I don't know what to write now, though I signed in thinking I'd write something..hmmm

anyway... it's Saturday. Thank god it's Saturday!!!

May be that's all I've got to say now...

- Snow

until then...

In feb, I went to kathmandu to meet my folks and then ofcourse to the mountains :). I was away from this busy n complicatedly advanced city life. Being in the green world of nature, mountain, fresh air, pure water and beautiful people who live simple life ..their smiling faces, warm n hospitable culture and a happy attitude. Sometimes I feel lil sad coz I just can't go up there whenever i feel like. It's always a long wait. Whenever i get there i ask myself "when possibly will i get to live this kind of simple, content, peaceful life in the arms of the mountains and close to the beauty of nature?"..and the answers obviously is .."Not before I retire". Well.. we land up where we find our means of making a living and that shapes up this whole thing called our life.

About three months back mermaid, me and my family had gone to my bro's Monastery. It's a pretty lovely place. My bro took me and mermy to his place and we went up on the terrace. It was a lovely evening, we could see the sun setting slowly, it was breezy, we got a 360 degree view of the place with small hills around and corn farms spread across surrounding the monastery. Mermy said ' I wish we could live in such a place', and I said the same. And then finally both of sort of said together...we can do that probably only after we retire, so lets work hard now to get to retirement.This place is just 4-5 hrs away from our city and yet we felt that it's beyond our reach to think of living in such a place for now , it might take another 15-20 yrs or so...

So yes..I'm waiting for my retirement [from the corporate job ]. Well, the moment people hear this, many might just label me as being lazy or unambitious to think like that right now when i'm still at the initial phase of my career. And our elders would react saying ' You are still young and have a long way to go , this is the time for you to work hard.. during our times we did this & that ..the typical way of elders reacting & advising :)... but it's not so pessimistic to think like that, because the harder I work now and save the sooner i can retire from job. So it also means that I'd like to work hard & save enough. And the fact that i'm saying I'm waiting for my retirement & look forward to it also means that i'd like to work for it. We can't retire if we don't work at all.

My sis in law's parents were here and her dad got sweets - he retired from his work and got his first pension. He's on the other side of it .I thought it's a long way for me to reach that phase - to retire and start getting pension:). Until then keep working...

- snow

Yes, retirement is something we need to work really hard for. That's become our ambition in life now - to retire peacefully in a peaceful and quiet and beautiful place. I too come across a number of people who think that not wanting to achieve "success", not wanting to get on the top most rung of the corporate ladder - is being lazy, unambitious, uncompetitive.. but the truth is it is up to us how we'd like to define being "ambitious"...

I'd like to retire in a green beautiful place, have access to the beach, have a li'l house with red-oxide flooring (yes, that's a must)... have lovely green trees in the backyard.. have li'l grand kids come n visit me and me cooking for them (yes, that's unbelievable, but what's the harm imagining?)... have hot tea sitting amidst the beautiful green trees in the evening... such a lovely life... wish i could get there right away... but i guess the beauty of retiring lies in getting old, having seen life, and being "on the other side" like snow says. i'd still like to think that i'm young, so will have to wait for many many years to get there :)

hope the wait is worth it.... until then, keep working...

- mermaid

PS: Retirement here means retiring from the corporate rat race and going on to do something of our interests and being where we would like to be....ofcourse work will continue till the end :)

thought cloud

This is a thought cloud of our blog. Thanks to Navoch for coming out with this thing, but it's still not working as expected I guess... it hasn't scanned the whole blog n hasn't really picked all the words obviously...
It is supposed to pick all the words from the blog and then put them in the form of cloud ...so the words that appear bigger are the words used most number of times and in that order to the smallest ones being the least mentioned...
:( how unfair it has been to me.... It shows Mermy's name sooo big and mine is not seen...So i thought it was being unfair to me coz i'm the one who has written more so far...
then I realized that since i'm the one who writes more I always mention mention mermy here n there and myself as me or I..thats why it doesn't show snow as big!
So next time i'll just write Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow :) so that it's visible and big..

first day...

Oh I'm coming here after many days :), feels good..
Monday was the first day at the play school for my little nephew. Poor tiny toddler of just two and a half has to start going to school. He just came into the world and before understanding too much of it, he's already in school.
I remember how excited he was for the past few days and everyday he carried his little bag, wore his tiny shoes and wanted to go to school. He loves going out..so guess he interpreted the word "school" as some fun place he can go and come back with family...
I couldn't go to school with him to drop him on his first day of his life in school coz I had to come to office, but i heard his mom and dad went to drop him..and they have taken his picture before going to school [which is all excited and happy] and after coming out of it [Crying...crying n crying..]. He cried throughout those 1.5 hrs he was there. Each day after returning from school when people asked him about his experiences in school he would just not speak about it - "No comments!!". I came back from office and was curious to know about his experience at school...
So as soon as I returned home I started asking questions...
How was your school??
He asked.. "Anee what is mummy doing?"
I said cooking..now tell me did you like school?
And he said..what is mummy cooking?
Then I asked "Did you play at school?
And he asked "what is this? [pointing at a painting hanging on the wall, he never bothered about it before]
And then to avoid my school related questions he kept asking me what is this and that to all the random things he saw around...non stop!!!
I was quite amazed to see the tiny one avoiding the topic he dislikes so diplomatically. He never argued or cried like most kids would do when they hear 'school', he didn't even show any frustrations over those many questions about school by everybody...but he would would either stay quiet or change the topic immediately...like he didn't even wanna think of it or didn't want any of us to think and talk about it..


That was the first day when he was kept with strangers with nobody from family around. and I just imagined how he must have felt during those hrs at school. As he cried all the time,,it must have been a very difficult time for him.. Now i don't remember my first day at school, but I remember how I used to be so damn scared even if I was left alone for 1 min among strangers. It used to be frightening!!


So on one hand it's lil sad that the kiddo has to start going to school at just two so that he gets smarter by then time he goes to pre - school and then to Jr. & Sr. KG classes. I hear people talking about their 2 - 3 yr old kids are going to be interviewed ..parents being all tensed about how they will fare...funny and sad coz the toddlers don't know what an 'interview' means..but they are gonna be judged based on what they say in that half an hour.
It's a very competitive world and so parents will worry about and push their kids even before they know what 'competition' means..
On the other hand, the world is moving faster and becoming much more competitive. So we have to prepare the new ones to be smart, independent, strong and stay ahead, so it makes sense to let them start early..
So the kiddo is still taking time to get used to school, he still cries everyday...
All I can say is "Welcome to the world of "school" kiddo....u r gonna be attending classrooms at least for the next 18 yrs or so...it's unavoidable!!!"


Well I just hope he builds on good memories of his school life and uses the wonderful tool called "education and good values" to become a good guy when he's out of school...
Good luck boy!!!


- Snow

bored.....

Am on a boring conference call and the best thing to do at this time i thought was, well, to write something... its been 2 hrs on this call, and the day before, i was on a call for 5 hrs... Wish I could walk out of these meaningless calls when people try to say the same thing over and over and over in 100 different ways... wish i could say "shut up, i dont want to listen to u!!" oh great, now 1 guy who's also on the call pings me on our communicator and says "lets talk about this other thing. can we have an alternate call??" yeah right!! join a conf call, plug in the ear phones, listen to people rattle about something which doesn't interest you in the remotest way, and then get on an "alternate call" with another disinterested soul to discuss the "other" thing... God!! i wish i took take a loooooong break. hmmmm... on second thoughts, not really. like snow said, thank God we have a job. there are so many people who've lost their jobs because of this economic slowdown. there's so much drama going on everywhere... an airline sacks 1000s of people one day and re-inducts them the next saying they're family. then there are 2 bigwigs claiming responsibility for the re-induction... may everything settle down quickly, i pray...

- Mermy

Back to business

It was an eventful week long off from work. Though I couldn't go to Himachal or even Ooty, it was still good [Although i understand I'd still like to blame mermy a bit for this]. On the other hand I did get frustrated for like 5 mins everyday for not being able to utilise the longest set of holidays available in the year to go long distance. Anyway...spent time in cooking like i used to once upon a time, cleaning my cupboard, sorting all the bills n documents, going to banks, playing badminton with mermy n neelu, went to garden, lil bit of shopping, giving good..valuable n sensible suggestions to my bros and quarrelling with them when they don't pay any heed, missing my little nephew a lot and everyday hoping that he'll talk to me more than just saying .."bbye, take kya, mizz u" on phone. It's just soooo wonderful listening to the baby's voice and the new rhyme he's learnt "watermelon,watermelon, payaya..payapa...chickoo..chickoo..chickoooo chickooo..." . But I couldn't finish all the work i had listed down:(. Also, attended the first full fledged interview after 2.5 yrs which gave me good insights , was an eye opener and got to know my market value :)...made me think n think a lot. But good learning experience!!
Mermy didn't take any leaves from work, she was working on each day but she also did most of the things I did each day ....how is that?? I won't say :P. Now being back to office does give a lil boring feeling, and i can feel my expression change to the default one :| when am at work ..but then it's good.. I atleast have work to do, unlike many people who are suffering from the economic meltdown now...may god help everyone!
- Snow

to the secret[thief] blog reader..

This post is dedicated to the secret blog reader who seems to be a regular reader of our blog [we discovered that today], and has struggled a lot to be able to read our blog. We would like to thank her for considering it worthy enough to struggle and read [very few people are aware of our blog, and even the ones who have it..don't really read it, coz we don't write great stuff and a lot of stuff]..So thanks stranger ;)
Well...actually this post is dedicated to our friend who frequently goes in hiding and loses touch n sometimes after a long long time..in the odd hours ..suddenly calls up n says "hey can u find the travel agents no. in trichur and msg me?" and cuts the phone... and very likely that she would not to show up or msg or call for next 6-7 months unless something comes up for which we are the most suitable candidates for information... :) . Mermy and she always fight about this one thing.....she never says "hi,,how r u?" when she msgs or calls...coz she thinks it's too formal and awkward, shouldn't be used with friends...so we really wonder when to use "hi n how r u?"and mermy and she are still fighting since she still thinks it's odd to use "hi" with friends and mermy counter attacks saying - never say hi to me..just sms what u want, when u want..save ur "hi..how r u" for strangers. Now every time if at all we have this little conversation with her...we both try to act like we are angry with her.. but i guess we have a deep sense of understanding that we are nice to her despite all this long "no show" behavior and her uniqueness and weirdness in her reasoning. :)
Anyway...so this time we realized that though she doesn't really keep in touch n if asked tells us she was in bangalore after leaving bangalore..so that even by mistake we don't bump into her or force her to meet us...she reads our blog regularly!!!!! Oh..we're honoured!!!
She told us that she really struggled to get access to our blog. It's blocked in her office, so then she tried to find some loop holes to find a way to be able to access it...she's quite a techy n intelligent. She still had issues accessing it..after trying several things here n there..she also registered our blog with google and by god's grace she's able to access it n read it. And this morning she said 'U girls should really thank me n dedicate a post for me"..so dedicating this post to you sweetheart...even if you don't care to keep in touch n respond to us really, u do manage to read our blog :)

- Snow
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Great Snow!! Love u for that!! You said thanks but making sure that you let the stranger-friend know how she hurts us each time by not saying hi (sob, sob) ;-)

Dear stranger-friend,

(Have to call u this coz we can never forget that u r a friend, but u r also a virtual stranger by ur own choice)

First of all, thanks for secretly reading our blog and adding to the readership value though u don't post any comments - and we completely understand that you are not able to do that and you only see the blog in read-only mode. So thanks a ton. Specially considering that u don't have the time to stay in touch or bother to find out how we are doing - and we get to know from 3rd party resources about ur whereabouts, thanks a hundred tons!!

That apart, saying Hi to friends is never formal - refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi (If you have trouble accessing this from office, here's what it says - "HI or Hi may refer to: An informal way to say hello" ). I know what u r thinking - I know wikipedia cannot be considered like a bible for anything because it depends on what people put in there. All arguments aside, let's settle for this - u can call/message/mail once in a decade and say Hi and we'll surely reply to ur Hi.

Now comes the genuine - bottom of my heart - thanks. To God. For the wonderful friendship we share, that we can keep nagging and quarrelling - and yet maintain this friendship. Love you, stranger-friend!!

(Any arguments, you can always call us. You can rest assured that we WILL answer your call).

- Mermy

Unsolicited Advice, Uninvited Comments

One unique thing about India, or probably Asia, is that you get a lot of unsolicited advice and uninvited comments- from people u know, u don't know or haven't seen/met ever before in your life. Snow and I get a lot of them these days. So many that we thought we should dedicate a post to all those advisors.
Mermaid: Some of the advices/ comments that I got to hear in the past month:
From a concerned colleague - "Use this special pink cream - very effective. My wife used it and her skin infection disappeared in a week... No, no, no, no.... Those r not pimples on ur face. That's skin infection."
From a girl in the apartment building - "Apply tulsi everyday - will surely help. Don't mind me saying this ok??"
From a lady at a shop - "Use this Malaysian cream that my sister sells. Its EXCLUSIVE - and will surely work. Your pimples will go away in 3 months. Look at me. I am using it for the past 3 years!! Here, take my number and my sister's too. U can call us anytime, OK?"
From another colleague - "Oh, you've got clear skin". Mermaid - "Clear skin? Where can u see clear skin on my face?" C - "No, except for the pimples yaaa" OKAY!!!
The funny thing is, it's not just my skin that bothers me but also my weight. And although I always think people notice that I've put on so much weight in the past 2-3 years, it seems as if the whole world is conspiring to make me fatter! Nobody gives me any advice - useful or useless - about losing weight. I feel they're all strategizing to make me fatter so they can all look thin...

Snow: My turn to share how the whole world seems to be concerned about me, my weight, my wedding. Since the level of concern has been showing a steep rise over past few months....it's been fun listening to all of them. Following their advices is secondary but listening to them has been fun..so I welcome all the comments n advices.
On weight:
Some people who have seen me straight after 2.5 yrs react real bad. their comments are hard hitting n come out real quick in surprise.
A shocked n highly concerned guest:A relative whom I met before but spoke for the first time immediately saw me n said "what happened to you? U were so good earlier???" a statement like tht from a new person was surprising. What he meant was "Oh u've become so fat" and then when I was going to have tea, he immediately suggested me to go and exercise and told me to play badminton and he was so concerned that he said he'd come with me to play if I need. lol
From Eye Doc: I went for my eye check up and the doc who otherwise talks only business and doesn't talk of anything except for 'eye' said "U've put on lil weight ....i mean not much but lil bit"
From a shopkeeper: Even after gaining weight, I thought I'd find something of my size at this place I'd shop frequently before (when I was thin). The man politely said "These tops are for lil bit thin people". In other words, he was politely saying "fat girl, get out of this place! there's nothing for u here"..hahaha
On marriage:
Some people think that I MUST get married now, some people with their conventional mindset might think i'm even crossing my marriageable age now. So am bombarded with a lot of gyan on the benefits of getting married , why one should marry...what kind of life partner to look for etc etc.. and sometimes i think what irritates few of them is that i just keep listening and i don't reciprocate at all. Atleast am being a good listener :)
A friend at office: Everyday while travelling to n from office, she starts off trying to explain to me about the benefits of marriage, its the right time now etc, and finally ends her gyaan session something like this - " u r pathetic, Can't u make a bf, u don't want to get married, u r not interested in the guys around u...what's wrong with u". she looks out for guys for me, finds out details about them, and even rejects them on my behalf without even bringing me in the picture. she suddenly announces that she rejected somebody for me!! the reason for rejection would be even that the guy's name isn't good enough!! hahahaha. she spots guys at traffic signals or on the road and tries to show me that they're good candidates for me. at the traffic signal???
A very sweet colleague: We never discuss our personal lives with each other, but this sweet guy tells me one day "if u r ever interested in South Indian guys, please let me know. I'll find someone for u" :-D N then he says "but why don't u keep a bindi on ur forehead?" lol
Another colleague: She's in the HR team and so has easy access to people's information. She too tries looking for potential candidates at office..how much they ear, designation n whenever i bump into her..she says 'Hey i saw somebody good for u' ...oh c'mon!
I think people outside keep pestering more than my family... but sometimes when family advices come out, they are quite serious, so don't want to discuss them. This is like a never ending discussion - constant advices from elder bro, suggestions and offers from friends will continue until i decide to get married. Mermy doesn't have to go thru these advices because she's already made the announcement ;)
Apart from people pointing out our "Scope for Improvement", both of us still manage to get some compliments but we are too humble to write about them ;) heeeeeeee

Isn't it wonderful being in this part of the world where people are so genuine in their comments...good or bad ..they just tell us things and continue giving those unsolicited advices and uninvited comments about our lives...
Thanks to all for being kind enough to spare their precious time to discuss our problems and for their kind/ serious/ nasty/funny comments n advices.We dont guarantee we'll take all ur advices ..but we still welcome ur UNSOLICITED advices and comments..it's fun listening to others talking about our life...

The coconut tree & the leafy tree..

My office space in the corner is a nice place comparatively as there are only two windows on my floor and majority of the people do not sit beside the windows. For most of us here the weather remains the same whole day. Once we enter office and hit our floor, it's the same whether day or night. So I'm privileged to have this cubicle that is right next to the window, the only way to look at the outside world from this confined place. Sometimes...people ask me from a distant what's the weather like? is it gonna rain? etc.. and i give the weather updates :)Right outside the window I see a tall coconut tree & another leafy tree [I don't know which tree this is but it has lots of leaves on it]. And the two act as a stress buster for my eyes during those long days at office, when everything inside seem to look stale ...the computer, people, work, Internet ..everything!!! It is during such times when I go through restless, monotonous and suffocated feelings that I just look outside at these two dear friends...who really help me calm down. I glare & stare for sometime at the trees , every swinging branch, and the leaves on them. When it's windy they all swing and make it look so lively. It feels like all the leaves and branches are swaying at me, singing loudly for me to cheer me up. Now am not so fond of coconut and a lot of things to do with coconuts, but I kind of feel very attached to this tree outside my window. I feel like we communicate without words many times.. the two lovely trees are always standing there to watch me. When am bored, stressed and feeling low they just wait for me to look at them. And when I look at them they say "Hey girl..cheer up" and dance like the pompom girls/cheerleaders when it's breezy...and when it's not windy they just send out those calm soothing energy to me.If someday I don't see them here, I'll surely miss them. I can see them standing outside right now. If someday I leave this place...I better thank them for making life easier for me here and for their unconditional support :)
-Snow

laugh till u can cry!!!!

god!!!! this was after centuries! i haven't laughed so hard in ages, n m pretty sure snow hasn't either. i was browsing through my system n found this really funny pic of ours - snow and mine - both of us have this wierdo expression... it so funny!!!! i sent it to snow as a stress buster and boy, did it work!! she called me and she's like "what is it exactly that u were trying to do that made u make such a face?" God! i wish i could post the pic here - no i don't actually, because if it were worth posting, it wouldn't have been so funny!!! snow said - "keep this pic for urself, when u want to have a laugh, but keep it confidential". i will, snow :-)

God, it's so refreshing to laugh until u have tears in ur eyes!!!!

- mermaid

Lemme say my reaction when you sent this to me in office tday...

I was busy n bit confused n serious after my colleague came n told me we need to give an update to our boss ..so get this done for the review. Then i saw this mail from mermaid in my inbox, opened it and uff i laughed so loud ..it was out of control....btw I wasn't laughing at my pic, i was laughing at mermy's pic. finally I closed the pic..stopped laughing...got tempted again..opened it and then laaaaaughed...closed it...opened it and laaaaaughed...everytime I challenged myself I won't laugh this time...it didn't work. I finally called her n shouted at her why did she send this pic to me?...and both of us went on this Hahahahahah..hahahahha...hahahaha...we had to hang up the phone to stop laughing. Couple of ppl around me must have thought i've gone insane tday.

I remember both of us laughing endlessly uncontrollably just like today a year back. So am thinking we can keep this pic confidential [Confidential b'coz it's too funny to show anybody...and a master piece weird expression of mermaid] and probably look at it every year or later when we become old women ...every time we need a very high dose of laughter!!!!

- Snow

through the baby's eyes...

We were sitting in the living room n watching tv on friday evening.. me, my two bros and our tiny naughty two year old nephew. I don't know what exactly ppl were watching , but our kiddo didn't demand his cartoon or dance today. There was a martial art movie going on- i guess that got the baby interested. It was one of those outdated action movies where the villain party has all sorts n levels of fighters and they send the next level (more dangerous one) if the hero continues defeating each one sent.. One such scene which i happened to see, suddenly after the hero is done fighting one and takes a deep breath, the camera turns and behind the hero is a huge dangerous man...he's supposed to look scary, so the face is unpleasant to look at, like brown patches of plastic/poly materials that's become his skin now. The patch is black/brown, rough and tampered. Very unpleasant.... My bro changed the channel immediately so that the kiddo doesn't see such an unpleasant thing .We all looked at him with concern thinking that the baby might have got lil scared. The baby moved his eye from the TV screen and looked at me and asked so innocently with all the actions in his almost clear words, in that tiny sweet voice. He asked "Anee(Aunt) that uncle had chocolate on the face, why? why chocolate on the face? did he fall on chocolate? Why?....Aneee?... why?...." We couldn't imagine that actually, we expected him to get scared! ..That made all of us smile. We grown ups could look at it as an unpleasant face, the baby perceived it as chocolate on the face. Our perception is influenced so much by our knowledge. the kid's knowledge is limited to cake, chocolate, icecream ...all the nice things and thats how he relates. A baby of two is still innocent and still unware of the negative emotions n influences in the world and through his eyes he sees the world around him as wonderful...
hmm...interesting!!

- Snow

a memorable adventure

Both mermaid and I were actually tired of cribbing about the boring monotonous life confined to our computers and office cubicles. I was really tired of just seeing us in this phase for quite long now and not even doing something about making our own lives any interesting...anyway, something happened and both of us decided to just go for some adventure. I think i'm more excited about adventure in nature than mermaid used to be...but I was really surpirsed to see her all enthu about going somewhere , doing something adventurous. Though I didn't tell her, deep inside I felt great to see this change in her of beginning to explore adventure. Thank god! now we'll have many memories of going places which we couldn't do in five years of our friendship. Our trip really turned adventurous because of the friends we went along with...bunch of very active, funny, adventure and fun loving guys. Wouldn't be as much fun without them!!It was also like a reunion. For a long time.. almost three years we had not been in touch with most of them. But we reallly really needed a break i guess, so when they offered us to join the trip, in the midst of lot of work deadlines, we decided to just join them and experience some adventure.

Not that we didn't come up with reasons for why we should probably drop out as work was calling for the priority ...I remember during such discussion Mush said something that was worth a thought. he said " C'mon you dedicate 365 days of your year to work, you leave everything else aside when it comes to work, can't you just give two days for your self". Ahh, that really rang the bell in my head. "Get up boring girl, don't crib...and break free" So five of us - Mush ,Harish, Suneesh, mermaid and me set out for this two day memorable trip. later my bro Sangye joined us on the way. So six of us. I guess for the guys it was like just another weekend trip they went for, considering their lives are pretty active and adventurous. For us it was a refreshing n memorable break.

The trip: Saturday 12th July '08

Mush, Harish and Suneesh were supposed to pick us at 3:30am sharp on saturday morning. So both of us hardly slept for 1-2 hrs and then woke up got ready...got remined of our night shift job when we used to wake up midnight and go throught the continous pukish feeling. But we were obedient enough to get all ready by 3:30 and waited for them to call us. No call from mush passed 3:30. Called mush to find out that the cab has not come by and harish is not awake. Both of us got lil wild obviously. While i was still sleepy and i think mermaid too...we waited n waited. called them again..finally at 4:30 they arrived. Finally we took off on our trip...thank god!!

In the cab, Harish was still strugging to try to find a comfortable position to sleep. Being tall is not always advantageous and being plump ofcourse not ;). Mush was sitting with the driver and guiding him ..later he took on to entertaining him as well. Suneesh was pretty active and was preventing harish from falling on his shoulder while trying to sleep. Mermaid told Harish, "I want to shout at you, please tell me when you wake up" how polite.. As we started moving out of banaglore, I felt great, mermaid also looked calm n composed. We were not sleepy anymore. Soon we saw the sunrise...it was a really good morning!!

Then there was a long long drive, everyone was quiet since harish was not awake...it was peaceful with blue sky on top, green hills and trees on either side and we just driving down the road ahead. The journey was faster and less painful now, thanks to the new broad improved bangalore- mysore road. Even beyond Mysore the road was rebuilt and freshly painted. We reached Bylakuppe at around 9:30am in the morning and picked up my bro from the monastry and then we headed to madekeri. After crossing Mysore district as we were heading towards Madekeri, the whole landscape started looking like a hill station, lush green tall trees and thick jungle throught out the drive, with some coffee plantations in between. Thats the natural beauty you can't experience being in the city. We reached madekeri at around 11am. We haulted at hotel Atithi, ordered some regular south indian breakfast from the Dosa family - onion dosa, paper dosa, plain dosa and it was surprising to realize that we couldn't get idli. Hard to believe not to get idli in South India. But in a way what we found is that the culture and the life style of the people of coorg is relatively different from the rest of the typical south Indian culture, it's like a blend of hilly lifestyle and south Indian culture. A beautiful calm place with simple life. Breakfast/brunch was accompanied by this lovely soft drizzle, very soothing to the eyes. After breakfast we headed to our 'home stay'. A very nice furnished house with two bedrooms, living room and a kitchen. We decided to just freshen up and move to Sreemangala for rafting. It was always the boys behaving like women(not the simple ones, the ones who are very fussy and point each other for making the fuss), taking lot of time for everything. We were ready pretty fast. The guys got ready after fighting, arguing on things. Each one claimed he was faster than the others and fought like dogs. Finally, we left for Sreemangala - The rafting place...

Aaah, the drive was soooo beautiful, the scenic beauty on either side of the road kept me awestruck and I couldn't stop admiring it. The jerks and bumps that we suffered due to sitting on the last row was all offset with this beautiful view outside the cab. There was so much greenary and the air was sooooo pure, chill and soothing. Lovely!!!!

Through out the journey mermaid and I were relatively quiet. Sometimes I would turn my head and look at her apart from looking outiside at nature, I always saw her sitting quiet, looked like she was in deep thoughts with her eyes wide open, without blinking much. So i think both of us were thinking a lot. My monk bro was always like a decent silent monk. But just in the front rows...lot of activites were going on. The three musketeers were upto all the mischies they could manage in the cab. Harish never missed a chance to pull Mush's leg and trying to prove him silly, Suneesh always added fuel to the fire. The journey was longer than expected...asking ppl for directions and couple of times going reverse (killing time) to head to the right direction.

Whenever these boys got a chance they wasted time. And the three of us, Sangye,Mermaid and me never wasted a single min. we were in the cab since they packed us in the last row when we started off. The three big boys took multiple 5 min breaks for two things - 1. the nature's call 2. their own call and craving for "smoke". They hardly bothered about eating.

There was no music in the cab, since no one got any music cds. Mush proudly took out his ipod, rather tried showing it off, but none of his acts would work when harish was present to degrade it. Mush couldn't stop saying "hey check this out man, the song collection". Harish & Suneesh took turns to analyze it and obviously how could they be nice to him! Both said the songs were crappy and even the ear phones were pathetic. Mush promptly took it back from them and then punished ppl for laughing at his ipod. with his ipod plugged into his ears he started singing loudly...actually braying louder and louder. The driver was a brave guy...he could still manage to be calm and composed. We were laugning out loud. Sangye woke up laughing loudly when he heard Mush singing.. and I really wondered how did the driver never ever laughed once. May be his singing helped him stay awake!! Or may be he was just being professional.

The cab had a vcd player, which the guys figured out much later. So now they wanted to watch some movie. We had very limited choices - 'Mungaru male', yarana, 'U, me aur Hum', fanaa.
Again they fought over which movie to play... mush loves fanaa, b'coz he loves kajol's eyes. Harish wanted yarana, suneesh said we won't watch mungaru male. Mush also wanted to watch 'U, me aur Hum' b'coz again he liked kajol's eyes. we the ppl in the back row didn't have any preferences or differences. Ultimately Harish won and played 'yarana' Harish was linking his and mush's story of friendship with the story of this movie. Harish has this great capability to come up with instant non stop humor ...Admirable!! If i write about the funny conversations between them...it may never end.
Harish's story - During the scene where the two friends are parting ways... Harish said " this is exactly how mush cried when i was going for my MBA. So I said I will not go unless you come along with me...and mush said "nooo i'm so dumb, how can I do an MBA??? you come back and i'll be right here waiting for you"...lol..if you've watched the scene/movie u'll laugh at this. So finally we thought we reached the "rafting" place, but we realized that we had to travel 12 kms more :(. Later around 3:30pm we reached the rafting place 'Upper Barapole white water rafting'



Rafting: Barapole River

The road to the rafting spot looked like a one way track, absolutely narrow road leading us through the dense green trees n bushes. finally we reached somewhere. Parked the cab. Looked deserted. The big boys went to find the river and we were left alone. a bit scary like stranded in an african jungle. Then a man appeared suddenly from behind us. We still don't know how he just appeared so suddenly. He immediately started asking questions - how many of you? where did you come from? which car? where have you parked it?...we were skeptical to answer him. Finally I managed to ask him " Are you the organizer?", he was the one. So then we answered his queries. Immediately we went to begin our really fast training session..

We got the view of the water we would go rafting. The water was green, still and the surrounding looked like a marshy area. Just like the crocodile's habitat!
Now i started feeling quiet nervous, but the rafting team was all set and they started off with their procedures. A guy dressed like a cow boy just popped up and asked told me "give me your camera and all the valuables"...I was like "Ohh, what? who are you?" but i didn't say this loud to him. We were pretty surprised and skeptical. Once confirmed he was part of the organizing team, we gave him the camera and other valuables. There was this funny style about this cow boy...both of us can't stop laughing about it even now.


Then started the crash course..it was really a very quick training session. Before we could mentally even prepare to go into the water all the instructions on how to row, commands - right forward, left backward, down, safety measures etc started off. and before we could even sink the instructions in our head the guide pulled the raft in the water...ready to gooooo.

This was the first time for all of us except for harish.. despite that all of them seemed so cool about the whole thing. Ignorance is bliss...so true. We had no idea of the experience of rafting. It didn't look so bad when we watch on TV, but here we were all set to go. The boys were all happy, jumpy, not bothered to lsiten to the instructor...considering we didn't know to swim, never plunged my head under water and never intended to plunge in green water...I was scared n skeptical now.

Ok, we started off...me went thru a mixed feeling of nervousness n scared (60%), and trying to be exited and happy(40%). Mermaid looked bit fine. Others were jumping, yelling...excited!!!!


Our instructor was a professional, bit strict and a sweet chap..with some serious humor in him.
Just as we rowed a bit and moved in the water, it was time to practice how to not drown incase we fell in water. Hmm...scared again :( . The boys were already in the water, having fun. Even if we know the fact that with a life jacket we won't drown, it is scary to go in this unclear green water. I gathered all the courage and jumped in. Like i said I never dipped my head in water...and here i went down head first. I almost experienced drowing, i was all panicky and it felt like something was pulling me, not letting me come up. I thought i was drowing, but soon my life jacket took me up. I swollowed water and that irrtation on my throat lasted till the nex day.
Our guide pulled me up finally. Coincidently he was from Nepal. So he gave me some gyan in nepali and told me not to get scared. My experience made mermaid bit nervous. Now she was skeptical about going into the water. The boys were having fun in the water...yelling, taking multiple dives. Sangye was trying all sorts of dives he could. Finally our guide Mahendra pushed her in the water. and I saw him laughing hard at her. He thought she was crying. hehe.

Then started the real rafting...we all got on the raft and moved..following our guide.
Once Harish asked Mahendra - " Are there snakes in the water?"..He replied seriously " No! the crocodiles eat them up"... what!!!!?? Witty guy scared us!
Then we crossed the first lil rapid , then the 2nd and the 3rd. Boys were having fun, I was lil scared sometimes and yelling like those silly girls do in hindi movies..couldn't help it. Our guide kept telling me 'don't be scared, nothing will happen'.. once these guys complained that he was giving the instructions in nepali n only to me..not fair! but how did that matter..since they wouldn't listen to him at all. Actually he was just telling me don't get scared and once he really got lil wild and said " U're a nepali girl, u shld be brave..what a shame"..

Before approaching the final rapid that was the most powerful one for us, we were made to get on the shore and take a view of the rapid. We all parked the rafting boat, got down and climed huge rocks to see the rapids. The water current looked pretty strong. Again the guide told me "don't worry, nothing will happen, u won't fall in it, very rarely people fall and it's my responsibility to save u". Then he said " Even if you fall , u will drown only if u r caught in the under currents. there u see ...there are those under currents" I was begining to get lil scared again. And finally he said" Even if u die, so what?? it's fine right, all of us have to die.." ...Was this the way to make someone feel safe n comfortable at such a moment?? I asked him if i could drop out , he gave a firm "No"

Anyway...we had to head to the raft and cross this last level 4 rapid, and i just told myself...be brave, there's no escape...and I felt much more better than before..Not so scared anymore.
The boys were yelling, so through out they were all excited and happy i guess. And we crossed the 4th rapid..and i know how happy I was, I was screaming...all of us were. After we got down from the raft...mermaid n I felt this greaaaat sense of achievement. We screameeeed and hugged each other as if we conqured the world. And there was mr. cowboy giving us that look with his tilted smile as if he was thinking "huh..they think they've conquered the world...silly girls"
The guys said it wasn't fun like the way it was elsewhere. All the complaints after so much of yelling and fun. We came back to place where the cab was parked. The guys again took really long time to change. As always they were slower than us. It was quite late by the time we finished...so we couldn't explore more. But this was really a great adventure for me atleast! Done one new thing in my life!!!

We came back to Madekeri by 10pm and we were tired, so we hit the bed. Next morning me, mermaid and sangye took a stroll around the town. The view reminded me of kathmandu due to the up n down landscape. There were pretty little flowers on the sides of the road. It was refreshing.

Later we got ready and headed back to Bangalore to get back to our regular life... Mush, Suneesh and Harish entertained us throughout the journey with their arguements, fights & silly jokes on each other. After returning it just felt like I need to go back again to explore more and experience more adventure, be close to nature again...it wasn't enough, it wasn't complete....

PS: This post has been pending for too long now...n I was thinking of dropping this idea of blogging about this trip. But I'm completing this for Mush and Harish now...

- Snow

hmm..

Snow & Mermaid are back to the busy busy schedule of work..
Life is confined to the office cubicle & computers for almost whole day...
good old busy days are back with multiple pain points in the body due to no physical activity and resting it too much on the chairs..
When we meet , we don't mind cribbing about it..
Had a really good short adventurous break,,but no time to blog about it now..so it stays as draft..god knows for how long.
Ya, thats all... life is currently confined to office cubicle, computer and the poor chair.

Some "fun" people we met in our first job...

So how did we get into our first job?
Snow White: Got out of college. Was looking for a job. Had never heard of the company before. And here I landed - naive in the corporate world... just coz this was the first offer that came my way.
Mermaid: Finished college. Circumstances brought the need to get into a job right away. Got thru in the interview and joined this place - not knowing what was in store!

But this post is not about what we did in our first job - rather about all the "fun" people we met there - most of whom we may never forget. It's worth writing about them coz it was the first and only time so far in our lives that we saw such variety of people all in one place. Some of whom we knew, some we didn't, but we still think of them and have a laugh sometimes. We don't mean to make fun of people, just appreciating their uniqueness and the way they were unintentionally funny :)

** He'd prefer suffixing his name with that of a great scientist, though we never saw the connection. Now he was absolutely serious and quiet, and despite being our teammate he never once spoke to us, yet everything was funny about this guy. Everything. He tried his best to be very very very sweet to the customers on the calls - so sweet that anybody would fear the customer would die if he had diabetes. The best part is when both of us would end up sitting in cubicles on either side of his, and imitate him on MSN and bend forward to look at each other and pass signals - and he would give us that deadly look, knowing we were up to something, but he could never guess what.
** Again another very serious guy and VERY sweet to customers. Wouldn't talk much to others. But sometimes suddenly you'd hear a croaking sound, and we'd think it is the sound coming from a spyware removal software when it finds spyware. Later we discovered it was him (clearing his nose), and from then on, he was called Adaware. Ofcourse he didn't know it.
** He was the self-confessed boyfriend of every girl on the floor (ofcourse he was kidding). He wrote his number in Snow White's diary - instead of writing his name, he wrote "boyfriend". He'd start his day by shaking hands with everybody, but once you shook hands with him, you'd really get annoyed. He'd shake your whole arm.
** A nice guy, with a thin frame, but sometimes he seemed to get that great feeling "Oh, I look great today. So I better walk like a handsome model walking the ramp". He'd put his chest up, try to broaden his shoulders, chin up, and once he'd start his ramp-walk, it would all look funny.
** This guy was hilarious. You couldn't stop laughing if u saw him on his calls. He'd be trying to solve a technical problem of an American customer on the call, but u could hear everything but technical things. Once on the phone, he was trying to teach a customer how to wear a dhoti - actions and all - "you take the dhoti between your legs" (and he actually bent forward to show how) "and take it out from behind" (he showed that too) "and tuck it in". How could an American see through his phone and understand this???
Snow White - Once I ended up sitting beside him. I had a serious issue I was trying to resolve, and this man is on phone saying "I will tell you how to make Makke Di Roti and Sarson Ka Saag" to an American. And he went on with his recipe. Poor American!
** This guy was supposed to give us technical guidance when we'd just started. Those were the initial days and we used to be terrified during our calls. The worst situations would be when we were supposed to solve technical problems which we'd never ever heard of, and that's when we needed his help the most. We'd run to him literally begging for help, with our customers on hold. And there he goes with his tales of his success in a similar situation before. "Ek banda tha..." ("there was this chap"...) and it never ends.
Mermaid - I'd feel like fast forwarding the story of his "banda" so that he comes to the point and helps me out.
Snow White - I'd feel like shutting his mouth and threatening him "You better help me first". Once he went on and on with his "banda" story but I really needed help coz my customer was getting wild. So I told him "Can u first help me, and then after my case is resolved, I'll listen to your banda's story?"
** This guy had that royal air about him - loud, sometimes gawdy and sometimes cute, like a lion in the jungle, a giant teddy bear. Atleast he'd eat like a king. We were cab-mates.
Snow White - During our journey to the office, I'd drift off to sleep. And suddenly I'd wake up to realize that I was resting my head on the big teddy bear's cushiony shoulder. I could only reach till his shoulder. I'd give him an apologetic look, and he'd look down at me saying without words "It's OK, better be careful next time". But this happened almost everyday. :-S
Mermaid - Yes, I was a witness to that!!! We have some common embarrassing situations with this guy. We almost always had a problem with his professional attitude. And one day, I went over to him and had this heavy argument and came back to my place and typed everything about it for Snow but ended up pasting it on his chat!!! And then I said "Oh sorry, I was trying some shortcut keys", and he said "OK". That was the dumbest thing I ever said, and ofcourse he knew what I was trying to do! :-S
Snow - Once I had a similar argument with him and I wanted to share this with Mermaid. Again I worked very hard on MSN, typed the long argument we had and pasted it on his chat!!! Same blunder repeated!! And since I couldn't come up with a smart reason like Mermaid's, I said "Sorry, I was trying something" and he gave a cold response - "OK". But again, he knew what that "something" was!
** Now in our fairytale, comes Sleeping Beauty. Unfortunately, it was a guy, nowhere close to beauty, but always sleeping. A friend, nice, funny guy, who can laugh at himself more than he can at others. Whatever accent he has, he's the only one in this whole wide world with it.
Snow White - I used to sit beside him for quite a long period. And I saved his job almost everyday. He still has gratitude for me. The way he'd drift off to sleep was funny. He would be in the middle of a critical issue - he'd have finished Step1, 2, 3 with the customer and when it was time to just click on the last OK, he'd sleep with his finger on the mouse. He'd end up clicking so much on his screen that when he woke up, he'd be surprised and say "Man! How did so many windows pop up?". And the way I used to wake him up was equally funny. It went through different stages -
1. I used to be polite and say "Excuse me, please wake up" and just tap on his shoulder.
2. When that didn't work, I used to shake his chair and shout at him. No more politeness.
3. As time passed, I'd just kick his chair and shake him up - the 6 ft tall kumbhakaran.
Later it became Mermaid's responsibility too.
** She was tall and smart looking - if you didn't know her, you'd think she was a smart and wise lady, somebody with common sense and wisdom like average people like us. But once you heard her talking to her customers, or rather seen her on calls with customers, she was funny. She was so artificial, everything was highly put-on about her. And what gave her the confidence to continue that, was probably that she felt she was the best. (Actually that's a commendable quality, but we still prefer someone more natural). Her way of being smart was funny. And the "smart" ways would peak up when you had new people and lot of crowd on the floor. Everyone invariably looked at her, and she took pride in it. Even when she was in the cab, she'd put on the style and poise to attract the crowd, but the crowd would be dead - tired after the night shift. Didn't work.
** Small(but powerful), smart, a nice girl, a friend. It was funny to see the way she would react when she got wild with the customer...her temper would rise and the higher it goes, she'd confront her customer with the most powerful, hard-hitting words that you just felt pity for the guy at the other end of the phone. Once a customer commented on the Indian accent. And her reply was "So, how many languages do YOU speak in America?". Whatever the guy said (they obviously don't speak more than 1 language), she shot back - "here we speak 5 different languages - the national language, the state language, mother tongue, regional languages and ofcourse English. So HOOOOW do you expect us not to have an influence of the other languages?" And there were no further arguments. Many of us would encounter irate customers but here was one irate Tech Support!
** Talking of mother-tongue influence, this sweet, funny guy had a heavy MTI. He'd give a damn for putting on an artificial accent and would go on in his own style. "Fodo(follow) the steps I am endering in the yemail and kol back if it doesn't work". "Yesterday 1 lodi(lorry) went over my feet". No offence meant, but the way he used to say it was very funny. The first time he communicated with Snow was when he was sitting next to her - and on chat, he says "ASL please"!!!
** Blessed with a dense bush on his head and face, u could find this guy with his ears, eyebrows, chin and every visible part of his face pierced. It was either hair or rings on his face. Once he came clean shaven and we couldn't recognize him.
** She had a seductive way of instructing people over phone - unintentionally ofcourse and that was what made it funny. Whenever we used to sit next to her, we'd really laugh hard. "Ookaaay Maaark, nooow click on Staaart" - wish we could record it and put it here :-D
** He was loud and passionate about his calls. He believed in 1 policy - educating the customer in the best possible way, so that he never ever forgets u or what u said. If you ever want to know the story of Troy, sit beside him and hear him educate the customer about Trojan horses (something like viruses - for more information, contact this man :-P )
** He was our cute manager. Inherently funny, very cute and sweet. There was something like Charlie Chaplin about him. And he was really troubled by us. We'd normally walk up to him whenever we had problems or to fight for something. He was once trying to hide under the table when he saw us coming :-D He did many funny things which we can't recollect, but he WAS really funny, naturally.
** This guy looked like a very traditional, innocent, religious, pious human being. But once he opened his mouth a different man would emerge. He used to try to put on an accent and the body language of an American. But it failed to please people.
** Snow was his self-chosen God Mother. He would pour his heart out about his lost laptop, programming, psychology study and other nitty gritty issues like why he was on leave, why he was late to office etc. He'd get no response back - ofcourse Snow would very politely and sweetly listen to whatever was being said. In the cab, when he'd open his mouth to speak, she'd imagine a million, billion germs coming out - the louder he spoke, the more germs fell out.
** A tomboy. She'd sit with her legs up on the table and whenever the Manager would approach, she'd put them down and as soon as he'd leave, she'd swear and put them back up again. On her calls, she'd go - "Ok, John" - mute - "saala, kutta" - unmute - "yes please, click on start" - mute - "kutta, kameena" - unmute - "right, that button" - mute - "kameena, kuch samajhta nahin hai" - unmute "sure, no problem - hehehe"...
There were many many others who we remember, who were funny, but we cannot write anything specifically funny about them. The work was monotonous, stressful and sometimes very tiring. The only thing that kept life lively was these people. Thanks to them. We haven't met such people after that - not so many in 1 single place. So we don't want to forget them :-)

To end this post, we'd like to share our views of each other during those times.

Mermaid : Snow was innocently funny. All she said would turn out to be funny. You'd have people discussing things in groups, each presenting his/her views in long, complicated words and there she'd come up with 1 line that would be so funny and worth shutting everyone's mouth. Her one-line sarcasm was so well known that someone even coined a new word - "karmastic". She had many admirers - girls and guys alike - for her sweet, innocent demeanor. I don't think there was anybody who disliked her - she was loved by all - even the most khadoos people. On her calls, she was one of the most serious people. Although very sweet, she would never give in to any of the jokes the people on the other end tried to crack. Even when the customer would laugh at his own joke, she'd sit still on her chair and say "Ok, now click there". Such a serious cold reply would make me burst out laughing sitting next to her. All in all, she was a cute, simple(yet stylish), smart, sweet, wonderful person to be with and now turned out to be my dearest friend. Love you, Snow :-)

Snow: Aah..can't handle so much of good words n love showered by Mermaid :). Well..things are diferent now and hence i miss all those people who were nice to me there. Mermaid and i were in diferent training groups. And she's the only one I remembered well from her group...her smartness and her smart hair style is what made her stand out in that crowd. And despite being in the same team..for over a year we just exchanged hi -bye. I would call her a roadrunner on the call... once she starts giving instructions on the call...she would say 5 long sentences without any gramatical erros, without a full stop and at a great speed. Customers had to be alert and had to grasp and comprehend at her speed. And the best part is she was very professional...so much that she would talk at a constant rate, standard tone and calculated number of laughs and a standard style. Example - "Oh really, thats very funny...ha ha ha ha (only four times)..."Yes, jon...sure ...ha ha ha ha (again only four times)". Overall, she was one of the smartest n simple( yet stylish) :) girls in our process.Yes, she had some people who admired her smart dressing style and her hair style was her USP!! We were quite popular as a couple (of friends).

Things have changed now...not so many nice, funny and interesting people around. We don't work in the same place anymore...not really in touch with many friends we had then. Thank god I have one friend very close to me :). And we are fortunate to be living as neighbours. It helps!!!!

Christening..

We decided to bring some change in our lives... some interesting twist..change the way we appear. Well, that cannot really happen right now!!
So we're taking new avatars in our blog world.
We decided to get ourselves re-christened. After contemplating many names - flowers, animals, birds, colors - we decided to have names that are connected to our roots - Karma from the mountains and Sham from the coast...
Recommended names for Karma: Pine, ice, frost, yak, polar bear...
Recommended names for Sham: Palm tree, Coconut, Tsunami, boat, crab, octopus, seagull...
After deep analysis, we decided on -
Snow White for Karma - the mountain girl
Mermaid for Sham - the coastal girl

So here we are...
Snow White and Mermaid!!!!

blue..

It's Monday morning..the day I'm least fond of and I don't look forward to it.
Travelled an hour in the office cab..
It's a cold morning, suffered a bit of winter as the cab door was open and I sat just near the door.
I liked the feeling of cold wind blowing on my face and running though my hair...
But it just feels like a wrong day... for no particular reason, i don't feel very good. today.
Many thoughts ran through my mind as usual..not very pleasant ones.
Also somewhere when the wind blew really hard on my face I felt it like the winds of change..hopefully good ones...that is signalling me that it's on my way...hmm just thoughts n wishes i guess!
Came to my office, I'm the first person on the floor, now that doesn't qualify me for any prize though..
And I see so many work assignments and updates in my mail now...mr. X saying "please send me this update", mr. y says "This covers everything but you could also bring in such n such perspective"..
And I feel like saying "won't give u the update mr.x and won't add any other perspective mr.y"..do what u like ppl.
Normally, at the site of some new work. a lot of them...i know how alert, nervous and restless I would get untill i finish them...but i don't feel that way today..
I just wanna be quiet and finish whatever work to be done. And wait for the day to pass...
- Karma

Nurturing the feminine energy...

Recently we watched a talk by Author and activist Isabel Allende who discusses women, creativity, the definition of feminism -- and, of course, passion -- in her talk.This talk features in http://www.ted.com/ and the title of the talk is " Tales of Passion"

She talks about her experience of fame when she participated in the 2006 Olympics along with three other women who were the Olympic torch bearers along with her.

One being Sophia Loren (Italian actress, supposed to be one of the most beautiful women of her time),
Wangari Maathai - she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace. Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots environmental non-governmental organization, which has now planted over 40 million trees across Kenya to prevent soil erosion

The third lady is an actress from Cambodia. She fights against child prostitution and she herself had a life full of struggle considering that her grandfather had sold her to a brothel when she was a child.

Isabel Allende talks of her encounter with these ladies and the stories of their survival (except the Italian actress Sophia Loren) and their tales of passion for making a difference in the society through struggle and survival.

Some quotes from her talk that I think are strong and worth
giving a thought..
1. "What is truer than the truth?"
The answer is the story.(Story of the real people and their struggle and their passion to live )"
2. 80% displaced people in the world are women and children.
Though female gender constitute nearly 50% of the world population they own just 1% of the total assets in the world.
For every dollar given for a women's development program, $20 are given for the men's program

3.The poorest of the poor societies in the world are the ones who put the women down.

4. "Feminism is not dated".
It might be dated for privileged women who have the freedom to live their way and get to make their own choices in life.But feminism still exists in most parts of the world where women are still suppressed. Now I'm not talking about female chauvinism, nor do I support that. I'm talking about feminism!!

5. "Even the most destitute of men have someone they can abuse.. women & children"
Everyday there's a news of rape of women and children too, low caste women being stripped and paraded in some village, being harassed for dowry....As a girl it's so scary to hear about such incidents everyday.And we are supposedly becoming a super power!! Why do we measure the prosperity of a country only by economics...what about the humanity aspects??

5. " Nurturing the feminine energy"
I liked this concept the best. Now don't think I do b'coz am myself a woman but the concept is logical and indeed makes sense!!
This is a very good model for the betterment of the society.
This is how it should work...
Majority of the women in the world are unhappy and live in some form of misery .They are deprived of education, power, freedom and their right to make their own decisions inlife.
But a happy woman who is educated and empowered would be in dependant and more optimistic. She will make a happy mom and would pass on the values and education to her kids. Such a mom would bring well being and provide education to her kids and take care of her family in a better way. This mother will raise her kids whowill also believe in equality, freedom and peace.This would benefit the society, nation and the world at large. So there would be less war and more peace, prosperity and compassion in the world.

I count myself among the fortunate women as the family I was born into decided to empower me with education and make me independent and they gave me the freedom to make my choice. So I am lucky that both the male and female elderly members of my family believe in empowering the girl & the boy equally. I have grown up with a woman who had a brave heart to fight all the obstacles of life b'coz she was passionate about empowering her children so that we all live a better life. Most of the elderly women ( also some men) I've known in my family/relatives are brave hearts and fighters and that's why our life got a much easier than theirs..Proud of them and thanks to them!!

So as another ordinary girl, I can only request the stronger gender of the society to empower the weaker ones..their women!! Empower them with education, strong values and confidence...women need to be self aware and facilitate their own development and those of their little ones. So lets nurture the feminine energy and try to make this world better.
Isabel Allende ends her talk by saying " I would love to have Sophia Loren's(The Italian actress) long legs and her legendary breasts...but, given a choice I would love to be a brave heart with passion like Wangari Maathai, the Cambodian actress & activist and Susan( An american dentist who volunteered to serve in a village in Bangladesh )....Couldn't agree more!!
- Karma

=========================================================

So beautifully written, Karma. And I know exactly how u feel...

The most striking sentence in the speech to me (which I think I'll remember for a long -long time) is when Isabel says "Even the most destitute of men have someone they can abuse". That's so true. I've seen it myself. I've grown up seeing men who were loosers (I mean it because that's what they chose to be) abusing their wife and children. I've seen men spending their lives expecting their wives to feed them, and in turn abusing the woman-provider. I've seen men beating up their children to satisfy thier ego. They always had someone at home who they could beat up and prove to themselves that they're stronger.

I also feel very strongly about what Isabel Alande says about women empowerment. There is no denying that an empowered mother will bring forth an empowered next-generation. Just like you said, I too feel immensely blessed to be born to a mother who believed in empowering her children with education, despite all odds. Thank you, God.

- Sham

Some thoughts crossing my mind right now

It's quite a lazy day, just feel like doing nothing today. There's quite some work to catch up with...i wish weekends were longer than usual days. Infact, weekends are equally busier with all the household chores left from the whole week to finish with..
People at home are all chilled out and quite excited about my little nephew's birthday. It's his birthday today, we have done a bit of decoration last night , put up things that will excite a two year old boy .. balloons, teddy bears n soft toys, baby books, lot of lil cars....everything is scattered around all over now. He showed some excitement in the morning and wore a birthday cap, wanted to hit the balloons on the wall with his bat(boys are destructive!!)...So in the evening we'll have a little "Happy birthday" time :)
I guess Shamla has gone to the church today, else she would be here probably writing or doing something else..
Am trying hard to motivate myself to finish little bit of office work, but unable to make up my mind for work..nothing around me motivates me to get to office work today..It's a Sunday, and thank god my mind feels a bit relaxed knowing that it's at home! but I'm also thinking of what will happen tomorrow at office, oh..Monday :(. Might have a sudden surprise of some presentation and end up being unprepared or some deliverable with a deadline of 'yesterday'... even if I think of the worst case scenarios at work...i just wanna let go things and will handle things when they happen....
Think I've learnt not to be overstressed..it's too early to call it the outcome of doing yoga...but yes, I can feel the difference these days..
hmm..wondering what my folks in Kathmandu must be doing, need to speak to them, i think dad should go trekking somewhere up in the high altitude where the mobile signal is the strongest & clear and he'd at least pick my phone..hope my sister's exam went on well...haven't asked her yet. In a way it's good to be student and worry about your tests, results and feel greeeeaaat when you get your marks card and u've cleared with flying colors...Oh, I miss that, but hope my sis comes out yealling in excitement to tell me she's through, fingers crossed!!..
What are my other siblings n cousins and relatives doing? where ever they are... some in the mountains may not be aware of the concept of lazing around b'coz it's a Sunday... we really expect Sunday to be like "Sunday" but it's just another day for them..
So many different people in this world living poles apart, extremely different lifestyle but apparently doing things ..driving similar pleasures in life , doing thousand different things right now!!...i just feel like belonging to the group of people doing nothing today!
So it's the lil ones b'day, and it's one of the most wonderful , adventurous thing to be with the kiddo, so this Sunday should be dedicated for the little one who brightens each day for me and for all of us at home..... may god bless him and make him a smart, very kind, stylish, singer, dancer, footballer and a great human being ... a basket of blessings & love from Anii to my baby!!
- Karma

Incorporating yoga in life - FINALLY!!!

Yes!!!!!!

We've been practising Yoga for the past 4 days - our goal obviously is to slim down and feel good about ourselves. We do it every morning. Now since it's almost 1AM and I still have some work to finish, it doesn't look like I'll be able to do it tomorrow (or today???) morning :-((( That's the reason I am writing this post - so that I can keep myself motivated to go on. This is an excerpt of the email I sent to Karma on the 2nd day of our Yoga practice :) Makes me feel great!!! -

Advantages of doing some exercise:

1. I am not feeling lazy, tired. I am more active, more awake, more aware. :-)
2. The day seems so long - feels like those good old days when we were kids when the days used to be so long that we could do many things in 1 day. The difference is we dont "do" many things, but this is a good start. we can plan on doing things
3. Due to the pain in the legs, I am constantly reminded of the hard work I'm puting in to get back in shape. That acts as a motivator to stop myself from mindless munching when I'm at home.
4. The pain also made me make up my mind not to eat out atleast for a month - even if it is a simple south indian meal (which i had at office yesterday) since they don't control the oil they add in the cooking
5. Mom gave me Slice to drink and when i was taking each sip, i was feeling guilty coz it was very sweet - so finally drank some 4-5 sips, thats all. so thats good. i m already watching what i eat/drink
6.they say everyone needs to drink 8 glasses of water per day. that was a far out goal for me, coz even when i was determined to drink more water, i could not down more than 3-4 glasses. today i've had 4 glasses of warm water already. and i still have half the day left!!
7. Finally, i could write this wonderful piece with 7 good benifits of exercising :-D

YEAH!!!!!
- Sham
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Yeah!!! finally I've been able to get into Yoga & exercising!! Hurray, that's an achievement...b'coz working out, exercising was really really not my cup of tea ever... At times i would get lil enthu when I'd get inspired by somebody and then 'try' to do something for couple of days and then back to square one..
We have had our endless plans of getting into exercising, losing weight, walking ...and nothing actually materialised. Except we realized that we passed two years just thinking, planing, thinking & planning over n again...
So ...last Friday when I bought the CD for Yoga , i remember my office friend who laughed at me and said..."u r just among many people who buy a yoga CD and that's the end...u will never see it". Though I wasn't sure of really following it, but instantly i said "I bought this yoga CD and that's a good beginning, my first step to get back to healthy body, mind & life".. It has proved to be a good beginning.. :) [it's got Shamala also to wake up at 6am and the benefits to her are listed right up there :)]
Well.. may be we should thank & appreciate the Yoga Guru Ramdev for bringing back the art of yoga to the masses all over that world that was long lost..
I hope Yoga & exercise stays as a part of my life from here on.....
- Karma

Not enough time...

For the past several months it's been like a prolonged phase of 'No time for anything'. Lets see what are the things I don't have time for ...
No time to have the whole weekend to just relax and laze around..
No time to spend some enough time with my little nephew, no time to play with him, to take care of him....
Had no time to be with the little baby when he was hospitalized and help my sis in law and my aunt when they were also ill. No time for family??? [ This hurts more and I know how guilty it feels for unwillingly giving my work the priority]
No time to look pretty and smart. No time to pamper my hair sometimes. Just manage to dress up with whatever is still in the stock and whatever fits. Well I've heard few comments saying ' You were trendy and smart", not that I don't wanna get back to that state. Even the thoughts make me feel good :)!!
No time to go out for those walks we (Sham n me) had planned.
No time to workout, attend aerobics/ yoga class...there's no time to slim down basically, aah.. some justification!!
No time for any trips and adventure that I have in mind.
No time to watch any new movies, though the new release DVD stocks are lying at home.
No time to just sit idle, doing nothing and chatting with sis in law and laugh about some silly events and things ..
No time to go out with my people at home. [They just went out now a bit upset with me and my bros' comments"Your work never ends"]
No time for blogging my thoughts that come to my mind in the middle of a long office meeting, or during my long journey to my office and back home.
No time for reading the books I bought months and years ago.
No time to fight and quarrel with my brothers ..they might stop calling me Hitler now..
Not enough time to go and be with my family in Kathmandu, not enough time to take care of dad when he falls ill frequently
Not enough time to be with my lil sister and make those memorable sisters' moments in life.
Now, this makes me wonder how worth it is to be compromising on so many things and dedicating most of it to work..
I wish we had more than 24 hours a day considering the world is much more competitive now with lot of things to catch up each day. But If we get 34 hours a day... am sure the IT companies in emerging nations like ours would increase their expected and accepted working hours to 24 hrs!!!
huh!!
- Karma
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I'll add some more for u -
- No time to get nagged by me and call me Chuchi
- No time to imitate people (u know what i mean - hehe - let's try and blog about that someday)
- No time to spend time with ur bro though he's come home now
- No time to see baby growing up - he speaks in full sentences now, and I'm sure u know but u haven't seen it all...
- To sum it all up, NO TIME FOR LIFE!!!!!
Am glad u atleast found the time to write...
- Sham