It was a dusty evening, and the traffic outside my office building was as usual. I decided to get a quick bite at Wraps & Rolls and get back to work. And hence there I was , trying to cross the road and in the process, dodging in between speeding autos and swiftly moving cars.

I had to wait some time to get my order processed, and took some time to observe the people hsatily boarding share autos, catching buses. One could almost read their worried thoughts from their faces. Another guy had bought a roll before me and as he stood there eating, a beggar girl kept pestering him. My first thoughts were at disgust for all beggars worldwide. But then I noticed that this girl was hardly 7 years old, she was hardly wearing anything, some dirty shorts, had untidy hair which was tied up in a ponytail. After a few minutes I saw her eating that guy's roll, I guess he gave it to her. She sat with her mother, hungrily devouring it.

I have read about poverty in books, written "letters to editor" as part of english exercises about slum dwellers, "garibi hatao" of the Congress, but never thought about it deeply till this moment. I saw this young working girl, beautiful long hair, fair skin, a neat patiala salwar and fitting kurta, and tried to see this through that little girl's eyes. And then, wondered if this girl would even dare to dream of owning such simple pleasures that we have without much effort.

As I quickly tried to get back my composure and cross that road of hurdles to get back to work, I wondered if it is fate, luck, or "karma" that I am where I am and the little girl is where she is.



I tried searching her the next day, dint find her, but saw her mother with some other kid. By then, the horror had set in and I dint feel much for the other kid as I had for this girl.

But some things still dont change....

You may be working, but you still belong to that herd of gals that graduated from NITK in 2007. And you get reminders of that..

• You meet some of the hostel gals over a lunch and you are reminded of the herd mentality that we so stuck by over the past 4 years.. Go anywhere, but as a gang..
• The teasing that used to happen in college is still very much prevalent. Whoever thought that it is over with college is deeply mistaken!! In fact, it gets newer and sometimes even serious.
• Dad still gives you cash when you are leaving home.
• Walk on the street of your apartment and u meet some nitkians loafing around in shorts, just like college!
• Try as refined as you can get over the dinner table, once you are with hostelites in general, all that vanishes.
• Your sis still misses you the same, and still considers you to be the same brat who can be troubled n pinched as before..

:)

A month into Corporate

A month into being a "working mahila", as a friend calls us and I have noticed some things.

• You cannot avoid the aunty type handbag if you go looking for something to take to work. That is primarily because there exist only 3 types of bags:

1. college bags
2. aunty bags [that our mums used to take to work when we were kids]
3. party bags- very flashy, and all seem to have gold or silver on them.

So I ended up taking a normal back pack type of bag to office.

• Mums look younger than you. Go to a park, and u see a fit and trim gal chasing a lil kid n then you realise that she is a mum.. Gosh, when did I start comparing myself to mums!! Yuck!!!
• When the driver says Maam, it is for you, not for ur mum. Similarly when the driver asks for his fees, he asks you, not your Dad.
• When your Dad buys a new car, Something stops you from calling it your car. N then you realise its because people joining with you have "their own car", not their Dad's.
• When people talk of their girlfriends/boyfriends they dont blush anymore or offer any space to tease. Everything is now at a more serious level. So pulling their leg over a phone call looks very silly.
• And now u have to handle your investments n taxes and all. Your dad cannot do that for you.Nor can you run to him for help. "You are accountable to the company"

hyderabad weather

The sky was overcast, night was fast approaching,
I waited as usual, and he came, one last time.
As the rain blinded my eyes, i felt like ruffling his hair,
and giving him a bear hug.
It is true, some relationships have no name,
Alas, I realised it too late.
I wish my eyes were more expressive that day
because I had no words to say.
I wish I hadnt resorted to my usual jabber
maybe I would have said something then.

People come people go, its the memories that stay,
memories attached to plain objects,
memories attached to the now boring streets,
memories ....... the city knows.

The final year senti -mental

And i was expected to cry at the GB farewell. I had finished shedding tears at the beginning of final year itself and my friends were on the lookout for another burst as they all had missed the first one. However, i was happily talking to my juniors and consoling my batchmates that evening.

After that day too, there have been many times when I expected myself to come close to tears but surprisingly have not. That day at the farewell, i wish i had a tear in my eye to show that i cared that we were leaving. Tears express the extent of emotions. but i had no tear, only a smile. I dont know what has changed in me but surely this is not the normal Mad.

It somehow feels inadequate to dissolve into tears now. This parting requires much more than a few drops of salt water. And i am overcome with emotions to such an extent that i dont feel miserable that i wont have my closest pals with me in a couple of months. I dont feel that familiar knot in my throat when i am reminded of something that happened in these 4 years. I just feel calm, like a transparent ghost absorbing the happenings in an unconcerned manner.

It does not feel human.

if( u r a girl) then formals= sari;

I wonder who brought about this false idea that the ideal formal dress for girls is a sari. We wore saris for ring ceremony [for those who think it to be synonymous to engagement , scroll down please], and there were hardly any who looked 'formal'. We looked like socialites attending a party, girls attending a friend's wedding, even the bride's family members, but not engineers about to graduate.

A lot of thought was put into the color of the sari and everyone had begun sari preparations 3 months in advance. Then, a month before, almost everyone could be seen at the small tailors' shops at Surathkal, getting their blouses stitched or getting their mum's blouses altered. Some went to Mangalore to buy matching jewelery for their saris. And after every new addition to their sari, the sari was tried out with all the accessories collected so far.

If anyone thought that preparations to wear a sari involved only buying stuff from shops , they were so wrong. People turned weight conscious exactly a month before and suddenly, everyone could be seen feeling their tummies daily to check for any changes in the size. A fortnight before the slated day, some went on crash diets so as to look thin that day. However, all these intense preparations had to be carried on for a little longer as the ring ceremony itself got advanced. Apparently the rings hadn't arrived.

Some early birds, anticipating a crowd on the days near the ceremony date, visited the parlor well in advance only to realise the ceremony was again advanced. So as the third date approached, everyone was quite done with their preparations and GB 3rd floor wore a peaceful look.

The day of the ring ceremony, everyone had a good afternoon nap and whole floor was up by 4 pm taking bath. Since very few knew how to drape a sari, schedules had been fixed beforehand, as i was told when i went asking people to help me with my sari.

And after all the makeup and perfect hairstyles, we sat listening to speeches and afterwards, wore the ring given by our HOD, had dinner, took many pics in all permutations and came back.
I never understood the reason behind wearing a sari and not salwar. The efforts that were put into wearing the sari dint seem worth it.


PS1: The ring ceremony is a formal occasion organised by the institute wherein the students take a pledge of working honestly and sincerely and being worthy of the institute, the profession and the country.

PS2: i wonder if anyone can guess which para refers to me... [:)]

Birds in the sky

We sat on plastic chairs on a hot evening. It was hot as usual and i was in a sari - dress code was formals. Fanning myself with the sheet of paper that contained my pledge, i sat staring idly at the dais. Some dignitary was giving a speech and hardly anyone was listening. Most were busy looking around, looking for their friends and classmates and 4years' crushes. Bored, i looked up at the sky, and saw a flock of birds, moving in the exact V formation that we used to draw as kids. It made me think of us.

The 400 students that sat there listening to the speech were just a bunch of noisy birds that were about to fly in different directions. We had come from various parts of the country and had stayed together for 4 years. We became a part of the collective: NITKians. The campus had become 2nd home, 1st to many. This place gave us all the freedom and a small dose of the world. And just when we had got adjusted to our batchmates and had made some wonderful friends and explored the campus, we were to leave.

We had come as fledglings, we now leave as swans.

Powerless

The feeling when you want to strike back at something you so loathe but your hands are tied back.

The feeling when you see something so spectacular and marvelous that you cant help but admire it, even though you know it is detested or dangerous.

The feeling when you meet someone so perfect, so much that you blindly fall in love without thinking about realistic factors.

Its amazing that such contrasting emotions can make one feel powerless.

Powerless

That is exactly how i felt at 5:30 in the morning when in the bus from bangalore back to college. This man sitting in the single seater behind me had just put his hand in my shirt! My immediate reaction had been to go complain to the driver but as I walked till the driver's seat, I realised we were in the ghats Moreover, in the night when everyone was fast asleep, the driver was not the one I would want to trust. So I had asked the guy sitting in front of me to swap places with me and the sweet chap did so immediately [Bless him] .

And there I was, contemplating on what to do. Should I go right now and punch him on his face and gorge out his eyes, or should I do as all my elders would have adviced- sit quitely and not tell a word of it to anyone ?

That is when I got the full impact of how helpless and weak I actually was. See a single girl and any pipsqueak could dare to misbehave because he has the confidence that she will not retalliate. I could have been anyone - a lady with 2 little kids, a girl of barely 13. I would not have had the guts to retalliate if the guy looked anywhere near dangerous. I would have done just what thousands like me have done so far- sit silently.


I refuse to be silent, I refuse to be subdued.
I refuse to feel powerless.

Distinguishing the past and the future..

"Aurobindo Ghose writes somewhere of the present as the pure and virgin moment',htat razor's edge of time and existence which divides the past from the future,and is, and yet, instantaneously is not.The phrase is attractive and yet what does it mean?The virgin moment emerging from the veil of the future in all its naked purity, coming into contact with us, and immediately becoming the soiled and stale past.Is it we that soil it and violate it? Or is the moment not so virgin after all, for it is bound up with all of the harlotry of the past? "

Taken from The Discovery of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Nehru has expressed his thoughts quite well, and though the book is well written, I cannot help thinking of him as a hypocrite because he talks of sitting in jail as some great act whereas there were thousands who spent many more years in jail and were even tortured to death. He also talks of hindu-muslim divide as if he were against it whereas whole of India knows that he and many others very much wanted it because of power.

Sometimes I pity such hypocrites; They might do such a good job of faking that they might never be able to admit the truth to anyone, not even themselves.

Goan Gypsy

Sun and sand,
summer hats n cooling glasses
tanned skin and bright colored clothing
funky trinkets that go with the mood
the blue sky which makes you hum "ya ya maya-ya, ya ya..."

Just back from goa, i havent yet washed my clothes or cleared my luggage. i thought i will quickly write a post before i start off with my jobs. But then, i got to know of a post written about our trip by a classmate. Must say, i seriously dint know out trip would feature in any of the guys' blogs..i was quite taken by surprise to see that someone has about 10% of his blog (as of now) about our trip. And that too from someone i thought was an MCP (this of course proved me wrong) .. Quite flattering. Ofcourse, there are some funny remarks intended to insult, but really, those are commonplace in final year..

Well, now that i have done justice to the funny post of his( i really liked the black friday joke and the grocer one, but writer could have done better than the one on suicide) , let me proceed to goa.

In a nutshell, we visited Mapusa friday market, calangute beach for watersports, chapore fort, heritage homes, 3 churches and adjoining museums, a wildlife sanctuary, Santa Monica boat ride, Dona Paula and tried out goan cuisine - vindaloo, cashewnut bhaji, xacuti, bebinka. Did loads of shopping and soaking up of sunrays (tried to get a good tan, though i dont think it is visible right now).

I loved the Portugese style houses - they are of a completely different genre and i also realised that goa is a good place to shop for interior decoration pieces - Cheap prices and superb articles. I also loved water sports, particularly the banana boat ride, where 5 people are taken to the sea and the boat is overturned, so you are thrown into water and can float around in the sea. It feels fantastic to be in the centre of the sea, with the sun above your head and blue waters around you - i cannot describe the feeling as no words would do justice to it.

But most of all i liked the people in goa, or rather, the attitude of the people there. Everyone is so bindaas. You see locals wearing skirts and there is noone ogling at their legs. The firangs are so relaxed and a little extra bindaas, but then you tend to be more relaxed because of that. We were roaming around in shorts and capris, something impossible in broad daylight in our antic college with its old fashioned students and faculty. Well, after roaming around like dirty tourists in goa, i better get used to full jeans and salwars now that i am in college..


Some advice: Never take more than 2 sets of clothes as you can always buy there for dirt cheap prices, and there is stuff that can be bought and worn only in goa-use that during the stay, especially the brightly colored beads and saarongs and skirts - too cute.

Mumbai - the city of life

The filthy sewage with plastic littered around it,
the whizzing locals packed with people,
the dusty skyline with long skyscrapers,
population that encloses every ethnic group.


That was my first impression of mumbai as I got off the train and moved towards a taxi. The exact features of city life - dirt and crowded roads.
I went shopping on Kolaba and on Lincoln Road. My wallet was stolen but fortunately, it did not contain any cash except for some chiller and a photograph.


As me and my friends walked along Marine Drive at sunset,I was still wondering why people love this city so much that any mumbaikar who comes to bangalore is unable to stay in bangalore for more than a year. We sat down along the road at Nariman Point and over a cup of chaha and a cone of salted groundnuts, my friend explained about life in mumbai. He asked us to look at the buildings along the road, the old and the new, the 2 stadiums and the road lit up with orange lights. He told us that if you were to imagine every light to be a person, then you get an idea of how vast this city is, and how numerous the opportunities are. Only then do you realise how insignificant you are to the person who is walking beside you on the road, and how meaningless your problems are. At that point, if you can stand tall and smile at those buildings, then you have arrived.


Amen to that.