Stories from 2018…

2018 was a significant year in my life’s journey, I’d say.

The year began by catching up with old friends… two of my school/ college-time friends were visiting from the US and December end/ Jan beginning was when I got an opportunity to meet them. It was lovely exchanging details about the latest happenings in our lives and reminiscing about the good old times. Another close friend also visited during the later part of the year and it was time to catch-up again with families in tow – it was a riot watching all the kids together! So yeah, 2018 was a good year friendship-wise – re-discovering old ones and I formed some new ones too in the neighbourhood!

It was also the year when I finally got the opportunity to step out of my comfort-zone work-wise and boy! did I grab it with both hands or what?! I moved out of the client/ project that I was stuck working in for the past 5 years, ever since I joined my current company! That was an achievement in itself, I’d say. And the new work project gave me the biggest travel opportunity of my life. More about that later…

Before I get there, I must mention here that it was also the year when we visited the beautiful archipelago in the Bay of Bengal for our Summer vacation – the enchanting Andamans! 🙂 It was a lovely vacation where we explored the beauty of the various islands – from the awesome corals of the Jolly Buoy to the historical ruins and military remains at the Ross Island.

Corals at Jolly Buoy island

Boats and more at Jolly Buoy island

The highlight was no doubt the Havelock Island and our stay at the resort there – with an exclusive private access to the extension of the beautiful Radhanagar beach, we couldn’t have enough of the sun, the sea and the sands. The resort itself was so beautiful that it left us yearning for a longer stay. Apart from the gorgeous sunset scenes at the Radhanagar and Govindnagar beaches, we had loads of fun times playing with the waves at the rocky Kalapathar beach.

The beautiful Radhanagar beach

Sunset at Govindnagar beach

But the icing on the cake was of course the once-in-a-lifetime experience of the scuba dive!! With the hubby declining to take the plunge, I was left to face it alone and to be truthful it scared the hell out of me. For the first time I realised how scary it is to just get your ears wet, by getting under-water! And I regretted (not for the first time too) not having learnt swimming at a younger age when I had the opportunity! I did the dive with butterflies in my stomach, fluttering and rising up to my throat, but got to see the most wonderful under-water marine-life. That’s an item off the bucket list I guess. The hubby and sonny-boy had fun too – snorkelling in tandem with some expert divers 😀

The ruins at Ross Island

Back at Port-Blair, we also visited the gorgeously green Chidiya-Tapu and the Munda Pahar sunset point – I really loved the way in which the former place has been developed and maintained with a natural setting for the animals and birds in pristine surroundings. And of course, the view of the sunset and mangroves of Munda Pahar are picturesquely postcard-worthy.

Well, that was one vacation which we and the kiddo thoroughly enjoyed and will savour the memories for very many years to come. And of course, I clicked a zillion pics and have enough stored away to remind us of the beautiful times with just a click 😉

I hope to get back with more travel stories in my next post – of the beautiful scenic locations that my work took me to!

A week with work-woes and a movie

Have you ever felt the need to get away from work? That you’ve had enough of it and cannot take the same old boring work-routine for even one more day or hour?! I guess, many of us would’ve been parley to such thoughts several times – especially considering the typically stressful work-styles we follow. Last week was one such for me. The work-days-juggernaut was rolling along nicely and I was working on the usual tasks and going about the boring daily work-routine. There was a planned project change implemented on a Thursday and everything looked fine. That night at 2.35 AM I got a call on the mobile from the night-support team. There seemed to be some issue with the implemented code, due to which some files which had to be generated and sent to the downstream partner systems was empty. Within five minutes I was awake and logged in – trying to decipher what could’ve gone wrong. I figured it out soon enough – I had overlooked some accompanying changes which had to be done and the empty file was a result of this miss. 😦 Amidst the thoughts of all the music I had to face  on the morrow in office, I was trying to check if there was a quick fix solution to generate that night’s file. I did some fix on the QA environment and drew up plans with the support-team-lead that this problem would require an emergency fix to be implemented on the very next day, before the next day’s file would get generated. I promised them that I would get into office early and work on it as priority.

Daylight was already breaking over the horizon and I thought that it was futile to go back to bed then; I might as well get the cooking etc. done and get ready for work. Accordingly I went about the morning chores and was ready for work at 6 AM, an hour before my regular morning start-time. I coordinated with the early shift cab driver and was in office by 7 AM, before most of the other folks started coming in. The rest of the day went by in a blur – the fix wasn’t as easy as it had initially looked, I had totally missed analysing the code earlier and had to figure out the logic, carry out tests and ensure that it would work seamlessly with the other changes. Added to this was the time constraint – everything had to be done within a couple of hours, the change orders raised and all necessary approvals sought to put it out-of-cycle as an emergency fix.

Phew! Luckily everything worked out well and by the end of the day the changes were in, after taking some help from colleagues. I was pretty jittery that night as well and had couple of calls at around midnight with the support team to ensure that the fix indeed worked and the issue was resolved. As they say, all’s well that ends well! But this episode left me drained – mentally and physically. Probably this too was routine a couple of years back, working late hours on deliveries and overseeing last minute fixes by my team were part and parcel of what I did regularly. In fact I remember doing such releases even when I was pregnant! But now, somehow, I found it very very tiring and stressful; I took almost a week to get over the dreadful feeling and get back to my normal working style. For a couple of days after that, I really did not feel like working at all!

What followed was something rather atypical for me – I decided to take off on a work-day, mid-week and for no reason! I just didn’t feel like going into work and facing another routine work-day 😦 I called the hubby and asked told him that he needs to take leave the following day and we would go out – probably catch a movie or just chill doing something else. Poor guy, reacted like a cat caught in the headlights! 😀 But he did some juggling around with his meetings and work-stuff and obliged like a dutiful husband 😛 The next day I was up and about at the usual time – the plan was, we would finish all chores like everyday, drop off our son at school and go catch a movie at the matinee show. The little fella, clever that he is, was surprised to see me at home – normally I am off to work by the time he wakes up in the morning. He seemed confused – what day is it?, he asked. Is it Saturday? Why aren’t you at work? I won’t go to school! 😮 He was even more suspicious when he saw his dad in non-formal clothes! 😀 After side-stepping his tricky questions, we managed to drop him to school and went on our way to watch the movie Neerja.

Neerja is a biographical thriller about Neerja Bhanot, the brave air-hostess who laid down her life in her call of duty. Her efforts thwarted the hijacking attempt of the Pan AM flight in Karachi on 5th Sept 1986 – she prevented the flight from taking off by having the presence of mind to inform the pilots in time for them to flee the plane. Her heroism and calm, cool-headed handling of the dire situation resulted in 360 hostages being saved from the hijackers’ hold. Instead of trying to save herself, she chose to save the lives of hundreds of passengers, showing immense courage and strength of character. The film was motivational and an example of how ‘work is worship‘ for several people – like our brethren from the armed forces and others like Neerja.

I wasn’t too impressed by Sonam’s portrayal as Neerja – she seems more suited and at ease with roles like the one in Khoobsoorat; but the scene-stealer was definitely Shabana Azmi. The feelings of what a child’s loss means for a mother, couldn’t have been brought to life more poignantly by anyone else. She is outstanding, especially in the last scene and one cannot but leave the theatre with misty eyes and a lump in the throat!

After the movie, we grabbed some lunch and walked the shopping streets leisurely – doing more looking-into-windows than actual shopping; but happy to have the road to ourselves sans the crowds, thanks to it being a weekday. And just like that, the little get-away was over! 😦 Soon, it was time to go back – to be faithful to our line of duty, on the home-front and to get ready for the challenges of the work-day on the morrow. I felt much better the next day at office and am now back peering into the laptop screen and trying to tame/ slay the usual work-demons! These little, especially mid-week jaunts, do a world of good, I tell ya! 😀

The year that has been…

It has been a rather long time since I posted anything here – updating this space has become more and more difficult. As I get on with life and work and home-stuff, I wonder how I had the energy and the inclination to post here regularly in those early days… But yeah, there’ve been some occasions when I stopped to think – ok, I can write about that in my blog. So I guess it’s not time to shut down the blog yet. As long as I feel this urge to get back and put something down here, I guess I should just have it here…

The new year came by and went past – we’re well into the year, having completed almost 3 months – I always feel that these initial few months in a new year tend to just whiz by and you hardly realize where the days went! Here’s what I can recollect of my past 3 months:

New year’s eve – we did nothing, just stayed put at home, put the little one to bed as usual, watched some movies on TV, called up a few loved ones and wished them at the strike of midnight and then went to bed.
Jan 1st – I had taken the day off and we had decided to go out for lunch/ dinner. All of us had a leisurely day and went to Commercial street in the evening… spent some time gorging on some chaats at Bhagatrams and doing window shopping – it had been quite sometime since I’d been there and there were lot of new shops which had come up, selling lovely but expensive stuff, of course! We finally went to the Konark restaurant and wound up the day with an early quiet dinner.

January – was otherwise uneventful. Having decided to change jobs, I was spending my last few weeks at my previous organization and was busy wrapping up stuff. I treated my team for lunch – which turned out to be quite expensive, despite the combo offers etc. at Pizza Hut and they in turn hosted a lovely little farewell meeting for me. Everybody had such nice things to say – including the managers! – which I suppose is a good way to say goodbye! 🙂 They also presented a Titan gift card, thanks to which I am the proud owner of two new Titan watches! 😀
Jan end was when I joined my new place of work and I was immediately put on the job at the client place. It was work and more work from day one and there’s been no let up till now…

February – I was looking forward to Feb, what with promises of a couple of weeks of travel on work. But it turned out to be quite a dampener with the talks being just that and all plans fizzling out 😦 Feb also was the month when we had planned our little one’s chowla/ mundan ceremony – but that too didn’t work out due to the sudden demise of an elderly extended family member on the husband’s side. Not being able to celebrate the sister’s and the new bro-in-law’s birthdays was another sad side-effect of this untimely event 😦

March – has been quite busy so far – the kiddo’s mundan cremony pushed from Feb, was carried out successfully this time – with some puja and homas at home, followed by the actual chowla being done at Nanjangud. It was a successful event on all counts – with a good turnout by all invited family members and the festivities at home carried out without a hitch. Also the trip to Nanjangud was enjoyed with close family and loved ones and the best part was – the little one did not so much as cry during the actual shaving. This was a h-u-g-e relief for all of us who were expecting tantrums and what nots!
So the little one is now a gundu-paapa – well no longer actually, there’s already scores of spikes of hair on his head, which miraculously sprouted the very next day! wow!

But not everything has been hunky-dory though – the kiddo had the annual day function at his playschool last week for which he was selected to be part of an act which had them dressed in birds’ costumes. He was chosen to be a peacock and was given a beautiful costume with long lustrous feathers… We kept talking to him about it and tried to keep him pepped up and he wore the costume in the evening all right. But when it was time for the act, he decided to turn on his worst clingy behaviour and refused to go on stage! We were aghast and tried coaxing him and what not, but he just didn’t budge. Well, the show must go on and it did, even without our little man. He had a chance to atleast pose for the group photo, which too he refused to so. Needless to say, we were disappointed and left perplexed by many unanswered questions… hopefully this is a one-off thing and he will learn to enjoy himself by taking part in such events/ performances further on…

Well, that’s been my year so far… we have a couple of big things lined up for this year – my son’s move to the big school being one of them. I’m just hoping that all goes on as per plan and turns out well! *fingers crossed*