meswak toothpaste. He sits right next to me and the smell (read: stench) is too strong for my liking. He can't say Satyam. He says Sachyam. Sicko.

SD - A bong who looks like a mallu. Sings in his ugly voice all day and thinks he could give Kishore Kumar a run for his money. He tends to get louder when I am visibly irritated. He loses temper at the slightest and yells at people. :O I am waiting for the day he is rude to me and I will give him a piece of my mind! That said, he is good at his job. So it's ok.

AA - Extremely polite and extremely lazy. He runs away from work and blatantly refuses to do stuff unless he is shouted at by the big boss. One of those difficult people to work with but are so polite you can't do anything about it.

IK - The biggest dick head I ve ever met. He has been demoted and has almost been given the pink slip. He still spends the ENTIRE freakin day sitting at the reception, flirting with the receptionist (who visibly hates him.) Beat this - This dude has an MBA degree from some university in the UK and now, post-demotion makes 10K a month. 

VR - or popularly known as part time employee. He comes in at 9 30 (office starts at 9) He surfs the web, downloads music, gives me rude answers when I ask him about to-dos and then goes out of office. He comes back at about 5PM and logs out at 6 30. He'd rather not be there. He is supposedly a web designer. What he does is what I can do too - pick up free ready made templates online and substitute titles with our company name - all in the name of 'designing.' 

There are 2 other girls who are absolutely no non-sense. They might not be ideators or greatly skilled but are good at what they do. The live and let live. I totally adore them and we are a trio in sharing the frustration of having to sit with these weird men. We need help here at Conscience Compass! 

... of beautiful mornings and unwarranted pleasures.

My phone buzzes at 0630 sharp every morning and goes on snooze thrice. It is for my morning jogs. I haven't gone for a walk/run in the last 10 or so days. Guilt was consuming me all day all these 10 days. This morning I mustered the courage to wake up and opened the door to my balcony. What I then saw was magic.

There was so much fog that I could not see the house opposite ours. Fog was a daily feature in winters when we were kids (I grew up in plains - lot of fog there) But the sight today was breathtaking. There is a view of Idgah Hills from my balcony. I could see lush green trees playing hide and seek from behind the fog. The eye-sore Municipality water tank (yes, those huge cylindrical structures) which stands perched on top if Idgah hills was for a change not seen. Its absence was nice and a little unnerving at the same time.

So, ya, the walk did not happen. Mom won't lemme go out anyway. I still have a bad cold and I would run out of breath in such a moist climate. So I stood there wondering if I wanted to go down and get the camera and capture the beauty. I look back and think I should have done that but I did not want to miss a single moment of such a fresh and beautiful morning. Oh, and my sister gifted me a beautiful cinnamon sack room freshner (real Indian spices in a jute bag that hangs by the window and makes my room smell so heavenly!)which just added to the whole morning freshness.

I went for a hot hot shower and I skipped my morning tea since it is criminal to have chai without its companion on a beautiful morning like today's. Me and dad left for work at around 0845. We cross VIP road and the upper lake (badi jheel) on our way to work. We saw the sun and we were speechless. It was a huge ball of platinum. You did not know if it was hot or cold. But it was mesmerizing. You just wanted to go grab it though you knew you never could. The lake with small boats (which you could see only on straining your eyes) was the prettiest thing I had seen in a long long time. 

Seeing such pretty things is not difficult in India. But seeing it when you are not on vacation, when you are going to work, when life is probably not at its best and when it manages to make you feel so happy - is not day to day life. Such beauty has the power to make you miserable - it can make you miss special people and it can send you on 8X rewind to your favorite vacation at Pushkar or Goa. But none of that happened today. It was so pretty it wanted you to live for the moment.

This blog post is to make up for the lack of photographs for this beautiful morning. I will try and scan one from tomorrow morning's newspaper and put it up here. This morning will stay with me for a long long time.

Trivial and still consuming.

I reached home last evening at about 7. Just as I stepped outta the car, NB called up. We hadn't caught up in a long long time. The last time we spoke to our heart's content was day before yesterday. We spoke for 57 minutes when my mom began her usual screeching - 

Mom to me - "That's why you have those headaches! you are stuck to you damn phone all day!" (Ma! puhleez! I go to work!) 

Mom to me - "You will get a freakin hunch back and also those cardio vascular diseases associated with long use of cell phones!" (Mom, like really! Just the other day you said my bones would melt if I had Pepsi! gimme a break, I ain't dying so fast!)

Mom to dad: "She is supposed to freshen up and sit with her books and study! And you, Mister! Don't YOU have an exam in Feb? Like father, like daughter - no focus in life only big aims thats all....blah....blah....God save the world!" By this time we have mentally muted and unmuted her a few times.

Anyway. coming back to me and NB, we spoke of getting Lesbian visas and sex change, we spoke of the sudden deluge of men in life and how they all come with 25 stones of weight which we can't and won't carry. Dinner was all those yum things (Oriya food was dinner last night) I wonder how mum manages churning such tasty food day after day and has so much variety to offer!

I tucked myself in at about 2230 and read a few short stories. Layla and Majnun takes the cake. It ain't the story of helpless, mad love but the story where Layla performs her duties as a devout wife, dies a natural death (cardiac arrest) and breathes the name of Majnun while she dies. I was happy. I never read of Layla and Majnun since I thought of it as a mad love love-story. I hate hopeless love stories which bleed with emotions. They give me jitters!

I slept a peaceful, undisturbed sleep after so so long. (It has nothing to do with the short story :D ) I did not wake up even once all night. Life is this satisfaction of having nothing special and so the lack of fear of losing that something.

The jet-setting Sundays

and weekends pass ever so swiftly... sigh! 

Yeah, I have a 6 day week at work and it is only Sunday that constitutes weekend for me. Sunday is the most awaited day of the week and the most fruitless. I have a whole bunch of things planned to be done on Sunday but all I do on that day is procrastinate. I usually end up chit-chatting with Mom and lazing around, not doing much. 

I have been planning to begin my preps on the 'coming Sunday' for the last 2 months. I haven't done that. I am supposed to spend more time exercising on Sunday and to catch up on all my reading. I am supposed to go to the salon on Sunday and get pampered a bit. I had to take my mum to the clinic for her regular check-up and I lazed to do that too. And yes, the dreaded dentist appointment... that's history too! I had to update my mom's iPod, get some photographs framed, clean my closet and some super simple tasks like paying my bills online! 

I haven't done any of these. Instead, I spent all the time sitting in my balcony, thinking, answering phone calls if people called up and wondering why beautiful things fade so fast. I spent the entire Sunday defining 'perfect' and seeing how much gap exists between what is 'real' and what is 'perfect.'

Now, there is not much you can do when you miss the active, go-getter you that you have been. I plan to find myself back this coming Sunday... 

Higlights of the day...

Not like it warrants a blog post, but just felt like summing up my day... spotlight is on friends today (wondering when it isn't!)

1. Me and cams filled the final gap today. And our friendship now seems complete after 6 years. So damn happy! 

2. Me and Nidhi feeling revived love. Missing each other and feeling happy about us being us. 

3. Gale started blogging and she has started so well! 

4. I will meet Poornima in Feb! How cool is that!? :)

5. I have resolved something for the remaining days of 2008. Praying to God I can keep up to the resolve! 

I am happy and strong today. 

Thank you God for all the lovely people you have given me. 

If there's a God above!

Talking about wishes... I went to Ujjain yesterday. The land of Gods. (Shiva to be precise.) No, going to Ujjain wasn't a part of the wishlist. But asking God to make a wish come true surely was! I had never asked of something to God ever, as such. I mean I did, but in the most casual ways ever. Never nagged him in my morning prayers. Not that I don't trust if God can make things come true - but I was never too convinced. For ex., I did go to the temple asking for good scores before exams but when results appeared - good or bad - they were the exact reflection of my efforts. 

Yesterday, I had this one problem while I was praying though - I din't know what language to pray in. I tried Telugu and Hindi, but the words just did not come out fine. I could not express myself. Before I realized, I had slipped to praying in English and I was doing just fine when this fear rose in me - Would he get it? It's not our language after all. In the end I convinced myself that as long as he says - "May all your wishes come true" it's all good! 

So I prayed to God for something that I cannot do anything about. I asked God to help me read the signs and give me the courage to follow my heart. I asked God to help me figure out what exactly is it that I want. Though I kept thinking through out my way that I would ask God to make my wish come true, I ended up asking God to do that which he thinks is right and help me live with it. 

I am hoping God can read my blog since he is ominpresent! God, I hope you remember me as the girl who never ever nagged you with wishes and never ever blamed you when things din't go my way. God, this is the one time I feel completely lost and helpless with the situation I am in. In case you are reading my blog (it is aptly named 'what Jinu wants') please only pay attention to this post. I will take care of everything else God, just help me deal with confusion. 

(Believing in God is a part of my New Year resolution - I am starting a little early!)

My life in 12 steps.

Ok, so it looks like I am blogging too much! But never mind, I saw it coming with none of my friends around me :( 

It's been 5 goddamn months since I am home! Yes, FIVE freakin months! After being a nomad for EIGHT long years, it is just crazy to "settle down". Much as I love my parents, it is completely beyond me to 'come home' to them now. I know I am going to have to do this for the next 1 year - easily! Aarrrghh! The system and order seem to be strangulating me. My life: 

1. Wake up with the 'ting-tong' doorbell. 

2. Go downstairs, have tea. 

3. Mum will talk and I wont know what she is saying. I will randomly get up and go back up to my room

4. Freshen up - shower etc.

5. Go downstairs, have breakfast

6. Sit in the car, go to work.

7. Attend fruitless meetings, try to work, wait for day end. 

8. Reach home, mum will talk and I wont know what she is saying. I will randomly get up and go back up to my room

9. Freshen up - shower, night clothes etc. 

10. Go downstairs, have dinner

11. Go back to my room, stare at my cell-fone, read 3 pages of some book.

12. Sleep. 

13. Back to No. 1. 

There is no socializing, except for a few random evenings with Seb (the most sought after time of the week - when I scream and behave idiotic with no one to judge.) There is no random traveling to Pondicherry, Lonavla, Bangalore. There are no late night movies, there is no crazy dancing and there are no cozy private dinners with Amu. There are no deadlines and no running for meetings. There are no off sites and stupid team games. There is no -1. 

I traveled thrice in 5 months - 

1. Delhi - Conference. (Flew in the morning, flew back in the night.)

2. Hyderabad - GMAT (Frustration, did not meet anyone.)

3. Hyderabad - Met randomer (Came back all confused and still dealing with it :| )

I can easily do with - 

A run-of-the-mill job.

3 hrs of sleep.

Loads of travel.

-out parents around. 

Peeps, pray! 

And I finally voted...

I finally feel like an Indian. I exercised my most important right as an Indian citizen - the right to vote. While I patiently stood in the queue, I wondered if it is appropriate to call it a 'right'. Should it not be a duty - rather a 'mandatory' duty instead?

I casted my first ever vote on the day when India faced the worst ever terror attacks. Mumbai was split wide open with major breach in security by the Intelligetsia and by all other security agencies. Huge amounts of explosives and 20-something terrorists sneaked into - in fact swam into my country - so easily! My faith in the entire system shook with this incident and I wondered if my vote would make a difference. The answer was frustrating to start with, but the long hour at the queue in the polling booth gave me a whole new perspective on elections and the nation. 

My polling centre was at one of the most  up-town localities of the city. In the entire booth, I could count 6 people, including myself, mum and dad who seemed educated. The entire queue (which was rather long) was of people who were well below poverty line. I was proud of them. Proud of the fact that they exercised their most important right as citizens of the world's biggest democracy. They do not know what difference the next finance minister can make to India's standing in the global economy, but what they do know is who is that one person who can give them the basics of food, clothing, and shelter. They at least made a choice. 

I now think that each and every educated person of this country who has a strong opinion (that is probably 90% of the educated junta!) about economics and politics and state of affairs - has no right to make any negative comment, unless they exercise the right to vote. So far, we only cribbed about how the country lacks good leadership and how the government is always wrong. It is wrong not because we chose the wrong people, but because we never exercised the right to choose! 

Guys, go get that voter's ID card, not because it is the next best thing after your passport, driving license and PAN card - but because it is probably your passport, PAN, and license to creating a better India. Spend a few hours understanding state of affairs and elect the right candidate. 

It is time India boasted of Quality rather than quantity! 

So it's like this - It was my first day in a new school. KG II to be precise (Yes, Pre primary.) My favouritest teacher so far, Mrs. Balan was teaching B for Bell when I entered the class. She asked me to sit on the 2nd desk from front. Back then, I din't know how to say 'Hi' or shake hands and give a Jinu smile and say - My name is Jinu... We must have probably smiled at each other or something... I wonder what we did... but we did have lunch together that day and for every single day after that for the next 9 years. We laughed together, cried together and I think even fought. It was our eighth grade when she moved to Bombay and when we started writing letters. Just like so many other people in the world, we developed our own friend circles and though we wrote to each other (letters, not emails) we somehow lost touch by grade X. 

Then technology helped us trace each other (we had obviously not forgotten each other but had just lost touch.) Orkut happened to us and we were over messanger services, chatting and sharing pictures and updating each other. 

And then finally, yesterday, we met. We met after ELEVEN years and we easily started from where we had left. We knew that we would hug each other and would systematically cover the eleven years - career, friends, and love life - in that order. Our calculations suggested that even if we spent an hour per head for every year of those 11, we would need 22 hrs to catch up. We grossly underestimated the required hours and I have spent 2 sleepless nights and super busy days talking to her. Staying up all night with work the next morning had never been so much fun! 

Thanks Shilpi, for coming back. :)

Now we know why you love us!

And it is so easy for us girls to pep ourselves up! My mood was all screwed up with some people acting weird. My newest friend J.A had this thing to say - Jinu listen, men come and go. If they can't confront a problem or can't be by your side when you want them to, show them your middle finger! Unfortunately middle fingers from here won't be seen that far away, so..! J.A says - Girl, let's go do the girl thing! And before anyone knew we were at a nearby salon! We got these reallyyyy hot hair cuts, and boy, we were a sight! We were at least 20 times happier than before. I mean we were not happy at all in the morning and when we stepped out of the salon, we felt like princesses! Our faith in ourselves was instilled that men ARE in fact the most easily available commodity in the world! 

The plan for the rest of the day is to go to the Body shop store and indulge into some lip smacking lip glosses, hair products to kill and the newest CK Perfume!! (yes, savings a/c, here I come to empty you out!) Post this, I pick up the newest football shoes at Nike and we go and hog on Pani Puri and samosas! The whiff last evening at the push cart on peer gate just drove us mad and we can't wait to head there today! 

Each passing day I realize the importance of chic friends and the great deal that it is being a girl! We at least do not sulk forever over things which are not that grave, we face our problems, confront the people we do not like, accept it when we are being irrational and own up to our mistakes, we take duties along with rights, live up to be good and live it up! Hair cuts make us happy and mum's smiling face means the world to us! Damn! know I now why men fall for us... we are so awesome after all! 

Discovering Bhopal!

So me and my dad have been discovering the town and it has been great fun so far. This one evening we went discovering soup stalls. 

We went to this place called 'Cycle soup.' It is a typical road side stall with the yummiest food on earth. We savored our soups (sweet corn for me and the same ol' tomato for daddy.) and got thoroughly confused about the main course. This guy had the ultimate Indian road-side delicacies on his menu, chhole bhature, kulcha paneer makhani, pav-bhaji, sandwiches, burgers (Indian style, but of course) and loads of other pulaos and naans with sabzis to mix and match. As always, me and mom wanted the same thing for both of us. And this time it was pav-bhaji. 

When he brought the food, I was mad at the chotu for bringing our servings (mine and mom's) in the same plate - and then I see my mom with another plate of pav-bhaji and trying to figure out how will she ever finish it. So basically the food on 1 plate was more than enough for two. 

Dad's BURGER! Yeah, that steals the cake! It has the tastiest Dhaniya-pudina chutney of the world, a huge patty and loads of cheese and cucumber slices. Yes, the quintessential India burger was here! I swore on God, I will never ever spend money at McDonald for that little burger which even has VAT charged on it. The mighty cycle-soup wale ka burger was a meagre 20Rs!

There is more to come on my blog about Top 'N Town Ice-cream (The Naturals' version for Bhopal) Arya Bhavan (The North-Indian Udupi hotel) and Manohar Dairy!