r e f l e c t i o n s

I've moved - found a new home for reflections!

2008-01-01T02:01:00.000-06:00

I'm a little late this time. Two years is a little late in my dictionary, how is it in yours?

This move was not planned. It was a challenge; a resolution I made to myself that I had to keep at all costs. With two articles submitted and an assignment completed - all within the respective deadlines in the middle of December, I felt excited and nothing to look forward to. So, I casually mentioned to V that I might as well get my domain and move my blog before the year ends; he has been insisting on this for two years now and finally gave up. For which he casually remarked, "You mean this year?" I didn't say anything then but made a mental note to get it up.

One thing lead to another and I had enough on my hands - LG's birthday party, actual birthday, holidays, travel planning and bookings, LG falling sick on and off which meant trips to the Ped and finally I succumbed to fever on 28th Dec. I recovered on the morning of 31st and still believed this could be done provided everything went on fine. So, I just picked a wordpress theme to my taste, signed up with a hosting provider in Bangalore who provided excellent support and bam! the site was up within two hours while LG took his afternoon nap.

When V came back form work on the evening of 31st December, I presented to him the new home of r e f l e c t i o n s. For me, the timing couldn't have been more perfect and achieving my goal for once. 500 posts in four and half years.

The future of this blog still remains indecisive; I may redirect for a while to see how it goes and then turn it off. This blog contributes a good chunk of my adsense revenue. And, the new site is a still a lil rusty and needs some working upon. However, all new posts will go there and this will be the last post on this space. Thank you for stopping by!

Names and nicknames

2007-12-25T05:55:00.000-06:00

The decision "to nickname or not to nickname" is certainly not something I would lose my sleep over. Yet, I decided to give it some serious thought when a wise, worldly and well-informed acquaintance of ours asked with concern, "Aren't you going to have a nickname for Lil' General?" That was the most natural thing to do, according to him. A name that is personal, known only to family and something creates a special bonding. Hypothetically, when LG is 50 and I'm nearing my 80s (I know, high hopes to live on until then), I wonder how calling him "chotu" would look like. Make him feel younger?

As such, choosing a name for the baby is not straightforward and time bound in India, unlike in the U.S. If you are like one of us who hadn't decided on one name for a girl and one for a boy, then the choices are limitless, recommendations from people abound who couldn't fulfill their own wishes and creativity at its best. And, ofcourse the knowledge of soaps on STAR TV. The luxury of time to select a name and change and then change your mind again is exhausting; all this while staying within the boundaries of what letter of the alphabet the name should start with. The starting letter in some communities is calculated by which star was visiting whom in the planetary charts and where the moon was resting. send your head in a tizzy.

We emerged successful in this tedious exercise of zeroing in on a name on the 10th day after Lil' General was born. To subject ourselves to a similar one for selecting a nickname is beyond me. There is total freedom of expression. Call LG what you like until he is old enough to object to it. For now, it is LG, SSACBKG, pannu, buschkundi, willy wonka donka etc etc

What's it like to live in Pune?

2007-12-24T02:30:00.000-06:00

We've lived in Pune for over two years now; not decided to make it our home, at least not yet. I don't love it; I don't hate it. There's something about the place that I can't quite point my finger to that makes me oscillate between this love-hate thing.

Indian cities that way are quite different from the American ones, never been to Europe so I don't know if they are stereotypical like their American counterparts. Every Indian town and city is diverse from the rest - in its culture, its people, language, cuisine, tolerance level for people from other states, festivals, real estate, mannerisms and communities. Every city will not have a Reliance Fresh or Spencer's, though that's changing now.

I was town-bred for the most part of my childhood. The first metro I lived in was Bangalore and that became my benchmark for a city lifestyle. The move to Pune was difficult; assimilation of the local culture tougher than expected. It took us a while to understand people are not yelling at you when they open their mouths; that's the normal way of talking here and they are polite all the same.

Given a choice to move back to Bangalore, I would have said "yes" without thinking a year back. Now, I realise why it's so much fun to live in Pune. Life is a celebration here and that's one of the reasons I love it. From Dahi Handi for Krishna Jayanthi to the Ganesh Mandals during Ganesh Chaturthi to Pandals for Durga Pooja, it's fun all the way. I can't remember once when we played Holi in Bangalore. Here, I can't keep track of the no. of people turning out for Holi for Diwali. It's not "I"; it's "We" here.

You'll know you are in Pune when ----

- you see young women cruising on motorcycles
- poha for breakfast
- every dish is garnished with kothimber and pyaaj gets replaced soon with kandha in your vocab
- hooded young girls and women (with their face covered in scarves even while walking on the road)
- 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. power cuts on Thursday
- when the shops pull down their shutters between 1 p.m. and 4:3 0 p.m. for the customary nap
- celebration is not individualistic; it is for the community
- when the Rain Gods don't pay heed to your prayers even after 48 hours, it is time to stay indoors than be stuck on flooded roads
- the roads have gone larger, wider and more flyovers have appeared but the traffic has got worse
- there is a chat shop in the corner of every street, so much so that some streets are named Bhel Chowk.
- there are more students than any other city in India

The Lead India initiative is such a mockery

2007-12-23T00:05:00.000-06:00

Lead India is a Times of India initiative. In their own words,

On August 15, we embarked on an ambitious journey — a unique talent search which has the potential to make a huge difference to India. We began a hunt to identify new leaders for a new India, men and women with the vision and ability to empower India with the kind of political leadership that is so conspicuous by its absence.

The Lead India campaign stemmed from our belief — and overwhelming reader feedback — that even as India takes giant strides towards fulfilling its undoubted potential, it is doing so despite, not because of, its political leadership. ‘‘Good people don’t want to join politics’’ is an oft-heard lament. And yet, good governance is the cornerstone if India is to overcome the many hurdles that threaten to slow its journey to developed nation status.

And so, we decided to provide a platform to the good men and women out there who refuse to be daunted by the system, and struggle against massive odds to make life better for their fellow Indians. We invited them to come forward and use the Lead India programme as a springboard to public life. Read more about this on Lead India site

After shortlisting 8 finalists from different cities, the national finals has moved to Television. The first two episodes focused on introducing the finalists. This Saturday, was the first actual round - the one on General Knowledge.

Anyone who saw the hour long GK round would think what a joke it was. I fail to understand how knowing "Under what category, Sholay won a Filmfare award?" would make the leader chosen struggle against massive odds to make life better for their fellow Indians ? Knowing which of Akbar's navaratnas was known as Tanna Mishra will definitely enable the winner to bring good governance as it is cornerstone if India is to overcome the many hurdles that threaten to slow its journey to developed nation status.

Call it the bluff round or whatever you want. The whole purpose of such a noble cause is defeated by turning this initiative into a reality show. Your ads are good; it will boost your TRP if that's what you wanted at the end of the day. We would be no better off than our current system.

Is The Times of India trying to be Playboy?

2007-12-22T23:54:00.000-06:00

The Times of India - a daily Indian Newspaper in English with the largest circulation started a small colorful column on its last page a few months back. It's called Graffiti. I have no idea why they run this column - more often than not, Posh Spice occupies the space here with cheesy news about their over-publicized lives.

Sometimes, I think it is one of the strategies of The Times to boost readership just as their city supplements do. I know of many people who read the Bangalore Times / Pune Times first and then if time permits, go on to read the main paper.

The point here is the Graffiti column I totally out of taste bordering on reporting news that can easily fit into the indecent category. Sample this one titled "Posh discloses all" if you don't believe me. Of late, also giving Posh company is Lewis Hamilton who gets more attention in Times for his exploits than his races.

Lil General : You turn ONE today

2007-12-18T03:34:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday, LG. You turn ONE today.

For once, your mom is on time with her monthly milestone posts. This is a special edition - the yearly one.

First, the monthly updates; then, a recap of the year.

It's Goodbye to fear of falling down and no signs of stranger anxiety yet.

We've given up on teaching him meaningful stuff like where is your nose, show me your mouth, say bye etc. I was very excited when "nose kaami" (read" show me your nose) was met with a aaaah aaaah from LG opening his mouth wide. Unlearning something is tougher than teaching kids something. It took 3 days to undo the nose-mouth connection.

And it took just a day for him to learn that "Hail the C Family" is to dramatically portrayed by raising both the hands that makes us clowns look straight from the Medieval Ages.

Sleep patterns are changing drastically - I-need-a-nap-every-2 hours is being replaced by I-can't-be-a-loser, I will sleep when m body can't take it any more which is usually once in three hours.

LG has fun playing the catch-me-of-you-can game with me as I chase him down the house.

Climbing up the sofa and cot without support and the knack of getting down by putting a leg first instead of hands first has been learnt.

Your parents aren't creative to come up with a nickname for you yet. We believe in calling you Pannu, willie-wonka-donka, S.S.A.C.B.K.G (can't say what it stands for), LG and anything that comes to mind.

You are happy because you received a lot of presents on your birthday which was fun.

You drive me up the wall by ignoring when I say "No". You understand that I don't want you to do what you are doing, but are smart enough to stop doing until I turn away just to resume it a minute later with a sheepish smile.

You were very passionate about your red and blue pillows from the beginning. But the attachment is just rowing stronger. You sleep in your place of the bed when drowsy and place yourself into position that makes us wonder if you are really only a year old. You've stopped shaking your legs when feeling sleepy. The decibel levels are on the rise at nights that has made your parents' insomniacs.

Some memorable pictures from LG's FIRST year:

You arrived at 8:13 p.m. on Dec 18th, 2006.

At 5 weeks, you looked at us and started smiling.

By the end of 2 months, you siwtched over to combination feeding (formula + mother''s feed)

On March 16th, you turned for the first time at 10:30 p.m. and your dad was the first to witness that.

You started on solids and cereal at four and half months, the first solid food being mashed carrots and then Nestum cereal.

You got your first set of lower teeth May 20th, at 5 months.

You enjoy the evening walks with me, which we started when you were six months old; hardly missing a day. You love going out in the pram.

You started crawling the first time on the evening of July 7th, at six and half months.

You stood for the first time at seven months.

You gave up crawling on your body and were on your fours during the Amritsar trip, at nine and half months.

You said papa the first time at ten months with the vocabulary soon comprising of just bow bow after finding good friend Beethu.

You turned ONE today. You don't walk yet or talk yet. We HATE to compare you and when people say you are not aggressive or go easily to strangers with a smile on your face, we just go with the flow. We don't take any comment about you to heart. We love you just the same, the way you are. And your grandparents too.

Another feather in the cap

2007-12-14T03:23:00.000-06:00

Don't ask me where I've been. We've got one piece of junk for a laptop that's ready to be tossed into the dustbin any minute. Compounding to this problem is the now-on, now-off broadband connection from BSNL. By some stroke of good luck, if both these are functioning, then my Dear Son feels moms are meant to be playing with kids all day, so he plugs off my laptop. And, the boys have been taking turns in falling sick for the past ten days - it's tissues, salt water gargling, sneezing and getting high with cough syrups time. That should explain my blogging absence.

Anyways, so I got back from the dark ages today and was casually checking Little India. Guess what? My article Raising Your Multilingual Child has been published. Those of you who know me, if you are wondering if it wasn't soon enough for us to have a daughter after Lil' General, don't worry, it is only one for now - I have my hands full with Lil' General. Ananya was the name I had chosen if we had a daughter, hence its usage in the article.

My experience with getting published in The Times of India

2007-11-29T06:38:00.000-06:00

If you are here looking for information on how to get published in The Times of India, then you are in for a disappointment. I've spent every waking second trying to get information on how to make an edit page submission to The Times.

Alright, here's the deal. I am very new to this writing game and I am not familiar with the unwritten rules; so I play by the book and deal in black and white. Now, you know how it works in India; until you've tried a zillion times for anything, success is not guaranteed.

I've had success in getting my work published to wherever I've sent so far. So, why The Times now, you might ask? Every evening when my husband returns from work, he looks at my distraught face knowing what I've been up to and asks, "Again? today, too? Why? Why just The Times? There is Mint, DNA, Hindustan Times, The Hindu, Deccan Chronicle and rattles the list." I sigh; if you have to ask you wouldn't understand. Call it my obsession or whatever you want. My morning starts with this paper everyday; it has been that way for the past 7 years of my life which makes it difficult to just turn away and give up in a day. Getting a work published in the edit section of Times of India is my dream, even if it's just for once. I know what you're thinking - very ambitious indeed for a person who started writing just a few months back. So what, I've had no rejections so far. I have a piece ready to be submitted to Times and my gut says, it wouldn't get rejected. I've closely observed and analysed every single column submitted in the past five months and I feel I am ready to try it.

Most of my writing ideas are inspired by day-to-day events and some occur in the middle of the night. Very few of these ideas transform from thoughts to articles.

Back to the Times of India story, I started this exercise of getting the editorial contacts a week back. During this period, my list of disappointment from the largest publishing house in India with a readership of 68.28 Lakh, has just grown and grown. Sample this : they have a few phone numbers listed at the back of the print edition. Since I live in Pune, these are local numbers. On calling them, I am told that the edit page articles are published from Delhi and I would have to get in touch with someone there - no information available about the Delhi contact numbers. That should be easy I thought - look up their website for the Contact Us page and just get the numbers. But, that was not meant to be. All the pages in TOI have only the Indiatimes numbers. An Indian lady with a fake westernised accent trying to pretend she didn't have a second in the world to spare was kind enough to give me the Times of India office number.

Did you know the editorial section in a newspaper office is different from the edit page section? I didn't: dumb schmuck. I thanked my stars when I spoke to a gentleman from the editorial section who promptly directed me to the edit page section..I've been trying to get through to someone for the past 3 hours while my long distance phone bill keeps increasing.

On a closing note, I've not given up; atleast not yet, just a little disillusioned right now as to why our publishing houses can't be more organized and give sufficient information on their websites or bloggers/writers/journalists in India who can put up this information such as this one.

What I would like to see are:

Editorial/ submission guidelines like the one for New York Times

Editorial Contacts such as this one at LA Times

This is stretching it a bit too far citing reasons for rejection, but wouldn't it be nice.

A rough time line before which you would get back for promising articles

I don't have stats to compare the readership of Times of India with New York Times; but what I do know is that it doesn't hurt anyone to be organized and give information right away without wasting your time and ours thereby inviting opinions at e-mail addresses which were not meant for this purpose. Time to think people!

Why ICICI Direct is not a good idea for Intra-day or Margin Trading?

2007-11-28T05:14:00.000-06:00

In the life of a trader, there are only two types of days - great and worse; there's nothing in between that can qualify for being a mediocre one. I just experienced something worse than a worse day - totally down in the dumps; thanks to ICICI Direct for making my life so miserable. Interestingly, ICICI Direct was awarded the Most Preferred Financial Advisory Service in the CNBC Awaaz Consumer Awards 2007; this going to a brokerage firm that sucks in margin calls.

Anyways, the latest episode with ICICI Direct is that during peak trading hours, the site is exceptionally slow which means you have to go through the process of placing an order to confirming the same a number of times before getting it done by when the price has changed and it makes no sense at all. This is still OK. But what happened today cannot just be forgiven. The damn site was down for a good 9 hours starting from 14:00 hrs. Just when I placed a margin order and before I could convert it to delivery the site went down. Calls to their customer service resulted in an automated message - "Due to an unexceptionally high number of calls queued, we'll not be able to connect you. Please try again later." It was obvious; there were hundred others trying to square off their positions profitably.

I was relaxed later that evening to know that my position would have got squared off automatically at a higher price, but that was not meant to be. The jokers at ICICI took the least price when the stock was falling momentarily and squared off resulting in a huge loss. The stock in question was MRPL. Their customer care representatives were kind enough to tell me that they were working hard on improving the site and that I should have read the Terms and Conditions carefully while signing up for the demat account which apparently states that they are not liable for damages caused by technical fault. What a nice way of covering your asses!

So, my advice is if you are contemplating of opening a e-brokerage account, then go in for something else.

LG is one month shy of turning into a 1 year old

2007-11-21T02:39:00.000-06:00

The Seniol proudly says Lil' General is growing like a weed; I prefer to say he is growing every day, every minute in to a handsome lil' one just the way babies are supposed to. Gosh! Can you believe in a month he will be a one year old. And then, I wouldn't have to count his age in terms of weeks and months..I can just say in terms of years like we grown up adults, and make him feel like one too. Seems like yesterday when I started writing about all the weird stuff that was happening inside me; those temper tantrums in the first trimester; an indulging second trimester with all the announcement "we-are-pregnant" and a nausea accentuating the weight factor in the third semester. It is all over and the product is right in front of our eyes growing everyday with the growth actually visible; it is not like those unreal moments when our parents meet us after a few months gap when we are 30 and still comment, "Oh! you have lost so much weight; the face is not shining, are you not taking good care?" while the weight machine says another story.

Am I getting nostalgic? I don't know but one thing is for sure - I'm growing old. I set out to write the 10th month milestones and here I am talking totally unrelated stuff. so, back to the topic.

The weighing machine is on LG's side and the results are there for everyone to see. I would like to be told that I am doing a good job - hmm, of feeding him, obviously. The needle on the machine kept oscillating this month as he struggled from being a fussy eater to finally giving up on his stubborn momma to eat, eat and eat.

LG met a very special friend, Beethoven aka Caesar with whom he seems to forged a very strong bond. Even I am very fond of his dear friend and we make up stories to go on a walk; just to meet him.

Diwali was special; we visited Beethu at his house and he greeted us with sweets. Beethu has also grown very fond of LG and during his walks he just keeps pacing up and down near our gate and car park refusing to go ahead with his walk. If he sights LG, he gets very excited brushing all over him and once, he even pulled out LG's socks. LG reciprocates Beethu's love with the beating of his legs and a jumping motion on his pram; I've never seen so much happiness on the boy's face. This was the quickest thing he learnt - to learn to do bow, bow and bow. Sadly , "bow" has replaced "papa" from his vocabulary.

He got naturally weaned; acts like a grown-up boy and looks at feeding as if it is an inhumanly thing to do.

Enjoys foam bath; hates wearing clothes and puts up a fight while wearing diapers.

Potty aunty visits precisely at 7 a.m. every morning. Susu aunty has been over-friendly this month; she blames it on the weather.

The Seniol is maintaining a list of all things damaged around the house and calls LG his retirement fund. Ever since LG got to know what his dad was up to, he has been smart enough to act carefully and break things only when no one is watching him. You can't blame, you can't claim if you can't prove it, right?

This was LG's first Diwali and he was irritated than being scared.

One emotion he was unaware of until now - fear, has finally surfaced. He has suddenly developed a fear for heights. Climbing up and down the diwan was child's play earlier. Now, once up, he rarely ever comes down unless we pick him.

Ever since my cook left, LG has been helping me a lot around the kitchen every evening taking the masala containers out of racks, breaking oil bottles and such.

It's amazing how kids learn on their own; he figured he could use his dad's chest for one step and my face for the next to lift himself from the floor onto the cot.

His diet has increased and so has the variety. He hates red pumpkin; loves milk ka kheer; no-love no-hate for beetroot; loves capsicum; likes idli; hates dal; loves khichdi with curd; goes bonkers on seeing his milk bottle.

Alrighty, enough of LG. Now, a little bit about me. Because my schedules are so tightly linked with his. I am not going to hide the fact that I long for the time when LG would sleep so that I can get a few peaceful moments for myself. He is not a difficult child but requires a constant watch so I can hardly get any of my work done. And his sleep patterns are erratic so I don't get as much sleep as I'd like to.

LG is helping in reducing my waistline. No amount of cycling, yoga and exercises have helped me get back in shape. He draws immense pleasure in tapping hard on my tummy, so that's my last hope now.

If you've come this far, you sure have a lot of patience. Do me a favor and send your suggestions for a theme for LG's first birthday party.

Adsense : My first check from Google

2007-11-20T04:11:00.000-06:00

It was an anxious moment where every cent was counted and every click contributed to breach that first milestone. My first check from Google gets dispatched next month; it happened faster than I thought ..I first signed up for Google Adsense three years back and then deactivated it within three months, for no apparent reason. Just didn't see money coming in ever and it was such a waste of time to log in and see if there were any clicks at all. And, then it all changed this May with traffic increasing on both mt sites - this one and LG Rules. So, I decided to activate it again and see if it meant anything. It did; it took close to five months to reach that first milestone.
The last few dollars took for ever, some days going by without any click despite the reasonable traffic and I was on an edge wondering if it had something to do with the design of my template. Most of my visitors come through Search Engines, very few being regular readers. If you are wondering if any of those tips to make quick bucks and increase adsense revenue helped, then the answer is not really. All of them say the same thing; write everyday - choose your words right, pay attention to SEO; blend your template; just worded differently. You just got to experiment until you figure out what works best and give it time.

To my regular readers : Thank You!

Changing careers : a different perspective

2007-11-13T05:57:00.000-06:00

I MAY never go back to doing what I did for 7 years until a year back; if circumstances are favorable. But, as they say, never say never, so you never know what future has in store. There were times I enjoyed the ride and times when I waited to get out of the rut; the rat race was getting to me. But, let's face it - one needs a paycheck at the end of the month to keep the family wheels running. In total honesty, the paycheck was good and was the only motivator to keep going. That job of 7 years was my career - I still love programming a lot but from the confinement of my home; that I thought would last a lifetime. Nothing wrong with it. How many of us change our careers mid-way? It was a reliable source of income and I never cared so much at the end of the month when money got deposited into my bank account. Sometimes, I would never check until it was the 4th or 5th day of the month. It was taken for granted.

And then, all this changed dramatically once I quit. It was my choice. Had little to do with Lil General's arrival. Whether or not LG came, my quitting had been in the scheme of things. Let's just say my mid-life crisis arrived early; I did not go through a quarter-life crisis. Being a cyber coolie was making our lives miserable, slowly killing the lively spirit we had within us. And, my job at Pune with Cognizant was one of the major contributing factors for this. LG's impending arrival provided the right reasons to take the plunge. I made the decision, quit my job and in the last couple of months at work put together a plan as to what I wanted to do.

The plan worked to a great deal in the beginning. With LG's arrival, it all came to a screeching halt. The transition from being an IT professional to a stock trader /freelance writer was hard. Any switch in career is going to be hard. You have worked all these years with a fixed mindset. To leave all that, and start from scratch with no experience was tough. To be your own brand ambassador, hunting for work and making sure you get paid for what you do was and is difficult. But let me tell you one thing - the thrill I got from my first $50 check was something that even my hefty last paycheck did not give. Every penny I earn today is hard earned. I keep track of every dollar that comes in. I never had a goal while I worked before. Now, I have quarterly targets and I work towards earning that which makes it all the more challenging and makes life interesting. Trips to Bahrain to watch Formula One can no longer be taken for granted. They have to be earned the HARD way.

It's been a year now since I quit the corporate world. There was one question that always bothered me which was a trigger point to this mid-life crisis. When many Americans lost their jobs to outsourcing, they could still make a living. An average Westerner is versatile as compared to an average Indian. Any American you find would be passionate about one thing like making motorcycles in their garages, writing, painting, carpentry etc other than what they do as a day job. So, someday even if they lose their day jobs they can go back to doing what they are passionate about and still make a living. If India is faced with the same situation as America was and we lose our jobs, do you have a plan as to what you would do? Blame it on our society, on our educational system, on whatever you wish but the fact remains most of us don't pursue anything apart from what we do for a living. I know I know you are dismissing this whole chain of thought of mine as someone from a psychic. But, do you have an answer? What makes you so sure that we'll continue to be the cheap(sorry, cost-effective) labor ten years down the line?

V says, "Do what you like with all your heart and money will follow." I don't know how far it is true. I have no idea if I will ever make what I made in a month any sooner but it has definitely been worth the try.

Kellogg's Cereal for Breakfast

2007-11-12T03:03:00.000-06:00

In India, breakfast is an elaborate affair, just as any other meal of the day is. Depending on which part of the country you are in, your choice varies ranging from Idli/Dosa/Pongal in Tamil Nadu to Khara/*.Bath in Karnataka to Poha in Maharashtra to Paratha up North. You get it, don't ya? We Indians take the gastronomical department very seriously; our life revolves around it. Before the dinner dishes are cleaned, the ladies in the household get busy detailing the menu for the next day's lunch.

But, our household is a little different from the rest. Our breakfast has largely remained unchanged in the last five years. We take pride in the fact that we have a healthy breakfast in the form of cereals mixed in a bowl of milk on all working days. This was born out of convenience when both of us were working and continues to this day. It works great for us with so many choices for cereals available these days - in different shapes (cheerios), colors (chocos?), texture (muesli!) etc. My all-time favorite has been Kellogg's Fruit Harvest which sadly is not available in India. Kellogg's Muesli is good here. Good Earth Muesli (never heard of? ;they run frequent ads in Femina), produced by Avesthagen, is not easily available at all stores but a few supermarkets carry them. The composition of oat flakes is high and tastes yuck; only the ads and the stories are great. If you want to save time and rather spend those 15 minutes reading the newspaper; eat a breakfast devoid of oil and cholesterol with a proper balance of carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals, then try cereals!

Why being poilte doesn't work in India?

2007-11-10T10:57:00.000-06:00

In a country with a population of over 1.3 billion, you didn't think getting things done would be a walk in the park, did you? By things, I mean simple stuff like having the electrician over to fix your leaking geyser or expecting the fully-paid for book shelf to be delivered as promised on Sunday without 10 reminders.

Reality bites and the fact is being polite just doesn't work in this country. Everywhere everyone is in a mad run to nowhere; ready to stomp over the next person and it takes a great deal of patience to get anything done. Callousness is inbuilt; perfection is elusive and expecting one can only lead to a stressful life and a weak heart.

There's always a incident or a bad experience that acts as trigger point for every post. For this one, it was my experience with getting my gas burner fixed. In May 2007. I exchanged the old gas stove for a new 4-burner prestige stove thinking it will come in handy for multi-tasking and make cooking faster. Within a month after buying, two burners stopped working or were on a very low flame making it useless. I've been calling the customer service of Prestige for the past 60 days and every time I am promised someone will show up at my doorstep before 8:30 p.m. Gentle requests, raised voices, threats to return the stove - nothing has worked so far!

What's cooking for Diwali ?

2007-11-09T11:24:00.000-06:00

We are a multicultural family namesake, falling heavily towards on one culture for all occasions, festivals etc. i am fortunate that way for not being forced by in-laws to adhere to rituals with a 10 page long to-do list of what to do, what not to do, what to eat, what not to eat, what to gift and who to visit. Oh! Believe me we know of quite a few couples who get diktats of when to goto the loo. We are a very flexible and easy going family with no hassles, no expectations and no qualms about anything; the downside being that this casual outlook doesn't go down well with everyone! I know this was a digression but I feel better having got it out of my system for it ruined my Diwali evening partially! Its a bane in today's times to make others feel good. My wise husband said, "Never ever argue on Religion and Politics. Opinions on these are like a*holes and everyone has one." But you know how women are, don't you? You stand to win a Nobel if you can determine what they want. Seriously.The toughest species created on Mother Earth - it would have been a saner place without this species, so complex that it sends my head spinning! And men are transformed to women after marriage.

Alrighty, now to the Diwali part. One of the Diwali traditions when we grew up was to make sweets at home and distribute it to friends in the colony. I've continued this tradition even after marriage and didn't want to blame LG for my laziness this year. Making sweets and namkeen while LG is awake is a big task. It took a little effort and hanging out after dinner in the kitchen to get the goodies done, but I was determined to have it out of my way. Two namkeen and one sweet in three nights isn't bad, right? Coconut Burfi - a hot favorite wasn't perfect in its usual white, a little charred but tasted yummy. Thengozhal and tape came out crispy and tasted way better than any I've done before. I started making these delicacies a little too early ahead of Diwali or they were very less in quantity. Blame it on the husband who stays up late; sneaks into the kitchen; hunts for the hidden sweet dabba; fishes out a piece and restores it in its place for the wife to discover on Diwali morning that the dabba is a lot lighter than its original weight. Running short of home made sweets to distribute to people on Diwali morning, I just got them nicely packed gifts from a store nearby. The Rangoli ritual was an elaborate affair and the fireworks part very brief this year..pictures will come in soon.

The two day long Deepavali-Diwali; the first one for Lil General, went on well. We had a good time - dressing, eating, shopping and hanging out together!

Diwali Rangolis

2007-11-09T06:09:00.000-06:00

Here are the two Diwali Rangolis that I put up in our house and some from the neighbourhood. Mine are kolams (patterns made by joining dots) while people here generally draw beautiful Rangolis. One of my favorite activities on Diwali's eve is to walk around the neighbourhood looking for the best Rangoli.

Growing up : Girls and groceries

2007-11-06T04:43:00.001-06:00

I was eight when I recall being sent to the sweet shop in the colony first time with a Rs.10 note to buy jalebis for myself and my brother. This was year 1986. and perhaps the first time when I handled a Rs. 10 note all by myself. I was thrilled at the thought of shopping for the family, doing the mental math and getting the right change back home for the sweet shop guy was known to cheat. I did a good job and with time other tasks followed : buying vegetables and other groceries from the kirana shop.

A lot has changed since then. Times have changed. Kids these days carry Rs.100 with ease as pocket money to school and buy burgers for a snack during their morning break. All we got was a Rs.5 soiled note to fix the cycle tyre to get back home just in case it got punctured. I am not complaining. We grew well and we grew fine; knew the importance and worth of money.

It is but natural for one to expect grown up girls these days to be street smart. So, it came as a surprise when we saw a teenager struggling to buy a bunch of dhania. One evening last week, on our way back home, we stopped by the local vegetable vendor. we were particularly impressed by this girl - not by anything she did but the way she was dressed and looked. All seemed well until she asked the lady how much the kothimber was for? She paid and then hesitantly looked at the bunch up and down and sideways, unable to determine if it was alright. She cast a quick glance at the vegetable lady and asked, "Yeh achcha hai na..nahi tho mama vapas bhej dhengi mujhe?"`That innocent look on her face said it all..she was really concerned by the quality of the bunch she had picked up. After reassurance from the lady, the girl was on her way. The lady was quick to comment to us, "itni badi ho kar dhania khareedna nahi aatha". But the incident made me think. I am sure given Rs. 6K, she can pick up a good mobile phone for herself. Why is domesticity being looked down upon? Is it not a part of one's growing up? Was this girl just a one off case or did she represent today's generation?

LG is 10 months old and the boys at home rock!

2007-11-01T02:56:00.001-05:00

The monthly newsletter is a few weeks late this time. Lil General completed ten months on 18th October while his grandparents were here. Two months shy of completing an year, the boy is growing fast, his antics increasing by the day and doesn't lose a minute to surprise us. If you are short of energy you know who to look up to. Vivek and I are seriously considering to moving to a Cerelac - dal rice - Porridge diet. We believe this is better than any Red Bull. The only time during the day when we have a peaceful moment to ourselves is the time LG naps.

October was a month of heavy duty socializing that took us on a 10 day trip to Amritsar, meeting friends in Delhi and a visit by my parents on our return. Meeting new people did a world of good to Lil General's separation anxiety. Both sets of grandparents were anxious before they met him as to how he would react on seeing them, if he would play with them etc. All their doubts and fears were put to rest. it took him a few minutes to be all over them. Conquering my dad's tummy was like being on an expedition to Mt. Everest for LG, a feat that he couldn't achieve. But there's always a next time. Visits to grandparents naturally meant more and more gifts that his wardrobe can hold.

LG and his paternal granny competed in who could sleep the most while his grandpa stayed guard while LG slept, never leaving him alone even for a minute. His dadaji just couldn't have enough of him and played with him the most. Retirement, in his words, makes you feel lost. Suddenly you lose the purpose for living and get drawn into a mode of depression. LG's visit did a lot of good to him that way. One of our fond memories from Amritsar was the visit to Golden Temple and the lovely dinner at Pizza Hut. The guys at Pizza Hut took very good care of Lg while we ate and did a small dance that LG appreciated without even so much as blinking his eye. Maybe, we too should shake a leg for him.

The air hostesses became instant fans of LG. There was a lot of opportunity for brushing his hands over their face and pulling their hair - I must say they didn't mind their makeup going awry.

He has been able to sit well, without support. He can stand and walk with support. We just have a few weeks on our hand to move stuff around the house that are at a 2 feet level to over 4 feet.

Though "thambudu" didn't put an instant smile on his face, he connected with my mom in a special way. Laughing so loudly every time she gave a lemon to him to make him open his mouth so that I can feed him (yea, those were the fussy eater days) made her happy. He was fond of her new bangles. The only person he spared from biting frequently was my mom but her glasses were under attack often.

Dad ought to thank his stars for all his gadgets went back with him safe and sound. I can't guarantee the same next time though.

The potty stories remain - do I even need to start ranting the details about texture, color and smell. This makes me feel he is not a ten month old but a well grown up old.

He still blows raspberries, beats his chest out of happiness and has learnt to say pa-pa. No ma-ma yet. Vivek has been training him and I HATE him for that because he said pa-pa first. The boys rock when they are together. But doesn't matter because I know he loves me more and doesn't need a reason to smile at me. Bites me hard, pulls my hair and scratches my face. I know I make his day and that makes me happy.

Oh, before I forget, he stopped crawling on his stomach in Amritsar. I loved the way he used to do it and was so fast at it. There were times when I thought I should go around the house that way for a week - the only way I'll lose all the fat. He learnt the art of crawling on his fours. It is amazing how kids refuse to do what they did when they reach a new milestone. It would be a matter of weeks before he stops crawling and starts walking. What remains with us is memories and the footage on video camera. (I haven't been doing a very good job of filming him :( )

The cool Delhi girls and the above 50 know-it-all Punjabi gentlemen

2007-10-25T03:26:00.000-05:00

The Lil General family was on a vacation to Amritsar en route Delhi earlier this month. This was to be our last vacation to the Northern part of India for now. This post is inspired by the mind-blowing experience of those 10 days.

My Father-in-Law retired earlier this year and is moving back to his hometown by the end of this year. Before he left Punjab, we wanted to take Lil General there once. Not that he would remember anything, but just for memory sake. I have been there two times before this and I totally love the place - the best vacations I have had are at Amritsar. Since this was going to be the last time I would ever visit Amritsar, I had a lot of plans drawn up for those 10 days - visit to the Wagah border, stuffing myself with aloo-mooli-gobi parathas with dollops of butter, curd and pickle and going to the Golden Temple.

Stuffing too many parathas can't be good for one's health, so I realized after two days of incessant eating. Vivek and I took turns to fall sick dashing to the toilet at 4 a.m. It wasn't a good scene. Two days later LG fell sick and two weeks later, he is still yet to recover fully. So the vacation was a disaster - no sightseeing, no shopping, no eating out..just lying sick at home and flying back ten days later.

But there were some funny incidents that we observed during this travel.

Scene at the Delhi airport : Mother, two babies and two nannies.

I live in the Stone age for sure. It was hard to believe that the impeccably dressed lady in black tights, a silk kurti, D&G glasses, highlighted hair and pedicured feet was the mother of two under-4 kids. I wondered where she had the time for all those parlor trips. Within minutes, my question was answered. Two nannies appeared out of nowhere lugging their baggage and promptly taking one child each while the mom went to get her Rs.86 coffee (yes, can you believe a coffee could cost so much at the Delhi airport? ) at Cafe Coffee Day. Two nannies for two kids. This can happen only in India. This was the first time I saw nannies being flown just so the mother need not be bothered about taking care of the kids.

I dismissed this whole thing as a one-off case. Anyways, the perception in India is that Punjabis prefer to live a lifestyle more than what they can afford and flaunt off way too much.

On our way back, I met another lady who was traveling with her 2 year old son and the nanny. So this is definitely not a unique thing in today's times.

Scene at the Indian Airlines flight from Delhi to Amritsar :

An elderly Punjabi gentleman was seated with another elderly gentleman friend of his in the row before ours in the flight. The hostess offers a imli (read: tamarind) candy and the gentleman (let's call him the candy uncle) demands a full packet. The hostess gently refuses saying they are running short and will give him some more if she has any left. The candy uncle takes offense and returns the one he picked up too. She would have stepped a little ahead when he abuses her and the airlines in Punjabi.

Twenty minutes after we took off, the lady comes with a pack of imli candies and the candy uncle gladly accepts it with the a wide grin. Now, just in case you didn't know, this pack of candies is available in every kirana (grocery) store in Amritsar for Rs.15.

Time to land and LG gets a little restless. Refuses to feed or drink water from his bottle. Instead he shouts for a sec then stops, then starts again. This caused him comfort and I let him do that so long he was opening and closing his mouth. Now this annoys the candy uncle and he reprimands me while Vivek was looking away. I didn't want to create a scene and let it go and decided to tell him to mind his business if he said that once more. Vivek was pissed obviously but I asked him to forget it this one time.

We have landed and the standard instruction to keep our mobiles switched off is given. Candy uncle switches it on and ignores the hostess request to switch it off - all the time commenting to his friend what these ladies knew about flying.

The flight from Delhi to Amritsar is actually bound to Sharjah with a stopover at Amritsar. So there were some Mallu gentlemen seated in front of the candy uncle. Candy uncle tries to converse with them but the Mallu gentlemen couldn't talk in English / Hindi. Candy uncle makes fun of this to co-passengers.

Candy uncle had little courtesy for passengers ahead of him that he shoved his way through to get off the plane. Vivek commented loud enough for him to hear that maybe they should tie a rope to such people so that they can just get down instead of going down the stairs. Or still better put them in the luggage compartment down.

We were the last to get off. Vivek was quite annoyed by his behavior during those 50 minutes that he asked the air hostess, "Do you get such jackasses everyday?" she understood who we were referring to and replied assertively, "yes sir we do."

Candy uncle was again not a one-ff case. Many over 50 gentlemen in that part of the country have such an attitude.

The cool Delhi girls :

Now, I've been to Delhi before. But I don't know if I wasn't attentive enough or if I was color blind to take notice of those beautiful girls. All the well-dressed girls apparently seem to be in this city. Honestly, the way I was dressed, it was worse than the nannies of kids in Delhi. Nicely done hair, cool glasses, stilettos, capris, silk tops, matching accessories - it looked like a dream to see every girl in Delhi turn out this way. And it wasn't just at the airport. Even in the city. There's something in the Delhi air that it does to you. It's not just about dressing well - the confidence shows and the way they conduct themselves is amazing. They dress and look the part. You gotta see it to believe it. Delhi, its not fair to the other cities.

How to write an RFP?

2007-10-15T07:37:00.000-05:00

A sample article on How to write an RFP I had written for ChilliBreeze gets published online with a rating of 4/5. This takes the count of number of articles published to 3 - one every month.

Feedback : Asian Paints' Home Solutions

2007-10-04T07:44:00.000-05:00

If you are planning to get your home painted through Asian Paints' Home Solutions, then think again. I was carried away by their impressive advertising in newspapers just as you might have been. All it took was images of houses painted with bright colors and a toll free number to call them when we decided to get our apartment in Bangalore before renting out again. I called them which was promptly answered by a lady who asked for details such as the location, area of the house, surface (outer/inner walls) to be painted and other standard questions that I provided. She promised that someone would call up within 48 hours to fix an appointment to inspect the site and get further details. She was insistent on getting all our contact numbers - residence and two mobile numbers. No call came even after a week. So, when V called up again, she confirmed all our details was resting in their database and had no proper explanation as to why no one got back. This time we were assured of a positive response. It's been a month since the incident. After such a irresponsible way of conducting business we decided not to go ahead with Asian Paint's. Further inquiry also revealed that they do a bad job of completing the work undertaken. The quote agreed upon is never the final one and I believe client's are harassed to pay more or stay with a job half done! So much for the brand name..

My new toy - The Nokia 770

2007-10-03T01:49:00.000-05:00

Vivek got me a new Nokia 770 Internet Tablet through Pravin. Pravin had got his 770 to Trichy while I was there for my delivery. So very convenient that we decided to get one too. N800 would have definitely been better but the 770 serves its purpose for now and it's price has come down drastically.

I am confined to the bedroom for a good part of the day because of LG's crawling adventures that result in minor accidents. Staying in the bedroom makes it easier to keep an eye on him while I go about doing my stuff. With the laptop's power woes increasing, it was becoming difficult to stay connected. Nokia 770 seemed to be the perfect solution for me to keep track of the stock prices. The idea was not to blog or mail extensively using this.

The interface is not too small to cause too much strain while reading. Writing is a pain though. Input through handwriting doesn't work great. GTalk is inbuilt and it is very handy to talk to someone while on the move. Light to carry around where you go around the house. With a wireless router, you can stay connected always - anyplace, anytime. What I don't like about it though is the keying in part - maybe a bluetooth keyboard would work well. And many sites suck on this such as the blogger and icicidirect partly defeating my purpose of buying this. Maemoblog does not support the new blogger API which is a shame.

The Economic Times Equity Challenge

2007-09-28T01:08:00.000-05:00

Yo! I rule (not anymore though). I enrolled in the Economic Times Equity Challenge exactly two weeks back and it took lesser than i had imagined to break into the top 100. Let's just say I was riding high on the Reliance wave. The game is simple...the way it works is you get a notional amount of Rs. 10 Lakh on the first of every month to build your portfolio. The person with maximum gains at the end of the month is chosen as the winner. I made it to the top 10 day toppers for 3 consecutive days . It was amazing to rise from Rank 1400 on day 1 to Rank 78 in 10 days. Wish I had enrolled on September 1. And what if it were real money..I would be sitting on a cool 20% profit in less than two weeks..phew!

The secret is not to worry too much as in real money and not do much during the day, to book profits and reenter the counter on dips. I also stayed away from too much speculation and responding to market rumors. The best was 50% gains in Reliance Natural. I had purchased 900 shares of RNRL for real too on 4th September but sold them a day early to book a 10% profit. The very next day it shot up by 37% followed by 22% the day after. I was just shot of killing myself for having acted in haste.

A clinging nightmare at 9 months

2007-09-20T03:47:00.000-05:00

The lean mean crawling machine has moved on to the next stage in life. His mom's presence is required at all times of day and night. A disappearance act by me can send the eardrums of anyone in the vicinity to burst. The shrill pitched cry is to let me know, "Come back else the neighbors will come knocking at our door as to what's wrong withe the hero of the neighborhood." To Lil General's credit, everyone around acknowledges him as a very well behaved kid. "Spend a day with us and you'll know", I tell them.

Its hard to say if it was hard on me when he was a foetus or when he was all of 4 weeks being colicky crying through the evenings or that rolling over stage trying to fall off the bed or when he began crawling and broke my dear Netgear. I find it very hard now. He didn't need me waiting on him hand and foot all through the day all these months. Makes me think if its just the age or something wrong with my parenting techniques that has got him clinging to me so much. I can't read a book in the same room. I can't work on the laptop sitting on top of the bed. I have to sit next to him so that he can play with me, pull my hair, climb over me, sit on my tummy, poke my nose, bite my ankle and laugh while I scream in pain. He LOVES me and this is his way of expressing it. I DO too but sometimes it just gets to me.

His Highness now expects to be fed in his chair while we have our food. He won't eat alone. He hates drinking water from a table and likes to drink like adults, holding the beaker with both his hands only to let it fall after a few seconds.

Door knobs, door mats, soiled clothes, sandals, shoes, cooker, the adhesive of his nappy pads and anything that remotely resembles dirt with thousands of bacteria in it continue to fascinate him.

The toys have barely managed to stay in shape. They are held, turned around and then banged hard on the floor. Gadhadhari bheem doesn't enjoy carrying the gadha anymore.

Krishna Jayanthi and Ganesh Chathurthi were fun for LG too as he made an imprint of his legs for the former and joined us in pooja for the latter. Everyday he makes a visit to the pooja room to look at the pulayar idol.

I managed to complete The Third World War and restore it back to the book shelf but the The Devil wears Prada that I am currently reading might not be as lucky.

There are time he behaves like a grown up not wanting to be disturbed while he is busy playing with his toys or breaking stuff or just surveying the house. And then there are moments when he makes us realise he is just a small nine month old baby who needs the attention and love of his parents. He enjoys it when we applaud him on the feat of pulling down the bath foam bottle from the second shelf or attempting to eat a biscuit on his own with crumbs strewn all round the floor. Sure, it means a lot of work for us after the event but it makes him happy and encourages him to keep trying.

The moments that I'd rather not remember are the potty sessions and waking up at 4:47 a.m. every morning like an alarm clock.

The ground level is clear for navigation. We just got done with childproofing the house -stage 1. Happy about our accomplishment, I was telling V, now we can take it a little easy for a few more months. We were wrong. He is attempting to stand. Working hard at it every second of the day he is awake. and what do you know? Baby center sends us a newsletter asking us to look for things from his eye level and remove the objects. So you have 2 grown up adults crawling their way through the house. Most of the stuff that were on the ground moved up by 2 feet. Now they will have to move further - on our heads! Damn!

Maaaaaaaaaa Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. It sounded like this though it could have easily meant anything else. I wanted to believe that he spoke his first words and didn't waste a minute letting my family know. For all you know, it would be quite sometime for a repeat performance. All he is interested in now is moving around to break stuff.

From a demanding eater he turned into a fussy one giving us a very hard time. Things are getting better on that front, though you never know.

The pram rides continue to be fun though he isn't laid back and sits through the rides ready to take on the world smiling at strangers, acknowledging faces he knows and turning away from people he despises. I know, what an attitude at this age! And I'm not kidding on the turning his face away part.

As if he meant to say, "Grow up, get an iPod momma", he broke my favorite Air Supply cassette. If there is a knock (sorry bang)on the bathroom door, then I know its been more than 2 minutes since I went in. So my run to the bathroom sessions have to be planned during his sleeping hours. Emergency trips to the loo can wait until there is another adult in the house.

Peek-a-boo was a fun game. Now, he gives the kind of look that says, "I am a grown up and stop being childish all the time."

He is growing up and so am I, in my own ways.

How much do you gain from bargaining?

2007-09-11T07:06:00.000-05:00

If you can show me an Indian who buys a vegetable from a roadside hawker without bargaining, I will treat you to a dinner. There is one thing we Indians share irrespective of the state we come from, our upbringing or the status in society - the compulsion to bargain before buying anything. It is more psychological in nature than getting real value for the product you buy or the service you pay for.

I was a compulsive bargainer and took pride in the fact that I managed a Rs.500 discount for the Rs.10,000 washing machine or got that Kg. of Tomato for a Rupee cheaper. If there was ever a big ticket to be bought at home, I was always taken to the shop for milking the last rupee for the item bought. The organized retail sector has done little to help Indians get rid of this habit. The haggling in malls and supermarkets gets sophisticated with demands of discount in percentages. The look of helplessness is drawn all over the cashier's face as he is in no control to give discounts to customers with all the prices programmed and fed in to the system.

This behavior of ours I believe has a lot to do with our upbringing. The generation of our parents perceived that they were always cheated and did not get value for money spent. .And bargaining was the only route to get the real value for their service. This has passed onto the next generation. Theirs was a time when a Rupee had significant value. Value of rupee has changed so has our standard of living but not our mindset.

I don't take pride in my bargaining habit anymore. It all changed this Sunday. I took pairs of sandals to be stitched to the roadside cobbler. There were three pairs and I asked the lady how much it would cost me. She examined them as if to calculate in her head what the real cost would be plus the extra 2- 3 rupees and then replied, "Barah" (read: Twelve rupees). I agreed and told her I would pick up the stitched sandals ten minutes later. The surprise showed on her face for a minute because the lady expected me to bargain, perhaps for Rs.10 as every other customer who came to her shop did. Infact, I have done that myself before, for all these years. Advice from Dad and V echoed in my ears, "Don't ever bargain with the vegetable guys and these people. They have a very less margin. If you can afford it and if it doesn't seem over the top, just pay it and keep moving." How much was I going to gain from getting her to fix those sandals for Rs.10? Rs.2 is perhaps a substantial amount of her daily earnings. These are the very people who form the "have-not" section of our society. Why widen that gap with some mean behavior of ours just to get a happy feeling in our minds of having won over that person for Rs. 2?

The dark side of being a stay-at-home-mom

2007-09-08T11:22:00.000-05:00

OK, firstly, I had never thought in my wildest dreams that I would use this term - "stay-at-home-mom" ever.

The jargons SAHM and WAHM (Work at home mom) that all the online mommy blogger community with so much ease as saying hi and bye, drives me up the wall. Yes, I DETEST the terms because so much is made out of nothing. There's always one post everyday you can find on one of those popular mommy blogger sites, to begin with The Mad Momma who leads the online mommy brigand with her never ending rant on this topic that talks about the trials and tribulations of a mom staying at home and those working. I have nothing against her or the others, it's their wish. But isn't the grass always greener on the other side and neither of the parties are content with their status with something always to crib about and justify why they chose the path they did. Financial independence, what if something happens to my husband some day, what use is my Post graduate degree if I sit at home, diminishing social life, gender (in)equality etc etc - you know the arguments and the never ending justifications.

This post is anything but all of the above. V and I do talk a lot about how things have changed ever since I started staying home and we both constantly work all the time to keep me mentally stimulated (not necessarily gaining financially) with writing and trading for instance. The arrival of Lil General had nothing or little to do with my quitting. It just acted as a catalyst that I had been planning for a long time in search of something I liked to do for a career.

As we went for our evening walk today, something dawned on me when V said, "these are not my topics of interest to discuss". For some relationships, intelligent conversations provide that spark and you connect on a mental plane that no mushy or mundane conversation ever can. The dark side of my staying home has changed the way we connect. It is no longer about which corporate bagged the huge deal or how much profits our respective organizations made that quarter or what new hiring policy was going on or which moron MBA (oh I have a lot of issue against the MBAs and it's no secret, at the risk of some of my good friends taking offense like MD, AK) got in as a new business analyst with zilch knowledge about systems. And we loved these conversations talking into the wee hours lying on the couch as weekend(s) passed by and we wouldn't have moved our bums out of the damn house! There was always something to debate on. Now suddenly all of it has changed. I am the sounding board with very little to contribute. My window to the world is the Internet and Economic Times, which if I am lucky I get to read some days else it comes out of the potty next day from LG.

Every evening, I still have a lot to tell as V gets back from work. Not about who put in his paper or what mail my manager sent with screwed up grammar. It all revolved around which salesman came and at what time of the day - sometimes to the precise minute. I rant about the fights my maid has with her daughter-in-law, how the people downstairs spend loads of money on their wood work or how bad the noise level was from the neighbor's house who just turned his driveway to set up a atta grinding machine and how the neighbour lady looks svelte all the time and impeccably dressed. Its more about the vegetables and groceries than the deadlines and milestones at work. Nothing interesting..all the mundane stuff with some exciting tidbits on how LG entertained me and kept me productive.

This life is convenient. I am in a comfort zone now, having stayed away from work for a year. But this is black hole. You just get drawn deeper and deeper by the day. I've no idea where I am going with this post...its all muddled in the head right now as I try to find my answers of how to take it forward staying at home. Maybe those of you who work from home as freelancers can show me some light as to how you compensate for the lack of working in an environment with people mushrooming around your work place.

Gokulashtami : How to draw Krishna's little feet?

2007-09-05T02:30:00.000-05:00

I look forward to Janmashtami / Krishna Jayanthi every year for one reason. I love making Krishna's little feet something that I've done since I was 13 years old. The house we live in currently has a black flooring so the feet appear beautifully against the dark background.

How to make these little feet :

Mix maida in water or soak rice for 4 hours and then grind it in a mixer. Don't make these mixtures too thick..its consistency should be neither watery or nor like a dough. Somewhere in between like a porridge will do.

Fold your hands as if you were going to punch someone. Now place your hands in the mixture and then make the impression on the floor. This becomes the feet. Place five dots over the feet to form fingers.

Alternate this process with both hands to get the pattern of Krishna walking.

For every 3 or 4 single steps put both the feet together.

This year, I had Lil General to help me out. I put his feet in the mixture and made him stand :)

Nine tips to get over your blogging addiction

2007-09-04T04:57:00.000-05:00

Are you constantly finding ways to trick your company firewall to gain access to your favorite blog? When you wake up at 1:00 a.m. to go to the loo, do you also sneak into the study to peek quickly into the laptop if anyone has left a comment on your 11:00 p.m. post? Do you think hard when someone asks you what your hobby is or do you instantly answer “blogging”? Do your blog buddies outnumber your other friends?

Unless you blog for a living, these are signs of being addicted to blogging. Technorati estimates that there are currently 95.7 million blogs with over 175,000 new blogs being created every day and that bloggers update their blogs regularly to the tune of over 1.6 million posts per day, or over 18 updates a second. The statistics are mind boggling and addicted bloggers like you and me contribute to these numbers which makes it important to monitor one’s blogging habits before it gets in the way of our lives. Below are some tips that will help us keep this obsession in check:

1. Stop the chain reaction – Blog hopping is a chain reaction. If the latest post on one of your favorite blogs links to another blog on which you might find another interesting link, then before you realize you would’ve already spent a good 30 mins blog hopping. And then you get back to reading your daily dosage which can span anywhere from an average 50 to 300. Save the interesting links on your social bookmark manager like http://deli.cio.us for later reading.
2. Get a life – Set aside a time of the day to read and write blogs just as you would for any other activity as cycling, dinner, reading for the kids etc. Do not be tempted to skip any other activity to write a comment or post for the 10th time that day. Go back to your hobby like gardening, skating or whatever interested you before blogging hooked you on.
3. Make topical feeds – Set aside a day of the week for each topic if you have too many blogs on your list. Classifying them based on topics such as General, Technology, Entertainment and reading posts on a particular topic will not be overwhelming and time consuming.
4. Post once a day – Some bloggers make it a point to leave a comment on every post on every blog they read to build links to their own blog thereby boosting the rating for their site. Soon, it becomes a full time job. Ask yourself, “Do I really want to write about how glasses of beer I gulped down today or what channels I surfed on TV or am I writing because there is nothing else to write about?” Sure, there are a lot of people out there to read the dirt on one’s private life but sooner than later, it is the quality of your posts that will matter than quantity.
5. Clear the RSS clutter – If there are way too many RSS feeds in your blog reader like bloglines or Google reader, it is time to examine them on a quarterly basis and remove the ones that don’t interest you any longer. This way you will keep your reading list small.
6. Early to bed and early to rise – Late night is family time and early morning is a good time to exercise. 11:00 p.m. with the laptop and switching on the monitor at 6:00 a.m. to check if someone has left a comment on your last post are sure signs of a bad lifestyle.
7. Stop dating with statistics – Obsessively monitoring the statistics every hour is the first indication of being addicted to blogging. Do you get into the nitty-gritty of site statistics analysis as to how people reached your blog, from which part of the world they came and how much time they spent on what part of the site? It is alright to analyze your traffic once a week but if you find yourself doing it more than two or three times a day, then it is time to sign up for a weekly e-mail report and consciously stop logging checking.
8. Fame calling? – How many contests have you enrolled yourself into in the past 1 month that gives awards for the best bloggers under various categories? Keep a check on this and if you really feel the need to enter, then apply for the widely recognized one than every other contest announced in town. Some bloggers attain fame quickly and are widely known in the virtual world of blogosphere. In order to keep up with the pressure they churn out post after post. Even if fame is knocking at your doors, keep a tab on your blogging habits.
9. Bid goodbye to broadband – Give yourself a reasonable time to try all of the above. If none of them works, then maybe it is time dump your broadband for a while.

These are only tips and this is just like another addiction. It takes a lot of self discipline and willingness to acknowledge you are addicted and take appropriate steps to get over it before it starts taking over your lifestyle.

Lil General's blog URL changes

2007-09-04T02:48:00.000-05:00

Lil General Rules is now at http://lgrules.blogspot.com

To dad, the writer

2007-08-27T06:53:00.000-05:00

Every time my article has been published and I'd got to know, I'd call up dad at work. His voice said it all as to how proud he was of me. Dad is a man of few words. The one who has encouraged me in all my endeavors silently pushing me to give in my best - be it trying for a new job, freelancing, trading or now writing.
I know he reads my blog regularly now. I have never cared so much about who reads my blog or what they think of it as much as I have begun to now. He has raised the bar for me by reading my blog. I care about how I churn my articles now because there's a standard I want to meet and wouldn't want to wrote carelessly anymore.
Dad, any day, writes thousand times better than I do. He never knew he had it in him to write, until one Sunday in August, 1988 when a colleague of his approached him to write an essay on "Energy Conservation" for his daughter who was taking part in an Essay Competition in school the next day. What was strange is his daughter and I studied in the same school and shared the first two ranks amongst us every after year. So dad decided to write the essay but instead asked me to participate. If there was one thing I have been good at like all the other million school going kids in India, it was at rote learning (for the record, I don't take any pride in that and wouldn't ever want LG to pick up that). I churned out the essay word by word the and went on to win the competition. Prizes in elocution, debates and essay competitions followed for the next three years.

The proudest moment for dad came in 1991 when I went for the State Level debate on "Natural Disaster". I regret not saving those sheets of paper on which he wrote. To this day, I don't think I can ever write such a to-the-point, well researched essay on any topic with all the information I need being just a click away. The school did not sponsor beyond the district level. So dad bore the expense which was a LOT those days to take me from Gulbarga to Bangalore. I didn't win against contestants who were much older than I but the journey was an experience I will cherish forever. Every contestant had his/her school teacher on the stage changing slides for them as they spoke, for me dad was with me on the stage. I was nervous but he said I was good, which was bigger than any prize that I would've got. The stage was mine but the words and research were dad's, the encouragement and practice those of mom. Looking back, I guess I am fond of writing because of what I saw in dad, the writer who never wrote professionally. I would be more than thrilled to see him write professionally and getting published.

Life is one long running race

2007-08-27T06:17:00.000-05:00

It has been a long time since I did one of those what-I-was-up to-in-the-weekend posts. what perhaps prompted this was a comment by V on Saturday morning. It was around 9:00 a.m. and we had just finished breakfast. As I gathered the dishes and made my way to the kitchen to get our lunch ready, LG's brunch, bathe and get dresses before leaving for the hospital, he looked at me and said, "Will you take a break?" I understood what he meant and replied, "Life is one running race now." Its not like I'm always on my toes or something. I don't do a full time job, for that matter I don't do any job at all, so I have a lot of time during the week when Lil General sleeps. Some days, sometimes a whole week can go cranky without getting anything done - no trading, no writing etc. The irony of that statement in my taking a break was to do with how similar weekdays have become with weekends.

A child changes everything. Or rather we let ourselves change, subconsciously. Everything happens by the clock revolving around their activity - juice time, Nestum time, sleep time, bathe time, nappy change time and there's always something that's not done. Gosh! he is only 8 months old now. Wonder what I would do when he starts school and starts all of those classes too - guitar, football etc.

Weekends before LG came into our lives meant chilling out. Totally. We have always been early risers, so that sphere of life hasn't changed. No shower Saturdays, salad nights, movie Sundays and so on. Nothing was planned so meticulously. I didn't maintain a to-do list on the refrigerator top or add to the grocery list as and when something got over. Life is more planned now, sometimes to the minute, to the hour. Ad-hoc moments are a thing of the past. I can no longer afford to open the fridge and say, "Oh shit...carrots are over. Can I fix Maggi for LG's breakfast instead?"

For all I know, going out to work for a few hours everyday would have given me a mental break. Lil General is a very sweet non-fussy child that way. Doesn't bother me much and is quite independent. But at times, a mom needs a physical and mental break. Can be as small as sipping that morning cup of tea by the balcony for longer with a newspaper in hand without having to rush to the kitchen to tick off the next item on the list. I think I get it what V said and we both deserve the break now!

The weekend was good. We've started watching television while LG is asleep in the afternoons. Chak De India was good and so was Rush Hour 3. The IIFA awards on Star Gold was crap. However, Boman Irani was entertaining. Spent the whole of Saturday trying to get Netgear fixed. Turns out, it couldn't take one more fall. The damage is done. The antenna is broken and the wi-fi light wouldn't turn on. So there goes the router in the dumpster. All the electronics in the house are in a jinxed state - first the Bose, then the laptop and now Netgear :(

8 month old is a drama queen

2007-08-23T03:19:00.000-05:00

The monthly newsletter is running a little late this time. Lil General completed eight months on August 18th.

The first thing that comes to my mind as I start reflecting on the past month is his increasing fan following in the neighborhood. Strangers stop by to look at him and comment "He is soooooooooo cute." Needless to say, they are mostly college girls or other kids between the ages of 5 and 10. They even know the time when he comes out for a walk and there a few kids waiting around the corner to say hello to him everyday. Oh, and then just about a couple of blocks away, there are 2 girls we always spot on the scooty who said, "Cute father and son." I was a little behind and I overheard them and smiled at them. They did not realise I was the wife and mother of the boys. The sheepish smile on their face said it all :)

The 24*7 entertainment channel never ceases to amuse and surprise us with every action of his. The modem is hanging on to its dear life, the antenna of the Netgear is already broken and I can still hear a feeble beep sound on the land line. The laptop unlike what I predicted has survived.

Vivek and I are slowly figuring out the Parenting manual. There are a lot of hidden costs in child rearing that is never told to you. For example, when you are at the hospital waiting for your turn, if your child pushes the ceramic vase on display and it breaks, you ought to pay for it. The child like LG pretending it did not happen or he wasn't the one to be blamed doesn't help. Yes yes, we paid Rs.100.

Our favorite dog who is by profession a stock trader, Buco Kidoo ha stopped hitting the floors. He was attacked by LG and has been in bed ever since. Buci, his girlfriend, tried rescuing him and has regretted that.

This was also the month when he sat with support for the first time and for a few seconds without support too. He loves sitting now and makes it seem so natural.

The drama queen has his way shouting for no reason with the croc tears always handy. Unfortunately, his parents were born two decades ago to read through his fake crying.

Waking up at 4:00 a.m. is second nature to him. There is a lot of chores to be done around the household - like mopping with his dear susu aunty, putting the soiled clothes from his basket into the washing machine, cleaning the music system and finally eating the wires. And he likes company at that hour, so we ought to be on our toes else be ready for the scratches on my face and the bite on Vivek's nose. This has earned him the name "gunda".

"Good morning kunju" and "good evening kunju" puts a smile on his face.

Holding and passing objects from one hand to another is easy, so is kneeling and half standing for the lean mean crawling machine.

Public display of affection, let me not even begin talking about it. He is very affectionate towards me, understands I am his mother probably which naturally gives him the license to pull my hair, remove my glasses, slap me in the face and scratch me on my arms. When I am sleeping, he loves to climb over me and sleep.

The sher ka bachcha doesn't cry if he gets a wound on his legs. He was bleeding after scratching himself on the knee in the bathtub and didn't shed a tear when Vivek applied Dettol.

He doesn't like eating from his cup or bottle anymore. Wants everything poured directly in his mouth, all at once. Will someone tell him there is no one waiting to have his Nestum?

New territories have been captured like the kitchen and pooja room.

Well, thats all I can recollect for now. More in the next edition in a few weeks....over and out!

Home Alone

2007-08-21T03:36:00.000-05:00

A L-shaped balcony just about wide enough to hold 2 adults that opened to a vacant plot on one and an abandoned house on the other side. The main door of the 2 bedroom house on the first floor that opened to a stairway that led down to a veranda secured by an iron gate and which wound up to an open terrace with a furnished a single room that remained locked most of the year. There was a neighbor on the first floor and one more family that lived downstairs. Except the balcony, most aspects of this house was safe. Yet one night, a well grown up adult, all of 25 years, crept from the top of the bed in the middle of the night with pillows and bed sheet and found a cozy place under the bed. Thank God, the maid had done a good job of cleaning under the cot as well. She slept there for the rest of the night anticipating the thief in the balcony to break in anytime. The same followed for 10 consecutive nights until the sane adult of the house returned home. As if this was not enough, blank calls for real kept coming, sometimes for 20 times a day until my neighbor uncle answered once and threatened the caller. That was five years back and the pains of living alone.

If you were wondering if there really was a thief, then you know the answer. The demons were inside her head, not outside. I was busy conjuring images of non-existent people, dreaming of noises no one could hear in the night. I was not bored of living alone when V traveled extensively soon after we got married. I was scared of staying alone during the nights. I would catch up for all the lost sleep of the week in the daytime during the weekends, fresh to resume night duty for the following week. My sleeping under the cot saga was a standing joke at work. Things changed for the better when we moved to our apartment. The feeling that there were 100 other families in the same apartment complex and 3 other neighbors on the same floor gave a sense of security. I was still not brave enough to sleep with lights on. So I would leave the kitchen light on through the night even if it interfered with my sleep routine.

Five years later, I have not got any better. I am still scared of staying home alone during the nights. V's official engagements keeps him away for short durations but they also happen at a short notice. The 2000 sq. ft house does not help in any way in keeping my fear in check. More doors to be locked, balcony and terrace to be secured, quick dial on the cell phone ready, a torch handy and the adjoining room's light on sees me through the night. I consider it a good night if I managed to sleep for 3-4 hours. For me this is the tough part of staying alone. All the rest can be handled like shopping, paying bills etc etc - you know all that it takes to run the show. Maybe I will put up a brave front with LG growing up :)

Back from the dark ages

2007-08-20T05:35:00.000-05:00

What it means not to stay connected all day, we realised this past week. Our laptop has been behaving weird and the worst happened as expected last Tuesday. It crashed and neither of us found the time to fix it or get it fixed until last night. We have a HP Pavilion ZX5000 that has strange power issues. Despite replacing the original battery with a new one, it doesn't get charged beyond 37% and had come to a state that it required to be directly on power all the time. Then one thing led to another and soon it was shutting down automatically every now and then - sometimes as soon as I would restart it and sometimes it would go on for 4 hours. HP customer care was no help as they refused to address complaints for this particular notebook and battery series as this is not sold in India.
I guess these repeated shut downs for over 4-5 months finally led to its crash and the system wasn't even booting up. And I couldn't find the damn XP CD. Finally, borrowed it from a friend and reached till the recovery console. V's HTC Touch phone finally helped. I've been silently complaining about his spending a fortune first on the O2 and then on HTC. But it finally came to our rescue as we connected it with the Netgear setup and troubleshooted the notebook. Its back to life but the power problems exist.
Never thought life would be crippled without staying connected - delayed mobile bill payments, couldn't book flight tickets, for that matter no out-of-ordinary dinners as recipes stayed out of reach and finally no checking e-mails or blogging.

Gang of girls and the art of writing personal e-mails

2007-08-07T04:28:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time, not so long ago (to be precise 12 years ago), a gang of girls - A,C,L,M,R,R,S went to the same college for their undergraduate studies. They came from different places, some from different countries with starkly varied family backgrounds. Over the four years they spent at college, they grew close to one another many of which were circumstantial (you know how college friendships form). They were 7 in number (and I believe one of them reads this blog occasionally) and not all of them were close to one another while they lived on campus. I say their friendships were circumstantial like A and L slept next to each other - I mean in adjoining beds and shared bedtime stories for a year - yea yea they had a paucity of beds, A and C went to the same class for 3 years, M and S went to the same class, A and R traveled home together and the list goes on..and somewhere down the line the web was formed because of one's association with the other and the seven got acquainted with each other. This is their brief history.

It has been a good eight years since they passed out of college but have stayed in touch with each other, sometimes through e-mails, sometimes through phone calls. They all stay in different timezones across the world with the population in US slightly heavier than that in India. All married, busy with their professional careers and families. I think it is amazing to keep the group thread of yahoo e-mails alive and going this long. Whats the big deal you might ask in this age of instant access to anyone and staying connected 24*7? That's precisely the big deal - the intent to stay connected in this use and throw age keeping the goodwill going. These group e-mails have brought so many good news along the way - weddings, birth of the next generation, family marriages, graduation ceremonies, kodak moments and those-little-happy-moments like i bought this car, I moved into a new house kind of stuff. Each of them might not know the daily grindings of other's lives but all the big stuff is shared.

Why this post? Because, I have personally failed at the art of writing these good personal e-mails that I admire. I look at awe sometimes the length of e-mails and think to myself, "Wow, there is so much to tell and to write. Isn't there anything exciting happening with me?" The truth is, there is. But, it is at times tough to connect with friends you've not met in ages that makes you wonder if this stuff is to mundane to write about, or if you are bragging too much about what you do, do they know the history of what I'm writing now or am I revealing too much about someone other than us that is going to get controversial. Oh believe me, I've burnt my fingers bad which is perhaps why I limit myself to the one or two liners. In short, it is an art to write sweetly revealing so much you need to and I need to get better at this to keep these friendships for a lifetime. Some friendships are meant to be ..

Updated on 19th August 2007 : A member of the gang of girls - C, wrote to me with her opinion. It would not do any justice to this post without posting what she wrote so here it is..

It is very hard to draw the line between sharing without over-doing it as well as expressing yourself while not offending someone else. Esp. since all of us are no longer young/in college. We have families and people whom we are extremely sensitive about – even about the smallest of careless comments. We have all grown up to be people different from whom we were and whom the other used to know (and be able to gauge) so well!

But it still is great that we are in touch and can share so much! Here’s to one great group of friends - Cheers!

My second article gets published

2007-08-02T00:08:00.000-05:00

Two articles getting published in a month has given me such a high that I can't compare this feeling with anything else in recent times. This time it got published in The Hindu's opportunities and there is a link online too, unlike the earlier one. The article titled Five tips to manage notice period woes was published last Wednesday but I hadn't bothered to check it then and saw it by chance yesterday...It has been up there for a week. I saw the first link on Hindu jobs and thought to myself, this kinda sounds familiar and before I could reach to the end of the article to see the author's name, my net connection died, which is nothing new. So I hastily called up V who was in the midst of a conf call to check it for me. What I didn't realize was it is a jobs site and he was at work. Anyways he confirmed it was mine.

I spend a fortune on phone calls calling dad at work, mom at home, father-in-law at work to tell them about my article being published, when I don't get paid a penny. Never mind, maybe someday I will.

Oh btw, if you are at work, you wouldn't want to open the link.

ICICI Direct Margin Trading calls sucks

2007-07-31T01:53:00.000-05:00

If you want a 100% guarantee to lose your money, then follow ICICI Direct's intra day trading calls. Man, they suck. On the contrary, if you want to make money, just do the opposite of what they suggest and I bet you will make some decent money.

Broadband in India

2007-07-30T01:32:00.000-05:00

The broadband market in India is growing rapidly but the service providers are not bracing themselves to the challenge of meeting this demand. Even if the number of providers are not umpteen, there are a number of small players. If you ask me how many good ones, hardly one or two.

I have been using broadband at home since November 2004. It was Airtel at first in Bangalore and then DataOne at Pune. Here is a comparison of these two major broadband players:

Airtel : (earlier was marketed under the brand Touchtel)
Customer Service : Very good. Resolve all the problems within the promised time. I have seen their excellent customer service in Bangalore as well as in Trichy.
Speed: Good. The 128 Kbps unlimited package is good.
Cost : If you go on the rental modem option, your bill would work close to Rs.740 every month which is way cheaper than BSNL.
Free Calls: Depends on the time of the year and scheme you take it under. Sometimes they give free calls worth Rs. 100. STD facility offered on the phone without any extra payment as in BSNL.
Installation/Security deposit : Many times during a year, they have promotion schemes under which you can get the security deposit waived off and you can get started by just paying for the installation..shouldn't go beyond Rs.750.
Downtime : This is one part I like about airtel. If the service is down for whatever reason, then they don't charge prorata for the time it was down.
Bill Payment : you can drop a cheque at any of the Airtel outlets or pay it online.
Service availability: Airtel had a lesser penetration as compared to BSNL. The broadband service was not available in Pune at all a year back because of which we were forced to choose BSNL. Even now, in the outskirts of cities, they do not have a service. This can be a major drawback if you don't live in a good location.
Installation time :This totally depends on where you live. If you live in an apartment that already has someone using Airtel broadband then it is just a matter of an hour or so to get you going. Otherwise, it takes them about 2-3 days to get the line and do the whole setup.

Only disadvantage: The only bad experience I have had with Airtel is in disconnection of the service. They ask you to place a request 15 days in advance and in this period it can be disconnected at any time and they fail to notify you before doing that. If they can improve their process so that the connection be disconnected on a specific day, then nothing like it.

BSNL's DataOne
BSNL's DataOne sucks. I strongly recommend against using this one. Unless and until you don't have any other broadband service provider in your area, you should not go with this one. In Pune, when we moved in, we did not have any other provider. We checked with Airtel, Tata Indicom, Sify etc etc.

BSNL is highly locale dependent so what I write here might not be applicable o where you live. i was quite impressed with their customer service for telephone line in Bangalore but at Pune, it is HORRIBLE.
Customer Service : Pathetic. They don't have a 24*7 helpline. The 1500 toll free number that offers assistance is of no use. You are redirected to a local number in the exchange that operates only between 10 and 5 with the usual chai breaks and no one answering the call. And when they do, they have no clues about your problem and put you onto another number that is so busy through the day that it took me 3 days to get through. By then the service got restored naturally.

Installation: If you can get the installation done, then consider yourself lucky. It took us 45 days, numerous visits and calls to the local exchange and sweet talk to get our land line installed. They did not have a lengthy wire nor a instrument so we gave them all the equipment they needed and to-fro transportation to get our line going. after this, getting the broadband connection was a nightmare. The same episode repeated and it was a good 4 months before we got the Internet connection at home.

Download limit -The Rs.1000 -256 Kbps option has a download limit of 2GB. It worked out pretty expensive for us. So we switched over to the unlimited 128 Kbps one. Th speeds during the day is less than 64 Kbps.

Cost : Works out to (Rs.999+service tax +modem+fixed broadband charges+telephone rental) Rs.1300 with a rental modem.

Installation Cost : Close to Rs.3500. Can't recollect the refundable part in this. They hardly ever have any offer to waive of installation cost, security deposit etc..Getting the refundable part would be another nightmare.

Monthly bill payment : You have to physically pay the amount in counters or drop a cheque. Online payment not available in Pune. They do not have tie ups with any bank either such as ICICI or Citibank. So that's an inconvenience. Bill generation is another flawed process. We did no receive a bill the first 2 months despite following up. But they were prompt in disconnecting the connection.

Service Availability :The service is available even in the suburbs so that kinda works to their advantage against other players.
Downtime :The service is down atleast 2 days in a month and no one seems to be aware of it either. You just have to wait it out till it gets fixed.

I have not personally used Sify, Tata Indicome or Iqara. From what I hear from friends, Sify was good earlier but is not recommended anymore. Tata Indicom was never good. The same with Iqara. So before you go for one, enquire in your locality or city as to what is good to stay connected.

Las Vegas revisited

2007-07-24T11:32:00.000-05:00

Would you believe if I said I've been visiting Vegas atleast 3 times a week the past month? May not in the literal sense but it is a trip to Vegas every bit every day experience wise. It was December 2003 when we first visited Vegas, a day after Christmas, to be precise. We had a lot of fun in that trip, thanks to the Casino hopping.

My tryst with the stock market began two years back when a former employer allotted 56 shares in the form of ESOPs. I got them into my Demat account and never did much with it. Thank god for that. It was a golden goose that just sat there and reaped us over 100% profits. Then it all changed in December 2005 when our fondness for the markets grew. It was also a coincidence that I began work on a project for Credit Suisse around the same time and we started putting together our finances well, so I started getting a grasp of the fundamentals of banking, capital markets, trading and such. Our interest in the secondary market grew and V pursued it. With Lil General on the way, one thing led to another and I left it mid way to pursue it again now.

If you want to know how to lose money, ask me for tips :) I've lost more money in the last 3 weeks than I've gained. Ofcourse, I've not lost a lot because I don't play big. If you don't play big, you don't win big. This is why I said it is like visiting Vegas everyday. At Vegas all we did was spending time on the slot machines with a $20 bill every time. What do you expect of an Indian techie on a project on a H1 visa? Whatever you win goes back just to lose some more. You never have enough of it. I call it quits to day trading everyday just to go back the next day. It is addictive.

Day trading is exactly like this for me. I don't play big. I don't know the rules of the game. I am learning the tricks by playing small. I had my first small success on a margin trading call today. That kind of squared off all my losses till date.

At 7 months, LG is a crawling machine

2007-07-18T00:34:00.000-05:00

Not much has changed, except that he has grown bigger, stronger and old enough to slap us. I had no clue that you get so much strength on a formula-baby cereal diet, that I'm seriously contemplating giving up my three time meals to switch over to Nestum/NAN.

Lil General got a new buddy - Snoopy - a white Fisher Price dog. I wish Snoopy was a real dog. Poor thing, he gets kicked and beaten everyday by LG and still keeps making bow-bow sounds.

Vivek and I have become the full-time clowns for LG making bow-bow and quack-quack sounds as he giggles and drools.

The biggest milestone of all - crawling, happened this month.

He continues to fall off the bed for fun only that I catch him on my lap now. Sometimes he thinks he can fly and reach for the objects he eyes like TV from the bed.

You know what, I get this feeling he doesn't like our laptop much for we spend way too much time on it. One day, Vivek was composing a mail and he got this eerie feeling to see the words disappear slowly from the screen, only to realise the ghost was right there at home hitting on the Del key. Don't be too surprised if this is the last post you see on LG for I'm not sure if the laptop will be hale and healthy by next month.

He is a crawling machine now, wants to climb on top of 2 pillows in the middle of the night.

Battles are fought everyday between V and LG. It is LG who usually wins.. V has to be happy with some war wounds on almost every part of his body right from the nose to arms. LG's secret weapons are his teeth.

Talking about teeth, after the first bottom pearls of white, it is now the turn of the top 4 incisors.

LG also got a pram this month and he isn't too happy going for his evening rides on it. Mom's shoulders are comfy, its just that mom thinks he is heavy for her to carry him all the time.

We have a home-grown Tansen who is content listening to Mozart every morning in a thinker-pose - with the fingers on his chin.

LG says ---

Diapers - oh I HATE them. So what if momma wears it..I know how to turn away from her and furtively remove the straps and then smile sheepishly.

I smile more at strangers than at mom.

I love getting up at 4:30 a.m. everyday, playing for a while and then going back to sleep, only after ensuring my parents have lost their sleep and are wide awake.

And I give that dirty look when mom gets funny trying to read me Cinderella / Goldilocks fairy tales.

My favorite afty activity is to put my fingers inside mom's nostrils while she is asleep. How much fun can that be?

Cat on the mat got hit

2007-07-16T03:38:00.000-05:00

Every monsoon sees a spurt in the population of cats and dogs. As a consequence, you can hear the mother cat crying and haunting the neighborhood in search of its lost newborn ..this happens year after year. Last week, one rainy day, as Vivek opened the front door to pick up our packets of milk, he noticed something crawling from the mat over his leg finding its way upstairs. It was a small white cat finding shelter from the downpour and some place to keep itself warm. He let it in the veranda but blocked it from entering the house. He was all excited and I went over to see the cat. Small, pristine white, piercing eyes that can scare anyone.

I am not too fond of pets - be it dogs or cats. But Vivek loves dogs and after all these years it has slightly rubbed off on me and I love seeing this trio from the neighborhood go for a walk every morning. Many people around where we live have nice breed of dogs. Some day when we think Lil General is alone and needs company, maybe we will get a dog!

I was scared to let the cat inside the house because of LG but let him stay in our premises. I don't know when he ran away..I keep track of him until late that morning and spotted him in the neighbor's car park keeping himself warm under a car. He seemed happy..I don't know if his mother was still alive and looking for him. I forgot all about it later.

The next evening when the rain god had taken a break for a nap, I went out for my evening walk with a friend. She suddenly spotted a dead cat on the side and cautioned me. It was run over by a passing by vehicle...it was a sad sight and I felt bad ...

My first article gets published

2007-07-13T04:50:00.000-05:00

I've not felt so happy in a long time. Seeing your name in print gives that kind of a high which is hard to compare with anything else. People who have gone down thiseaded this road before will know what I mean. All you long for is to see your name in a Letter to the Editor or in the byline of a local newspaper to start with.

I wanted to do something about my writing, atleast try submitting an article. So one lazy Monday afternoon while I was lying with LG, a thought struck me of starting with something small, so I contacted the editor of a Times Of India Pune supplement newspaper. I was impressed with the gentleman and promptly submitted an article 4 days later. I don't have the luxury of sitting down for hours on stretch these days so the idea was conceived in shower, words formed in the head while cooking and the article written between 5:30 and 5:45 p.m. one Thursday evening while LG was napping and sent the next morning after proof-reading for obvious mistakes. It was quite natural to get frustrated when the article didn't get published the following week. Not too familiar with the rules of the publishing industry, I followed up once before giving up with encouragement from V. And what did I know, I saw the article in yesterday's edition, published without being edited even for a single word.

The article is titled "Store-age!". It is not up in the online version yet. Once it is, I will update this post. Until then, I am going to revel in my happy land with the words "Lakshmi Nagarajan" in print swimming in my head.

Among the best Indian Blog

2007-07-13T04:38:00.001-05:00

"Reflections" has made it to the list of best Indian blogs maintained by Amit Agarwal under the General category. Naturally, I am surprised. I wrote about this in a post titled "LG's mommy also rules". Lil General Rules blog is featured in the Mommy/ Children category. I wasn't surprised with LG Rules being listed despite its readership being a miniscule of this one and somewhere honestly I think it deserves it but this one was a surprise. I wouldn't imagine changing a thing here like allowing comments as the purpose behind writing this one, hasn't changed after all.

Eating on the edge

2007-07-13T04:20:00.001-05:00

It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon, an unusual one as it was not raining at even half past noon. The rain gods do not spare Pune on weekends confining families to stay indoors and get bored of seeing each other's face or the stupid reality shows on Television with the exception of a Formula 1 race weekend. So yesterday with the overcast still in sight threatening to pour anytime, we bravely made plans to lunch at the new restaurant, Gayatree, that opened up in the neighborhood just three days back.

This was a big event in itself, for this was the first time The Seniol and I were going to dine outside with LG. And I guess we would have to be one of those odd couples/parents who have not gone out for a goddamn 7 months after the baby was born. I would like to think that I'm either a very good cook that we don't feel the need to eat out or that LG keeps us entertained at home that we don't feel like budging out. How I wish the former was true to bloat my ego, but the reality is it is the second one and that both of us are too lazy to chalk out plans.

Don't get me wrong, we have been out with LG before to friendly places such as a relative's place, traveled all the way from Trichy to Chennai, visits to a friend's place etc but never to a location that is totally strange to him in its setting and which is not home-like except the hospital. So I know what to pack in his bag and what to carry and what not to. But the trip yesterday was a total disaster.

The first mistake, we dressed him up after he had his lunch to his heart's content (who feels like going out after a heavy lunch) when it was his nap time..his eyes were drooping.It was already late and I had two choices - to put him to sleep and fix a quick lunch for us or take him along and put him to sleep on the way / get a takeaway. I chose the latter. In the frenzy of getting ready (I usually look clumsy these days like a mommy with stains and leftovers of LG's food on my dress) and making a mental note that I ought take his water bottle, I rushed down to the car with his pram and other essentials. Since the place was just around the corner I decided against taking his bag. Turned out later nothing is just around the corner with a baby. An outing is an outing and his baggage goes with it.

We reach the place all confident and put him on the pram and take him in, excitement and apprehension clearly written all over our faces when the first oon oon and the uncomfy look on LG's face. "He is not happy.", says Vivek.

The crying started even before we took our seats. Positioning the fan towards him by climbing on the table and then on the chair to get the angle of the rotating fan just about right, making stupid quack quack and bow-bow sounds letting the other people there assume we were clowns and letting all the cutlery available on the table rub against each other to produce all sorts of sounds possible saw LG quiet for a while. When we ran out of ideas, Vivek suggested he might be hungry and that I should give him water. It didn't take long to realize the mental note had remained a mental note. So he drove back home and returned with the bottle. See, going to a place round the corner is never a good idea for you are careless and the husband has to do the running around for the wife's absentmindedness.

I finished my French Onion soup sitting on the edge with spoon in one hand and the other rocking his pram. The 75 ml of water was over before our main course came in.
We stayed for 45 mins - the quickest lunch that took about 15 seconds to order and 10 mins to gobble down the food sitting on the edge of our seats. The rest was spent entertaining LG and Vivek dashing to and fro the house. Oh!we did take a minute to analyse the food as well. The Amritsari Chole could have well been renamed Bengaluru Chole for I don't know if anyone in Amritsar makes chole purely with coconut. We hope to do better next time :)

Book Review: The story of Cinderella and other fairy tales

2007-07-06T04:50:00.000-05:00

I have never responded to a meme before as I've never been tagged. So it was a pleasant surprise to see Sukumar tagging me to do a book review meme.

I have to confess that its been over 4 months since I started reading a book and went on to complete it. Many books lie in the to-be-completed part of the book shelf among them being, Michael Moore's Dude, where's my country, Humphrey Hawksleys' The third World War and Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor.

I'm digressing now. Before I drift any further and lose your attention, the story I'm going to tell you all is that of Cinderella, not a best-selling fiction or Pulitzer winning book or something from the grapevine on the last Harry Potter book.

Baby Center's newsletter advised that kids enjoy listening to stories and develop an interest in books, when they are around 6 months old. So here, I was hunting online for a book of fairy tales and gave up because I did not find one with good illustrations, the thin big book of fairy tales with colorful pictures we are used to. So I went to my book shelf to pick up something for myself when my eyes fell on this teeny book titled, "The story of Cinderella and other fairy tales". My joy knew no bounds. A pencil note on the first page indicated I had gifted this to my husband on his birthday four years back. Who would have thought of it as a thoughtful gift then to a 26 year old?

This one, from a local publication is anything but fancy. Spanning 194 pages it has ll the fairy tales from Cinderella to Thumbelina to Goldilocks and the three bears and Snow-white and Rose-red. Neat sketches illustrate the event on every page that is complemented by text on the other page. One first look at the page and I was not too happy as it would have been too dry to get Lil General's attention minus the colors.
But this also provided me an opportunity to turn on my dramatics becoming the beautiful princess one minute and the wicked sibling the next to the charming prince the next.

What was amazing is these fairy tales have been told over and over again for ages and different reworkings have appeared since they were first told in the ninth century.But one never gets bored. It was almost like reliving childhood when I read it myself and then read it out to my brother and ow to my son. These fairy tales do take you in to the world of fantasy if only for a short while away from the drudgery of everyday life. Interestingly, these tales do have the ingredients of our everyday lives from sibling rivalry to wicked step mother to love at first sight. Yet all is well that ends well and fairy tales always end with a they lived happily ever after.

In all, I enjoyed doing the fairy tale bit. Reviews of books meant for grown ups will soon appear once I become an adult again - far away from the fantasy land.

Maid in India

2007-06-29T09:46:00.000-05:00

The lady in this picture is Selvam.
Age : 55.
Occupation : Maid (domestic help).
Experience : 35 years.
Yearly Income : Rs. 18,000.
No. of hours she works in a day : 8 hours.
No. of jobs: 2

Every middle class household in India has a maid like Selvam. Some that have worked in the same house for decades and has seen generations grow up to produce another generation. This lady has seen 3 generations herself. Some affluent urban households or those where the wives/mothers work employ 2 or more maids. They do everything for a meagre Rs. 500 ($15) a month like cleaning utensils, brooming/sweeping, drying clothes, cleaning the toilets etc etc. Unlike the developed countries, it is interesting to note that most of the maids are women and according to the census of 1991, the number of women workers in India is 91 million out of a total workforce of about 315 million. Out of which about 60% belong to the unorganised workforce.

What provoked me to write this post was how unappreciative people in general are towards this workforce. My maid has been with me for over a year and half. She didn't come to work for the past 4 days and believe me, I was on the verge of tears managing Lil General and a 2000sq. ft and above property all by myself. In India, there's a lot of daily chore that needs to be done because our climactic condition doesn't suit houses to be carpeted and clothes still need to be sun-dried. And cooking 3 times a day is a daily activity and not a pleasure activity meant for weekends. I'm digressing. Anyways, when my maid Aparna who I fondly call "aunty" showed up this morning, I can't tell you how relieved I was. How sometimes we forget that they too have a family, they too can have problems..we are quick to complain all the time.

Most people take undue advantage of the fact that these women, generally from the lower strata of the society has no one to back them or any union to fight for their rights. They don't get increments year on year, no background check, there is no paid leave or a contract that binds them. It is all word-of-mouth way of hiring and firing. You tell the neighbour or your security that you need a maid and by that evening you will have at least 2 women knocking on your doors.

Maybe its time to be sensitive to their needs and show some appreciation. Sometimes talking nicely and treating them like humans and not trash bag does wonders. Having said that, a lot of these women take us for a ride too. Stealing, lying, job half done and no gratitude for how much ever you do, is all too common. But it doesn't hurt to be good. Good begets good.

Bose servicing in India

2007-06-28T11:37:00.000-05:00

We own a gamut of Bose products from QuietComfort™ 3 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphone to The Bose Lifestyle 12 Series System.This summer, one night, the the acoustic Wave Music System 11 stopped working and has been lying ever since. Bose has service centers only at specific locations in India - Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. I wish they had a service center in Pune too or a pick up facility- so much for the price we pay!

Dairy Milk adulteration in India

2007-06-22T04:31:00.000-05:00

There was over a liter and half of extra milk lying in the fridge last night. And the Paneer available in Pune is like chewing on a eraser, only the eraser would be easier to eat when cooked. Anyways, that's beside the point, I decided to make Paneer of all that milk and as usual boiled it and added a tinge of curd to it. When there was no sign of the milk breaking into curds and water, I added a teaspoon of lemon juice to it. Still , no sign. I can't claim I have always made Paneer at home all my life but my cooking instincts and experience can't be that bad, so I called the only other expert available at home at 10:00 p.m., Vivek. Two heads pouring over the milk vessel, scratching our heads couldn't believe what we were seeing. We had not done something right. A quick analysis and he offered his expert opinion, "you wouldn't have added enough lemon juice for the milk to patufy". I pointed him to the squeezed half lemon lying in the sink and gracefully offered him a full lemon from the fridge for him to do the honours. Yep, another 20 minutes and still no sign.

I remembered the article on Milk adulteration that appeared in the Times of India last week. We decided to leave the vessel filled with milk for the night undisturbed and let the miracle happen while we slept just to discover the magic Paneer formed in the morning. Alas! the magic did not happen. Before I brushed my teeth I went to the kitchen (this must have been the first time I've done that in my life), to see the milk lying still - pure, fresh and watery as it ever was. I did my daily chores and returned to the magical milk an hour later and went in another boiling session for 15 minutes with the juice from a lemon. Nope, nothing happened. It went into the sink few minutes later.

This milk was Chitale - cow's milk, recommended by Paediatrician's in Pune for infants. I feel sick for having given this milk 3 times this week to Lil General, the first time I started giving him natural milk. Today's 3 packets were quickly exchanged for Amul's milk. And my experimentation for Paneer continued with Amul and Lo! the Paneer was done in 5 mins. After all, the process of making Paneer hasn't changed in years, only how milk is made has changed - not form Cow's or Buffaloes but from Caustic Soda!

Food fetish

2007-06-21T03:39:00.000-05:00

We don't get Litchis in South India. And my FIL was surprised to hear that I've never tasted this amazing fruit. There was no stopping me after that -- had over 500 g everyday for 2 weeks at stretch.

After saying a strict NO to chocolates for a very long time, I have been finishing pack after pack. Thanks to Vivek's SA exploits - Duc d'o and Guylian. He loves shopping for chocolates. Now someone has to eat them too, right? The Original Turkish Delight was a true delicacy, white and spongy on the outside with a different pulpy taste on the inside. When I'm done with all, I come back to my favorite Lindt Swiss Thins. Now is that craving? I'd rather not think about how out of shape I am right now and not helping with shedding any of the post pregnancy weight. Three more packs to go.

A brief story of Turkish Delight, "Lokum" as written on the back of the box:

The production of Turkish Delight began in the 17th century within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, being a delicacy only available to the royalty at the begining. Its popularity soared in a very short time, so the Palace permitted its commercial production.
An English sailor brought Turkish Delight to Europe for the first time in the 18th century. It was accepted by the Europeans and became famous worldwide in a short time.

A "delight" that the entire world loves, representing Turkey in the best way, is now produced in South Africa.

At 6 months, LG becomes the friendly neighbourhood spiderman

2007-06-18T08:32:00.000-05:00

I am back with another edition of Lil General's chronicle - this time it is the half yearly special.

He has earned the nickname "Gadhdhari bheem" from his dad, The Seniol.

Just 2 days before he could officially complete 6 months, happened "The Great fall" or call it "The Giant leap" off the bed to become the friendly neighbourhood spider man. Will someone please teach my son that one has to start crawling, then walking before flying? And that rolling over and over is good but not on the bed.

This was also a month of concerts - the sweet sounds that rhymed with those of Koel, the bird that stays in the next door tree and wakes us up at 6:53 a.m. sharp every morning with her "coo,coo". Matching her songs are those of LG's at 7:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. - the tickets were sold out for a good week.

LG in the meantime got introduced to his another set of grandparents.

The family also witnessed a series of poop episodes ...it came in all colors, sizes and shapes - green,watery being the famous one that took to us every Paediatrician in town until one sane one said, "Relax baby. 50 or 100 times is also fine and I do not promised any miracle." But he did perform a miracle and it stopped.

There was an addition to the family - Buci, the white teddy bear from South Africa.

The boy enjoys music and is selective about it too. The flavor changes week after week. It was the blues first with BB King. Now he goes bonkers listening to Jimi Hendrix and gets mad every time someone turns off the music.

He is more interested in the food I eat and the tea I drink than his apple, carrots and Nestum.

The past two months he has probably had more medicines than food. That kinda explains why the first spoon is always a struggle.

His love for the fan above is quite high.

Two pearls of white - lower teeth made their appearance. On their way out, they caused a lot of trouble and I suspect the upper 4 are on their way too.

The Case of the NRI - Non Returning Indian

2007-06-13T05:05:00.000-05:00

Case 1:
Parents : Father Deceased. Mother lives in India. Over 70.
Only son. Lives in US. Mother finds it hard to travel every year.

Case 2:
Parents : Father deceased. Mother lives in India. Aged 65.
Only son. Lives in US.

Case 3:
Parents : Both alive.
4 children. 2 live in US. One lives in Dubai. One lives in Germany.

Case 4:
Parents: Were alive till 2006.
Son left for US in 1979. Visited India after 27 years when his mother died.

All real examples. Cases are endless. Every urban household has a proud story to tell of their Non Resident kids and grandkids. The dream has come true. Their lifelong struggle to educate and send their kids to Amrikaa paid off. Spend 15 more mins with them and the underlying sadness will slowly give way to the superficial happiness.

Each of these cases had one thing in common. The promise of their dear ones to return to India so that their folks aren't alone. The thought has to be appreciated but it is the action that never happens. I know the Case 2 mom has given up hope that her son will ever return to India. First it was 2002 to get a green card, then it was 2004 to have one child, then by 2006 to have yet another kid and then return. All of this has happened. Now they want both the kids to get acclimatised to the environment and grow a little more to be able to survive in India. The new date for them is 2009. For the Case 2 mom, she said, "It is never. So I don't care anymore if he returns."

Gurcharan Das in a recent article wrote beautifully that "for NRIs returning to India is sort of lifelong pregnancy - a perpetual wait, a constant burden. Usually I discover that their memories are frozen, and they hide a shame of a fearful past that forced them to leave home."

He couldn't have said it better. As in such sensitive topics I have written before, I have nothing against the NRI clan. Its your life end of the day. There is always the other side of the story. All I can't understand is the apprehension in returning back to India. India Inc pays well, really well these days. We don't go to the kirana shops no more to buy groceries. There are supermarkets and when you get bored of them there are hypermarkets too for weekends. Name a brand and you can shop at the exclusive stores here in most metros. And lets not even get started on the buying capacity and disposable incomes. You don't have to do the laundry, cook and wash utensils, yourself. You can pay the bills online. Am I sounding like a rich b**ch? No, this is an average middle class household. But this is the lifestyle you will enjoy - a comfortable one without the anxiety of how your single septuagenarian mom is doing thousands of miles away. You are neither living peacefully there nor here.

Sure, there is one thing you can never buy and that is US citizenship for your yet to be born child or the organised way of life. You would still have to visit the RTO, wait in queues, our airports are crowded, our roads are crowded than before and the drains do get clogged during the monsoons. But there is a price you pay for everything in life. You can't have it all. The choice is yours.

With love, empathy and concern for the folks of NRIs- the Non-Returning Indians, I just have one thing to say. Please don't keep your folks waiting for ever. If you don't intend to return, talk to them and tell them that. They were born atleast 2 decades before you and am sure they understand that already. If you really want to come back for good for their sake, plan it and have a realistic date. Life is not as bad in this country of 1 billion plus. We have a good life here.

Scrabble is fun

2007-06-11T11:39:00.000-05:00

I love board games. Harper IMed a few nights ago asking if I would like to play scrabble. I was like "right now?" and he replied "no. we can play it in a day or over a few." And we started the game online on scrabulous and it has been fun. More than playing it in real time. No pressure of having to think of a word immediately or the temptation to see what letters your opponent has and if he is plotting a better one. We were a little rusty with our choice of words this time but who cares, it was fun.

Reclaimed my life

2007-06-10T10:58:00.000-05:00

Price of Plasma TV : Rs.1,50,000
Best of F.R.I.E.N.D.S DVD : $29

Lil General sleeping from 2:00 to 4:30 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. I stretch myself on the couch and watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S on TV after 7 months. The first time I've seen TV in 4 weeks. - Priceless.

There are some things money can't buy. This afternoon was one such.

Why can't I be a mom and not work ?

2007-06-08T03:29:00.000-05:00

I'm a self proclaimed recluse now - incommunicado with most of my friends, former acquaintances. I am just tired of answering the question, "Where do you work?" which is immediately followed by "Why am I not working?" The already small social circle is diminishing at an alarming rate now.

Just so we can set the record straight I'm very much employable and in the job market, much more than most of you who have posed this question to me. I am not trying to be rude here while stating this but just getting the facts right.

So, why does this kind of conversation get on my nerves? Times have changed and I'd rather not compare our parent's generations with that of ours. On the lighter side, being an Aquarean means there is some part of insanity built in. On a serious note, it takes me down the depression trajectory. I'm not looking for sympathy because there is no sacrifice being done here, so please don't make me a martyr. I did not trade my career for Lil General.

If people cannot come to terms with the fact even after 9 months that I am a mom and will be home (or as the fancy jargon goes for people like me stay-at-home moms) taking care of Lil General and feel bad for my situation every time I talk to them, then I'd rather keep away from such company.

For us there was never a if-else-if or choices in raising Lil General. After I conceived, we never discussed as to which parent would come over or if we would hire a full time nanny to take care of the kid. This debate never happened - amongst us or with rest of the family. It was a given that I would quit and stay home - not a forced one but something that I was more than willing to. Find some sanity for a while away from the rat race.

I have never experienced this before so I am not going to make it sound like this is all hunky-dory. Life has changed dramatically, more than anyone can take. Its a huge change from being busy for 7 years to staying home for starters. And to add to it, doing household chores from the crack of dawn until the half the world goes to sleep. Midnight feeds and changing diapers feels good initially but MONOTONY creeps in sooner than later. There are days that don't begin because the previous one never ended. And ones that never end. There are phone calls I miss, birthdays I forget, days when I don't look in the mirror and some that goes by without talking to anyone apart from V. And afternoons when I feel like resting my bones, LG is hyperactive playing merry go round around the bed that I can't catch a wink. And the BIG FAT pay package gone. Who said it was an easy ride? It would be inhuman if I just switched roles from a career woman to one like an experienced nanny overnight. Once a decision taken, I'd rather not weigh in my options in every conversation. But whats important is that I'm ok with all of this. This hard work doesn't earn me a penny but it gives me that million-dollar smile.

Call me foolish, call me outdated, call me whatever you would like but spare me the routine of asking that same damn question over and over again as to why I am at home taking care of Lil General. Parenting does not seem like a lucrative career option. And lets not forget the social standing among the corporate friends where you are judged by the double income.

Why am I doing this?

Family matters. Period. A great deal of time and energy is lost when both couples work. "Send your child to the best day care and he will send you to the best old age home in town", i read somewhere. I am not looking for LG to take care of us in our old age - this is not a deal.

I'm too possessive and protective to let him grow at the hands of anyone else for now.

Maybe I will go back to work when I feel he has grown enough and I feel comfortable. Maybe not. until then please don't make it sound like parenting was too lowly a job to have traded my career for.

How life has changed ..all in a day's work

2007-05-24T11:01:00.000-05:00

Life has changed so much in the past 5 months that it is hard to believe that I am the same person. This list is just to show the Lil General how he always kept me on the move.

Lil General is all of 70 cms but he keeps me on my toes all day. 2 grown-ups are not enough to handle this 5 month old kid.

"Let's eat out" has given way to "What's for dinner?" at home.

Then, I used to look at the cellphone every morning to see what time it is. If it was 7:00 a.m., it always meant I could be a slacker and tug in for another 10 more minutes. Now I rush to the bathroom at 6:15 a.m. and get stuff ready for him before he wakes up.

Then, I used to be an obsessive sleeper - going to bed by 10:00 p.m. come what may and turning the world upside down and letting everyone know if I didn't sleep well one night. Now, I can hardly remember the last time I slept uninterrupted for over 3 hours. Midnight feeds , diaper changing at 3:00 a.m. is part of the deal.

Talking about having your own space, I see he has taken half of my closet space and I would be lucky if I get about a feet in width on the bed to sleep through the night.

Then, mornings would start until I had a hot cup of tea with the newspaper in my hand. Now mornings end with a hot cup of tea. And some lucky days end with catching up the news.

On the brighter side, we would get tired of watching the idiot box on weekends and work nights. Now I can't remember the last time I switched on the TV. There is a 24*7 live entertainment channel at home, courtesy LG.

We indulged in retail therapy then and do so now. What has changed is for whom we buy. We go out to get something for us and end up buying stuff for him.

If there's one thing that has changed immensely, then it is my patience levels. Believe me, if nothing else, motherhood teaches you patience. Potty on one side, doorbell ringing, husband on a call, telephone ringing, mom on chat, vegetable burning on the stove and much more..I have learnt to handle all of this simultaneously without losing my cool. Of course, there are days when I get mad at everyone but everyone is entitled to a bad day, aren't they?

We don't eat when we are hungry. We eat when he is asleep or at least I do so.

Then, laundry could wait if we didn't feel up to it. Now, laundry can't wait and has to be done 2 times a day.

There is no room for laziness. His hunger can't wait. There are no Sundays and holidays. Every day is a Monday for me. No room for blues.

Then, our parents wouldn't call everyday. Now, they want to view their grandson on webcam everyday.

Then, we wouldn't know who our neighbours were. Now, boundaries diminish and neighbours come calling at all odd times to see the little one.

Then, domestic help took advantage because it was just us. Now, they are all the more sincere towards their work.

Then, I hardly had any woman friends. And I was pathetic at making small talk. Not that it has improved drastically but I'm doing a better job now in conversing with other women.

Bathing the baby, laundry, preparing his formula umpteen times, cooking for the family, comforting the baby to sleep, eating, entertaining guests, shopping, blogging , answering calls and more laundry..its all in a day's work now. Life can't get busier than this. Who said Parenting was easy? I wonder how working moms manage the show.

Finally, on a totally unrelated note : I loved this sentence I read on some one's blog ...We are committed to this roller coaster ride that is marriage. I just really prefer the peaks to the valleys.

How to write a matrimonial bio-data?

2007-05-20T11:46:00.001-05:00

There have been umpteen requests on how to write a matrimonial bio-data, hence this post.
Following are the key constituents of a matrimonial bio-data:

Personal details

Name

Date of birth

Height

Weight

Complexion

Habits (drinking/smoking)

Educational Qualification. Which college did you go to?

Where you work currently? Place and organisation

Annual Income if you wish to reveal

Family Details

Father's name, educational qualification, where he works/worked. Where does he live currently and where are they settled?

Mother's name, working/housewife?

No. of sisters/brothers. Married or single? Where do they work and reside? what does your brother-in-law or sister-in-law do? If they are studying, then where etc?

Details required for horoscope generation and matching:

Time of birth

Place of birth

In addition to this, if the horoscope is available then only these are needed for matching:

Remaining dasa

Gothram like Kousigam, Garga etc

Star like Magam, Poosam etc

Raasi and Navamsam squares

Format of bio-data
It helps to have a soft copy format and hard copy. For soft copy you can either get a nice PDF done or Word doc.

A blogging milestone..

2007-05-17T08:25:00.000-05:00

4 years and 2 blogs. This blog "reflections" started in April 2003 and on last count, I have authored 445 posts. The other one on Pregnancy started in October 2006 (there are a lot of backdated posts because I wanted them in the chronological order of occurrence as a reminiscence of my pregnancy) has 115 posts till date. The name of this blog has changed from "The Pregnancy Journal" to "Pregnancy and Parenting" to "Lil General Rules"

A lot of posts that appear on these blogs deem fit in either of them so it is just a momentary decision that I make as to which one of them they should go to. Like the one on Child Rearing : Are grad parents being exploited? is an ideal candidate for the Pregnancy blog or the one titled How to raise a child multilingual and Guilt and motherhood can be featured here too.

Readership has not increased substantially and that is not my idea either to promote my blog by leaving comments and linking to a zillion places. You might ask, whats the point in blogging then? Well, that's the only thing that takes my mind off other mundane things, so I indulge in it or waste my time :) and sometimes lose my sleep over it. I love the fact that a few of my friends have been reading what I write in this space the past 3 years and have come back often to tell me what they liked and what they did not. I don't resent their criticism but I do if it comes from unknown quarters that makes no sense, which is perhaps why I haven't been able to reinstate the comment section on this blog yet. I'm not here to make a few extra bucks or to network with other momma bloggers or reveal myself totally so as to attract undue attention.

Child rearing : Are grand parents being misused?

2007-05-14T01:47:00.000-05:00

This is too sensitive a topic that might actually put off a few of my friends / acquaintances. But a topic so close to my heart that I've been itching to write ever since Lil General was conceived and born. The opinions expressed here are mine and the conversations that I've had a with a few wise and elderly people. If you do not subscribe to them, then so be it.

Last week on a brief transit at Bangalore en route Pune, we stayed over at a relatives'. After exchanging pleasantries, the uncle asked me, "So who is coming over to take care of the kid - your parents or his?". It was 6:30 a.m. and needless to say I was startled at the question but one that I had got used to replying without thinking. Vivek was not a party to this conversation but our thoughts on the issue are the same. Below is an excerpt of our conversation that provoked this post:

Me : No one.

Uncle : "You are not returning to work after 6 months?"

Me: "No. I have resigned and am going to stay home and look after the baby."

Uncle :" A good decision. Its difficult to believe it though. What about Vivek's/your parents? Aren't they coming over to look after the kid?"

Me: Re-emphasising my point, I said, "Yes and No. Yes, they are coming over but only visiting us to spend some good time with their first grand-child. Not to take care of him. I want both set of parents to enjoy their retirement and old age doing things that they have always wanted to. If it is religion calling at this age, then let them visit temples. Or just go around see places. They have missed out on so much to rear us. Things were not the same then as they are now and who knows it better than your generation. Today, Lil General traveled by second a/c that will be followed by a flight travel in a little while from now. All this while he is just 4 months old. Not a big deal for the kids of today. But it was a dream come true for most people in your generation and not something affordable back then. Our parents raised us working hard, very hard making sacrifices and giving up on the luxurious life just so we could get good education. Now when they can afford all the luxuries of life, we want them to enjoy all the pleasures and not be bound to raise a child all over again so that I can pursue my career."

Uncle : "I am very happy to hear that and if job is not a necessity then it is our advice that you don't. When I say this to people, I am branded as outdated and a old
man."

He continues as an after thought and the conversation goes on for an hour.

Uncle : "I am pained by what I see around me. A niece of mine has called over her grandmother aging over 75 to take care of her kid while she goes to work. The grandpa is very much alive and in Chennai while the granny is here at Bangalore. Grandpa's food is a problem and they can't get him over here for the expense would shoot up. So many such instances ..I told my kids that expanding their family will be their own decision and do not expect us to come and take care of your kids.If you can financially afford it and logistically manage it, then please do so. Kids misuse us. They think if we don't work and are over 60, its the end of life. It is no longer my need to stay with aunty. I would like to go for a evening walk or to a temple with her. Yet another niece of mine left her kid for 6 months to travel to Us with her husband. I cannot understand this."

After Lil General was born, people often asked me one question, "When are you going back to work?" Now either they didn't take me seriously when I said I have resigned and am going to be a stay-at-home-mom taking care of Lil General or they thought I was being foolish and emotional who would would eventually change her mind. This is natural in today's times,isn't it? which is me going back to work within 6 months.

When the status quo changes from "Double Income No Kids" to Single Kid, people very much like to keep the "Double Income" part of the proposition intact. There is nothing wrong if the mom decides to pursue her career after a kid. What I can't understand is the idea of a parent coming over to take care of your kid while you goto work. This is not stuff that Hindi movies are made of but one that you see so widely prevalent in today's metros,U.S in the high income IT households. Maybe I live in the ancient ages, but these were our thoughts :

We would have been utterly selfish to separate mom from dad or grandpa from granny to have one of them move in with us. I went through hell for the 6 months because I couldn't bare the thought of my mother staying away from dad for my delivery and urged her to return despite Lil General's health. But parents love is unconditional and in emergencies it knows no bounds. Isn't expecting them to come away from their own home and their comfort zone to stay with you asking for too much?

It was our decision to conceive a child. So it was our responsibility to have worked out the financial aspects before doing so. And logistics. Parents never say no and one might think they will be happy to raise their grandchild but thats taking undue advantage.

Have you ever wondered that they would have to think twice to go on a month's vacation if they take up this responsibility. So much has to be sacrificed - relatives' weddings, funerals ....or that festival that they always wanted to attend but couldn't all these years because it was either their kids' exams or no leave from office.

If I find it difficult at 29, to run after Lil General and make his formula umpteen times a day, how can I expect my parents to be running around after him all through the day. They are only growing older.

How can I expect my dad/father-in-law to clean my son's potty?

People who know me would also know how restless a creature I am. But that doesn't mean to satisfy my whims and fancies I can shirk from my duty. Can I? If at all I decide to go back to work for whatever reasons, I would have to get a domestic help and not look towards my parents/in-laws for everything. Emergency is different.

Agreed, there are instances where there is a dire financial need. But I know so many of them where they skip a domestic help because mom/mom-in-law has agreed to come over.

With disposable incomes increasing, is there no end to our greed?
Is there no end to our wants?

As Indians, we are quick to adapt everything western. Then why not this trait. How many American's have you seen where in grandparents stay for months on end to rear their grand children?

Is it always "I, US"? Is it our boredom that matters above parent's happiness and freedom.

Does 50 years and above mean end to life? If you were 50, would you do this?

As we go global, has our thinking gone so local?

After retirement is one of the best times in a person's life. Free from his duties of getting daughter married or son educated, parents feel relieved. So lets not bound them by our timetable. Let us give them the freedom of when and how they want to visit us and how long they want to stay with us. If we can't give them happiness, then lets atleast try and not make them sad.

I would like to hear your side of the story.

Updated: Glad to have discovered this link Granny or Nanny

Back in action : 4 months and living life king size

2007-05-10T07:37:00.000-05:00

If you've missed me and my stories on this space, then good. I'm back with more fun stories of how I've been entertaining the world and keeping everyone on my toes.

I'm a lot smarter now than when I was just 2 months old. Mommy cannot expect me to finish my bottle in 5 mins and carry on with her work. I know how to hold the bottle with my hands now when I want milk. I also know how to kick the bottle with my legs whenever she feeds carrot juice instead of milk. No tricks!

I had a lot of baby's day out days the past 2 months. And let's not get started on the pilgrimage. Granny and mom were all too eager to take me to one temple in every town.

I was happy to see the oldies in the family - great grannies and great grandpa. They seem healthier than my mom.

2 road trips, 1 train journey and 1 flight journey in a month is too much for this Lil General. I enjoyed the road trip of all - gazing at the car and outside. I hated the train journey and so did mom. Used to sleeping on a king size bed, the second a/c berth was too compact to hold me and mom. So I pushed her down...poor mom cuddled in one corner all through the night. Flight was fine. I don't get what the fuss was all about ...oh yea I was scared to death for a sec during that rough landing at Pune..

The heat is killing me. I would trade in anything in this world to see the fan running all day. My hairs stand up anytime I see someone approaching the switchboard. Stay away from it folks. The torture of the Electricity board guys is enough.

I can turn back and forth within seconds, sleep on my tummy for hours on stretch, sometimes through the night.

Mommy decided to put me on formula because I didn't behave myself - so I'm a Nan baby now. She is making me diet conscious by feeding me carrot juice. Let me grow and I will put her on Atkins' diet.

I enjoy the daily oil massage momma gives followed by the hot water bath.

I don't need no milk and no juice. I can grow big by sucking on my thumb all day. If my thumbs are not enough I borrow mommy's too. Sometimes when mom feeds the bottle I fool her by not sucking the bottle, instead by slipping my thumbs.

I'm home at Pune with The Seniol (my dad). The place is so different than what I've seen in my life. I miss my granny and Yuko - my dear friend. However, I've got new friends here - polu, buco kidoo, pilu, stualt's mom and buci.

The smile comes in all sizes and shapes - a special one for every person and every occasion. I love my voice and my screaming is enough to keep neighbors at bay.

Bride Wanted : Matrimony , astrology and more...

2007-04-22T05:18:00.000-05:00

Whoever said , "Marriages are made in heaven, consummated in earth" shall modify it to "Marriages are made in heaven, consummated in earth and facilitated by bhartamatrimony.com /shaadi.com", going by the current marriage market.

Apart from nappy changing and taking care of Lil General like a good mommy, I've been keeping myself busy with another activity - bride hunt for someone in the family. Arranged marriages is still the conventional way of getting married in India and a huge project in itself that starts with the to-be-groom or bride giving their formal consent to start the "search" process.

We got the go-ahead in February and since then we've been splitting our hairs trying to find the perfect the bride. Perfection has been as elusive as ever. The search-bride algorithm has way too may parameters to match that even Google would find intimidating.

Horoscope copies : Anyway, so we saw a good day (based on planetary combinations, I'll reserve that for another post) and made the first horoscope copy. Now again there were too my choices on the format of horoscope and bio data - what to reveal and what not to - traditional yellow page horoscope or new age jazzy PDF formatted horoscope to be sent by e-mail, to state property or not, hand written or computer printout. With each one having an opinion based on their exposure to IT, it took 4 weeks to settle on a set of hard copy/soft formats. Different versions evolved and we settled on a yellow page handwritten horoscope and computer printout for Bio-data. Writing the bio-data took more thinking than making a professional resume. By the end of 1 month, we had 50 copies ready for distribution.

Distributing the horoscope : The next traditional/logical step is distributing them to friends and relatives which was relatively easy. In olden days, marriages were fixed this way. If the horoscope didn't match for your son/daughter, you would pass it onto someone else who is looking for a suitable groom/bride their son/daughter. This way the chain went on until it culminated. There were also middlemen called brokers who facilitated the search process professionally.

Now, sites like bharatmatrimony.com and shaadi.com have become brokers. And it is good business for these sites with the number of registered users running into tens of thousands. You enroll yourself in these sites and get an opportunity to find a suitable bride/groom from 1000 other registered users. The choice/exposure for the bride/groom of finding a compatible person is high unlike in traditional search where the control lies with parents. So I enrolled my brother and was overwhelmed for the first week or 2 by the profiles of girls, spending days browsing through hundreds of profiles. It dawned upon us two weeks later that making your profile interesting with salary details, a digitally altered picture, scuba diving/racing as hobbies and Japanese/Mexican cuisine as favorites invites lot of "interests" whereas a boring/predictable one with watching tv for hobbies and sambhar/rasam, mom's khana for favorite cuisines evinced hardly any interest. After a lot of experimentation and no success we decided this was futile and reverted to the traditional parent-centric method of advertising - in national newspapers' - Sunday's matrimonial column.

Here comes the interesting part. The day the ad appeared in the paper, phone calls started coming in as early as 7:00 a.m. and this continued for weeks later. I filtered some of them based on the time they called like 2:00 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. The response was overwhelming with over 100 horoscope/enquiries coming in by post/courier and e-mail.

Some of our experiences ....sample this ad taken from the "Bridegrooms wanted" column last week's Sunday Hindu Matrimonial section :
Iyer, Vadamal, Athreya, Puratathi 26/180 SWE, MNC Rs.3.5 pa
Show me the money, baby : The first question the girl's family is interested in knowing is how much the boy earns. You would hardly find a ad of a boy without his CTC mentioned. And the girls are upfront in stating their demand - that the boy has a flat has about Rs. 5 p.a. in CTC and go to the extent of checking their payslips. Money rules!

I have it all, I want more : The number of B.E / MBA educated girls is on the increase with an Engineering College opening up in every street corner. So a B.E BITS Pilani/REC girl wants only a M.S. boy from Wharton, no less.

Amrikaa - the forbidden land : We were interested in an alliance and we contacted the girls' parents this Sunday. The lady began the conversation with "Where does the boy work?". Mom replied, "He is in U.S on a project." Bang came the reply, "Sorry, mami (as in aunty), my daughter wants the boy to be in Chennai as she works there."

Yet another conversation with a lady in Coimbatore lasted oly 10 seconds. "Sorry, no US boys", she said. Gone are the days of the American dream of a decade ago when parents thought if their daughters got married to a boy in the US, it was a dream come true. Now, parents prefer their children to be married and settled here. Yet another face and consequence of the booming Indian global economy on its society.

A fairly good percentage of girls are career oriented and are to willing to relocate even between Chennai/Bangalore. According to me, this should be a decision taken by the boy/girl and not the parents. Even this morning there was a girl who asked if the boy was willing to relocate to Jabalpur or stay home while she worked. All the feminist talk is fine but please give me a break. The Indian society hasn't progressed so much so that dad are willing to stay home to take care of the baby or has biology changed so much that dad can give birth to kids yet. Flexibility is almost nil in the 500 odd that I have seen so far.

SWE, MNC - no longer an endangered species : How could I have known before the matrimonial ads that SWE stood for "Software Engineer". SWE is so common that you will be surprised to find one who is not ...So the father of a girl told us, "Anything but software. I have enough of this species in my family already and I'm sick and tired of their lifestyle, so please give me a break. They have it all - flat, abroad vacations once a year, car etc etc and they also have a sick body that complains of back ache /head ache at 35 years..." Yes, he did say in so many words. I'm not exaggerating.

Age/Height : There was this gentleman who called one fine morning and said "My daughter is born on such and such date." I was confused for a minute. I replied, "Sir, I think she is older than the boy." He replied, "So what these days, they do. I don't think it should be a problem.". I replied, "But it is for us. So, no, thank you.". Thank God, he didn't cite Abhi-Ash as an example.

When horoscopes become horror-scopes : Now we've gotten this far. Someone who is ok with the pay package, where the boy works and what he does, and the next logical step is to see if their horoscopes match. This is when horoscopes become horror-scopes. You can find a Doctor who treats Alzheimer's easily but getting an astrologer has become so difficult. Finally when you do get a good one and when humans arrive at a consensus, their planets don't. Either there are too many planets in the same house or one in the wrong house or a gentleman called mars/rahu in the 7th or 8th house, or the star of the boy/girl don't see eye to eye. This part has gone beyond my comprehension. Too many astrologers around with too many interpretations to make us go mad and their business thrive.

Even if everything else is fie, all goes for a toss in this stage. What is frustrating is when the girl's side says horoscopes match and the boy's side say it doesn't. Didn't the astrologers goto the same school?

Astrologers and GOD strike a deal : And then they strike a deal with GOD and ask people to break 100 coconuts in front of a temple that is in a remote village inhabited by 50 people where the only way to go is by a bullock cart. Alright, I'm stretching it too far but you get the point. Under the name of "parikarams", astrologers make a huge list of what do on from Monday morning to Sunday evening, which temple to visit that would set your stars right!

Complexion : please enlighten me : Now comes the part when appearance matters. After seeing the 800 odd pictures of girls on bharatmatrimony.com, I've got a complex. Most of them call themselves 'fair' and are beautiful. No doubt, we are still a prejudiced society. Fair always means superior to us - a hangover of the Raj.

Only when you see the pictures close enough will you realise the brightening tricks.

The stakes are high. Who makes the first move? The rules of the game are clear. These are unwritten rules. Even if everything is fine - family, appearance of the girl, compatibility, horoscope matching, the guy's family has to wait for the girl's to make the first move. If you make the first move, then it is perceived as there is some shortcoming with the guy :(

The hunt is on. Times have changed. It is a woman's era - they have it all and want more. With men's parlors mushrooming, their appearance also matters.

Pandas are more easily available on this planet but suitable Indian brides are becoming an endangered species. Lets preserve them.

Beware of sending courier to/from Pune by DTDC / First Flight

2007-04-05T00:46:00.001-05:00

Till date, I've lost 3 parcels sent to and from Pune and all of them by different couriers - Professional, DTDC and most recently First Flight totallig to Rs.6000. While in the first two cases, the entire parcel got lost, the last one sent on April 2nd was tactically stolen by First Flight. The parcel comprised of 2 expensive shirts in one box. While 1 shirt reached, the other one was removed from the pack by slittig one corner, repacked the same way and sent with the outer cover that had my handwritten to and from address. In this case, it is hard to recover the insurance money as there is no way to prove to those guys that only 1 shirt was delivered. I have lost faith now after 3 experiences in sending anything to and from Pune. I thought it was a mere coincidence when a set of Titan watches sent from Pune got lost a year back followed by sent of dresses sent from Delhi. Sometimes, this is reason enough to hate the corrupt society we live in! More than the cost value of these parcels, what hurts is that all of them were gifts ... so the thoughts, effort and love that went behind selecting/shopping each of them also is stolen!

The Cognizant (CTS) matrimonial bureau

2007-04-04T06:42:00.000-05:00

If you are employed with Cognizant, then check with your HR. They just started a internal site to register yourself for finding prospective life partners (within the company). Alright, I'm kidding and that was rude of me to say such a thing. But the reality is that out of every 10 alliances I have received for P, 3 are working in CTS. And I'm not exaggerating. That's a whopping 33%. For some reason, eligible bachelorettes working in Cognizant/Wipro/Infosys take pride in saying where they work at in their matrimonial bio-data or the online matrimonial sites they register at. Has working in CTS become a passport to finding a suitable groom and settled life? I'm surprised that they even flaunt their well-crafted photogenic pictures on websites and state where they work at...maybe times have changed!

In many instances, the bride's brother works at CTS. So if you do the math, it will save a lot of parent-person-hours spent in registering various matrimonial sites to finally end up getting married to another person working in the same organization sitting in another office or some cubes away..what if they just had an internal matrimonial system...call it a social responsibility initiative :)

I'm 2 months old, says Lil General

2007-02-18T22:16:00.000-06:00

Pranav. 60 Days old. 5.1 Kgs. 57 Cms. Wheatish Brown. Brown Eyes. 12 hours of sleep. On Diet. Clean habits : Wet my bed only 10 times a day. Single and ready to make friends.

Alrighty folks, if you liked my first edition, I'm here with how my second month passed by.

Its official. My name is Pranav. So, please stop calling me by weird sounding names - Kunju (mom), Juniol(pa), Thambudu(grandma), munnu(grandpa), ulli (grandpa)....

I've lost all the excess hair on my arms from birth and don't like Brother Bear anymore.

I've made 3 new friends - Mbiki, the bear, Bunny Rabbit and Winnie. Yuko, my dear friend still hangs out with me on late Friday night parties.

Continue reading ...

Pa was here for my second month birthday and it was fun playing Undertaker with him.

Stopped painting my mommmy's dresses yellow, still wet the bed though. Who said wetting is not gentlemanly?

I've acquired a good sense of fashion and this month was good for my wardrobe. One new dress everyday makes me a happy kid. I've styled my hair like a porcupine.

My fuzzy vision is gone. I can see beyond 12 inches and flash that 1000 Watt smile every time I see mommy and the orange curtain.

People said I'm too fast when I turned on my tummy on 22nd Dec - when I was just a month and 4 days old. I say I'm just too bored of lying around.

Spend more than 20 seconds with my mom and she will treat you to a lengthy discourse on how many hours I slept, how many she slept. She maintains a log to the minute of my sleep, counts my susoos, analyses the color of my poop and the number of times I fart. I'm telling ya she has gone nuts. She better get back to work soon.

Oh! I forgot to tell you about my favorite friend - Doc uncle. I visit him once every 3 days for indigestion, cold ,cough. Its been rough and the vaccine pained like hell. but Doc is very nice to me. I have all the syrups from the local pharmacy in my room now. Some syrups taste sweet, some bitter, some hot...but all much better than mommy's milk.

I sleep best on my pa's shoulders. I give a tough time to mummy and keep her guessing why I'm crying. Now I cry differently for my different needs..

I'm hungry. I need to be fed.

Putting me down after every feed irritates me. Regurgitating after the feed makes me comfortable.

I've done it. I'm lying in a wet bed. Change my nappy. Make it quick.

Dodos..I need some air. I'm either too warm or too cold. Touch my neck or tummy and decide which one it is.

I can't sleep by myself. Hold me and sing me lullabies.

Stomach ache. Mommy ..what did you eat. My tummy is aching.

Hiccup is bothering me. Will you do something about it?

I need to urinate but its paining. I'm straining...

I'm sick..running nose, fever and an irritating throat etc..

I'm colic.

No good reason. I'm bored and need some entertainment.

Remembering Rose Day

2007-02-14T00:24:00.000-06:00

Every house has a whole pile of books, newspaper cuttings, photographs, memorabilia and greeting cards accumulated over the years. Its been the same with Pravin and I. We have collected so much stuff over the years that it takes up a whole cupboard at our parents'. Mom leaves the annual chore of discarding what is not needed, organizing and keeping the space (earmarked for this) clean to us. Very little goes out. It is funny how one gets nostalgic about a lot of things they weren't so crazy about the first time around. We relive those years during these cleaning sessions and decide it is worth keeping and that's how the pile keeps getting bigger and bigger until we finally ran out of space.

So this year, mom took it upon herself to clean the "junk" as she called it. And today she spent a good lot 4 hours doing that. Believe me, most of the stuff went back in like the newspaper cutting that said I stood first in our district in 12th Std exams and so on. And the invitation where mom was felicitated for my performance and so on.

Midway through the cleaning session, she pulled a white envelope from a bunch of similar envelopes and read aloud "Rotary Club, Trichy..something". All of them were dated Dated 17th February, 1999, and on them were written the words "Rose Day" and "PINK" inside a box.

Mom : "Do you know what these white envelopes are?"
I : "mmmmm...no..whats written?"
Mom opens the envelope and reads: "Happy Birthday from S..Dated 17th Feb 1999"

All of them are marked PINK on the envelope. There are about 5 of them. Do you need them? I know what they are now..after a moment I replied "Umm..no you can do away with them now."

If you are a RECTian, it shouldn't take long to guess what those envelopes were. In 1999, Rose Day was celebrated on 17th Feb. "Rose Day" was organised by STEP TREC club every year to celebrate Valentine's Day. They had roses delivered between the students across hostels with personalised messages sealed in envelopes labelled PINK (for friendship), YELLOW, WHITE (for Peace), RED (you know for what) and BLACK (for enemity). The event was fun for some to play pranks, some yearned for it to profess their love, for some 'psychos' it was just another day, for some there was lot to gossip on who exchanged what and for some it mattered who was crowned to have got the maximum no. of roses..I forget the terms..Some long lasting relationships. friendships, some that turned into marriages were made this day as some reading this post might agree.

Well well for me to open those bunch of envelopes this Valentine Day eight years later was going down the memory lane..If this is not coincidence, then what is?

Updated: I got a note from a friend (anonymity maintained) on this post who has seen Rose Days from close quarters..here is an excerpt of the message

Ah, rose day... getting up early in the morning to go to some god forsaken market in Trichy to buy hundreds of yucky-looking roses. Going to the stadium to sort them into colors, to create the black roses by bundling up thorns ....

A Labor Story : Concluding part

2007-02-05T06:04:00.001-06:00

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 5:30 p.m. - Intestines popping out

With the tablet not giving the desired outcome, I was induced drips and within minutes a throbbing pain developed that just increased in intensity. It would be there for 5 minutes and then go away.

Just when the Doc was about to leave the room, there was a huge commotion and suddenly I see the doors opening and a few men coming up the stairs carrying a huge person in a stretcher. The person on the stretcher, a lady in her mid 50s, was transferred to a operating table, helped out of her dress into the dressing gown (all this happening in front of our eyes). Just then I caught the mess she had become .. something near her stomach was popping out....you wouldn't want a description of that. I learnt later she was operated 15 days back and her uterus removed. She had apparently not adhered to the Doc's safety measures due to which the stitches had given away and she brought in. Another surgeon from across town was summoned.

With all the resources now attending to this emergency, I was left alone and at times the janitor was asked to sit by my side who would shout all the time. I retrospect, this is the only regret I have in this whole labor process. I wish nurses in hospitals spoke nicely to patients. When you are in so much pain, the least you can expect is some comforting words. Hospitals are so commercialised now that no one cares about service or whether you are alive/dead..its money all the way. In a country like India with a population of 1 billion plus, life of cattle is more dear than human life.

Continue reading A Labor Story

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 5:45 p.m. - I'm hungry, thirsty
I think I'm going to pass out in the pain. I cannot compare the pain to anything else because I have never experienced something of that intensity before.

I'm hungry.

I'm thirsty.

I feel like urinating.

I feel like pooping.

I can feel the contractions.

I feel like dying........

I am scared.

I am screaming in pain now.

I feel like seeing mom.

CNG : "Would you like orange juice?"

Myself: "Hell, yes."

She is called into the operating room for that intestine lady. And my juice is forgotten. There is no one attending to me. I can hardly speak. I muster some energy and motion my hand towards a passing human being and request for some water. Water comes a good 10 mins late. I also request to send mom in. The request is denied flatly.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 6:00 p.m. - I become an exhibit now. That damn word "strain".
Thank god, someone thought this screaming girl needs some help. The Cynical Nurse who is an administrator in the hospital and has no clues about giving birth to babies comes in and sits on my bed. She is accompanied by the janitor and an anonymous nurse. All of them yell at me to get froggy and not "waste the pain".

"Strain, strain", they scream.

Assuming they meant push, I lift my legs, hold it tight with my hands and push hard. They are disappointed.

"You are not trying hard. All that's coming out is only blood."

I'm lying in a pool of blood.

Taking deep breaths, in my next contraction, I push hard. They are excited now. One anonymous nurse says, "See there is the head now". She places the doppler and says the baby's head is fixed and I got to try real hard now.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 6:30 p.m. - Listen to my advice : Respect your mother and Don't make a baby

The interval between contractions had decreased. The pain down there was like this huge thing trying to gush out through a opening with the same rhythm as ocean waves would lash the shore and recede. Now imagine this happening every 5 minutes.

Two thoughts occurred to me that minute. The respect for my mother grew a zillion times for living through so much pain. I regretted for giving so much grief for mom. Don't ever hurt your moms, give them all the happiness you can. The pain they went through to give birth to you is something that words can never do justice.

The second thought was people who say my bundle of joy has arrived are either lying or they would have had a C-Section. It is simply not possible to live through so much pain and love that little one. Its just a bundle. And I was crazy enough to make a baby.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 7:00 p.m. I'm taken in
The Doc is out after operating on the intestine lady. I'm walked into the operating room. Half my body is on a chair. Legs are propped up on two stands. Once in this position, the entire arrangement is elevated. I'm back to the permanent frog position. I can see myself in the overhead mirror.

Contraction sets in and I'm pushing hard. Doc says "I'm not close enough to get the baby out". Cynical Nurse suggests that they go downstairs and finish the consultations and then be back. Damn Cynical Nurse.

I plead with the Doc not to leave me and go.

I cry, "I can't bear the pain anymore."

"Please do a C-Section. I want to die. I can't take this anymore.", I plead with her.

She casts a disgusted look and leaves.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 7:15 p.m. A new nurse
The Fat Mean Nurse Anu arrives and CNG hands over her shift to her with a quick rundown of the cases. Anu is initially patient encouraging looking attentively at me down there. Consciously avoiding the overhead mirror, I accidentally look at it between contractions while turning my head from one side to the other. Gynaec's job is not a pretty one to look at multiple v* through their careers patiently waiting for the head to come.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 7:30 p.m. Quick Contractions
Quick contractions now. Contractions that were minutes part are now seconds apart. Anu is joined by 2 more nurses and they are all encouraging me to "strain".

"Push". "Push". "come on strain a little more. you are doing good."

The pain is gone.

At last, I've learnt what it meas to "strain" else I was going to ask for a Dictionary so that there is no communication gap :) I take a deep breath ad keep pushing hard. But it is not hard enough for the big head to come out. They can see the hair of the baby now.

In retrospect, I feel I could have done better if I had more emotional support if they had allowed mom to come in or if they allow husbands. I think hospitals in smaller towns in India should allow husbands to stay by the side of their wives during labor.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 7:45 p.m. When will this stop?
I swear to kill anyone who talks about having a second baby. It can't get any worse than this. I have no energy to scream. Some wise person had once said, "Conserve your energy. Don't scream. Instead push." I did just that. Convinced this is as far as it could get, Anu ran downstairs to get the Doc.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 7:55 p.m. A moment of relief
Doc comes in. By then I had taken a break and got my legs down. The nurses were wild that I was not in position. Legs and thighs were paining badly because of being in the frog position this long.

I feel my body is going to come apart and the baby is just going to cut through the muscles and fall out. So bad is the pain. Seeing the Doc, I was relieved but concerned too that she too might just ask me to keep pushing and I wondered for how long this see-sawing would go on.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 8:10 p.m. A prick
The equipment is all ready. Doc puts on the gloves. Has everything ready. I'm avoiding looking at the overhead mirror. I feel a quick prick down there. And then a scissor/knife like thing that runs down the skin to make a opening big enough for the baby to come out. The injection might have been a local anaesthesia. I didn't feel the pain while she cut through.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 8:13 p.m. Lil General arrives
There is a pump like thing next to me. She picks it and pumps in through my opening. I can feel the baby coming out. The head and then it gets worse for a few seconds as the body slithers out. Lil General is born. I'm surprised this part was so quick and easy. I see the Doc lifting the baby by its head in a forecep like thing and handing it over to the nurse. They timed his birth at 8:13 p.m.

I don't feel the umbilical cord being cut. The first thing I notice in the baby as he is being handed over is his ASSET dangling.

Delivered through vacuum, Lil General was a boy. A healthy 3.2 Kg baby.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 9:00 p.m. Post delivery pain is worse than contraction
From 8:15 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. I was being stitched. The Doc said later she was worried about my excessive bleeding. I cried and cried in pain through the stitching process. This pain was worse than the labor pain. Every inch of my body ached. To flush out the residual blood in the body, the Doc would insert something called a "kidney pack" which was like a hard pouch through a hole of probably 1 inch width down there and get it out forcibly...it would push all the blood out. She did this about 5 times. I glanced at the overhead mirror and all I saw was blood, blood and blood..all over. Like a scene out of some exorcist movie...

I'm given drips to control the bleeding. The Doc leaves. I'm alone.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 9:15 p.m. I want to see Mom
I tell Anu I want to see Mom. My request is denied.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 9:30 p.m. I want to see Mom
I plead with Anu to see Mom. I cry on seeing Mom. After a few minutes I ask Mom what baby it was. Anu was shocked. She said I'm probably the first patient in her career who has asked an hour after the baby's birth about the baby.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 10:15 p.m. I'm in pain.

"Please give me some painkiller.", I plead with Anu.

"This is no pain. you got to bear it.", says Anu.

"How many kids do you have?" I ask casually.

None came the reply.

"No kids, no opinion." I retorted, feeling sorry about having said that later.

Monday, 18th Dec 2006 11:30 p.m. I go to the room. End of a long day.
After washing me up ad inducing drips again, I'm walked to the room. After 5 steps I can see the path ahead diminishing anf my head spinning. Suddenly it is all dark and I pass out on the way. I'm helped onto my feet again and make it thr a few feet to the room and crash on the bed. The night is a blur. I wake up every hour to see the time and calculate how long it would be before Vivek gets there. It was the end of a long day.

Lil General, welcome to the family. You are a bundle of joy.

A Labor Story contd... - Part 2

2007-02-01T03:58:00.000-06:00

The content for this post has been swimming in my head for weeks now. Reminiscing those hours leading to the birth of the Lil General here in full detail will make for a grouse reading, so be forewarned and use your discretion.

Monday, 18th December 2006, 12:30 p.m.
I have been pacing up and down the room while the rest of the family is reading my face, talking to hospital staff, taking phone calls and settling down.

Monday, 18th December 2006, 1:00 p.m. Pain Intensifies
Composed Nurse Geetha (Lets calls her CNG) comes in with the doppler. Checks BP and the baby's heartbeat.
She asks, "How far apart are the pains?" I've no idea. She promises to be back by 1:30 p.m. I keep pacing the floor. God, I think whose idea was it to make a baby.

Monday, 18th December 2006, 1:30 p.m. Enema time - the best way to clear your tummy
Am so relieved to see CNG. Everyone is asked to step out of the room while she asks me to lie down and pumps something like soap water inside me. Minutes later I rush to the toilet and can feel my system clearing out. My my...there was so much inside. Having lunch was such a waste of time.

CNG promises to be back by 2:00 p.m.

Continue reading A Labor Story

Monday, 18th December 2006, 2:00 p.m. Clock is ticking
No sign of CNG yet. Mom is wondering when they are going to take me inside as I'm in pain. I'm not talking..only the decibel level of my moaning has been on the rise.

Monday, 18th December 2006, 2:30 p.m. Yo..CNG is here.
CNG asks me how I'm feeling. I wasn't sure what to answer that would make her take me into the operating room. So I stay quiet and let my face and sounds do the talking.

She times the gap between the pains. I tell her it has been paining once every 5 mins. Not convinced, she decides it is actually 10 mins apart.

Leaves. Promises to be back at 3:00 p.m.

Monday, 18th December 2006, 3:00 p.m.
No one yet. Anonymous nurse peeks in and leaves. I am wailing in pain. Mom is sitting by my side helpless.

Monday, 18th December 2006, 3:30 p.m. Time to go in
CNG times the pains. It is 5 mins apart. Time to go in. I cast a 'bye' look at mom and go in, with no idea of what to expect. Mom walks me until the operating area which is about 20 feet away from our room.

Monday, 18th December 2006, 3:35 p.m. Not the real operating room. More waiting in order.
It is a huge room with many cots. The decor is not pleasing. Dull white walls. There is a big white board that has the names of the patients to be operated that evening.

All the beds are empty. There are a few operating rooms at one end of the room. At the far end is a stack of medicines and probably a toilet.

I'm helped out of my dress into the hospital gown - a dull grey one - the kind you see in TV. One anonymous nurse plaits my hair and ties it up with a white thread - good fashion sense :). They clean me up. While one nurse is doing that, the other is looking and a third is chatting. I expect the action to start soon, but nothing happens.

The anonymous nurses are now joined by some janitors and they all gossip about the Doc, how busy the hospital is today - the no. of out patients attended to by Doc already up at 54. That there is a steady flow of people down at the lounge and people are getting impatient/wild..some having come at 11:00 a.m. haven't yet met the Doc.

Monday, 18th December 2006, 4:00 p.m. - Pain subsides
Pain has subsided over the past 10 mins and I momentarily slip into dreamland. This sinful act is caught my CNG.

CNG shakes me, "What happened to your pains?"

I reply, "Oh, its there." I'm worried they might not get the baby out and fake the pain. But you know what, you can't fake real labor pain. Doppler and BP checks happen every 30 mins.

The anonymous nurses are still gossipping.

Monday, 18th December 2006, 4:10 p.m. - Pain intensifies. Position taught. That magical word "Strain".
Pain is back and so is my moaning.

CNG teaches me to "strain" during pain by getting my legs up like a frog and "strain" myself as if I'm constipated. She asks me to keep trying when there is pain.

Monday, 18th December 2006, 4:15 p.m. - I have company
Pain hasn't subsided. A lady is admitted next to me. Her caesarean is scheduled for 4:50 p.m. that evening. She is cleaned. She is not in pain and is sleeping peacefully. How lucky I think to myself.

Monday, 18th December 2006, 4:45 p.m. - Imperfect timing. I am reprimanded
The anaesthetist is here for the Caesarean lady (Sudha, I got to know her later). Action begins in the room. Sudha is taken in for the operation - turns out she wanted her baby out before 5:30 p.m. - some auspicious timing funda.

CNG - the experienced nurses of all, goes for the operation. I'm left under the supervision of the anonymous ones. A few minutes later the janitor takes over. I know I know ...She reprimands me for not "straining" and getting my legs up only after the pain has subsided. Poor timing ...I need to give birth to many babies to perfect this timing.

The mean janitor says, "At this rate you will only deliver by midnight. Do you want us to go home or not?"

I think, "Thank you for being so nice."

I'm alone again. In pain. I tell the anonymous nurse that I want to go to the bathroom. She helps me get up and walks me there but doesn't leave me. There is no privacy when you are in labor.

Monday, 18th December 2006, 5:15 p.m. - Yo! The Doc is here. Water breaks.
The Doc is out of the operating room after the Caesarean is done. That was fast I think. Meanwhile, the gossip has been on about the commotion in the lounge downstairs and the incessant wait. The joke is "Some people are making dinner plans at the lounge."

My pain has aggravated and so restless that I'm tossing and turning. Whenever I see people around I try the frog thing as though someone reminded me.

Doc tells me, "I'm proud of you. You have been patient and bearing the pain without making too much noise. I got to examine you."

Oh no, not again. The fist goes inside. Seconds later I'm lying in a pool of water. Now, I know what water breaking is all about.

My bed is cleaned up. Doc scolds CNG for being so careless all this while as the pain inducing tablet had not taken effect. She instructs her to induce me.

..to be contd...

A Labor Story : The story of how LG was born - Part 1

2007-01-31T05:27:00.000-06:00

The content for this post has been swimming in my head for weeks now. Reminiscing those hours leading to the birth of the Lil General here in full detail will make for a grouse reading, so be forewarned and use your discretion.

Sunday, 17th December 2006, 10:30 a.m.: Everything is normal

A bright sunny Sunday morning. It's beautiful outside and I tell myself not today. We are watching the NDTV Profit's Real Estate show. Phone rings. Guests to be expected in a row that afternoon.

Sunday, 12:00 p.m. : Still doing great

First set of guests arrive. We entertain them for an hour. I get restless as lunch is delayed. I excuse myself and have lunch.

Sunday, 4:00 p.m. : Aaah, nothing yet!

Wake up after a nap. Guests came, left. Every guest has a opinion of when I'm going to deliver.
The next bunch of people are chatting away with mom while Pravin attempts to lighten up my mood by getting me to play a game of Chinese Checkers. Wondering if we are not old enough for that. Yes, we are but WHO CARES. Once a champ, I was quite rusty that afternoon and lost a couple of games before gaining ground. We followed it with a game of scrabble wherein Pravin CHEATED and WON.

Sunday, 6:00 p.m. : The day just gets busier by the hour! Ummm Chocolates...delicious

Continue reading A Labor Story

Guests leave. Attending to guests all through the day takes a toll on mom.
Intercom rings. Pravin's delayed baggage arrives from Air France. We are busy unpacking stuff for the next hour and the house is strewn with all the goodies. While mom and Pravin are busy arranging stuff, I keep aside all the chocolates. When you are pregnant, all that you care about is FOOD. Mom's famous words "Eat all you want now. For three months after delivery, there will be a lot of restrictions on your diet." resonate in my ears. I take full advavtage of that and mouth a handful of chocolates. Sinful!

Sunday, 7:15 p.m. : Thighs ache. Finding it difficult to walk.

Exhausted. Too tired to move. The house is still in a mess. I announce my thighs are aching. Mom STOPS what she is doing. There's a tension in her eyes worried if this might be that fateful NIGHT. Nights are scary and if you have a pregnant girl at home, it gets all the more creepy. Mom calls the cooking aunty asking her to come and sleep in for the night.

Mom tells me to hold in until tomorrow whe she will get back to the pink of her health ad all energetic and stuff. I assure her that I will pass on the message to Lil General. You see he is in cotrol of the situation.

And then she is quick to list a set of instructions to me : no using the Indian toilet, no standing / sitting for long etc etc.

Sunday, 8:15 p.m. : What a bummer! The pain is gone....

I feel better. The pain is gone. I call the cooking aunty and ask her not to come. Mom is not convinced. She feels I'm close, very close to the D-day. We chat with dad. I feel exhuasted and crash in the drawing room after dinner.

Sunday, 11:30 p.m.
Sleep evades me. I can't find a comfortable position to lie down. I am mindlessly browsing orkut and chat with Vivek until midnight.

Monday, 12:30 a.m. : Undertaker Rules
I throw up. Meantime, Pravin is watching WWE and WCW on TV. I join him and seeing Undertaker smash people churns my stomach. I tell myself, "Labor pain can't be worse than this. Here's a guy with his arms beaten up by a steel chair and god knows how many fractures and blood oozing all over the ring."

Monday, 1:30 a.m.
With 4 pillows propped up, I decide to rest my bones.

Monday, 7:30 a.m. : When you're not working, there are no Monday Blues
Despite the lack of good sleep, I feel fresh and the spirit is high. 4 more days for Vivek to come. I tell Lil General, "Hold in until then. Pa will be here and then you can come out. There's no hurry but better BEHAVE YOURSELF until then."

Monday, 7:50 a.m.
Convincing Mom I need to go for a walk, I join Pravin and we walk to the hospital and get an appointment for that morning.

Monday, 10:30 a.m. : My weekly dream destination -- At the hospital lounge
No pains. I'm all good. Mom and I leave for the hospital. Its a long wait as usual. India makes a LOT of babies. To be No. 2 populous nation means a lot of work and the nursing homes here are a evidence to that fact. If you are a gynaec and in India, you can never be without a job for a zillion years.

Monday, 11:15 a.m. : The fateful meeting with the Doc
We meet the doc. She examines and is happy with the baby. The doppler goes "Dhak. Dhak. Dhak." Lg's heartbeat is racing as usual.

Monday, 11:17 a.m. : FIST of Doc is bigger than the baby
I tell the Doc that movements have reduced considerably. In retrospect, I REGRET having said that. She gives me a second look and explains that she has to examine me INSIDE which in simple terms means she is going to get that fist of hers inside. A full grow fist inside a teeny weeny hole...the very thought scares me.

Monday, 11:19 a.m. : Being born a woman SUCKS sometimes
I scream in pain. I am requested to cooperate. I feel like passing out.

Monday, 11:20 a.m. : All set for the wrestling mania to start says the doc
She is done and tells me that the cervix has opened, dilated and ready to deliver by that night and asks me to get admitted within an hour. She keeps a pain inducing tablet inside that would soon trigger natural delivery pains. The pain is so intense that words don't register in my head.

Monday, 11:25 a.m.
She explains all this to mom. Mom is still taking in all that the Doc just said. Its hard to believe when the moment is upon you. For months, for days we had been bracing ourselves for this day but still when it is finally there you don't know how to react. Mom asked twice if it was going to be today. Doc says, "By this evening in all likelihood. Your admission card and a room will be ready. Get packed, have lunch and be back in an hour."

Monday, 11:27 a.m. : Doc's motivating talk
Before we leave the Doc's cabin, I pose a naive question, "Will it pain?". "Ofcourse, it will. I have the patience to go thr a normal delivery if you have the patience. Even Queen Victoria sustained this pain to deliver her kids. No pain, no children." came the response. Very comforting words. We make an exit.

Monday, 11:40 a.m. : I call Vivek
I regain my composure and outside the hospital, I look at my watch, do a quick calculation of the flights available that afternoon for Vivek. Realising he doesn't have much time, I call him from the auto and brief him. He starts off on his travel plans.

Monday, 11:45 a.m. : We are home.
Back home, we tell Pravin to get started. He takes out the magic paper that has all the phone numbers listed for this very emergency. Fingers tapping away quickly on the Landline, mobile phones. Close family called who need to get to the hospital to help out mom. From that day on until 15 days later, the phones do't stop ringing.

Monday, 11:47 a.m. : We're packed.
All the already packed bags are brought out. I have lunch, the fastest I have ever had. Pravin and mom are so tensed they refuse to eat. I'm all smiles now..no pain and I'm in high spirits. The day is here. The tummy load will be off but I'm a little sad that Vivek won't be there anytime soon.
Mom is very tensed but doesn't show it. Dad and Vivek have already called many times.

Monday, 11:55 a.m. : In Hindu Religion, there's a ritual for every event in life.
The neighbour granny inserts neem leaves in my stomach praying for a safe and easy delivery. Jewels are not allowed in the hospital during operation so mom tries in vain to take the last 2 bangles off my head. It doesn't come off and I bleed on the wrist...so we give up.

Mom had meticulously planned for this day. Like programmed robots we knew what to do and get started within 15 minutes. No..we hadn't done dress rehearsals :)

We are waiting for the clock to strike 12...for 10:30 - 12:00 oon on Monday's is considered inauspicious. Pain is slowly setting in.

Monday, 12:00 p.m. : The clock strikes twelve.
Mom, Pravin, our neighbour and I leave for the hospital.

Monday, 12:05 p.m. : The show begins...
The admission card is ready. It is a very busy day at the hospital as the Doc was away on a vacation for 5 days. The lounge is teeming with patients. As I wait a few minutes at the lounge before heading upstairs, people cast a quizzical look at my tummy and the discomfiture written all over my face.

Monday, 12:10 p.m.
I climb the stairs leading to the first floor where we are greeted by the Cynical Nurse. We are told the "Super Deluxe" room equipped with a visitors lounge, TV and a/c is not available. So we would have to settle in for the Deluxe version. Obviously, there is no choice and we take that with a request that we be shifted once the other one is ready.
The pain is increasing..what pain and where I'm not too sure. There is a pain and it is growing exponentially. The nurse - a composed one called Geetha is summoned. She examines and says it is not the REAL pain yet. Damn pain. Pain is a pain.

..to be contd..

Boys and Toys. Nokia 770 is awesome

2007-01-28T02:23:00.000-06:00

There is something about boys and their passion (or should I say obsession ?) for gadgets that I can't understand. For a month after my delivery when Pravin, Dad and Vivek were here, the house was a maze of wires. The only member without a laptop and not connected to the Internet 24 hrs was Lil General. Of all the gadgets strewn around (HP Pavilion zv6130us (2), Creative Xmod, Nokia 5300 xPress, Digital Cameras, Camcorder and the Creative Jukebox/Video iPod to name a few), the one I enjoyed the most was the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. It was very handy to check e-mails especially when you don't want to lug around a laptop and you have to babysit a newborn round the clock. Netgear with Airtel Broadband connectivity made it a pleasant experience. Check out Pravin's review of the 770.

Lil General's world as he sees it........

2007-01-15T02:17:00.000-06:00

Four weeks to the day, I was evicted from Eden into this place they call the world. It was nice and cozy and comfy inside. So I thought I should let ya all know how I feel out here..

I have five loyal friends - Feeding Aunty ( mommy) , Susie aunty (urine), Winnie aunty(motion), lullaby aunty (granny) and the potty cleaning uncle (my pa).

I have a round-the-clock schedule, that no one seems to appreciate. They say, "He eats, shits, susoo's, sleeps and screams".

There are times when I feel my hand tastes better than milk. The flavor is all the same. I wish there was a menu and I could make a choice.

I can kick a ball better than Beckham and pedal faster than Lance ever did at Tour De France. I can win any competition hands-down for the longest susoo distance.

I am not appreciative of anyone sleeping while I am awake. Neither am I tolerant of my mom blogging or talking to dad over the phone.

I love the attention I am getting. When I feel forgotten and neglected, I make my presence felt by ensuring the laundry is full to keep them going for a while or by plain shrieking.

I hate it when my mommy ties a protective gear against my greatest asset eee eee eee. I'm The Man and I love my freedom.

There are some nice things I get to drink like the digestive drops and some bitter ones like the vitamin drops. Who needs vitamins at this age?

Oh visitors? I get a lot of them. Though I can't differentiate one from the other. They try their best to find similarities of my features with those of mom and dad. Some stretch it too far :)

Some people talk funny to me like my dad, some sing to me like my granny, some scold and spank me like my mommy, some who hold me after susoo and potty like my grandpa. I am enjoying it all now.

See ya all next month. So long. Lil General.

Sleep deprived (grand) mama needs a breather

2007-01-15T02:02:00.000-06:00

Did you know that newborns cannot distinguish between day and night? That kinda explains why LG is not appreciative of me and his granny sleeping in the nights. Vivek sent me this Rolling Stones' song ...now don't let your imagination run wild :) though that's something that can give us a breather!

Mother's Little Helper
(Jagger/Richards)

What a drag it is getting old
"Kids are different today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she's not really ill
There's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day

"Things are different today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
Cooking fresh food for a husband's just a drag
So she buys an instant cake and she burns her frozen steak
And goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And two help her on her way, get her through her busy day

Doctor please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old

"Men just aren't the same today"
I hear ev'ry mother say
They just don't appreciate that you get tired
They're so hard to satisfy, You can tranquilize your mind
So go running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And four help you through the night, help to minimize your plight

Doctor please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old

"Life's just much too hard today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
The pursuit of happiness just seems a bore
And if you take more of those, you will get an overdose
No more running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
They just helped you on your way, through your busy dying day

Punyajanam : Lil General gets a name - Pranav

2006-12-28T05:21:00.000-06:00

Lil General's "Punyajanam" was performed today. We gave him 3 names : Pranav, Anubhav and Nishit. Vivek and my father-in-law were keen on naming him "Nishit" which means "sharpness". I am for either "Pranav" (which means "Om") or "Anubhav" (which means "Experience"). The official one will be chosen soon.

Bringing home baby

2006-12-25T05:14:00.000-06:00

It was homecoming for me and Lil General today. We got home after a week at the hospital. All of us were so happy to be back home - no more shuttle to the hospital and everyone can spend as much time as they want with the lil one who will be just a room away. We got a warm receptio at home with the customary aarthi...We got to see if he adjusts to the new surroundings or gets cranky in the night.

At the hospital, the day started early with preparatios for coming back home, a final 'go-ahead' from the Doc and we presenting a small gift to all the nurses and the Doc as a token of thanks for their hospitality. All's well that ends well.

Veni Vidi Vici

2006-12-18T22:01:00.000-06:00

Vivek becomes a guest blogger again on my request as he will write a series of posts on Lil General. I bet you will find his reminiscence of those days since 18h Dec '06 more entertaining than my posts ever will...

18th Dec ' 2006....well thats the day when it all started.. or rather should I say life just turned on its head...
And as they say.. man just proposes....I am not too who sure who disposes..Lakshmi and I have been waiting for the arrival our chlid .. the last 6 months now...
the doctors said...24 , 25, 26, 27, 28, 29th...Dec....now thinking, they could have said.. any day is a damn good day...or just "When LG wants it , he will make the noise"...but 18th Dec afternoon I receive phone Call from laksh... get ready poppy .. pack your bags and haul your ass down to Trichy..Your Son/ Daughter has had enough of kicking inside and now wants to feel the pollution, hear the cars honking and start his own existence...and a honest confession... it was indeed a shocker.. the thought of a new someone actually joining our lives..I mean laksh and I have lived our last 4 1/2 years on our terms... but well you will see.. how it all changes...for the good or bad.. I leave it to the future to tell....

So anyways 18th Dec afternoon, frantic instructions to my friends in Pune to book air tickets, calls to a good friend in Bangalore to book my Bus tickets...the journey had begun...its been the fastest flight I have taken... I mean heart pounding, dry mouth and sweaty palms.. and I thought it all happened in books...landed in bangalore and called my friend... ( I needed to talk to someone to get over my jitters).. he says he will come down to hand me the bus tickets too...we meet up at around 7:30 PM... and decide to go for dinner....and mind you ..I didn't have butterflies in my stomach.. they sure were HUGE UGLY MOTHS flying all around....kept calling my brother in law at trichy..who just kept telling me .. keep your kewl.. lakshmi is in labour room...hmm ironic ehh. lakshmi in labour room and I get to keep my cool :)).. me and my friend sit down for dinner.. talk innocous things... weather, traffic and jobs...finish and get back to bus station and we are waiting to board the bus.. when at around 8:55 PM I receive a call from my Brother in law again.. CONGRAATULATIIIIOOOOOOONS,, you are a pop and its nice healthy young man...3.2 KG ( 7.5 pounds) in weight and normal delivery.....ohhh those words...first thought hope laksh is all fine .and the second thought .. the little bugger couldnt even wait till the morning when his poppy would have reached ...but thats the moment I didn't realize our life had changed...
from here on...LG makes all the decisions and we are mere spectators.... and the man puts his stamp of authority by arriving few hours early :)) ...VENI ... The Emperor had Come....

-- Vivek

Welcoming Lil General to "The Family"

2006-12-18T20:13:00.000-06:00

Lil General made a grand entry today at 20:13 IST. Welcome to the family. I saw you for a second as soon as you came out---you were dangling in mid air when the Doc handed over you to the nurse standing next to me. I knew you were a boy but took a good look at you only around 9:45 p.m. when granny came to see me. You were a cute little baby weighing 3.2 Kg at birth.

I'm in pain

2006-12-18T05:19:00.000-06:00

Updated on 8th Jan '07: I started drafting this post on 18th Dec 06 minutes before leaving for the hospital but never got to publishing it..here it is now! More posts to follow on Lil General!

Pravin is here and it is a beautiful Monday morning. We went for a refreshing walk to the hospital (alrighty I know what you're thinking but that's the only place I am allowed to go or have been going for the past 2 months) to get an appointment for our regular consultation later this morning. Just as our other visits, after a good 30 minute wait at the lounge, mom and I met the Doctor and we were relieved to know everything was normal Lil General still feels cozy inside. And then I casually remarked to the Doctor that movements had considerably decreased since the previous night. Thats when trouble started.

She examined me and believe me there are still times when I think that this part was more painful than the actual delivery. I braced for the worst and she said "Get admitted today. You will deliver by this night." she gave a pain inducing tablet and a window of 1 hr to have lunch, pack up from home and get admitted.

The feeling cannot be described in words. All these months I was struggling to take one day at a time coping with indigestion and itchy backs. Now all that seemed trivial and the fear of delivery overpowered me. The doctor was quick to remark, "I have the patience to go through a normal delivery for you if you have the patience. And I'm not going to undermine delivery pain. Yes, It will pain like hell that you have never experienced before. But thats what you got to bear to get the kid." You're thinking if the motivating speech helped ? :) Oh yea I wasn't still thinking what lay ahead as pain slowly began to set in...

Meanwhile, mom was still taking in what the Doc said finding it hard to believe that the D-Day was finally here. After we got out, our fingers tirelessly dialed numbers and 3 phones seemed like less. Tickets had to be booked, trips planned and logistics worked out. This was the moment we had carefully planned for but no planning is good enough. Got home and had lunch - the fastest I have had - in 10 mins. We were all set to leave for the hospital in 20 mins. Pain slowly began to set in and I told my neighbour granny with a smile - I think I'm in pain. I know now what she meant then, "if you are in pain, you can't say it. Atleast not with a smile."

Get Set and Go

2006-12-13T12:02:00.000-06:00

I'm all set to dash off to the hospital anytime or so I've been saying for weeks now. But hey, you can't blame me. Its all cozy inside says the Doc so LG is quite comfortable to stay warm in a hospitable environment for another two weeks. One thing is certain - he is as lazy as his parents are. I went in for my fourth and final Sonography last Friday and the doc was kind enough to run us (mom and I) through the foetus on the monitor. Believe me, I kept nodding my head as he showed us the liver, one eye (the other eye was underneath),heart, kidneys, limbs etc., but I couldn't comprehend anything clearly. Its all hazy inside. And there in a flash I mentally did a rerun of the F.R.I.E.N.D.S episode where Ross tries his best to show the peanut sized foetus to Rach, except that in this case LG is a full grown 3 Kg baby.

My body structure now fits the bill for a "Happy Woman" if there were one like those Chinese "Happy Man" statues - a fat belly, short arms lifted upward in a comfortable sitting posture. Other than a heavy feeling and sleeplessness, all other irritating factors such as sciatica, vomitting, itchiness have been low this week. 38 weeks down...the finish line is so near yet so far.

The Grand Mosque at Bahrain

2006-12-12T07:06:00.000-06:00

Of all the places that Vivek and I had been to at Bahrain this year, the one that we liked the most was the Grand Mosque. During our 2 week stay there we did a lot of touristy stuff, thanks to dad and mom, and this was one place that we felt like going back a second time. The thought of going inside a mosque itself was thrilling and the visit exceeded all our expectations. As I was sorting through the numerous pictures taken this year, my memories of our short trip came back and the guilt of not having blogged about it was overwhelming.

Ahmad Al Fateh Mosque, commonly known as the Grand Mosque, is one of the few mosques in the region that is open to women. Dressed in perfect white, it stands magnificently overlooking the city on one side and the seascape on the other. The mosque stands majestically among lush green gardens. It was a bright Saturday morning 2 hours before prayer time when we timed our visit. More than the mosque, what impressed me the most was the hospitality extended to us by the gentleman who showed us around. Very well organised, visitors are seated and taken for a private tour of the mosque in turns. Women are asked to wear black burqa and cover the heads and all of us had to remove our footwear.

Our guide, a very well learned and educated gentleman who was formerly employed with Gulf Air, has been conducting tours for over 5 years now. His command over the language and the vividness with which he explained the meaning of the words of the prayer call, impressed us.
Continue reading to know more about some facts of the mosque...

the foundation stone was laid on Saturday, the 17th of December, 1983.

Construction work began on 17th December, 1984.

Ahmad Al Fateh Islamic Center was opened on 2nd June, 1988. It consists of the Grand Mosque, the Islamic Institute with its library and students dormitory, and service utilities.

The total area of the centre is about 15 hectares of which 6500 square metres i occupied by the Grand Mosque.

The mosque can accommodate 7000 worshippers: 5000 in the main hall, 1800 in the courtyard and 200 in the women's prayer hall.

The doors of the center are made of teak wood imported from India, their height being six metres to seven metres.

The dome above the main prayer hall from the inside is about 40 metres from ground level with a diameter of 25 metres and has 12 windows inscribed with the name of God in the center in green color.

The main building has two minarets, each rising to 70 metres above ground feet.

The car parking area of the centre can accommodate 750 vehicles.

The center has 952 lamps, 78 lusters and 76 wall lights, all made in France.

The floor of the mosque is covered with 2774 square metres of carpeting, custom manufactured in Scotland.

A total of nearly 3,000 sq. meters of Italian marble were used to cover the floor of the prayer halls and the courtyard.

The total cost of building Ahmad Al Fateh Islamic Center including all its extensions, was BD 7,500,000 which excludes the Sh. Isa Bin Salman Public Memorial Library under construction in the Northern part of the centre compound.

Categories: bahrain,, grand mosque, ahmad al fateh mosque

The great Indian neighborhood

2006-12-06T08:27:00.000-06:00

I love living in India for one reason - the camaraderie you share with the neighbors that makes you feel alive and human. Every evening when I returned from work, I would knock at my neighbor's door to say a 'hello' despite all the tiredness and the drudgery of the long day. A smile on her face and a little chit-chat was always such an effective stress-buster that no other outlet could ever provide.

Life outside India : The 13 months that I lived in Chicago, I never knew who lived next door, forget knowing their names. Initially, it was a creepy feeling that I got over slowly. Some habits die hard and so did the curiosity of seeing my neighbor's faces. For the first few months, every time I heard the doors closeby open/shut I would race to my door and peep thr the eyehole to get a glimpse. Call me the nosy prying Indian or whatever you like. But this was result of the lack of a social circle and interaction with somebody human after returning home from work! This is one reason I would never want to settle down in US where you fix appointments to meet friends!

The article titled There goes the neighborhood in last week's Hindu was an eyeopener that showed where our metros such as Bangalore, Pune with a burgeoning IT population and a cosmo culture are headed.

Continue reading 'The great Indian Neighborhood..

Reads the article ---

There is a an Oriya family next door, two Tamilian families in the floors below me and the couple who are supposed to work day and night at a call centre. I can't remember any of their names. True, they were all there for our housewarming, but we never seem to have progressed since then.

I blamed myself for moving into an apartment, which cocoons people into their own private cells. Then along came a friend who was from a part of a city that still has something resembling a neighborhood. I asked her how much she interacted with her neighbors. Pat came the reply: "A smile here and there... That too if they and I have the time."

Blame it all on the lifestyle : How many of you know the names of your neighbors? Intercoms and Yahoo! groups have conveniently replaced face-to-face conversations in apartments - the concrete jungles! The article is true to an extent while I lived in Bangalore. But I don't agree with it completely. People are quick to respond that there is no time during the week for meaningless conversations. Juggling between their high flying careers, working erratic hours and making time for their kids and finally for their immediate social cicrcle during the weekends keeps their plates and calendars full!

But doesn't the onus lies on us to create that special bond and take the first step. I have been fortunate enough to have gem of a neighbor every place we've lived in. One of the first things I always do after moving into a new place is to go and knock on my neighbor's door and get introduced. nothing breaks the ice as this. Rather than staring sheepishly and peeking thr eye holes or indulging in nosy gossips, this works! It sure is an effort but one that is worth every penny.

The article further states --

"Back during my childhood days, anything at home would see a horde of neighbors drop in. Even if a neighbor's relative was getting married, a representative from our house would make it a point to register our presence. I still live in the same house today, but somehow I have not managed to forge the same relationship with the same neighbors," says Vijaya Sunder, 26, a resident of Malleswaram

Open house :I'm reliving my childhood days when we lived in a small colony where everyone knew everyone else, kids played together, slept over at other's places if parents went on an emergency and you don't have think twice before dropping in a for a cup of coffee unannounced without an appointment.

The apartment we live in now has all the characteristics of a small colony - its so touching when the uncle next door enquires about my health every morning or offers to collect the medical report and goes that extra mile every time. We have a open door policy here. During the days no one closes the doors. So kids in the neighborhood are welcome anytime of the day. When I'm bored to death, I just drop in to listen to stories from the granny who stays opposite. Festivals have been fun too like Diwali and Holi when all of us pool in and burn crackers or play holi together. More the number, more the fun!

One night recently around 11:30 p.m. I was in pain and mom was about to knock at our neighbor's door when I stopped her. She got an earful the next morning from our neighbors when they got to know and the aunty remarked, " Laksh belongs to the current generation. Don't you listen o her. just don't think and knock at our door whatever time of the night it is. what are neighbors for."

That spoke volumes. It is just a perception that the apartment culture is not healthy and has driven people into their private cells. Its more to do with the lifestyle and the attitude the current generation carries. In the current nuclear family setup in metros it is not possible to spend enough time during the year with immediately family and relatives as they are scattered around the world. So it feels all the more good if you live amongst nice people. Along with consumerism and other traits of modern day, we have conveniently given up simplicity and carefree attitude that we were once proud of! Its upto us to take forward those days what we cherished in our childhood.

The waiting game..

2006-12-04T10:40:00.000-06:00

There is a new post on this blog which means there is no news yet! Here is a transcript of IM conversation with Harper.

natatwo: are you ready to explode?
lakshmi haaa ..don't sound so crude
natatwo: hahaha i mean in a good and super exciting way
natatwo: you are my closest friend who is having a baby. i am so excited!

Ready to explode, well well, what a different way of asking when Lil General is expected. Would like to but got to wait it out..It sure put a smile on my face as I deal with the every day ordeal of throwing up and the new symptom of itching and scratching all over ..you bet I've got my hands full and if I continue this way I would have enough first pregnancy souvenirs on my body to last a lifetime.

We still haven't picked a name that all of us can agree upon. But we do agree on one thing - of choosing a name before LG goes to College, so there's time.

Karthigai

2006-12-04T10:00:00.000-06:00

“Karthigai Deepam” (Festival of Lights), celebrated yesterday, usually falls on a full moon day during the tamil month of Karthigai (Nov-Dec). Tiny earthen lamps similar to the ones used for Diwali in North is used to light up every home in the evening for three consecutive days. This is done in honour of Lord Shiva. As for every Hindu festival, a lot of delicacies are made - the main ones being Pori Urundai (sweet balls made of puffed rice and jaggery) and appam. I had a great time last evening celebrating it with neighbours after quite a few years. Here are some pictures from last evening ...

Categories: karthigai, trichy

423 posts, 23000 hits

2006-12-04T09:52:00.000-06:00

Over 3 years, this blog has got 23,000 hits and has about 420 posts. Sure, there have been weird searches on Google as shown by my Usage statistics that lead to this blog but nothing as crazy as this one today - Pregnancy outsourcing to India ..now we are stretching our offshoring services too far, aren't we?

My Pregnancy Journal - a week by week chronicle

2006-11-24T05:14:00.000-06:00

It is time to announce my other blog titled Lil General Rules that I've been writing for a while now. A word of caution before I proceed further..since most of the regular readers of this blog are men, I think it is important to state this so that you and I are not embarrassed ...Career, Pregnancy and Kids as the name implies is a week by week chronicle of what I've gone through since April..there is nothing gross in there yet that would make your stomachs churn. Having said that, there isn't anything juicy or interesting like Formula 1 either. Its all mundane, boring stuff on weight loss, weight gain, blood tests, martial arts of the baby, visits to the doctor and some unanswered questions as i took a break in my career -- which I am sure you can live without if your wife is not expecting. If you are single, then all the more better..don't even bother to click the link.

If I still have your attention, go ahead and read it.

Categories: pregnancy,, blog

What the heck is "Social Networking"?

2006-11-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

"Are you on Orkut?" asked a old friend a few months back. I replied in the negative. For once, contrary to my Aquarean nature, I did not have the curiosity to try this so-called 'social networking' site that I had heard about in fleeting conversations over lunch at work. Establishing a direct impact on productivity, organizations have gone to the extent of blocking Orkut and other such sites as MySpace, Friendster and LinkedIn.

Anyways, the reason I'm writing this post is because the talk about Orkut has been rekindled with more mentions in the past few weeks from different sources. So I signed up and started exploring and reading others 'scraps'. Note to myself - got to check why they came up with this name 'scrap'.. My only other presence, sorry existence, on the networking sites is in LinkedIn, thanks to Tom B @ Qualcomm. LinkedIn, I guess serves its purpose being a business networking site. ? After a few days of mindless browsing of Orkut and a expression of awe on my face as I saw a few pictures after almost seven years of college, I decided this wasn't for me.

If you are a big fan of these social networking sites, please tell what the heck is social networking and why do you do this? I'm looking for a better answer than "Oh I found a school friend with whom I lost touch for the last decade. Internet is GOD".
Here is one cool article on Fast Company titled "What the heck is Social Networking? I think Jonathan does a lot of justice in answering honestly the real motive of these sites ---

What if there was a way to meet people online through your friends? This would be better for dating, but it would also be better for things that weren't dating. So I started thinking about a dating site that wasn't about dating. Buddy lists where you know everybody and online discussions where things are totally open have been basically how people interact. That's not how we interact in the real world. I wanted to build something in the middle.

People sign up who wouldn't sign up for a traditional dating site. And people seek contact who wouldn't normally do so. We also hear about the Friendster addict. When people first sign up, there's usually a little frenzy, but that can't continue forever. People care about people, and Friendster is all about people. It's also all hypertext. You see one person, and they have an interesting-looking friend. They have a testimonial from another person, and you find that you're connected to that person. Some people say that Friendster is ruining their life and that it got them fired.

Well well, he begins with a honest explanation and then it is all promotion which could be true to an extent. Do you have a lot of time on your hands? Is it really about catching up with old friends or finding new ones? Open conversations? Or is it just entertainment - a IM equivalent? Or am I just being an anti-social animal?

Choosing a name for the baby

2006-11-22T06:19:00.000-06:00

You might ask "What's in a name?". I'm glad that nature mandates a nine month period to have a baby as it can take longer to choose a name that satisfies everyone's whims and fancies. Else "100 baby names" wouldn't be in the top 100 Google Search terms.

Experienced new parents and family have for months posed this question to Vivek and I, "Have you decided a name yet?" We kept replying, "What's the hurry? There is still time." The reality was I had loads of other things to take care of like nausea, indigestion, heartburn, breathlessness to name a few and "name" did not figure high on the priority. With a lot of time now, I have taken up this "project" and what did not seem a hair splitting problem then is definitely one now.

I will let you in on a little secret. The truth is we had settled for the name "Akshat" which happened by accident. Way back in March, Vivek was handed his Medical Insurance card along with those of his dependents. He had only one dependent then (myself) but was handed over 2 cards - one for Lakshmi Nagarajan and the other for his 'so-called' son - 'Akshat Jain' ...yea yea I wouldn't go into the blunders insurance companies make. Anyway, we had a hearty laugh and later when LG was on the way, we thought why not "Akshat". If it is a girl, add a "a" and it becomes "Akshata" - how convenient. This is what I like about Indian names. "Vijay" becomes "Vijaya".

Apparently, no one likes the name "Akshat" in family, so here after a week's brainwork and deciding I'm not creative enough, I'm asking you all to send in suggestions for LG for a girl and a boy. A good friend, SK made my job easier by formulating some ground rules and here they are ---
Read more

It must not be too common a name: like ‘Amit’. Your id deserves individuality and there is a sea of names to choose from.

It must not be a name that your kid would curse you for: This is complementary to rule 1> above. (‘Khug’ tops our hit list here.)

Not too difficult to pronounce, a Indian name that is not too Americanized. No 'ksh'. 'Lakshmi' always becomes 'Lashhhhmi'

It must not be too long: He/she will have a lot of forms to type/write out in his/her life. Please spare the kid the trouble.

It should be a name that can be naturally (phonetically-speaking) abbreviated: (‘Adi’ instead of ‘Aditya’, for instance). Since you will be screaming after your kid all the way to his/her adult life, the abbreviated name comes in handy. Else, you will have to cook up some other pet name like ‘Pappu’, ‘Bunty’, ‘Happy’…

It must have a nice and uncomplicated meaning to it: If one has to explain the meaning of the name to someone (Indian or otherwise), one shouldn’t have to begin narrating a mythological tale that lasts a fortnight.

It should not be from Maneka Gandhi’s ‘Book of Hindu Names’: Why? Refer to point 6> above.

It must not be a composite name, formed by performing complex String operations on the names of the parents: (‘Raveena’ = Ravi + Veena; Siya = Seema + Ashish). Again, your kid deserves individuality.

It should not be a name that has an almost patented regional overtone: [‘Miral’ / ‘Hetal’: patently Gujarati; ‘Mrinmayee’: patently Maharashtrian; ‘Vaijayanthi’: patently Tamil; ‘Asamanya’ / ‘Bibhuti’: patently Bengali/Orissi], although some such names do sound really nice and exotic, if you ask me.

It should not be a name that’s already in the family: Individuality again.(You have already decided on this; so, that’s good.)

It should not be a name that sounds as if you are trying to clear your throat.

If nothing works, then there's always these to choose from - Lil General, Polu, Bozo, Yuko and Buco Kidoo."

The Final Countdown

2006-11-19T23:42:00.000-06:00

Officially, today is the begining of the 9th month. It can happen anytime after this is what I'm told...naturally the pampering has multiplied a zillion times. Now I call myself the "fat lazy pregnant lady" who sleeps, eats, excretes and repeats the cycle all over again without getting off her a*. And if neither one of the above happensas it should, then I rattle that question "why can't humans reproduce like snakes and what was granny thinking when she gave birth to 11 kids?"

I have been out of work for nearly two months now and it has been amazing so far - contrary to what I feared. Ofcourse, pangs of guilt hit me often - for lazing around when a plethora of opportunities are knocking at my door and me not earning. Taking one day at a time doing freelancing when I wish to, Tanjore painting, solving Sudoku puzzles, GTalking....

Disclaimer: The foul language is not me talking. Its the effect the weight is having on my senses or so I would like you to think.

Good Performer Resigns, Should I Make a Counteroffer?

2006-11-17T04:09:00.000-06:00

"Good Performer Resigns, Should I Make a Counteroffer?" was the topic for discussion posted in the forum in this week's Workforce Newsletter. The question was catchy enough to draw my attention as I reflected upon the numerous instances when ex-peers, seniors and subordinates had resigned only to withdraw it weeks later after those closed-room "negotiations".

My question to both sides.
Firstly, if you are a manager and a highly valued person in your team resigns. This can trigger a ripple effect demotivating the rest of the team members. What should you do?

Firstly, would you make a counteroffer to anyone and everyone who resigns? my instinct says no.

Secondly, would you try and find out the real reason behind why the person has decided to go? In most cases, there is more to the 'money' story. It is not just because of the money factor or a 30% increase that a person decides to go. In my cases, it wasn't.

Do you have the authority to make a counteroffer or is it just promises in the air for the moment?

What are you reasons for making this counteroffer and is it worth it? Have you thought of the repercussions this can create? Wouldn't this entice others to follow the same route and set a bad example?

Now the trickier part, you are a good manager and you knew well in advance the person was looking out for reasons that are beyond your control to be changed. The pep talks help only for a week in keeping the person motivated. What should you do?

A counteroffer need not always be monetary based though in most cases it is. A lot of times it is a bargain for a designation or a location change - the ever so lucrative onsite assignment in the IT industry. To put it bluntly, I call it blackmailing or bargaining. It is a situation where you say "you either give me what I want or I go".

Second scenario, you are the person creating this ripple - the one who has put in the papers. Counteroffers galore. What should you do? I have been in this position myself 2 times - once at Tata Infotech and the next at GE.

Are you clear in the head? Do you know the reasons why you started looking out?

If the counteroffer is a princely increase than your new offer, should you stick on overlooking all the other reasons?

My personal "Code book of Professional Ethics" has one golden rule - Never ever withdraw your resignation. You resigned for a reason and it is less likely the situation has changed. To believe that no one in the workplace would know of the "deal" is fooling yourself. I have known instances where managers making the counteroffer in a desperate attempt to retain the team member to keep the project going has resorted to revengous ways soon (sure, you make them feel a loser in the bargain). The water cooler gossip mongers wouldn't stop either. To keep your word and dignity, I always advise to stick to your word and go. And for managers, "let go" if its all official. Don't blame yourself for the situation if you know you have tried.

The respect Lil General commands ....

2006-11-15T04:51:00.000-06:00

With 33 weeks over and the 34th week underway, the bump is drawing wide-eyed glares from passers by on the street as I go for my evening stroll. Mom had so much trouble getting our empty cylinder refilled here as it lay idle for over an year. I accompanied her to the cylinder station and there you go, we got it in 2 day's time on "humanitarian grounds". Not a day has passed when I have not got goodies from the neighbours - varieties of dishes and snacks to munch upon. In the shopping malls, on the streets, name it and its all respect for LG. For once in these 8 months, I am enjoying it :)

At home, the house is getting geared for the Lil General's arrival. Closet arranged with LG's clothes, getting the bag ready to dash to the hospital at any time of the day/night, getting the room in order when we arrive home, a place to hang LG's washed clothes ..I'm just running out of the numerous things mom keeps doing the whole day and there's still so much in her to-do list. I dare imagine how it would have been without her..

Baby Shower : Valakappu

2006-11-06T06:38:00.000-06:00

Baby Shower is a tradition that is followed in many cultures across the world. It is a special way of welcoming a new life in to the world and showing that you care. It is usually hosted by family/friends for the pregnant woman.

In India too it is observed in some states though called by different names such as godh barai in the North or Valakappu in Tamil Nadu. In Tamil Brahmins, Valakappu is performed in the eighth month of pregnancy in the mother's house and Seemantham in the mother-in-laws house during the seventh month of pregnancy. However, of late both these functions are performed together either on the same day or on consecutive days keeping in mind the long hours it takes for the rituals to be completed which can be very exerting for the pregnant woman.

My valakappu was celebrated on 3rd November at Trichy. We skipped the Seemantham function. The dat began with me and everyone waking up at 4:30 a.m., granny (usually mother-inlaw does this) put some ceremonial oil on the forehead and I took the ritual oil shower. Following this, I was given a black sari..this is the only function when a black colored dress is worn. Black is symbolic to warding off evil spirits.. Adorning two flower garlands, I sat down while granny made a Ganesha (elephant faced god) out of turmeric and water. all functions begin with a prayer to Vigneshwara (another name of Lord Ganesha). She followed this by slipping 2 bangles in the hands of my cousin, any small girl would do.

Female relatives and friends who had come down for the function sang devotional songs while granny slipped two bangles on each of my arms made out of twigs/grass tied together. This act is supposed to the child from evil spirits. Then about 5 ladies slipped glass bangles in my arms totalling to 21 on the right hand and 20 on the left. Only red and green bangles made of glass are supposed to be worn for this function. it was a lil different with the ladies just touching the bangles and then handing them over to my dad. he is adept in putting me bangles as I have a very weird arm with bones poking at every corner. Finally granny smeared turmeric paste on my arms and feet. This was followed by another function called poochoodal in which delicacies made of white and brown color (21 each) were tied around by waist. 2 small kids were asked to pick one delicacy. The color they pick is a superstitious way of guessing the gender of the child. In my case, both the kids picked appam which meant it would be a girl child cotrary to everyone's opinion. So lets see what LG turns out to be.

Though there have been times, when the education makes you question the relevance of such superstitious traditions and beliefs, it is amazing how rich our tradition is and there is apparently a valid and sensible reason why these rites were performed. What has got diluted over the years is the way it is done..and ignorance of why something is done. If only we had that knowledge it would be amazing..it remains to be seen how many generations can take this forward..

Categories: valakappu, seemantham,
baby shower

Live from Trichy

2006-11-06T06:17:00.000-06:00

Turns out Lil General did not want to travel on Oct 20th so we all had to reschedule our trip for the 28th with a day's break at Bangalore. V and I finally reached Trichy last Monday after a night's stay at Vinay's place. It was nice to meet Neetu after an year. On second thoughts, I don't really miss Bangalore now except for friends there. The traffic has multiplied n times and so have the malls that have mushroomed across the city. It is going to be a tough deal going back to Bangalore someday ...people swarming around the city like warms with every other road being a made a one-way, it is no pleasant driving or traveling there.

Trichy,a southern Indian city in the state of Tamil Nadu, is no better either now. But the good part is the neighbourhood we reside in now has good infrasturcture and facilities. While it takes a month to get a broadband connection in Pune's suburbs, it just took 2 days here. It has been a fun filled amazing one week - a family get together of sorts, good food -- all that makes for a good life!

Soccer, Vivek and Diwali

2006-10-24T00:50:00.000-05:00

On the eve of Diwali, Vivek got home flaunting a few shopping bags in hand and a huge SMILE on his face. As he unpacked them, I remained speechless with only the expression changing on my face. As he removed the wrapper on each of the boxes, he said ---

Soccer shoes - Rs. 1xxx

Soccer ball - Rs.1xxx

Socks - Rs.xxx

The shocked expression on my wife's face - priceless

'There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's Master Card. Sure Dude! Believe it or not, he went to bed that day with his soccer shoes on :)

The week that was and the week that will be...

2006-10-24T00:29:00.000-05:00

After the emergency incident, all I have been upto the past few weeks has been sleeping and eating. By sleeping I mean, for a good 15 hours everyday at any corner of the house that has a couch or a bed and is cozy/comfortable and this place has a lot of them. I look FAT now and heavily pregnant with just 7 more weeks to go when Lil General will make an appearance. I hope he/she is patient enough to stay in until then. A lot of people who are not familiar with the Indian laws have asked me if I know what the gender of the baby is. I don't and it is illegal here to try and find out. Infact, either I or Vivek have to sign a form everytime I go for a sonography declaring we will not attempt to find the gender. From experience all the oldies I have met till now believe it is a boy..lets see.

I have a whole bunch of posts sitting in the draft stage and a couple of sites waiting to be launched. Amidst all the craziness that ensued over the past few weeks, the only work I got done was cancelling a whole lot of flight and train tickets and rebooking them and planning everyone's itinerary. What a fun thing to do. And then there was Diwali on the 21st. I stayed away from the fun part this year - watching Vivek and his friends bursting crackers for the better part of that evening. It was fun nevertheless. Pune this year though did not have its usual enthusiasm and festive spirit as rains played spoilsport. There will be another spell of blogging hiatus as I travel to Trichy this weekend.

Why Yahoo! Mail Beta is awesome?

2006-10-23T23:47:00.000-05:00

I switched over to the new Yahoo! Mail Beta interface about 2 weeks back and I'm delighted! Here's why it is SO much better than Gmail:

Interface: The interface is sleek and stylish. The overall look is styled on Outlook with a three pane window - list of folders on the left, messages on the top of the right pane and message preview pane at the bottom. It has nice fonts unlike the big glaring one in the standard interface.

Speed:The speed is awesome. The speed with which messages are retrieved is commendable.

Tabbed Interface:One can view multiple messages in different tabs. Double clicking a message opens it in multiple tabs. The Compose window now opens in its own tab. So you have access to the Inbox while composing messages. However what I don't like is the multiple tabs it opens up whenever a new message is sent. There should be a way of turning this off.

Shortcut keys: "r" for replying to a message, "c" for composing a new message are some of the newly introduced shortcut keys. There are a whole bunch of them. In addition to this, the right-click context menus for Open, Print, Reply, Forward, Mark read/unread, Flag, Clear flag, Delete, is a welcoming new feature. Right clicking on the folder pane allows you to create a new folder. F2 works for editing the name of a folder..what more can one ask for?

Organizing Messages:There are no menus available to "Move" messages from Inbox to a folder now. It took me a while to undo that habit and just get used to dragging and dropping the messages to the appropriate folder. One can also choose multiple messages and drag them into a folder.

RSS Feeds: It is integrated into the Folder pane. The feeds themselves show up in the message window.

Yahoo! with its Mail Beta launch has pushed Web Mailing to a new level. It is upto Google now to see how better they can respond to this challenge. Google has always been the master in simple interfaces and easy user navigation but the current Gmail interface is far from a easy usable interface when compared to Yahoo! mail.

"The Machine" (Ferrari) lets down "The Man" (Schumacher) ?

2006-10-10T03:04:00.000-05:00

In what was the most disappointing Formula 1 race ever, dreams of clinching the Eighth Championship title crashed for Schumacher after the second pit stop at the Suzuka Grand Prix. Can't help thinking if I jinxed it :( ? There is very little magic that Ferrari-Schumacher can pull off against the Renault-Michelin team at the last race of the season - the Brazilian Grand Prix. We HATE Alonso's smiling face and anything BLUE now.

Pregnancy emergency attended to just in time: A "Thank you" note

2006-10-05T00:42:00.000-05:00

The last 2 days have been pretty crazy. I was staying by myself with Vivek gone for a week to San Francisco. Parents as such were very worried as to how I will manage. Used to being by myself, I put up a brave front and was holding up well until things changed for worse on Tuesday evening. I discovered something strange (I would rather not go into the details of what it was..it is grouse for guys who will read it) and called up mom. Frantic as she always is, she urged me to visit the doctor. Surprisingly, my good neighbor thought there was reason to worry too and accompanied me to the doctor.

My doctor who is as cool as a cucumber always, asked me to report in immediately to the hospital despite it being not one of her regular visit days. She examined me and remarked "You got to get admitted right away!" Knowing her, this took me by surprise. I pleaded with her to go back home and return the next day as there was no family with me. She quipped that is reason enough that you stay here right now. A sonography followed by the admission process saw me in the hospital ward in the next 2 hours. Thankfully sonography turned out to be normal with Lil General all happy and kicking as always. So it must have definitely been something that I must have done - overexerting myself.

Numerous calls across the globe, plans changing in a few hours with mom deciding to fly in as early as she could which is this afternoon and Vivek coming in by tomorrow early morning ensued in the 2 hours that followed - this briefly describes the turn of events. Ironically, V sent more hours travelling (close to 80 hours) than the no. of hours he stayed at SFO and mom's willpower to make through this travel has sent me in a tizzy.

However, the reason I'm writing this post is because I was OVERWHLEMED by the support and hospitality of so many people - starting from my neighbor Radha/Sanjay who stayed overnight with me at the hospital, got me admitted, got food every 2 hours until Wednesday afternoon when I finally got discharged, despite their kids having exams. And then there were Vivek's friends Nasir/Yasmeen who were present for a good part of the day taking care of all the bureaucratic part that a hospital admission demands. And then there was Surya who just took me by surprise and dropped me home. Sid, Subu, Kshitij and all others who stood by..thank you all!

I know that a lot of people are going to be mad reading this post as the doctor allowed me to go home early if I took complete REST. But I owed this to everyone. This is one of the things I have been completely advised against doing --- getting stressed by spending hours on my projects which is totally not worth it!

This incident taught me one big lesson - I take family for granted but I shouldn't. And friends never ever for granted. None of the people whose names are written here know about this blog but maybe someday if they do, I just want them to know I was grateful. And on a lighter note, never leave a pregnant woman alone especially one who is upto antics like me!

Categories: pregnancy, emergency

Why Schumacher is a class apart from Alonso?

2006-10-02T07:06:00.000-05:00

Sid called up excitedly and said "Ma'am, are you watching the race? This is the best race ever. I mean ever." I wasn't. Thanks to an unscheduled power cut, I missed the entire race.

The Chinese Grand Prix proved who still rules the Formula 1 circuit - Ferrari and Schumacher! Only a man with nerves of steel, full of passion for racing, articulate driving skills and that connection with the machine can do what Schumi does. Racing never got better. With 2 more races to go, its going to be a nail biting finish. On second thoughts, I'm a little superstitious now and am contemplating if I should watch the ones at Suzuka and Brazil or not - so as not to jinx. When this is all done, we'll have a Ferrari party :)

Categories: formula 1, schumacher, ferrari, alonso

My new role - wafadar jamadar

2006-10-02T05:32:00.000-05:00

Friday was my last day at work. Sometimes small gestures make you feel good and there were a few of them that day with the caterer at lunch offering me an extra bowl of that day's special dessert. Gosh! I wonder how much I was staring at the dessert..I have such a huge craving for sweets these days and I don't eat non-homemade food, but there is an exception to every rule. What can be a better way to please a pregnant woman. In all the day was eventless ..more on the corporate policies later.

I fit comfortably into my new role - wondering what that is? If there was one thing that V liked the movie Kabhi Alvida Na Kahna for, then it was because it gave him the term "wafadar jamadar" - an addition to his dictionary. He is at ease teasing me with this one...

Related Post:
KANK fails to create magic!

Is freelancing for you?

2006-09-26T07:39:00.000-05:00

If you are a code monkey, then there are umpteen options available to make a living without doing a 9-5 run-of-the-mill job in a IT factory. Some of the sites that cater to developers are RentAcoder,GetAfreeLancer, ELance. The first 2 are free while you have to pay a sum for Elance upfront. The commission charged as project fee varies for each of these sites.

These sites are hugely popular with developers in the developing countries such as India, Pakistan, Brazil, Argentina and some Easter European Countries such as Romania, Ukraine etc.

Are these sites for you? Some hard facts revealed:

If you are a very fast and smart developer, you can probably earn somewhere between $1000-$2000 a month or less. Which is a decent amount for a month in these countries. So it does not make any economic sense for developers from the US/UK or any such nation to ocmpete in this space. Moreover, most of the service buyers are from these countries looking for cost-effective solution from the offshore developers.

There is a lot of hardwork involved for service providers as there is fierce competition. Every project you bid for, there are atleast 25-30 bidders with all kinds of strategies such as "solution first-pay later" to "minimum cost, low quality" etc etc. So bagging the project and then delivering within time takes its toll in the long run. Not a easy show as a full time corporate job where you can afford to relax for a few days or days when you don't feel like it, just shrugg off and say "Lets do it tomorrow".

If you are looking at making a career out of it, then you need to have a plan. Probability of burnout because of stress, success rate of bids/projects won is high. Good for code monkeys who just want an interim change. This is not your way to entrepreneurship. You can't make money while you are sleeping as in an established business. You work like a dog today and if you continue on the path you work like one even a year later.

If you are in it for fun for lack of anything better to do, then by all means you can have all the fun you want to as I'm doing currently.

A good learning platform. It is a good learning platform where you get paid while you learn on the job. Just don't be foolish enough to admit it.

What are the resources/skills you need to be successful?

Proficiency in English to be able to communicate.

Be good at what you do - know atleast one language thoroughly such as PHP, Perl, Java, XML etc While you have the time you can pick up something else that interests you.

Project Management : Who says you don't need Project Management skills? Sure you don't need all the documents of a SEI CMM firm but the basics are absoultely required to be successful. It is all about communication and communicating effectively all the time. Requirements management, expectation setting, delivery management, defining deliverables etc. is all in the game. You are your manager here. You just wear different hats at different points in time - developer, coordinator, project manager

Time Management: This is by far the most important skill required. Since there is no bus/train to catch at 8:30 a.m. does not mean you don't exercise discipline and sleep in until 11:00 a.m. Browsing/searching for projects can get addictive. Stick to a time schedule and work by the clock.

Logistics: Having an office at your home with a broadband internet connection where you are not disturbed while you work helps. Ofcourse you can run errands when you feel like taking a break but have a plan and be organized.

Related Post: Review: Getafreelancer
Categories: freelancing, career, getafreelancer, rentacoder

Review: Getafreelancer

2006-09-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

Finding success with the freelancing sites such as getafreelancer, rentacoder is not easy. Getafreelancer, Europe's answer to the widely popular American competitor Rent A Coder, was established in February 2004. On last count, the site boasts of 189,848 users and 91,595 posted projects which is still a far cry from RentAcoder's user base of

I have been a member of both the sites for the past 30 days and I find GetAFreelancer much better than RentAcoder for the following reasons:

E-mail notification: Periodic e-mails notifying a service provider of newly posted projects is a very user friendly feature. One does not have to browse or search for projects through the site's user interface. You can set alerts defining the project criteria such as projects PHP and Perl only that fall in the range of $30-$100. Or Java projects that fall in the range of $1000-$3000. The number of e-mail that gets triggered in a day depends on the number of new projects posted. I just take a cursory glance at the listing in my e-mail and if something interesting catches my eye, I goto the site for further details to bid.
RentACoder's alert notification system works only when you have won a project.

Low No-action rate from buyers: The buyer no-action rate is way high on RentAcoder than on GetAFreelancer. I've had 0 success on RAC till now. All the projects that I have bid for on RAC have either been cancelled or there has been no response from the service buyer.

Mode of payment: Escrow payment is available on both. But I believe the percentage charged by GAF is slightly higher than that of RAC.

Privacy: Again both the sites dictate the same terms and conditions. Service buyers cannot contact service providers directly. Revealing e-mail address is an offense and you stand to get blacklisted on doing so for projects less than $500.

Value for service: GAF fares low on this as compared to RAC. It is very common to see buyers posting projects to develop a clone site such as ebay.com or something popular as digg.com while quoting a price of $30-$100. They want the moon for peanuts.

Service Buyers: Service buyers from Europe are very finicky. Language is an issue with them. They generally try to squeeze in as much as they can going beyond the specifications of a project. Americans are very professional in this regard. They know what they want, they say what they want in clear terms. Even if they don't, they are quick to admit it and are courteous. As principle, I try and avoid European buyers.

Categories: getafreelancer, rentacoder, freelancing

Its all about the paperwork

2006-09-26T06:47:00.000-05:00

Leaving formalities are as bureaucratic as joining an organization. I was handed over a sheet of paper with a list of all the departments under the sun from Administration, Finance, Human Resources, Networking Support, Project Manager, Resource Management, Office Supplies, visa and Immigration from whom I need to get signatures (which would perhaps indicate my leaving will cause no harm to the organization when I'm gone). Thank Heavens I don't have to get the sheet autographed from the janitor lady or the coffee boy.

And the amount of tantrums each person throws before signing the sheet, "you need to get this signed from librarian before you come to me". Finance points to admin who in turn points to the gentleman that manages transportation and it all ends up in a crystal maze while I shuttle between buildings. Lil General was very cooperative as I pushed myself to the limit and ended up with 3 signatures on the dotted line. 10 more to get in the next 2 days. I'm breaking my rule of keeping the orgnization I work for a secret always. Cognizant is not the place you want to apply for a job. When I'm done with everything, I'll tell you why.

Categories: career, cognizant, cts, quitting

Oscillating between great and awful

2006-09-19T06:58:00.000-05:00

Have you ever felt like committing a sin taking a day off from work and just sitting at home doing nothing? Wonder why I feel awful? I felt terribly sick to crawl out of bed this morning because of leg cramps. But I kept telling myself it is only Tuesday and not customary to take the day off ..for the past few weeks I have been skipping work on Wednesdays - mid week and works out well with 2 more days to go before the weekend. I finally decided to call in sick.

Apart from these spurts of tiredness and a feeling of bloatedness, I have been holding up pretty well. Though at any moment I have totally different answers when people ask "How I am feeling?" From being great with a glow on my face to a grumpy sad puppy look you can see it all in a day. Meanwhile, Lil General is having a great time practicing soccer even past midnight.

Sometimes doing nothing and lazing around for the better part of the day does wonders ... but the demons kept reminding through my afternoon nap that it was time to do something productive - work on my website, do freelancing, writing ....The work ticker is on. 5 more working days to go.

Categories: pregnancy