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
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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