Day-off

5 reasons for the tranquil and satiated state of my mind, after taking a day off from hectic work schedule, in the midst of a tight iteration of an agile software development project:

Finally found a reason** to get Sandy to Bangalore-trot (akin to globe-trot :D) from the South to the North and visit my home, after several false promises during the 2 years of our working together.

Felt jubilantly satisfied after submitting my IT returns** in person at the Income Tax office, especially since I didn’t have to rely upon pea-brained tax consultants – who after getting u to pay through your nose, teach u how to send an email to UTI (“Madam, please type www… yes,yes… 3 w’s dot uti dot com?!!!”) to get a status update on your PAN card, that you submitted for correction (my father had no probs if his name was spelt wrong in my PAN, but I chose to be the wise gal!!) the same time last year, when they were here to make your life simpler!!

Savoured a lazy afternoon with my chum, Anupama, watching a slow-paced but sensible movie, Viruddh, with some sensitive portrayals by the lead actors, Amitabh and Sharmila; came out of the theatre to see the world (not-surprisingly) look lush green after the mid-afternoon showers (not surprising ‘coz it has rained every single time we’ve watched a movie in Cauvery… irrespective of the time of the day or the day of the year)

Spent a splendid evening, walking the rain-drenched streets of Malleshwaram with the chum and a beautiful rainbow for company… caught up with all the long-awaited talks with her, over a plate of gobi-manchuri and hot tea at the Asha sweets and chaats stall.

Reached home when it was the 7 o’ clock soap playing on TV, instead of the one at 9, had great fun playing with my adorable cousin bro, spent a good one hour (without any luck), trying to get the year-old toddler to say “akka” instead of his usual refrain of “da…ddy”. Ate dinner with the rest of the world and went to bed before the clock ticked past the hour of midnight.

So what if I’ve had to work today in the weekend to catch up on all the pending work? The day gave me moments which are special in their own way

Who-ever said humans had it easy?

6.30 PM on a Wednesday evening…the seats around me are all empty… my team is out enjoying an outing – movie at PVR followed by dinner. 2 reasons why I’m still “hardly” working:
1. PVR and my house happen to be situated at the 2 extreme ends of B’lore city and the mere idea of me reaching home after dinner, without incurring my dad’s wrath, is laughable
2. I’m in no moods for any revelry

That reminds me of another thing that came to my notice…duality.
No I’m not talking about the Physics funda of “the property of matter and electromagnetic radiation that is characterized by the fact that some properties can be explained best by wave theory and others by particle theory”
I was wondering about the duality of human nature (actually it is much more complex, may be, I should call it multiplicity!!)…how we humans need to behave in everyday life… consider this,
you have had a bad fight/ mis-understanding with a friend or a family member and are feeling quite low about it… u walk into office the next day, u need to wear a bright smile, say hi to anybody and everybody that u remotely know, act normally with your colleagues and manager, basically look like u find everything’s hunky-dory with the world…
If you don’t do any one of the above, tongues start wagging… what a grouch, he looks through me, what’ll she lose if she smiles? God! how do people put up with him? so on and so forth…
It works both ways actually… if you’ve had a particularly bad day at work and go home sour and surly…u get to listen to this from your family… but at-least there u can rave and rant about their insensitivity in understanding the tensions and troubles and hassles that u invariably have to face at work…Sad but true, your family can be your punching bag but not your colleagues. Worse still, God save you if your efficiency and productivity suffer because of your mental state!! That’s no excuse, rather, it will be considered as a ruse you’ve chosen to shirk your responsibilities…
well… all I can say is…strange are the ways of life!

Morning tryst with madness

Had a nasty experience right in the morning…
I rose and shone early, got ready, sacrificed the comfort of a seat in my regular direct bus, came standing and swaying most of the way, changing 2 buses… all so that I could reach office early and get some work done… and so would have an excuse ready when I’ll try to slip away early in the evening.
Then… here’s the scene:

I get down at my destination ‘Hunasemara’ bus stop, walk a few steps… and out of thin air this mad woman materializes, rushes at me and thwack!!hits me on my left ear!!! I am stunned, to say the least… slowly I realize there’s some cold and sticky stuff dripping down my ear-lobe…I see she’s got a plastic bottle with a black liquid which she has sprayed all over my left ear and forehead! Blistering barnacles!! Whatever made her do that!! Did I look like some character out of a loony bin??
I panic… don’t know what to do. I keep walking trying to get away from her… but she walks right in front of me giving me withering looks and mumbling obscenities including some choori-chaku stuff in Hindi (that sure quickened my pace!!)… I am too shocked to be able to do anything… just want to get away from her. I get into office, wash away all the black stuff… it’s quite sometime before I’m back to feeling normal.

Now in retrospect, I wonder why she did it… I’ve had/heard of similar experiences that my friends have had with mad people, mostly the desolate beggars on the streets… makes me wonder, what thoughts run in their minds to behave the way they do… may be I looked like some one she despised or may be she was scared that I’d harm her in some way because of some prior bad experience she’s had… whatever it is… at that moment I was enraged, but now, I’m filled with a sense of pity…but I need to be careful… wouldn’t want our paths to cross again