Random day nostalgia

Today is one of those random days - I got up in the morning and decided to take off from work. No special reason - I had ended up working the weekend and among other things I felt I needed a break to just not think about office, email, code-reviews. Well that's not happening very well - even though I have firmly shut the office laptop - I am not managing to keep work out of my head all the time and can't keep my thoughts from wandering in the direction of "what's next at work" list or how to go about doing it.
I started off with gardening - isn't that supposed to be relaxing and soothing. But I had changed the faster growing plants to bigger pots and watered them and finished with it under an hour. So I decided to watch a movie - atleast it would give me that parallel reality to escape into. My choice was No one killed Jessica. It's a very well made movie - very realistically told - and the more reaction causing because it is based on a true story.

The year was 2006 - my second year at Grad school. I remember hearing about it and reading about it - and that was all. Today while watching the movie - I feel I have not been fighting India's wars - not been a part of the revolutions which have swept across the country since 2005. The few days of visit - the hellos and sumptuous breakfast-lunch-dinner invitations and back to a I wouldn't call it boring but mundane existence where the biggest wars we fight everyday are probably the fire-fights and deadlines at work - at least till the point that our family grows. :)

From what I get to hear from my mother - every day at home in India starts with a struggle - the innumerable dependencies in the chain and the havoc that results when one of the links decides to go missing - which of course is the normal everyday routine - the going missing. I miss India a lot (I guess more in the aftermath of movies you could say :)) - I miss the life the vibrancy - the part of me which will forever be there. You would say I am romanticizing it, me and my very Bengali idealism - when I live the life I won't cry for it so much anymore. I probably won't - I will probably complain/groan and throw up my hands in despair but I will also probably live.

Everything is fine here - on the surface of it - when I don't think. Work is great and challenging (now - infact I had to take off today because I have been too interested and too bogged down and almost working or thinking about work 24x7) . Work culture has always been good but the team right now is pretty neat. I know what or where I want to be - have a clear direction - all you need to do is close your eyes and follow the path. But as far as everything else is concerned - life seems so insipid. And the romantic, adventurous, so-far-timid-but-wanting-to-be-courageous in me is revolting. Every human being wants that much more -  and I guess what I want is to be back in India. :)

A fool's journey - but that's what I have been doing all my life. I left my school when I was in class V and then went back after a month. I left the org in my company I had the most fun working in and came back after one and a half years. Now maybe it is time to return to my country after 7 years. 

I keep coming back to the same things throughout my blog and I guess scaring all my readers away because of it - you fall in love with a place for the place or for the people ! I am sure the answer differs from each to the next. I fall in love with a place - because I am not/have never been the social guru. I think I have done most of what I wanted to do in life - see some places - travel the world a bit - and be able to show my family those places. I have seen some heavens on earth and luckily been able to share them with the most important people in my life. I am happy and now I can feel the stupor of becoming old - and wanting to cling on to my roots and settle. :) Scoff as much as you like - it could also be the afternoon depression just setting in.  So much for random thoughts and nostalgia - well at least it got me writing again.

Conversations on friendship

Yesterday, after 7 eons - I met up with a friend from college who was passing through town. From the first wave across the roads to the last goodbyes - it seemed as if the conversation had never stopped. I was surprised by the number of "me too's" being said and exactly the topics of conversation being started which I would have wanted to talk about or had forgotten but now heard the same sentiments being echoed back - but I guess I shouldn't have been.

I am not sure if I would have left the same impression of friendship on my age-old friend as she did on me - but then everybody reacts differently - and similar things touch different people differently. Even when I call up somebody I was close to in under-grad, I feel as if we are just picking up the thread from where we had left off yesterday - it doesn't matter that since then we have walked different paths and aged differently and been through different life experiences or been moulded to different lives - it seems the bond of those four years during which we shared everything - joys, pains, sorrows - and grew from teenage hood to the next stage of hood (:)) through a brief four years - something cemented us together so strong - that years apart can't create cracks in it. I am not saying that I could just stop and pickup a conversation with each and every one of my under-grad classmates - but thinking back - it is funny how people with similar outlooks and perspectives just find each other in hostels - and there my friend, starts a bond for life.

The last few days I have been feeling alone in a crowd - since I felt connected and yet not connected - and hence maybe in a better position to observe and sometimes that is a lot of fun but also very lonesome.  I have been craving for friends the last few days - and yet through the week, I had the chance of meeting up with old friends and new - and for some aspect of my life have them say to me what I would have repeated to them about what I was feeling in the current situation or about the future or about careers or about life.

I was surprised at myself - at how dumb and without ideas I would go at one lunch conversation - to how dominating and non-stop talking I would go at the next. And it just seemed I reacted differently to when people seemed ready to accept me to when they showed that they didn't really care I existed - and the latter case just kept driving me nuts. There are no few instances of the latter actually, especially since I am in a foreign country - but I guess the trick is to just not care and "be yourself" (courtesy genie of the lamp to Aladdin :)). But I am digressing - I was talking about picking up lost threads of friendship and I strayed to wanting to recreate those connections again in my present life.

I was talking to Sarah, a friend I made at work here - and we were remembering when we really enjoyed our work and team and looked forward to what we were doing and contributing. Both experiences were when we were back in our home countries. :) I still recall hanging out with my colleagues (who were less colleagues and more friends) outside of work and having the most fun - connecting and bonding even though we were no longer in school,  from a closely scattered age group and experience. Our lunch conversations would be dominated by riddles, problems, mind-teasers, news discussions and we never ran out of topics to talk about. We never stopped picking on each other either. I wonder if that didn't inspire us to be our creative and productive best at work as well.

Sadly enough, I still wish for friends at work - knowing I will never get that back.  In this coutnry - people are so up in arms to give everybody else their work front - people feel work and friend life should be kept separate (even writing about work-friends actually makes me utter a critical laugh - it seems an oxymoron now - whoever heard of that - friends at your workplace). Not only that, I find the current culture is to be competitive and selfish at the cost of putting others down and stepping on others. Lack of security, willingness to succeed at any cost, be on the fast-track - I could probably name a number of factors behind this attitude but all it really does is foster a bad team-spirit, destroy trust, question abilities, drop the creativity meter to zero. I have heard people complain and berate the abilities of others behind their backs or subtly in front of them - but all it really speaks off is their inability to correctly tap into the potential of the person. And I myself have been a culprit to this a number of times. And yet, the people I most respect and admire in life - are those that are secure enough about themselves and those that I have seen try to bring out the best in others and in the effort bring out the best in themselves. But again I digress :) - this is becoming a habit of mine.

I don't expect things to change - but it saddens me that I can never again expect to make connections in life like I did in college - and start up a new thread. I miss friendly conversations which occur not as if we just met but as if we had known each other all our lives - I miss making friends I can just connect with and have them feel the same. I guess the trick is the connection - being lucky enough to bump into someone who is not your echo but it seems as if is trying to create the same echo that you are - albeit using a different word - if that makes any sense.
Even if I never run into such people again in life - at least I can still pick up my phone and call up my old friends and pick up that conversation thread we had lost 7 eons ago.


 

I believe I can fly :)

Believe me, this is not becoming a habit of mine to link to youtube videos on every post - but this is exactly what I feel like today -

This goes back to my post on people in my life and those who have passed through my life - but had to put this down - sometimes inspiration comes when you expect it the least - let's say I have found people and things to be thankful for even in my deepest darkest despair :). By just being themselves they made an example of how I could be better..... so how do I thank you !!


Given the current social media taking over the world and me being a total introvert - I sometimes feel I don't fit in - or rather is there anyone else like me - or rather where are all the people like me ? I wish there could be an app - search for people like you. :) But I guess that's what makes meeting new people or even seeing the old people in your life in a new light - so interesting. Because people change and even if you think you have them figured out - you really don't.

Though the next lines are not a logical sequence of whatever I was saying previously and because I am all over the place today - I might as well the thousands of thoughts running through my head as it is. I was reading my old posts and I really miss that me - rant rant rant :).

So anyways, till I have thoughts that are too big to fit into twitter, not really facebookii, too small for a book, I think blog is where I'll be.

A Tribute

As a little girl I always dreamed of making a stage appearance - bowing in front of thunderous applause and shining in the limelight. (no, don't call me attention crazy yet :P)
Anyway so I think I always mentally have had this speech ready and whether you like it or not - you get to be my practice audience. :P

Well what better day to say this than the eve of my 30th birthday - as all speeches go I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart everybody who has touched my life in some way or the other. I realize today that people like you are so rare - I wish, when I had the opportunity that I had treasured those fleeting moments more - of your companionship or your kindness or your love or your friendship or your smile. Everybody including those strangers or even chance acquaintances, who went out of their way to not snub or look down upon or show their contempt, but instead to lift another, to make another life better, to share and to grow and to make another welcome - your thoughts and acts are remembered and cherished.

At a juncture when I have suffered meanness, discrimination and injustice, it is easier for me to fall back on all those memories. By no means do I consider myself poorer for having gone through these experiences, but I wish I could be given the chance to recreate the happier memories in my life. As for Joy, and my family who continue to support me and bear with my unrelenting rants - I promise and hope that I can treasure you forever. My greatest and best birthday gift will always be just that - your love.

In the past few days of countdown to my 30th birthday, I didn't know whether to be happy or sad. Whether when I woke up on my birthday - I would have another broken tooth, another gray hair or another wrinkle appearing from nowhere (not that any of these exist in reality :)).But even though nothing earth shattering is going to happen tomorrow, except perhaps the doom day prophecy coming true - yes tomorrow is supposed to be the day - I wanted to end on this note - with a tribute to all of you.

 

A little piece of heaven

Mood meter on the high today - so you can expect a little out of the blue cheerful post from me maybe ..... or maybe not :).

Joy and I went off on one of our random weekend impulses today - Seattle weather wasn't supposed to cooperate but Aladdin's gyros were beckoning and those are calls you can't ignore. (For the uninitiated, Aladdin's is a great little middle eastern food place - and serves an amazing gyro if you want to ever try it out.)

Surprisingly enough, Seattle changed it's mood as well and decided to turn its sunny side out. What happened as a result was we crossed over the 520 bridge with placid calm blue waters on one side and rocky gray waves of Lake Washington on the other. Joy of course had to keep his eyes fixed on the road and the speedometer.

If he could have sneaked a peek, this is what he would have seen: an expanse of gray water marked by white crests spread out under blue skies - over the blue heavens hurried past wisps and cotton rolls of white and gray cumulus clouds in all their glory - all this provided the backdrop for  a line of verdant trees, signifying all the different shades of green and spring (yes spring not summer). Imagine this in a U-shape if you will, with the bridge we were on cutting across the top of it. Towards the far south, where Mt.Rainier is visible on an exceptionally clear day, the clouds had gathered together and yet were letting shimmers of light pass - and it looked nothing if not like a piece of heaven had parted to show its jealousy of earth's beauty. It was so breath-takingly beautiful - I wish if I could, to have forever captured the scene in my minds camera.

There have been so many such realizations for both Joy and me - that we have lost count now. Seattle just makes up its mind to make you fall in love with it and it does.  Mountains bordering on water and blue skies - and not on either north or south or east or west but all around, whichever way you look. Mt.Rainier looms up over the city in the south. From there all along the east boundary stretch the Cascades - peak against peak against peak. They end with Mt.Baker looming in the north. A little blue sky from there and then rear up the Olympics - if you look closely, you can perhaps see the snow filled crater of Mt.Olympus. And all I have to do to see this is step out of my house.

Yesterday was akhay tritiya - the day is regarded as one where what you do stays akhato or undestroyed forever.  Yesterday also happened to be the day I took a long awaited first step of making my life better. It felt like the world had been waiting for me to take that step, and now that I had it would do what it had to to set the ball rolling. It wasn't until a little later, that I realized I felt lighter - lighter than I have felt in the whole of last year. Sometimes somethings are just not meant to work for you, you are just not meant to be there or not meant to fit in and try as you might - things only go from bad to worse. When I had moved to my current position, don't believe me if you don't want to but every bone in my body had been shouting "no". I had chosen to ignore that voice - lesson learnt - never ever and I mean never ever don't listen to your gut instinct - it's what is the uncanny sixth sense, the unconscious mind eye that is your own protection - it won't lie ever - and it sees more than you with your two open eyes ever will.

For the last few days, I have been trying to retrospect and I have been finding it harder than what I thought - more so because it seems in the last year I have put layer over layer over layer over my heart and so to listen to it, I am having to literally dig and peel at the same time :) .......... if you know what I mean.

I am proud of myself for having stuck it out longer than I thought I could have or would have. But it's time I stared my mistake in its face and moved on. I know I am meant for other things (note: the lack of the word "better" :P) just as those other things are meant for me. It was a good stay, I learnt the most about myself and more so about people, but its time to move on. It will still take some time for things to actually change - but in my heart of hearts (which is what it seems I think with), I know it is the right decision. 

Something's gotta give

Sometime ago I had this vision of shattering glass - all I saw (yes, with my eyes open :)) was glass shattering all around me. Needless to say that scared my husband and mom quite a bit. :) I felt I was going off my rocker too but I guess that has to wait.

Right now, I feel I am caught in the middle of two worlds. I have my work on the one hand (even though I feel I have let myself stagnate a lot since I joined) and on the other hand I have my family and friends. I hear the same thing from my friends in the professional sphere - we feel trapped - in the environment, in the drudgery, in feeling this was not what we had imagined for ourselves, in believing this to not be our destiny ............... and yet each of us, powerless in our own way to face ourselves and take the step that would really end all this, all we have to do is actually look into ourselves, just plunge into our own depths and introspect but naahh................ each of us are poised at the precipice hovering between compromises and life and a plunge into the unknown .......... why, you ask - fear of the unknown, insecurity, money (which sadly enough is not the least of our worries) - I have written lesser here than what I have left unsaid - but I am sure people in the same boat will get me.

Coming back to my professional sphere where things are thriving around me - so much so - jumping ship at this point would be classified as 'A' degree tomfoolery. All around me - people or developers or code-monkeys as we prefer to call ourselves reveling in doing what they love - really !! I can't believe I am saying that. I don't believe each and every smiling face is not hiding a level of frustration underneath - peers, managers, deadlines, compromises, coding but then again not coding.


Ahhhh - am I even writing this - seriously !! I don't know whom to feel more sorry for.

Something's gotta give.


Given that you now know my current level of frustration, it shouldn't be difficult for you to guess the songs which have taken over me.

Goodbye by Air Supply - (I think I am hitting a million rewinds on this one)

All about us by T.A.T.U. - (close second)

The Reason by Hoobastbank 


When you are in a particularly bad mood or just feeling sorry for yourself - I am sure the songs above will help. Even though they are just incense to depression but each one boasts of a unique musical prowess which you can only appreciate on hearing and getting hooked to it.

To Russia With Love :)

It is difficult for a movie-buff like me not to discover old forgotten movies - that too in different languages. I won't write a long post today - I am in the post-movie delirium which I'd rather not escape for a while. To get to the point - I happened upon Moscow does not believe in tears. It is a movie older than me and therefore depicts an age which should be difficult to identify with - but to my surprise wasn't so difficult either.

It is about three young girls who turn up in Moscow with their dreams and ambitions and their lives ahead of them and then fast-forwards to twenty years later to find out what happened to them and their dreams. There are some age-old never to be forgotten lessons in it of course, but they are particularly relevant since I believe I am getting to find some of it out for myself:

• how you never know what the next turn in life will bring you 
• it depends on how you face what life throws at you (yes even the kitchen sink) what effect - and this is important - you will allow it to have on the rest of your life
• you learn the most when you are at the bottom
• sometimes life's way of sending some hardship your way is to do exactly that - harden you up

The movie soundtrack has a hauntingly captivating melody - here's the youtube snippet and the lyrics for the closing which I got from the dvd subtitles.

Not everything worked out right away

And Moscow was not built in a day

It never took your word for it

Moscow only believes in love

Whether covered with softest snow

Or glistening in the autumn glow

It will warm a lonely soul

And nurture a tree in a grove

Aleksandra Aleksandra

And here's a translation I got from another site:

Everything had not turned out all right not at one stroke,

Moscow wasn't built in a moment.

It burned so many times,

And grew from the ashes.

A tree stretched to the sky,

And believed only the sky,

And besides the sky,

It believed the overworked ground.

Refrain:

Alexandra, Alexandra,

What is flattering there, in front of us? –

An ash-tree scatters seeds,

And they’re waltzing round on the pavement.

[Literally: an ash-tree is waltzing round by the seeds on the pavement ]

An ash-tree, with its rustic look,

Has accommodated itself to Viennese waltzes;

It’ll push through, Alexandra,

It’ll breathe in Moscow air to its heart’s content.

[Literally: it’ll breath in Moscow]

Moscow was decorated with rowans,

And oaks stood like princes,

But they weren’t those ones which grew without permission –

They were ash-trees.

It’s not in vain that Moscow hopes

To dress in leaves –

Moscow will find at least a plot of land

For a little tree. 

A little piece of India

There are few moments in life which make you feel like you are a part of a larger cosmos - even though you are far away from your homeland, far away from your people. Today was one of them.

I had lost interest in cricket when as a young girl, I literally had my young heart broken with the match fixing scandals that became rampant. Ever since I could never feel the same way about the game - even though it was something I had grown up with. I think every Indian can remember crowding around television sets - black and white, color - I remember our Onida and I remember Maa's superstitions and angry protests blaming every wicket on herself. "Switch it off, switch it off - I know they are going to lose". And the moments of ecstasy when our country emerged victorious. It is a sport - that's true but for us Indians - it personifies a lot more. If you asked me what more - I probably wouldn't be able to answer you. I would not be able to explain the patriotism, the unity, the passion, the heart-beat, the pulse in your throat and much more that this sport becomes - you either feel it or you don't.

The last time India won the cricket world cup was in 83 and I was too young to remember. 2003 we came very close - the disappointment at India's loss seemed to echo the known feeling of being let down. Now it is 2011 and we are very close again. We have a lucky captain and the stars do seem aligned - and there are positive smiles and nods all around - I have a feeling we might just win it.

A bunch of Indians at my workplace arranged to get the semi-final match India vs Pakistan screened in a conference room. The timing was 2:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. Ofcourse the night owl that I am, even after telling my husband to wake me up at 2:00, I happily snoozed off and didn't even open an eye till 7 a.m. At this point, it was a gloomy outlook, Pakistan was hitting 4's and 6's and victory seemed to be moving out of our grasp. Through my commute to office, and my mother's phone commentary, there still seemed a chance - if there was a wicket. By the time I reached work, one fell. By the time I settled down to work with cricinfo open on my screen, Afridi fell. And then I had to see it on the big screen. So yes I did rush to the conference room for the last stretch when India was almost sure to win.

There were a group of Indians gathered there with the lights switched off, Willow cricket stream being projected on a large screen. Cricket is one sport - the more the merrier, you just need the cumulative shouts to get your adrenaline going, the blood boiling and the decibels increasing. As the run rate slowly piled up, and the wickets kept falling - the jubilation, the rants, the cheers and the happiness became more and more infectious. It didn't matter that there was only one other person I knew in the room - Purnima, my team-mate. For that moment of celebration with all of us clapping cheering and jumping up and down - it was as if we had brought a piece of India into that room with us. So even though far from home, and far away from Mohali and the old television sets and the familiar crowd of family members crowding around - I felt at home.

Regardless of whether India now wins or loses - I think today revived a spark in me - a spark of belief I had lost as a child in a Kolkata home watching news channel reports - I rediscovered that spark today in an American office room among Indian strangers. 

Reflections on failures...

I can't imagine it's been nearly 10 months since my last post. I feel like I keep coming back to my blog now ... only when I need to draw sustenance from it, from writing.
I felt life was treating me unfairly - well I get the chance to complain about that only when life is not looking up. :) But if I do take the time to look around and actually listen, I find everyone is struggling with it. If it's not stress or depression which the lesser confident among us fall easy prey to, it is worry and anxiety, or solitude or pressure.......
I can't believe that in the last year I could have let my life take so much a turn for the worse that I hardly feel confident of me being me anymore. That last bit of self-esteem, the last indelible or so-I-thought principles which I hold on to so tightly could have been completely eroded from me. So can it come as a surprise that I feel I have been striped of everything ..... the building blocks that I built on my career on no longer stand true.
I feel like an imposter if I call myself a computer science engineer, or software developer or anything remotely connected with it. I know I am being hard against myself but who or what else can I turn against.
Should I pick up the pieces and move on ... but move on to what ... the same life elsewhere ?

Survival

Though this sounds like a chapter heading out of Twilight, believe me it's not :). With my ear phones plugged in and my ipod at a volume which makes the ear-phones unnecessary in the first place.... let's say I am trying to drown out my thoughts. I have been trying all day in-fact........ to unsuccessfully just stop thinking. I feel like today I could identify with any cigarette smoker or drug addict in the world........ I can understand exactly what would drive you to want one, I wouldn't mind one myself at this point.

For me, when I am uncomfortable, hurt, depressed, the first thing that gets immobilized is my voice..... for some reason, I cannot form the words that are going around in my head. It does sound cliched, but I feel exactly like Meg Ryan in You've got mail when she talks about how she gets voice paralysis when stuck in an unpleasant situation. I've hated altercations and fights from forever......and shy away from unpleasantness like a touch-me-not. And yet this behavior is the worst adversary to you and yourself, since the imprisoned words and thoughts now swirl into poison fumes, engulfing your mind and feelings, preventing you from doing anything but wallowing in self-pity and sadness....... you live relive the humiliation, agony and just the wrong of the moment in your mind as if it's not a thing of the past but your absolute present and future. Not only that, every single such moment in your past life now piles on to this one, pulling you back into the abyss.


What am I talking about..... well, well wasn't that evident, I am talking about the professional world and its vagaries, and surviving in that world. As days pass, I become more and more disillusioned that I will ever be able to survive in this world. It lacks the personal touch for me :). I feel the world is suddenly made up of people judging other people's capabilities, assessing other's qualities with little consideration of what they themselves can or cannot achieve, and black-holing the victim's opportunities. It's about whether you can talk and present yourself with confidence and back them with the right arguments... in short it's turning out to be about everything I am not. I hate to give up but I don't know where to turn, whether to change myself and persist or find something with the personal touch :).

Countdown to new year....

As places across the globe ring in the new year ....... and we wait ( 12 more hours) for the clock to strike midnight in Seattle, I am sitting in my cozy little living room, my only guest our first live christmas tree, listening to old songs and reminiscing the past year.

We are having friends over for the countdown to new year. Space Needle is a glance away and I have read they countdown by moving the elevators up each floor and having fireworks from all around which ultimately culminates at the very top.

But I am digressing, this year has been quite the high and the low. It started in Paris :). Then continued with a personal achievements, personal downfalls, successes, failures, traveling no end and enjoying some of the most scenic places.......and ending in Seattle.

Apart from everything above, the thing I am most happy about is that I was finally able to escape some sort of shell and rediscover myself through my hobbies. You will not believe the amount of reading I have been able to complete, all thanks to the brilliant service at Seattle Public Library. Here is the list:

•   Twilight Saga : twilight, eclipse, new moon and breaking dawn
•   Water for elephants
•    Snow
•   Middlesex
•   Audacity of Hope
• The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

I should be truthful. The Twilight series and Sarah Gruen's book are the 5 I have completed, the rest are in the process of being read :). But this is still progress..... from nil to 5 .......and I am happy.

I also changed my blog template. Actually I was trying to enable the Amazon associates search bars, and you need to upgrade your template for that. I still have my old lonely chair template saved somewhere though. I need to restore that or come up with a brand new one. I happened to be searching on the net for blog templates and surprise surprise, I found even this is a business (check out Artisteer )


Getting back to new year resolutions: that's an easy one:

•  Lose weight
• Be positive
• As always Conquer the world :) : and by that I mean someday you will be forced to read a book written by me.... :) 

That's all for today and now... Happy New Year !!

Introspection

As I near the one year birthday of one of the momentous happenings of my life - my wedding .... I can't help but think that this year has simultaneously brought some of the best and some of the worst, some of the happiest and some of the most downhill, some of the most enlifting and some of the most humiliating moments of my life. And as the itouch borrowed from Joy spins out songs from the Bengali movie Antaheen (endless wait ...) , I sit and reflect on what made 2009 ....... 2009 :) (apart from copying Dickens' opening lines of Tale of two cities.)

After trying for a year, and going back and forth and forth and back, I have finally taken the decision, and things have worked out in favor of moving to a new team....today. Oddly enough, I feel relieved and depressed at the same time. Heaven knows that I have been over many mountains in this team, spewn a lot of my work related stress on my home and yet .........it is an association of 2 years and almost (but not quite) 7 months and I feel sorry I have to leave. I had joined my company on 21st May, my birthday. And I would like to move to the new team on Dec 21st - makes book-keeping really easy. :) Maybe I am the good kind of scared about whether this is the right decision about my career, my life at this point. I will always wonder if I made even a tiny impact on this team though.

This year we started in Paris and we will probably end at home in Seattle. But in between we have seen a bit of paradise - the glaciers and ice-bergs of Jasper, hiked miles till we felt we would drop, drunk an amazing blend of tea at a tea-house at an elevation of 3500m (?), watched sound of music in a live backdrop, eaten hot fish and chips from Ivar's, walked hand in hand through our favorite Farmer's market, taken the Paradise trail and enjoyed wildflowers in their glory, visited endless relatives and eaten luchi and begun bhaja at a surprising rate and never got bored of it, enjoyed the company of everyone closest to me being at home at the same time .... and then lost my dog to leave behind - forever - an empty spot and my now incomplete family, renounced social contact to lose ourselves in each other, regained friends when we returned to reality, fought and cried as we adjusted to the newness of marriage and frustrations, smiled and joked, laughed and played, loved, lost, won, and....... lived. Makes you smile doesn't it. :)


( Add to that the surprising small pleasures of life - like picking up the book you placed on hold from the library only to find that a second book that you had wanted is also available - I guess this will relate to only the book-lovers out there. )

I'll end with the lyrics of the song I am listening to..... (since I replay it over and over, I usually have the capability to drive anyone in my near vicinity - nuts - in a very short time :)). These are in Bengali -

Ferari mon

Alo alo rong jamkalo chand dhuye jai…
Chena sona mukh janasona hat chhuye jai..
Fire fire fire ghum ghire ghire gaan rekhe jai…
Kichhu michhu rat pichhu pichu tan deke jai…

Ajo ache gopon….
Ferari mon…
beje gechhe kakhon….
Se telephone…

Chena sona mukh janasona hat rekhe jai..
Fire fire fire ghum ghire ghire gaan deke jai…

Ajo ache gopon….
Ferari mon…
beje gechhe kokhon….
Se telephone…

Choto choto din alaper rongin ..
Nurir moton..
Chhoto chhoto raat
Chena mou tar ..
Polisher bon..

Ahaaa aaaa haa

Agochhalo ghor..
Khorkuto moy
Chilekotha kon..

Ahaaaaaaaaa
aha haa

Choto choto din alaper rongin ..
Nurir moton..
Chhoto chhoto raat
Chena mou tar ..
Polisher bon..

Agochhalo ghor..
Khorkuto moy
Chilekotha kon..

Kotha chhilo hete jabooo chhayaapoth….


Ummm hhhh hhh
Ferari mon…
Beje gechhe kokhon….
Se telephone…



Kichhu michhu rat pichhu pichu tan obikol...
Alo alo rong jamkalo chand jholmol…

Ajo ache gopon….
Ferari mon…
Beje gechhe kokhon….
Se telephone…



Guro guro nil rong pencil jochhonar jol..
Jhuro jhuro kanch agun chhoyach dhekechhe anchal…
Footpat e vir jahajer dak phire chole jai..

ahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa


Guro guro nil rong pencil jochhonar jol..
Jhuro jhuro kanch agun chhoyach dhekechhe anchal…
Footpat e vir jahajer dak phire chole jai..


Kotha chhilo hete jabo chhayapoth………

Ajo ache gopon….
Ferari mon…
Beje gechhe kokhon….
Se telephone…

Alo alo rong jamkalo chand dhuye jai…
Chena sona mukh janasona hat chhuye jai..

Ajo ache gopon….
Ferari mon…
Beje gechhe kokhon….
Se telephone…

Lights in Seattle

Since I am in the mood today, I might as well make up for all the times and days that I have not written a word...... just been busy in coming back from work, cribbing and cooking up arguments over trivial matters, spoiling everyone's mood and going to bed without dinner...... (I am exaggerating .... a bit :))............. and do some back to back posts.

I take that back that I once said USA would never enjoy the festival of lights as India did. You should just be here now .... so close to Christmas. There are festive lights on verandahs, terraces, christmas trees decked in lights peeping out of windows......... truly looks like a season of miracles. :)

One of my favorite parts of each day is when I meet my husband near my office or bus-stop and we both camper on to the waterfront pier bus to scramble home. And this is when we take in teh waterfront, the lights, the people, and the decorations and all the signs of christmas. He has to take a 5 min diversion on his bus-route just to meet me, but that's part of why it is all that more special. As for me, I relive being a school girl in pigtails, being received at the school gates and accompanied home. I know this simple pleasure won't last forever, my office is moving to a new destination and that might be too out of the way to actually meet and come home together or set out together. But that's why I wanted to write it down......so that I can treasure it forever even when it is no longer something we can do .......... as something we used to do and shared so much through. Ofcourse, it's not all that rosy and romantic.... more often than not, what I greet Joy with - is a face wrought with the stress and frustration of the day. But well, not everything is perfect..... and maybe that can be my next affirmation (see previous post) ...... to leave work at work and smile when I leave office. :)

Affirmations

Today has been a good day. For once, the stars were aligned exactly as my horoscope said they would be (yes, I am big into horoscopes - big into seeing how they rarely come true ........but still depending on them to ascertain how my day will turn out.) and things turned out my way. And so I am indeed glad that I read what I did today ... about which I shall tell you in just a minute - let me take this minute to bask in the glory ..... like so many others....... of this moment where I am holding the stage :).

Anyway, since a few days/months, I was at a point in my life where I had hit the peak of imposter syndrome - I felt I didn't know anything. I was a failure as a computer scientist, I should have chosen some other branch, become an author. Everything and everyone I saw around me, made me feel as if I could have done that and been good at it....... anything except computer science.
I don't know what led me into this black hole - because isn't it true that you can't make others make you feel inferior without your consent.

So just when I had hit rock bottom, the planets became aligned and mercury moved into jupiter's retrograde or some such cosmic thing and things seemed more positive than they had in days.


I had gifted my husband, Joy Dilbert's 20th anniversary edition book and this includes an introduction by Scott Adams on the events which led to Dilbert. He writes about affirmations wherein he would write out 15 times each day about achieving a personal goal. There is this one time when he made a foolish bet with his colleague on beating her score in gmat, picked a score of 94 and practiced his affirmation of "I, Scott Adams will score 94 in the GMAT". He says he is a great cynic when it comes to believing and he doesn't think that magic was at work, but when the score came out, after having consistently obtained seventies in all his practice tests, he stared at the report of 94 - exactly as he had visualized it.

So here's today's lesson, go write down a personal goal that you wish to achieve and continue doing so everyday. Maybe you will see how weird "coincidences come together to make it come true".

My Calling

Everybody, at some point of their life or another are faced with the question of "what is my calling in life?" Is this what or why I came into the world for.... of course you need to have the luxury of circumstances to indulge in such questions.

So, it is not surprising that as I near my 30ish crisis ( I am still a year away though, so not THAT old already :) ), I start questioning myself about - what am I doing now, is this what I was meant to do, am I happy doing this..... and though there are never going to be answers to that, I suddenly realize there are a lot of things I am not doing. I am not learning french or for that matter a new language, I am not volunteering anywhere, I am not reading at the rate I would like.


If you have read between the lines, I am sure you would have guessed that all this is arising from some dis-satisfaction with my job. Basically right now, there are 2 spheres in my life, my work and my home. And I have seen others successfully disassociate their home lives from their work life, and possibly due to my immaturity I have not been able to do that. I always carry my work problems home and make a mess and tangle of my home life. Well, everybody introspects at some time, and I guess my time has come. I feel there is some other calling in my life which I have not listened to closely enough. ....... we'll see where it leads me.

.............................

Bruno died yesterday.....Nov 6th.

Finding India abroad .......

Ofcourse I can never rediscover or recreate India abroad, not through Durga pujas or Dandiya festival celebrations or selected hindi film screenings. But imagine my joy when I discovered Ndtv.com and live screening of the news as seen back home. :) I have been skipping about in glee, and clapping my hands once I realized I will get to see all my favorite ads (call it ridiculous if you must!!)

Not that I have ever been a stickler for news (starting today I will be: my horoscope says that the more constructive feedback I take in today the better for me in the long run ;) ) ...... I must have been the worst at quiz (except literature) and gk in my school...... and throughout college life - all the hindu and times of india newspapers that I got would end up in the waste paper basket. It's never late to recover though. So after reading all about Indira Gandhi's 25th death anniversary and about state politics in my home state, I googled out two of our bollywood heroes blogs.

The first: Aamir Khan
The second: Amitabh Bachan

That's old news for many. I myself have happened on them before and forgotten them. But then since today I am supposed to work on improving myself (again by my horoscope :)) so I'll make new beginnings. I tweeted for the first time in my life, worked out on Wii fit plus ... let's see what else can I break my head on..... ( but you know these signs, it's the over-enthusiastic beginner trying to rediscover him/herself.... very quick downhill slope trend :)).

Bruno still fighting...... Baba is home so Bruno is spending as much time idolizing Baba now.

I am on the verge of giving up on something but with this new found joy of self discovery I might just have to brave it out and stick on, let's see.

Losing a dog....losing my dog .....losing Bruno

How many of us, when frustrated with life simply wish that we were dead ! Sometimes life shows you the true meaning of your words. My little dog of 12 years is suffering from cancer, now quite rapidly and steadily plummeting towards his death.

We had hardly believed he would survive so long - the mass of cancerous cells swelling into a tumor, ebbing away on excision, and reappearing with mightier force the next time around. I had not dared to hope of seeing him alive when I arrived home. And yet there he was, to welcome me, possibly for the last time. Remarkably thinner, with a white bandage masking the left foreleg, where he had undergone repeated excisions to keep the cancerous mass under control.

As I said life shows you - even though I argued with Maa, that Bruno was so alive because he didn't know what was plaguing him, that he was dying, I or for that matter everyone of us everyday would bow to the spirit of life in him...... whether slobbering over chicken rolls and forcing us to give him two thirds of what we ate, or shaking his head with his favorite moo pillow tight in his teeth in that "bullish" way to play with us or refusing to come home when we was taken out for his walk or sniffing out a cat and chasing it till it had run out of the neighborhood..... it seemed all he wanted to do was live...... for the simplest pleasures of life as he knew them.

It's hard to accept death, even when day in and day out you see someone waning in front of your eyes. And that is when it hits you with its solemnity. Something beyond your control and fighting, something that is really not jokeworthy at all, the gap which death creates can never be filled up. Ofcourse these are all known and morose thoughts and that is why it is best left unsaid, best not dwelt upon, but "accepted".

Let's leave it at that though and move on to more cheerful thoughts and memories....... here is a video link to Bruno's forays into the Bay of Bengal, last month.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V5rZuUq7CM

Bruno is one of the most avid fans of road trips, and that's what we did. We took him to Mandarmoni by car. He loved the trip (in his own excited way of barking continuously at everything in sight) and he loved the ocean even more. We love you Bruno and will always miss you. You became so much a part of our lives that we dread how life will be without you and dread the gap that your going away will create.

Bruno and I parted proximity when I boarded my flight back here, but he is still fighting out his last few days back home. The malignancy has attacked his lungs and is manifesting as respiratory distress. I don't know how many days he has left ... but I pray that the ones he has left are to some extent painless.

Diwali from the skies , home, Bruno and more

I had the misfortune of having to leave home on diwali. Even after a decade, I wasn't able to burst crackers on the festival of lights. However I did get to light red, gold and green sparklers or 'fhul-jhuris' the day before, and also try my hand at lighting flower pots better known as 'tubris'.... only the 'tubris' true to careless workmanship, ended up bursting at times at the end of the shower of golden light (that's the closest I can get to being technical about fireworks.)

On the other hand, I am sure few have had the fortune of viewing Indian cities from the sky when they are alit and celebrating diwali. Believe me, Kolkata was glowing with the light from small diyas arranged on balconies of flats and houses, buildings with electric lights and rockets bursting into red and blue glitters and garlands above them. Delhi had five times the fireworks and beautiful silhouettes of parliament buildings. I couldn't help but feel lucky that I knew how it felt to set one of these alight myself, instead of sitting on the bank of a water-body and watching the display of fireworks stranded on a barge.

To be contd..

A short "continued"

I haven't written in so long a time , that I was almost on the brink of forgetting this part of my existence. But hopefully I am back in time to save me. It won't be a long one this time around, but I am sure they will get longer, as I get into my habit of rambling.
I was missing my mom immensely and more than that was missing her simply fussing over me... about the oh so little things that only mothers can make a huge deal about. I guess its another bout of homesickness, but I wish I was back home right now, to be in that cocoon of mom' s protection, to share with my brother the joys of starting out on his own, to help my little old dog of 12 years battle cancer and still live like he so much likes to, maybe just be back in Jamshedpur for a spell of vacation with baba, maa and Tukan..... something that would bring those faded kodak photos back to life again. Sigh ..... I wish ....