Reflections

Today being a Saturday and a half working Saturday (I work full days on Saturdays!), I decided to de-stress and go a-ramble into the depths of cyber space. And that reminded me about my space in it, my blog that I had neglected for so long.

Signing in after what seemed like ages, I found it amusing to read my previous blogs. As amusing as going through old school photographs and smiling at triggered memories.Something about the blog gave me a stale feeling, a feeling of unchanged-ness. This feeling has been surfacing quite frequently these days. Probably because of the office and its environment. (Note to self: Blogged when with LifeCycle). Nevertheless, I decided to revamp and give my dear blog a new look. I randomly follow various blogs and this inspired even more.

My blog has to reflect me. Period. But what is it that really reflects me? I thought about many many many things but all that I could come up with was - Books!! And hence this background image :)

And with this revamp, I shall endeavor to blog regularly, yet again!

Pity for Poor Africans (1788)

I own I am shock'd at the purchase of slaves,
And fear those who buy them and sell them are knaves;
What I hear of their hardships, their tortures, and groans
Is almost enough to draw pity from stones.

I pity them greatly, but I must be mum,
For how could we do without sugar and rum?
Especially sugar, so needful we see?
What? give up our desserts, our coffee, and tea!

Besides, if we do, the French, Dutch, and Danes,
Will heartily thank us, no doubt, for our pains;
If we do not buy the poor creatures, they will,
And tortures and groans will be multiplied still.

If foreigners likewise would give up the trade,
Much more in behalf of your wish might be said;
But while they get riches by purchasing blacks,
Pray tell me why we may not also go snacks?

Your scruples and arguments bring to my mind
A story so pat, you may think it is coin'd,
On purpose to answer you, out of my mint;
But, I can assure you, I saw it in print.

A youngster at school, more sedate than the rest,
Had once his integrity put to the test;
His comrades had plotted an orchard to rob,
And ask'd him to go and assist in the job.

He was. shock'd,sir, like you, and answer'd -- “Oh,no
What! rob our good neighbour! I pray you, don't go;
Besides, the the man’s poor, his orchard’s his bread,
Then think of his children, for they must be fed."

"You speak very fine, and you look very grave,
But apples we want, and apples we'll have;
If you will go with us, you shall have a share,
If not, you shall have neither apple nor pear."

They spoke, and Tom ponder’d -- !I see they will go:
Poor man! what a pity to injure him so
Poor man! I would save him his fruit if I could,
But staying behind will do him no good.

"If the matter depended alone upon me,
His apples might hang till they dropt from the tree;
But, since they will take them, I think I'll go too,
He will lose none by me, though I get a few."

His scruples thus silenc’d, Tom felt more at ease,
And went with his comrades the apples to seize;
He blam'd and protested, but join'd in the plan;
He shar'd in the plunder, but pitied the man.

By William Cowper.

A Pleasant Discovery

I wonder how many of you remember the poems we studied at school. There were all sorts of poems. Poems about rain, rainbows, God, daffodils, Pied Piper, pirates, arithmetic, Man, children, historical places, cities, soldiers, travelers... The list is a long one.

Many of these I remember because I have kept old text books. However, my collection has one textbook missing. For many months now, I have been searching for a particular poem which happened to be in the missing textbook. Even Google failed me. A few friends vaguely remembered the poem but nobody could manage to entirely recollect it. An uncle who recalled the title informed me that the textbook did not mention the poet. That turned out to be a dead end as well. Due to the change in syllabus, the said textbook's contents are entirely different from what they were 10 years ago.

I had almost given up on the poem when suddenly, a line from it came to my mind - '...had once his integrity put to the test...' And then Google did not fail me :) But what I found hugely surprised me. Apart from changing one word in the first line of the poem, which happens to be the twenty-second line of the original poem, the syllabus setters also changed the title of the poem. No surprises here because what we studied was only the second half of the original poem under the title 'Principles Put to the Test'.

Of Rejections, Frustrations and more

Note: This blog is not going to make sense to anyone. Its completely random.

I woke up all fresh and energized to start a brilliant day - a long day with exciting work and a nice cup of steaming coffee at the near-by cafe in the evening with a friend. My idea of a perfect day. But apparently, Someone up there (I don't really believe in these things!) had other plans.
When I came to work, I found out that a colleague had a major argument with the boss last evening. He is not very happy about it today. Looks like I am about to lose another colleague soon! (Just 2 days back, another colleague resigned). I checked my mails only to find that my application for MBA had been rejected. Met a couple of friends online. All of them have been worried sick about:
1. Current jobs
2. Finding new jobs
3. Exam results
4. Finding new place to move in
And now I am worried sick about:
1. My company closing down and locking its shutters (and literally mean shutter because we don't have a door to enter. Just a hole in a shutter which needs to be unlocked and is usually accompanied by a lot of clanking sound of rusted iron!) for ever.
2. In which case, I have to start looking out for a new job.
3. My MBA applications
4. And my career! (Thats what everything is all about)

Then I got into an argument (friendly) with a colleague who said, "All guys think about how to make money. And all girls think about how to get guys with money." Ridiculous nonsense!! See, this is what is exactly called mind-set - something that is difficult to change. People just don't understand that some people can be different, can beg to differ. Because I do. I want to make money. Enough so that me and my family can live comfortably. I don't even want to talk about the husband-earning-for-all-too factor. I don't even know if I will marry, yet. And even if I do, what I earn is what I earn. I have sentiments, a feeling of great pride attached to it. I am financially independent. Yes. That's what I want to be. Financially independent.

But this is not what I am blogging about. Its just that about a week back or even less everything was perfect, just perfect. I would not have imagined that things could go so TWANG in the span of a week!! What happened? What happened? Why the sudden sullenness, dejection, frustration? This is the first fortnight of the new year. Things, events, people are supposed to be good during this time (at least according to me). Then why are they behaving otherwise?

I don't like all this. I want to go to bed tonight and wake up tomorrow as though all of this was just a bad dream. Alas, this is my reality. Such is Life.

2009 - The Year That Has Been

I don't know when, where and how 2009 breezed by. There were LOADS of things I decided to do at the beginning of this year - on the professional and personal front. Hardly a few have been completed. And some have not even been started! Such as:-

1. Cleaning my room to make it look perfect (I like to be optimistic!)

2. Shopping for clothes I will USE

3. Writing my travelogues

4. Finding the treadmill wire

5. Buying a new cell phone

6. Dining at Basilico (Its Shridhar's fault, not mine, that this has not yet been completed)

7. Blogging regularly

8. Reading all blogs I decided to follow

9. Completing reading all books / articles on my reading list

10. Searching for the said books / articles

But I have managed to:-

1. Learn how to use Facebook effectively

2. Start making lists like Mia Thermopolis

3. Design and decorate my alcove

4. Fall asleep while reading a book with the lights on in my alcove

5. Got recognition for my work (That is one professional accomplishment)

6. Read a bunch of e-books while at work and still got a thumbs up from my boss (for my work, not the e-books)

7. Attend wedding ceremonies of two friends and enjoyed them thoroughly

8. Take the GMAT and score decently

9. Feel surprised and have even resented, at times, at the changes I have observed in me and the people around me and not show it on my face.

10. Talk to a friend after a long time :)


All in all, not a bad year. Just a fast one with me and a couple of cousins pleading for it to slow down, month-wise ;)

Maya - Re-visited

Lately, I have done a lot of retrospection, thinking about various people, places and incidences. And I thought of Maya!

For those of you who do know her:
I have mailed a couple of people asking about her, but no leads. She has disappeared! Totally! I would have liked to follow her, though.

And for those of you who do not know her yet, get to know her! Following is a mail I sent more than two years back and a dear cousin (Muah!) saved it for me in the form of a blog which I am happy to copy-paste from her! :)

I still get that mixed feeling of admiration and heart-wrenching happiness when I read it. And for all this, I sincerely hope she is very happy.

" Maya, a lady in her late 20s, probably 27 - 30. She is a 8th standard drop-out from छबिलदास School (Rucha, its a school which was ONLY good during our आजी's schooling years and probably a few years after that!). Her family lives near Curry Road Station, very near to लालबागचा गणपती. Her mother works as a cleaner at Mumbai airport. Her father probably does a similar kind of job somewhere. She looks after patients who have very little hope of survival or extremely old people. She was a so-called nurse for a kid with lukemia. She was jobless after 5 years as the patient was no more. Then she was offered a similar position with a family to look after their very old grandfather. She was and I think still is with the same family.


Do you know where she lives? In the Heart of Central London !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Her second employer was so happy with her work that he sponsered her work permit and since she already had been in the UK for the past 5 years, he even helped her with her residentship.


Today, a very proud Maya is one of the official residents of the Queen's country. In these 11 years, she has travelled to Nigeria, Spain and Italy. She converses very well in English, though not that very fluently, with a bit of an accent !!!! She knows Marathi, Hindi and Gujrathi - reading, writing and speaking. She cooks very good Gujrathi food (it was a part of her second job). And of course English for her daily life.


I met her when she had come to meet माधवी मामी. When she registered with मामी's marriage bureau, मामी told her that she would not accept any registration fees from her as it would be entirely मामी's pleasure. But when she completed the form and left, she had quitely slipped 100 pounds between the pages.


It was संक्रांत and Mami gave her गुळाची पोळी which was generously soaked in ghee (there is no तूप here !!). That was the first time she said she had tasted a real गुळाची पोळी!!


I sent a usual Sunday nite mail to aai and just as I switched off my laptop, I remembered I forgot to mention the most important event of the weekend. I was sleepy and thought I would do that from office tomorrow and with that I turned off the light at midnight. But for the next 40 minutes, I just couldn't concentrate on sleep. Somewhere in my mind a voice was saying, "Send the mail NOW! Tell everyone NOW ! " So now its 1:00 am, Monday morning and as I finish writing this mail, I feel completely relaxed and genuinly happy for Maya. My Sunday evenings are generally spent in thinking about the boring week ahead or which company have I left out for job applications. But I couldn't help feeling absolutely happy for Maya today !!


3 Cheers for her."

What's Your Time?

I am wondering if you know what "time" you live in? Are you "with times", "ahead of times" or "behind times"? And by 'you' I mean the society in general.

Our society is such a varied mixture of everything thrown together, all mixed up and confused! And then that same mixture of confusion thrown back at us in different forms, that I sometimes wonder how we (or at least I) manage to stand up again after a new series of this throwing and catching game of mixed confusions takes place?

All this has confused me beyond limit! :) But what I really want to say is that how do we manage to survive peacefully in all this mess that we call the 'traditional Indian culture'? Or is it just me bothering about apparently insignificant things?

At least that's what MY society is like - the people I meet everyday and those that I don't.

To quote a few unique examples... the first one that comes to mind is a former colleague - a classic case of timeless confusion! A simple, plain-Jane, good girl and starved in the name of religion. So starved, that I thought her to be much younger than she actually was when I first met her. Plain-Jane fasted for most days of the week not knowing (1) the significance of the day, (2) the deity/God she was supposed to be fasting for and (3) the 'rules' that are to be followed during a fast! When asked why she bother about all this when she didn't know answers to any of the above, all she would say was, "That's the way it is. I can't help it."


And do any of you (yes, you, the reader) have answers to any of the above? Are you aware of the 'rules' that I am talking about? Maybe not. Here are a few:

(1) When a person fasts for one day, that day is counted from dawn to dusk.

(2) Coffee and not tea is allowed during a not-so-strict fast because coffee beans are not native crops/plants of this country. Same for potatoes, sweet potatoes, peanuts and chillies. (Yes. Thank Mexico for all the spicy chillies.)

(3) God does not come to your rescue if you do something stupid like wait in queue for long hours in scorching heat outside his temple (which he NEVER claims, by the way) while fasting and then faint on your way home.


The cherry on the cake was Jane not eating red-coloured potato papads on one of her fast days because I told her she could not have them if she was fasting! I said thay because the papads were fried. Not because of the colour. But she thought it was because of the colour (She told me so).


The next case is of a friend trying to be 'ahead' but is in fact between 'with' and 'behind' times. While finding a suitable wedding present, I came across a beautiful set of earrings in silver. But was advised not to buy those (by Aai) because (according to Aai & I fully trust her with such things) she and her family are a little conservative and such people usually prefer the newly married girls in their families to wear gold jewellery. Silver jewellery is for the younger, un-married girls! "What crap!", was my immediate reaction. "If silver jewellery looks good with an outfit you are wearing, then you wear silver jewellery! What has that got to do with your marital status? And does jewellery not symbolise wealth?" All Aai had to say was, "These girls wear outfits which only go with gold jewellery."

This same friend will soon be leaving her job as she is moving to a different city after marriage. Given the current economic and job scenario, I casually mentioned that continuing with her present job till an equally good one is at hand will be wise. Hers is a love marriage. So I thought a little adjustment will neither be a problem nor a mis-understanding. I was gently reminded that it was impossible to work out such a situation and it was best not to discuss it further!


I understand that such changes are not possible overnight. But why don't we use our own brains while deciding what is good for us and what is not? Afterall, we have been given the power to think so that we can employ it for our own use and betterment. Not for Nature's amusement!


All said and done, I wonder which "times" do we live in? "With", "Ahead" or "Behind"?