Bangalore-O-Rama!

Vegetable Market in Gandhi Bazar

2010-02-08T15:23:00.005+05:30

It is like Farmer's Market, everyday, through the day! The sight of fresh vegetables, wide variety of fruit, fresh flowers, full coconuts moist to the touch and other itsy bitisies in this market is heartwarming. If you are in the area, take a walk down this street. You'll love it!

I'll do a detailed post on this melting pot street sometime but here is a quick picture to share.

Blues oh Blues!

2010-01-12T16:46:00.003+05:30

The heart wrenching phase of the blues seem to be coming to an end, thank goodness! We still have an uber reluctant preschooler on our hands, but that is manageable! That also means we have an additional member of the family who eagerly looks forward to the weekend. Yes, he does that already. Not because Daddy and Mommy are home to pamper, but because school is closed!

Playschool Blues!

2010-01-05T16:46:00.008+05:30

Playschool blues that haunt the little minds are much, much stronger than the Monday blues I have known as an adult. And they last through a whole week, frequently more, each day of the week (and I am hoping this is at the initial stage only)! It is hard, hard, hard to see the tiny gem of your life feel taken away, cry behind the school gates and pine for you. Cruel! I Hope the blues get repainted with other joyous colors of childhood, quickly!

A revival attempt!

2009-11-19T12:45:00.002+05:30

It has been atleast an era since the last post appeared on this blog. To think of it, I started out by calling this an everyday life journal! Be that as it may, I am going to give this blog another shot. A revival attempt. CPR on my blogger, and on the blogging side of my brain!

When you are a Cost To Company

2008-07-01T09:57:00.005+05:30

Maybe it is not as bad as it sounds, or maybe it is. Depends on how you look at it I guess. I once had this awesome colleague Mike, who has an uber-sense of humor. He wasn’t really crazy about the work culture in that company then (and he was not alone). And of course everything that transpired in there was mocked to no end. To quote M, he had termed all of us employees as “paycheck stealers”, because that’s how we were made to feel for a while, under a certain management team. Things worked out for the better there, so we were no longer paycheck stealers and transformed to ummm…well, valuable employees!

Anyway, in the Indian corporate world lingo, you are a cost to company, or CTC when you join them. That’s the esoteric term for your compensation if you hadn’t guessed already. When you join a company here, your compensation is quoted in total CTC. That includes your base comp plus various other whatevers.

Just sounds so weird, no? Just to make it even, maybe we should introduce a CTPL, Cost To Personal Life, to be estimated and put in black and white for every employee. Values could range from angry spouse, stressed out spouse, in some cases not being able to find a spouse (!), kids turning weirdos, estranged family, premature health issues, divorce, to all of the above plus some more. This world is supposedly a two way street, ain’t it?

Now, let’s take a stab at drawing the connection between CTC and CTPL. I think they should be directly proportional to each other; the higher you Cost To Company, higher is the Cost To your Personal Life as well. Fair deal in a mad, mad, mad world!

What’s your take on the term CTC?

Are you licensed?

2008-03-19T17:50:00.002+05:30

It’s been a while, no? Whatsup? Things have been super hectic around here, but that’s nothing new.

I have been wanting to blog about a varied set of topics, but being so hard pressed for time, just didn’t get to it. But, a phone conversation I had a few minutes ago was so interesting that I had, had, had to write about it.

So a certain broadband provider who gives us access to the holy internet had something “urgent” to do apparently, so they have been calling home when I have been at work. Finally, I called this guy back and he said that they had to install anti-virus software on my home laptop. Go on, I said, because I have a good reliable one already and I didn’t see the point of installing something else. Initially, I wasn’t all that into this conversation because I thought it was some free mandatory thing they had to do. But, no! This dude tells me that I have to pay for it and he has been calling because they have a discount on the software. I tell him that I already have Norton installed and I am quite happy with it and didn’t want to go with something else. His next statement: “but, this will be licensed and yours is pirated.” And I go “WHAT? Why do you think I have a pirated copy of Norton?” and he asks me, “You actually paid for it? What about your OS? Did you pay for it too?”

I’m having so much fun!

Working out in high heels

2008-02-06T22:14:00.000+05:30

Well, it is not really that much of a workout, this climbing stairs to the fourth floor to get to work. But it is some. It is better than doing nothing. And it all started, not because I resolved to begin working out or be super active even when I am at work or get in shape and all that good stuff. I always have that on the plan, and mind you, we are still in February. So, if at all I had made such a New Year’s resolution, maybe I ain’t doing that bad. Not yet. Because, I climb stairs and donned in high heels at that!

So, the reason it went that way was because I routinely got stamped on and elbowed quite a few times taking the elevator up the stairs to work. We have these three exquisite elevators that run up and down some fifteen floors and a couple of basement parking floors. Each of them is as roomy a as rat hole and on an average a dozen people get in to traverse themselves up and down. So the stamping and elbowing and sweaty smell and the sounds of breathing and your face getting coughed on are all quite common. Oh, and I should mention that of the dozen or so people in there, one of them is the “Lift Operator.” Why can’t we operate the lifts ourselves? Apparently, you need a PhD in elevator science to do that. But the real reason I take the stairs is because these elevators operate both ways at the same time which is atmostly inefficient! Allow me to explain. If the elevator just chugged in from the basement to the first floor (or ground floor), and you got in and requested the operator to take you to floor 4, and someone else who freshly came into the parking lot summoned this exquisite vehicle at the same time, you thump down to fetch them. Yes, you don’t go up, you go down. And this pattern repeats until the basement is clear of fresh summons or the other two rat-hole-chariots go down to get them. So, you will be quick to notice that this trip takes nearly ten minutes or more to go up to floor 4. Painful! And climbing up the stairs takes me a flat one-and-a-half minutes!

But all is well that ends well. I get to burn a couple of calories this way! Now that I do it, I hardly even look at the elevators. Better yet, the time I take to climb up is slowly coming down! Now, that is a gooood feeling!

The tale of the “office boys”

2008-01-31T10:57:00.000+05:30

I have never gotten used to the idea of drinking coffee and leaving the cup lying around all over the office – at desks, on counter tops in the hallway, in conference rooms, etc. But that’s what exactly happens here. Why? Because the “office boys” are expect to pick up after you.

We have nearly half a dozen office boys (or maybe more) in my office. Their chores range from washing dishes by hand (plates, cups, cutlery that gets used during the work day), wiping them dry and stacking them off neatly, maintaining the coffee machine, scrubbing the floors of the dining and kitchen areas, setting up lunch when it arrives, serving snacks in the evening, doing some handy man work around the office, etc.

It took me a while to get warmed up to this concept, but it seems like the order of the day. I guess it is creating jobs and a means of providing for these kids. I haven’t gotten into guessing their ages yet. Maybe they fall in the 16-20 range. And I won’t even get into guess how much they are paid and if it really provides a livelihood for them, etc. It is very disheartening to see them running around doing these chores.

So, a couple of days ago, I had a business visitor in the office and I was in the lobby going about my work. One of the boys walked up to me, the office phone book in his hand and he held it in front of my face. I looked him in the eye and asked what he wanted of me. Turns out, he was trying to reach someone inside the office and he couldn’t look up the number next to the name himself. That is when it struck me, like a hard blow that he could neither read nor write. All chocked up, I read out the extension for him. He smiled shyly, snatched the book from my hands and off he ran. I noticed he dialed the number correctly, so I guess he knows the numbers.

I have been seriously considering launching a program, say for a few hours a week when we can rope these guys in and teach them to read and write. At least, get them started on it. I am yet to talk that out with HR and some colleagues. We’ll see how that goes.

How I learned to stop worrying about the traffic and love the books (again)

2008-01-25T18:03:00.000+05:30

Yeah, that Peter Seller’s movie is funny. But there is nothing funny about the traffic in Bangalore. Okay, maybe you’ll be amused for a day or two and then it starts getting on your nerves. D, the more grown up between the two of us always tells me that I should stop worrying about things that are out of my control. You know what, that is the right attitude, but it is hard when you rush out of home and you are running late for a meeting or a call or something and you have to battle the uncountable wheels and people and bad roads. And it is close to impossible to dial in to these darned meetings too. Thank you noise!

Anyhoo, let’s move on already. I guess the title of this post summarizes it all. I started (rather got back to) reading during these long commutes (I don’t drive here yet!). It helps me take my mind off the traffic and the noise and worrying about the commute times and wondering how things will improve, if at all. By the way, I guess you guys must have read about the release of the 1 lakh rupee tata nano toy car. How, just how, I wonder these roads will be able to take more traffic, and four wheelers at that. We’ll see. But I digress. I was telling you about my book. So, I am reading this book called “The Inheritance of Loss” by Kiran Desai. It won the booker prize in 2006 and I came across it, quite by accident. Or I should say, I was left with very few choices and I happened to pick this up. I had a list of books that I have wanted to read for a while now. So one afternoon, after lunch, a colleague and I walked across the street to the book store, which they claim, by the way that they are one of the most reputed book sellers in the city. They look posh, no doubt (what with being in the Leela Galleria and all) but their collection sucks. I picked the name of the books, one at a time from my list and asked the dude at the desk to help me find them. Nope, I found none! So, I decided to give Ms. Desai a shot. It hasn’t been bad so far. I’ll post my review after I am done reading it.

Oh, and this one other rant I have to write about. The ring tones on cell phones. Whatever happened to the concept of just having your phone ring, as simply as possible to tell you to answer the damn call. No. Everyone needs entertainment with each call or message they get these days. And, it also looks like your personality is judged (or assessed, or whatever) by the kind of jazzy ring tone on your cell phone. Hmph! Kids.

I think I will end this random going-nowhere post here. See you all soon.

Post number two, at last!

2008-01-09T15:01:00.000+05:30

Thank you, dear readers for your comments. Encouraging? Oh yeah! And I want to write, more than ever before, for a few reasons:

a) I absolutely need an outlet to talk about my funny observations and random thoughts, without which I think they would just get lost in this bigger, chaotic world

b) I have had many questions ("queries", like people here in India say) from a lot of friends about “how going back feels,” and I want to use this blog as a platform to talk about that, just in case it might help someone! Wait, I guess that was the reason I started this blog in the first place. So this might be a moot point :)

c) And because I have not been writing on my cooking blog Kitchen Aromas and I feel oh-so-shut! I have not had a chance to write because I have not been cooking, thanks to the super hectic lifestyle in Bangalore. What makes it hectic you ask? Of a long list of things, here is one word for you: traffic. Yeah, that one word wonder makes your life super messy and hard pressed for time to do anything else. And work, of course. A post about that will follow soon

d) And lastly, as funny as it sounds, I have lost too many posts already. Nope, my laptop did not crash (Praise The Lord!). All those were composed in my head, during my commute to and from work. A whopping one hour each way to cover some 7 miles. Umm, Yeah. One hour. 7 miles. One word. Traffic!

More later!

So, we are finally here!

2007-12-20T15:13:00.000+05:30

After nearly a decade of being away, we are finally back to Bengalooru! It feels great to be back and we are slowly still settling down. Maybe that should read slowly settling back down. Yeah, that sounds better. There are essentials to be bought, a car to be purchased (like there aren't enough of them on the road already), cell phones to be connected and blah, blah, blah. The list never ends.

But, in the first month or so of being here, and working, I guess I already have plenty of material to write about. So, stay tuned and join me on this wild, but fun ride of life, in full blast Bangalore style!

Till then, adios!