My Musings

No Particular reason for not writing for long. No topics brushed my always "alive" brain ... Everyday while coming to and going away from office, i hear the radio - it plays mostly hindi and a few kannada songs. I have often noticed this. Even as the music of a song starts, I would be able to idenfity that it is a kannada song/hindi song. There is a characteristic difference in the way music is composed for south indian films and hindi. South indian - i say - because those are the ones i know. Not being a trained musician, i am not able to put my finger on what causes the difference. Maybe the instruments used, or the ragas they are based on - what i am not sure, but i have always felt that just by listening to the starting tune of the song, one can identify whether it is a hindi/ local language songs... This probably explains why many songs that A.R.Rahman composes initially for a Tamil movie don't gel into the typical hindi scenario when they are dubbed/copied... and th...

Tring! Tring! – Groan! … grumbling and mumbling I shut off the alarm clock. Just like any other day, amma turned towards me and mumbled sleepily “Koncham neram kooda paduthuko kondhe”(sleep for some more time my child!) … And as obedient (atleast in this aspect), I turned and tired to sleep, only to wake up 50 seconds later(this is also the usual)… after being tormented by horned images of my manager and suddenly alive and eating versions of my CSQA books … Well! It was just yet another day…. Bored with the daily schedule of getting ready early and rushing off to catch the bus, I decided to take a detour – enjoy some time excercising, eating amma’s delicious dosas and “trying” to study… There are some days when unknowing to yours, you just hope that the day is something different from the normal, hoping for something “Lucky” to come your way .. When such a feeling started to go through me, I realized I was reading too much of “Potter and the half bloo...

We took a day off to visit our in-laws after around 2 months, not counting the one time in between that they came to visit us ... It was the most bestest thing that could ever happen admist a busy, scurried, harried and frustrating week of work ... Mannarkkad is where this little abode of my P-in-law's is nestled..... This tiny little valley town bordered by mountains on two sides and flanked by two cute little rivers (called Puzha in malayalam) was the most pleasant sight to my eyes and we meandered through the sharp U-turns in the rounded hill called " Notta Mala " ... The first glimpse of Mannarkkad is sure to take anybody's breath away(other than Mellus of course) .... A sheer drop from the mountains brings one to this beautiful , green carpeted town-to-village kind of place .. The town extends on both sides of the highway from palakkad to Kozhikode .... The 50 ft road lined with shops of all kinds ranging from vegetables & fruits - to groceries - to cloth sho...

How many times Have I already felt this in the recent past ? Today is a fresh start - I am going to be more regular, keep a track of all work i do, learn something new everyday and prepare one chapter for the exams that I am appearing... And just within 2 days of this resolution, i come back to 'square one' - my lazy circle of my wasteland ... This fresh start has been lots of things - transfer to b'lore, shifting to a new place, changing my chair, the week begining, the month begining on a monday ... and so on ... not to forget the new water bottle that i got to office. Today is yet another fresh start - something quite bigger than the ones mentioned above. A Change of department, a new building, a new project, new faces ..... and of course so-called lots of work .... It is been a hour since i am trying to twindle my thumbs, sift thru pages of the Quality manual, but no one from the project is in ... and god knows what my work is going to be .... So much for a fresh start...

When we shifted to MIG 175 (our quarter number in Vizag), I got a new friend - a friend for life - Balaji Mama. He was Appa's colleague in Steel Plant who was newly married and was staying alone, as his wife had gone home for delivery. So, he would visit us often and thus our friendship started. Balaji mama has always had this wonderful knack of befriending young girls and being their closest buddy - he would crack so many jokes, make so much masti, play with me, discuss topics with me, teach me new things (i give him the credit of my little knowledge of the game of Chess). A Brilliant to the "Tee" is Balaji Mama... At that very young age, apart from his nature, what I loved most about Balaji Mama was the wide knowledge of books that he had , and (slyly) the wide variety of books he had, and the fact that we both were crazy fans of the indomitable gaul - ASTERIX. He had a beautifully bound collection of all the books of Asterix and he was soo proud of his collection - whi...

There is a book exhibition on in our Campus - 20% off on the books. I just came back from there - bought a book for my "Invest Savy" husband - Intelligent Investor by Richard Graham... I spent money to buy a book that speaks of how to invest money ha ha ha .... I know it is a Poooooor J .... Books have always fascinated me from a very young age, and I give the entire credit to my mother for inculcating the reading habit in me. Ever since I can think of, My mother has always made it a point that I read some comic or novel ... I have a huge collection of " Tinkle ", which I am very proud of ... I have been buying Tinkle's from the time they costed 2/- to 2.50/- to 4.00/- to 5.00/- to 7.00/- to 10.00/- .... During the same time, I would get lots of Amar Chitra Katha , Anderson's Fairy Tales and other tiny-tot stories as gifts from amma ... Rarely we would buy Champak at the Railway station .... One scene of my childhood still always hovers in front of my eyes...

I really feel very flattered to know that they are some " great " souls in this world who spare time and read my non-sensical blogs also - I owe my allegiance to " Shaila " and " Padmaja "... Yesterday I was talking to Padmaja after a long time .. it brought back lots of memories of Vizag and our college life, those careful days of 12th holidays, when we had thrashed all those wicked exam papers and jumped over the barriers of the common entrance exam EAMCET - and enjoyed our last 'few' happy days before having to shed crocodile tears on our results - and pack off our bags to enter a new world of 'responsible' engineering-to-be-graduates... Every alternate day was spent in planning new adventures, new places to visit, new hotels to ransack and new movies to watch .... Not that we did all of them ... Our most favourite haunts were the Ramakrishna beach - the best being the visit to this part of the beach below a cliff called " Silver ...

No, I am not writing about Britney Spears , not am going to discuss just how beautifully she has ' dressed ' sorry sung the song .. This is about my own doing - my "aa bail mujhe maar" classical example... I was enjoying my life, doing almost no work at all, leaving early, cooking for my ' patidev' and doing a bit of reading ... And then, this stupid thought of getting into another department got into my head. As if I did not like my life, I went in for a transfer... And I met the new Manager today, only to be scared within 5 minutes of talk with him. My new assignment is going to be a nightmare. It is 10 times worse than what I came out of just 3 months ago ... Did I need this good lord ? .... Ooops! I did it again with my own MOUTH ... Me and My Big Mouth ...

Yesterday I was on leave - a day of complete rest. Sometimes, the thing that you hate the most can be of very good help also. I Hate my Migrane headaches... I have been suffering from it for about 7 years now, with intermediate periods of respite. Each time I go to the doctor i am dismayed further by the fact that there is no permanent cure for it, one can only reduce the frequency of attacks by finding out the trigger factors(which always seem to be non-existent - before I can conclude that one particular reason is the cause for these headaches, I am struck with a series of attacks which have no remove connection to the previous reason), and trying to avoid them ... Atleast I am lucky that in this modern world of drugs, I have tablets that can prevent the fury and wrath of a terrible ache ... Aches are such strange things .. The person suffering from it, from outside looks perfectly fine, except for probably a drained look, but the intensity of this 'tsunami' can only be felt ...

Why is it that I always start off writing a blog with something in my mind and end up with something that is totally unrelated to what I wanted to pen down ? That is what happened to the "ga-ga" blog that i wrote last .... So, continuing the Radio saga again ... hopefully this time I pen down my thoughts as they are - and that they don't get corrupted into something that they are not ... Probably the only thing that i look forward to while coming to office these days is to listen to Radio City - 91 FM... every 5 minutes they keep insisting that they are b'lore's fav music station - i wonder they HAVE to be .. i mean there is no competition FM Station that they have to fear, they why this self-dabba ... For instance in chennai, we have two FM channels , Radio Mirchi and Suryan FM... So, admist their radio wave war, we got to hear some of the best catchy advertising tunes ... I was particularly fond of Radio Mirchi, this has 'nothing' to attribute to the fa...

My first association with radio was the old toota-foota Murphy radio that we had at home ... which inspite of its exterior ugliness served well and played wonderful music(whenever the radio station choose to play it) ... When I visited my grandparents in chennai, i would hate the radio, because my thatha would put it on at 5:30 in the morning and wake the whole neighbourhood up ... Those were times when the day HAD to begin with a group of singers crooning "Vandemataram" .... it would be followed by classical music by some non-existent and some existent and known musician ... Then would come the best part for my grandfather - the news ... i always admired the voices that read the news - so crisp and so much full of authority .... Radio was a part and parcel of my holidays .. it would be constantly on in the background, and no matter where in the house one was, he/she would never fail to listen to the commentator on the Radio. Radios bring back to memory an article i read once...

I think it was shakespeare who said this in the very famous in the play Romeo And Juliet ... But I am sure he would have never ever thought how much troubles lay in the very small,yet the most important attribute of a man - his/her name .. I am livid right now thinking about this very particular thing. Every Region in India has its unique own way of names. In North, runs the tradition of a family name being attached to a person's own name, in the South , it is usually the Father's name before marriage and Husband's name after marriage. In some parts, like Andhra, the tradition of Village name being attached to one's own name exists .. This is not what I am upset about ... I don't care what name your parents give you, or what attachments get added on to it at every stage of your life .. It is when the 'government' part gets involved with a name that troubles start ... I have had so much trouble with names in the recent past, that i wish everybody's name w...

Life is full of routines and changes in them .... and i detest changes .. You could say, I am scared of changes.... How often we feel familiar with something that we see, hear and feel no? That one sudden day, when all that we are 'routinely' used to changes, we feel lost somewhere unknown ... but then again , if you notice, the beauty of life is that , unknowingly and very cleverly a routine gets set in this change also ... My life has always been one of routine and order(if not to the extent of an army order - much orderly than many)... I liked the routine of my life and would always make an attempt to add new things to my daily list of activities ... In College it started with getting up early, and brushing up college stuff/catching up with my diary writing/reading a most interesting novel that i had laid hands upon , taking a bath at 5:30 or 6:00, for that is when the whole clothes line would be available for me ... do a bit of puja(got more inspired by Lalli's daily ch...

Little Rahul introduced himself thus when he was 8 : "My name is Rahul, I study in Class IV c, My Hobbies are : Drawing, playing violin, playing cricket, watching cartoon network, reading Tinkle, playing carrom board,visiting the beach" ..... When he was 16 he introduced himself thus: "Hey! This is Rahul ... I love Painting, playing violin, watching and playing cricket" When he was 25 he introduced himself thus" Hi! Rahul here ... My hobbies include playing violin and catching re-runs of cricket match on TV" ... At 35, when his son asked him what his hobbies are ... he goes like ... "My hobbies are ..... ahhh ... uhhh .... ummm..." ... he is speechless.... With growing age and increasing work/home pressure - people are losing their hobbies... There are very people in my generation who take time to go out for music/art classes, who read a book as a hobby, who play a few games that they love .... Last Saturday , when Rajesh and me spend a few wonde...

Wonder why Fridays of all days seem to be passing by slowly. And if you have cold, headache, body ache rolled in together with a dull day, the day seems to have stopped forever ... After a nasty double cappuchino, which tasted like the bitter kashayam, my mother makes; I am no where feeling any better than I did before the coffee ... a long time since i wrote something in my blog ... Well, I am not at all a writer, or atleast beleive so... Ideas don't flow into my mind always and all that i think is also not well-received by all - not upto their standards , so-to-say ... This reminds me of Ernie - a character in one of my favourite series as a kid and a teenager - Enid Blyton's Five - Find outers... Ernie is a look alike of the leader of the "Five" find -outers(as they call themselves) - Fatty ..... Who desperately wants to write poems, but can never write one line in like a week.... Each time he tells this to Fatty, the latter rattles out a beautiful poem in like sec...

Every weekday evening finds me rushing home to make a cup of hot tea for me and sitting in front of the computer to watch one of my ever-favourite serials "Tu Tu Main Main" ..... A long running episode about the "nok-jok" (as it is called in Hindi) between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.... It depicts the ever existing fued between the MIL and DIL in a very humourous way..... Each day is a new episode - new "Taane-baazi" ... new laughs, new emotions .... Some of the eposides are very silly, but what makes the whole thing so nice is the genuineness of the key characters - Reema Lagoo and Supriya Pilgaonkar... They are so spontaneous and so nature, one would atleast give a smile seeing them, if not guffaw with joy ... Sachin's slick direction certainly deserves a wonderful applause - all the characters are so much at ease and you long to know what is going to happen in the Verma household the next day ... In this age of soaps - mostly filled with te...

Long since I wrote a blog. One very unpleasant incident put me off for a while. Some 'friend' commenting very nastily on my blog. Anyways , dogs will bark , that does not mean that I stop my writing. Turning to other better matters in life... I had been wanting to pen down some thoughts on the "topic line" for quite some time. Everyday when I go back home, i notice this phenomena. Mine is the last stop, so the bus stops there for a while for everybody to get down. Even before the stop comes, almost everybody starts to get up and crowd near the entrance. I don't get this - It is the last stop, so even if you are the last to get down, the driver will wait for you. And you are coming back home, so there is no meeting/call you need to rush for. Then why don't people follow an unlaid rule, let the front seat people get down and then get in the line, when it is their turn. Every single person has a rush, for what? - nothing. Getting home a minute later does not caus...

I really have not been feeling like writing since a long time ... but today thought would write this blog in dedication to my dearest husband .... who is celeberating his b'day today .... Till a certain point in age, b'days are such important events in life, you could call the most important ... For many middle class families, it is one of those very very few days when you get a new dress ... As a teeny-weeny kid, till the age of 3 one hardly remembers what b'days are .... but it is these years that are celeberated with lots of pomp and grandeur ... I can recall one of the recent b'day bashes that i heard of , where the IT couple spent close to half a lakh on their kid's 1st b'day .... wonder if such extravagance is really needed.... neither the kid nor the parents remember it a few years later ... You get the biggest cake in your life on your 1st b'day when you can hardly eat it ... I remember the first b'day cake that I cut was on my 7th b'day , w...

Sundays are 'clean the house' days usually .... That sunday was no exception ... we were cleaning my husband's trunk - a precious collection of every single relic related to our love story - from the petal of the first rose he gave me, to the chocolate wrapper that i gave him upon returning from vacation, to the chits we passed in class, to the folders i wrote for our lab work, to the numerous cards i gave him, to the poster of his favourite juhi - that i bought for him at chowrasta ... to the beautiful handwritten letters I wrote to him over the period of 5 years .... Letters .... are such special and wonderful memories.. Ones that you hardly see/write these days .... Letters of Nehru to his daughter were so special that they were published ... Another such cleaning day in chennai once caught me re-reading all those letters my mother wrote to me and vice versa when I was at college .... at about 12:30 in the afternoon, i would come back for lunch ... and rush to the board ...

Every morning, I think of what would today's topic for the blog be ... There is nothing more to write ... but something or the other happens in the course of the day, and it becomes my point to muse about or ponder about ... Loud speaking over phones in public place is so irritating .... There is this person who leaves for home in the same bus as mine ... if any day i happen to sit anywhere near him and his cell phone rings , woe betide me. I will get to know everything from what his plans for the evening are , to what his wife is cooking, to what fights he had in the office, to what movies he plans to see, to what he thinks about everything in the whole world ... Today when i entered the main hallway of my office , i heard a vociferous voice discussing the divorce case of one of her relatives and how the lady of 40 was getting another match and what her opinions on this were.... Imagine discussing private affairs in the mid hallway .... Seriously, it is high time people realised t...