The Saga of Death: Year End Saga (II)

I just did not want to write another post about death.
Death is about loss, something that I had experienced a lot (losing my loved ones, one after the other) and I had hoped that it would be a long time before this happened again.

To be fair, it was more than 10 years. It has been me who has been trying to hold time, and hoping that time doesn't affect me.

My grandmother (Dadi), the glue of my family left us for heavenly abode last week. It has been a tremendous loss to our family and while we know and understand that she was almost 85, that she had seen and lived her life fully, the emptiness of not having her around to constantly remind us to have breakfast, or to wake up, or in general being snarky is going to take a lot of time to get used to.

While we were just getting out of this shock, we received the news of my father's childhood friend just collapsing while on a walk. He was in Australia and he was not very old.

While we cope with our loss, we are also made to think, and made to realise how precious life is, that how important it is to let go of our egos and hold on to the things that just make us angry.

It is so important that we think about what is it that we would want in our life, whether it is accumulation of wealth or accumulation of loving relationships, with family and friends that would last us beyond our days of partying and drinking.

Dadi has left behind a family that is cohesive but also pretty fragile. Our inner strengths and power plays are going to be tested, and eventually (mostly willfully) some of us would have to compromise on the behaviour of the other. It is a long road ahead, and all of us can only hope.

The lessons in life, often, are not restricted to life alone. Even in death the wise leave behind the lessons that we most hold on to. 

Winter is Coming: The Year End Saga

This Saga Starts again.
After a hiatus of about an year, I re start the report on the year that has gone by.

This year has been extremely interesting.
I have travelled, from one end of Mumbai to the other. With the amount of travelling that constituted each of my day (on an average 60 kms a day), I would have probably seen more of the world than the slums of Mumbai.

I have learnt several other hard lessons this year. The most important being the ones related to making the wrong career decisions, about money (or the lack of it), about loving my Dog, and missing my husband, about learning to enjoy personal walks in a city where the personal space is no bigger than where the peak of your nose is.

This year has been about a lot of churning. About how time waits for none, and about, how you think and perceive about the time that has gone by.

This year has also made me learn about Friends and Friendships. And that thing about "out of sight is out of mind". I learnt about, how good friends just move. Move away, and then they are different. And even though we will pick up from where we left, there are very few friendships that stick by you despite the distance.
I found a friend and a confidant in the most unexpected person ever. And, though he is Husband's BFF, the discovery of our ease with each other now ensures that I disturb him at the most in appropriate times.

There were other revelations as well, like, how I always felt that my parents need to really grow up and let go, and how I had thought that post marriage, they had.. well that is not true. Parents, are always that. And surprisingly, while my Dad is becoming rigid in terms of change, it has been my Mother, who is slowly learning to let go. Slowly being the key word. [She has accepted the Dog in the house, albeit only under strict supervision and guidelines, but they are a few meters apart, and are in peace with each other.. or so I hope]. There is a thirst of adventure that has taken over my Mom, and the fact that she wants to live the grand life through us is slightly unnerving, but then I need to show her things, refine her taste, and maybe in the whole scheme of things get her satisfaction quotient up a bit more.

The lessons in love and marriage never cease. It is amazing that even when you live with someone day in and day out you find something new about your partner, on an average in about every 2 odd days. For husband and me, it has been almost 11 years of being together, and he still doesn't take the hints. He still doesn't realise that I am on my phone most of the time, after I see that he is more interested in his! Or for that matter, the fun of watching a TV Series for me is watching it together with him, and for him it is, watching it as soon as it is out. So, yeah, finding the new things..


If there is a reason as why things happen, and so on and so forth, then I really hope to God, that three years after the first round of over haul, when we are back to the NCR, things change for the better for us. No, they were not bad in Mumbai. But yes, they can be better. Career-wise for both us, family wise, and of course general happiness wise.

As, I end this post, in anticipation to the next few ones about the year that flew by us, it has just rained outside, and while I know a certain friend of mine who also moved back to Delhi after a hiatus is going to curse the spell of rain, I see that the Winter is Coming! 

Political Musings

There was a long debate on a Firstpost Article that the Husband had shared on his FB feed, which unlike the rest of the media made a little bit more sense about the "intolerance" remark.

For all that it is worth, the whole initial debate which started with SRK saying that we are becoming intolerant, followed by Aamir saying the same. Somewhere during the statements that were made by these two celebrities, their were the others from the community of actors, producers, writers, scholars, and other intelligentsia who decided that they would return the state honours that have been given to them as a mark of protest against the rising tempers and "intolerance" in the country.

As soon as the intelligentsia opened their mouth to protect their own integrity as the people of art and their own interest, it sparked an outrage. An outrage that was uncalled for, an outrage that questioned the nationality and patriotism of the actors and the other award givers.

Can someone, anyone, please explain to me, how is this being "tolerant". How is it that the Government decides to use these very celebrities to spread the messages of awareness in the public, and when these celebrities say something which actually means something, the public in general instead of really applying their minds, just start trolling.

And this is why we end up having morons as our leaders.

We are a country that gets swayed by wherever the tides pull us. Oh, this man, who is a Muslim by religion, says that there is intolerance in the country automatically means that he is talking about the hindutva sect (chor ki daadi me tinka)..!!

Did anyone of the silly people re-tweeting and re sharing the anti Aamir Khan messages and posts, sit back and think that if a man, who has all the money that he can get and any kind of security that he desires, and who can choose to turn his face away from everything, instead chooses to talk about it to the world, then there is something seriously wrong with the world that we are living in.

We have become the generation which has such an overwhelming amount of information at our disposal, that we have forgotten how sift the wheat from the chaff, how to process the information, and respond to the musings and action of the intelligentsia. We react.

There are factions in the society, amongst us, and people like the Husband and my self, who have stopped reacting to the outrage of the people, and the outrageous comments that they make. We have become numb to the happenings of intolerance that are happening around us.

I for once can't stop wondering that why are people not reacting to the poison in the Air that we are breathing every single day of our lives, or reacting to the bad infrastructure that the politicians refuse to do anything about.
The Politicians give the most nonsensical reasons to the society at large to react about (religious and casts and love jihad) and make us all forget about the real reasons why they were put on the seat of power, as the representative of the people in the first place. 

The Thanksgiving update

So many things have been happening around me and to me that I haven't had the time, nor have I had the energy to write about it.

Things have changed.
Yet again.

As I write this update on my blog, I am sitting in an office in Delhi. Yes, you read that right. The Husband and I have moved back to the Dil walon ki Dilli. He got a new job, I took a transfer. This decision was taken a long time ago, however, we were planning to take it a little bit slowly, and had hoped to move back here with a little bit more mental preparation and emotional stability.
But life has a way of throwing curve balls and the timing is always wrong.

So, instead of moving with our timelines, we ended up moving much much earlier. We have managed to finalise a house in the NCR region, and since I will the victim of long travel again, I shall be writing about the ever amazing failed public transport system in this city. [If you have stayed in Delhi all your life, you know for a fact that the Auto walla bhaiyas have perfected the art of ignoring your presence when you try to flag them for a ride, and the buses may be used at your own risk and lastly, even though Delhi Metro is the BEST, there is still a lot to be desired].

We did the most epic road trip to Delhi, since we wanted to get the car and Sugar along with us. We drove from Mumbai to Delhi via Ahemdabad and Pushkar (Rajasthan) over period of 2 nights and 3 days. We had our friend, Mr. Mad Cap Loony, who on my insistence flew down to Mumbai to do the Road trip with us. There was thus never a lull of conversation, weird songs and amazing time on the trip. We were on a timeline to reach Delhi and therefore, we could not really see much of the cities that we passed through, but yes, we did stop over at Mount Abu for Lunch.
The other epic part of the journey was us getting trampled by a bunch of cows on the national Highway. We are all okay, the car, is a different story altogether (It is not as bad as I am making it sound!).

The fact that we have moved back still hasn't sunk in. There are those butterflies and nervous episodes that make me feel that this is just another vacation that may get over any time.

The biggest thing that has happened after our moving to Delhi, was a distinct change in everyone's attitude towards Sugar. While my Mom still stays away from her physically, I get an update about Sugar's day down to the T. From how much did she play to with who all did she play and how much did she sleep and all that jazz. Sugar has somehow gotten hurt on her knee, and has therefore been limping, and before I could make that out, I got a report from my Mom, that there is something wrong with her, and that she has been licking her paw constantly. Of course, there is still a lot of apprehension around Sugar, but it is still better than having a wall in my house.

And this is how we marked our 3rd Marriage Anniversary. In middle of finding houses, staying out of a suitcase and rediscovering the joys and constraints of having the entire family hounding you day and night..

Here is thanking everyone who has helped me in this journey and here is hoping for the best in the coming challenges! 

How "Not" to be a Boss

I have had a plethora of bosses, with each one giving me something or the other to ponder about. As chance would have it, most of my bosses have been women, and that have made things slightly complicated (You women are complicated beings!)

So while the post is going to be a critical analysis of the Bosses and lessons to take from itr, they are purely my own, and IF any of my bosses is reading this, then well, take it with a pinch of salt!!

Ms. MA:
My first boss, who is as fierce a feminist as can be. Someone whose husband is a foreigner and stays in a foreign land, and she was managing a long distance marriage (at that point in time, I could not piece together my relationship over a distance!) and she taught me that I would not want to have a life where I cannot balance my asperations along with my family. She also taught me that there is absilutely no short cut to success, but time management makes working smarter an easy solution.

Ms.PC:
She was/ is my mentor. She may not have the hard hitting attitude, but she sure does have a lot of patience. She taught me the value of confidence, of reading and learning, and she has constantly been my guide. She has taught me grit (she is a single mom, who is raising a teenage son, with a heart of Gold). I have learnt from her never to give up, and the fact that as a boss, if you trust your junior, you will always always get loyalty in return.

Ms. SS & Mr. RS:
These were my bosses in the "corporate world" and have taught me so much about corporate politics that it makes me shudder to the core. Ms. SS, has taught me how not be a bitch who gets swayed by anything and everything, and how important is it to use your own brains to make the most important decisions.
Mr. RS has taught me that, when you act like a "SOB", then you will loose good talent, and your own ego will make you choose the most wrong people for the jobs that they are doing.

Both of them also taught me, that it is a very bad idea to look at things from one perspective, and being non appreciative about the things that have been done by your juniors over the years and otherwise.
They also taught me the imporance of appreciation (rather non- appreciation).

Dr. PA & BNM:
The current crop of bosses. The more you say about them, the less it is. They have taught me the most in the last 8 months of my stint here.
One of the primary lessons that I have learnt is about deciet.. Yes you read that right. When you promise something and do something else.
The next lesson that I have learnt here is about pulling the strings from behind a puppet, and how easy it is for you to do that if you have the money.
The other lesson that I have learnt is about knowledge. While Ms. PC was weak in certain portions of law, she would always ask for help, and trust the person who has more knowledge than her to ensure that correct advise is given. Here, even though, the knowledge bank is empty and the people who know their stuff are willing to help, the trust is missing.
Micro management is another aspect that is a part of the deal.. when you micro manage and don't trust, you will have people (even the most loyal ones) resenting you all the time.

These are just a few things that I have learnt, and I hope that whenever, I have a set of juniors I am able to take the good and leave the rest.

The "Secret" Adult Society

When I was a kid, often while my parents and their friends were sitting together for a dinner, or just gossiping around, they would usually shoo the kids away (okay, we as kids were also not really interested to listen to their talks). But, once I was a little older, they would still shoo me away.

And, I wondered why. Then, from the teenage, I entered the twenties, and I was allowed to vote, hell, I was allowed to have wine, but often, still shooed away when the parents sat down to chit chat. Wasn't I a grown up still??

And then I got married.

And wham bham, that was the automatic membership to the "Secret" Adult Society. It was almost like, I had grown up instantaneously.
The knowledge that marriage meant consensual sex, and so and so forth makes people more comfortable around the "grown up kids".

You all are raising an eye brow? I notice all kinds of patterns, and this secret society pattern is something that has strakly come in to view.

For one, my elder cousin (sister), doesn't think twice about talking to me about her bedroom life with her husband, and how things change when you have kids. I have always been close to her, but she would never expressely talk about the fact that how she slept off in the moment....!!!

And the sexually charged up jokes by the women, in general make uncomfortable in a conversation an understatement. It is like, no conversation is complete without a sexual innuendo. And from the talks of these ladies, it seems that sex becomes a rarity post the kids!

Then there are conversations around retirements and savings, and the same parents that usually shield you from the realities of life don't shield you anymore, and the guilt that is often not a part of the growing up, becomes a part of your being in its entirety.

The decision making process becomes lenthy. Like really complicated. Earlier, if there was a party, you would ask your parents, who would often play football between themselves and then say no (my parents mostly said no). Now that you have a party to attend to, you have to think of the following:

1. Is it on a weekend?
2. Check with your spouse, if there is any plan.
3. Check your bank balance, if it is a dutch party.
4. Buy a gift if you are not the host.
5. Clothes. None that fit you any more. Therefore, buy or improvise.
6. Car. Would you forego the drinking or your spouse?
7. Is there any other plan, the next day!
Shit! You would have to for go sleep to have a happening weekend.

And this was a simple party that we are talking aboutr. Imagine making a decision, if it is shifting of a house, a city, changing jobs or wanting to study.

Then there is the food. Remember the good ol days when you made a face at the brocoli.. times my dear friend has changed and the karma of the brocoli follows you as an adult!!

When they talk about being a grown up, they don't tell you, how complicated is it, to call up a friend and to believe when they say that they are okay, when in your heart your instincts tell you otherwise. Of the fake smiles and heart breaking decisions.
And all you think is, when will this end???

Festivities, Change and a Crazy lady!

There is this urge to write.
A certain franctic feeling, about recording every thought that runs through my mind. But, then when I open this page often, I am blank.

I want to type, and then I am just too lazy.

The Gods it seem take the sadist pleasure to dump me with way too many things to think about, to act upon and then expect me to not to freak out (or like the husbad says- "become a crazy lady").

Yes, things are in a tizzy!

The year it seems is getting set to close on high note, one way or the other.

Here is to festivities, and change!