Some old letters and cards :) :)...

Yesterday i found this letter in the my-favorite-things-box. It was written in 2003 by my friend who is really dear to me...there was a "golden time" when we (4 of us.. friends) used to stay together most of the times...talking nonsense and pass time simply doing nothing yet never got bored together...

Orkut, E-mails and other social networking sites are absolute necessity these days to be in touch with all friends...but a card,letter/mail has its own place in our my-favorite-things-box...I have about 20-30 letters, 20-30 miss you/friendship cards that we had exchanged before we were introduced to Orkut but i am feeling that... nothing can match this old letter that i have...because i can hold it....i can feel it...i can see it...i can read it over and over again...

There is a lot behind this letter...the feeling that my friend spent her time writing, mailing this letter just for me is a very special feeling...though we are not in touch regularly because of our professions...little things from the past like these keep us together and brings a big big smile on the face...

I just called one of my friends from the group yesterday night and will be calling the rest this weekend...

This has brought back my faith in writing letters, sending cards to my close friends, family all over again...i had stopped posting cards/letters since past few years...but i realize that the mails(posts) encloses a lot of love, beautiful memories, warmth inside...

** I will post some lovely cards after few days...i couldn't take a snap of them yest. they are all hand made by my friend sachi !

No Space for New Messages !

It was Saturday morning. The best thing that happened to me in my proffessional life was that I chose IT and I have two days of holiday unlike the product based companies that have Saturday working as well! My sympathies for them! Working 6 days a week is something that I really can’t imagine! I was humouring in my bed like a hippo in the mud and I saw my mobile flashing with “No Space for New Messages”! Thwart, not again! I always long for a mobile with more space wherein I don’t have to keep deleting the messages every month end! Thanks to ME, I really can’t afford costly cells! Either I lose it because of my carelessness or somebody steals it; what ever be it, this is my 5th cell and I really don’t want to go for a 6th one for a while!


Coming back to Saturday morning; I had been seeing this message quite regularly this month as I didn’t clean up my inbox and today was the day! I made a cup of coffee and started with the expedition through my messages. I had decided to keep the most necessary ones with me and delete rest all. I started reading them one by one! As I was reading them I could relate it to an incident - Each message has its story!


I found message sent on 1st of Jan this year. My ex team mates wishing me which had made me really happy at that point of time. It feels special when people think you are worthy of wishing, even though you are not in touch with them in any ways. Every body gets busy in their own work when we depart in our own ways but a message is enough to send good wishes and resuscitating the friendship! There were couple of messages from my roomie asking what vegetable to buy? My roomie has left the place as she is getting married; It was a daily routine to discuss the sabji (vegetable) that we wanted to eat for the dinner. That brought in gushing memories of the rest of events that happened at that time, felt nostalgic and yearn to go back to that time. It has been 6 years that I shared room with the roomie and there was always one golden rule : Your way is my way too, but now all of a sudden we have our own ways , she will settle permemnantly in Delhi and things are not going to be same ever! At the very thought of our journey together, I find my eyes welling and hear people saying – “You will be alright in few days or this is how it is!” , may be yes but it is really difficult to leave thing behind and start a new. I kept those messages with me for long but had to delete it now! I accept the fate and yes its time to move on!


There were messages from my mom who has been practicing sms-ing me and sent me messages for a month or two so that she doesn’t forget to sms! My mom took some time learning to handle mobile but now she handles it pretty well! She has mastered her cell and will kill anyone who asks her to learn the features of any other model and is pretty happy with the one she has! Well those message always used to be very mom-ish – “I love you” , “Dad and I miss you a lot”, “Come home soon!”, “You are the lovliest and the best!”. I felt warm and protected and loved and that there is someone who I can turn to anytime, anyday and thankfully we don’t have to part whatever be it. It’s the best feeling!


There were messages from my best friends, 1 am at night – “Are you sleeping”? I always torture my friends at odd hours if I can’t sleep or if I am nervous and so do they! And dosti ki hai to nibhani padegi. And we chat for sometime! I recollected all those time when I had to give my opinions so that they feel better. One is always best in giving advice, isn’t it? Geez, I have loads of suggestions and strong opinions about things when it comes to others!

Well there were few irritating ones as well from the service providers, promotional offers that made be infuriate so much that I was gloating while deleting them. As if I am hurting them by doing so! Crazy lamhe! (*Shilppppaa - why don’t you post your crazy lamhe here)

It took me some time to go through all messages, read it, convince myself to delete it and start a fresh! You have so many little memories in life that you really don’t realize unless you have such ways to recollect. And you know what by the end of it, I thought “No Space for New Messages” is not all that bad and neither is my cell! Have you experienced something similar ? If yes , I would love to hear from you!

Assuaging my Immune system !

My Immune system has always cordoned off my body from all viruses,worms etc; I have eaten loads of pani puri, chaat which could have given stiffest competition to my immune system all these years and still It came out victorious but of late my Immune system decided to protest a bit and here I am in hospital for getting diagnosed and to assuage it with some medication so that it can get back to duty with full zeal soon ! Feeling sick is not-a-very-good-feeling for sure when your body is not accustomed to getting sick much! There are advantages though - You get lots of love, care, sympathy-votes (for not cooking, washing utensils etc. if you have as lovely room mates as mine) but working looks much more easy then feeling ill ! I had a check up last weekend and this is my experience of my visit to the hospital.

I have a aversion towards hospital. I don't have the courage to listen to patients groaning , seeing them feeling upset emotionally and mentally, it makes me feel sad ! Thank god, i never thought of being a doctor , I would have killed a couple ! This dislike made me procrastinate my visit to hospital a bit but Friday was the D-day - I decided that I had to be bold and more than anything i didn't want to accrue my illness any more! Kiran accompanied me (my friend but sometimes gives a feel of a foe, still skeptical about our terms!) to the hospital.

We decided to go to Sadhu Vasvani hostipital in koregaon park,Pune (it was near to our office), near the famous Osho Aashram. Kiran decelerated the bike when we were crossing the ashram, i am sure he would argue saying he was seeing the architecture of the building, but i am not going to buy it! Few gorgeous ladies were sitting in front of the entrance! When i entered the hospital , i had already started feeling sick! The stomach pain that seemed obvious before had vanished...I did want to say this and run back to office...but decided against it! While i was trying to overcome my insurmountable sickness for hospital , Kiran was having fun looking at my wan face! This was his time to have fun...he started discussing about Dasvidaniyan, Kal ho na ho etc.. In all these movies the protagonist dies at the end of the movie...Kiran was merrily enjoying the scene! As we entered the main gate , we saw a building specially for cancer patients , we quickly walked across the building to reach the general check up building (Hoping that i don't have to enter the cancer one later :):) ) and Kiran was giving background score of Kal ho na ho! Kiran told me - "Agar tera case Dasvidaniyan jaisa ho to tu mast enjoy karna ! Try everything that you haven't !" ; And I said - "Sure ! I would :)".(and yes he is my friend!)

These days hospitals are one big complicated set of process ! First time visitors had to get a new Id generated, Get and remember Id if you want to meet a doc ,pay the doc. through centralized billing system, run from one end of building to other to get your self tested ! We were waiting outside the doc's room where we saw a person asking for monetary help to buy him some medicines. We had to politely say no to him not because we were frugal but because these days you really can't trust the genuineness of anyone. Few have made this their business! Unfortunately there is no way to tell who is honest and who is not. I was happy that Kiran was with me to handle it as it would have been really difficult for me!

Well then came the awaited rendezvous , the doc asked me to get Sonography and Hemagram done. Sonography requires you to drink hell lot of water. I drank about a liter and a half. I couldn't drink more ... apprehensive of the fact that it was nearly closing time of hospital and i might not undergo Sonography ; especially after torturing myself by drinking sooo much of water was just not acceptable and i started forcing myself to drink more and more water. Although i knew that i had crossed the limits of my water intake , i was still desperately trying to finish this off the very day so that i need not visit the hospital again ! I wasn't sure whether i was sick of having excess water or i was sick of hospital , everything around was cowing me ! I couldn't believe what i did after that ... i vomited out in front of everybody in the lobby like a gargoyle .... I couldn't believe myself... I felt like a 6 year old kid,who can't make out if she was going to vomit and should position near washroom or not...I was embarrassed to the core when i went into washroom to clean up myself and I promised myself to be more adult-like in my next visit.... poor Kiran had to stand all this...he politely asked the ward boy to clean it up! Next inline was blood test ; although i have taken many injections in my mouth (cheek) for my dental treatments, injections always gives me goosebumps ! Some how the blood sucking (no not the vampire, the nurse took out some blood) was done and i got relieved !

Finally , the horrific day came to an end ... we were back to office ! The only thing that is worrying me apart from my medical results is that Kiran has not abash me in front of our friends yet ! Wondering what his plan is ?

Just wanted to share this experience as - generally most of us who are working outside are constantly exposed to outside food and water. There is a decent probability of getting oneself infected, please go through regular check ups and do not delay any treatment. I felt quite relaxed after getting diagnosed , spending some amount on oneself every year or biennially is a must ; immaterial of your age ! I am getting myself de-worm-ised (My doc will faint if i tell this newly coined term 'de-worm-ised' , as he had a bad time explaining me what has actually happend; That explains well how i escaped studying Biology...thanks to the exam patterns that lets you skip few sections of your textbook !) and have decided to undergo a complete check up this weekend ! :D ... take care !

Is it something to do with - ' Gene ' ??

I just got an email from my friend which had the video below ; video has many girls getting jubilant to see a room full of array of clothing,accessories. I was wondering if i were in that place i would had a twinkle in my eyes (i don't know if i would have reacted the same way though .. he he..The add certainly is about some alcohol product which i am not interested in and neither going to talk about...so boys you can choose your way) ! At the same time I was wondering how do so many girls all over the world share this shopping love with all...Is it because of a shopping gene in all of us ? If yes, was Eve a Shopping maniac as well ?? :):)



My friend says girls are materialistic, they get a pleasure in possessing as many things as possible; unless otherwise how can you be so happy shopping ? (Of course this friend of mine is a boy with his typical reactions when we starting talking about shopping, needless to say about the reaction part!); But i would like to blame the gene which makes us react so. But equal credits to the evolution of fashion, thanks the women fashion artificers did their job , they have been very creative and it shows but the counterparts (gents artificers) did not find themselves worthy to adorn themselves with pretty things! So over the period of time we have evolved to what fashion is today; When we have so many options why not get it - "We have it, we flaunt it!".



If we were to apply the same gene concept to our male counterparts then without any time delay we can quickly make 2-3 guesses like - "gaming gene","love-hard-drink gene" (I don't like this gene much!),"hate-shopping gene" (this sounds like a anti-matter!;When a "shopping-gene" and a "hate-shopping gene" combine , i.e go together for shopping, the latter gives excuses to go back or get bored thus leading to a good fight (destruction) ...hmmmm... this is accordant with physics theory !). One more gene which is very much true in my opinion is , "deny-that-i-gossip gene"; while this has been a very popular theory that girls gossip while boys don't. I raise serious question (and so do many friends of mine !) about this theory ! There might be a lot of argument on this but i would still stand with what i said - BOYS GOSSIP A LOT !


Well Shopping gene is surely an altruistic gene! Be it for shopping for oneself or for friends , the amount of Interest,enthusiasm is never differentiable! Of late, i have been doing a lot of window shopping and ended up with some ad hoc purchases as well ( ad hoc - because i go to shop for my friend's shopping and i end up buying things for myself!). I guess with time my liking for little things like crystals,wind chimes,cosmetics,candles,chandeliers,sandals,accessories,clothes,colors,hand bags is growing exponentially (Probably the gene-effect grows with age)! I fear, i might become bankrupt while shopping for my marriage :):)!! but again this is not in my hands...its in my genes!

Do you enjoy shopping as much as I do ? Do you believe that it has to do something with the genes as I do ? I would love to hear from you .... you can also suggest any gene that you believe is very much present (in your opinion) and that you think deserves to be mentioned !

Image/Video source - www.sftravel.com , fwd e-mail.

A phase in my professional life...Satyam and I

With a series of events unfolding since 7th of January 2009 starting from the resignation of Mr. Ramalinga Raju (Founder, Satyam) exposing one of the biggest fraud in India (that too when the market is not good all over the world), many people like me initially couldn’t believe the scale of the sudden debacle! “Is it a reality or a dream?” – I was asking myself. While I have seen the fall of few companies before my eyes, I always had a feeling that I was sailing on “The unsinkable” but I was taken aback by the recent events! Although I was smiling and my talk were certainly not insinuating any tension, with so many friends and relatives calling to get my job status , I ended up asking myself –“Am I ok, is everything alright?”!
The pain is not impalpable initially immediately after one is impaled but gradually when the news spread around, I suddenly had this “Not so good feeling”. This feeling was certainly not because I was not proud of my company etc. but was because Satyam is my first company and I am very much knit with it emotionally; I have always been associated with this company. Right from day one of my “after-college” life I have been in this company. I have fallen, risen, have been berated, been appreciated, and made friends in this very company. With some amazing managers, technical heads around I had a life time opportunity to work on one of the biggest projects of Satyam with little to contribute in comparison to the enormous knowledge that I gained in the meantime. Probably the bad times are yet to come or may be i will be among those who witness one of the biggest come back after a corporate fraud, in either case I think accepting it with maturity is the best we can do! I really don’t know how and from where the media is collecting the news (all i can say is that media caters to all those who love sensational stuff), but as far as I know things are much better inside compared to what media is portraying.

During some idle times (when your thoughts are drifting) I was going through ambivalence of emotions. I was talking to all with a clam, smiling face but my subconscious mind was in a totally different state. It was thinking of the current situation, job insecurity and millions of other thoughts; though I didn’t have any liability, no EMI’s, comparatively less dependent on salary than my colleagues who had family responsibility, but I still didn’t want to lose my independence, I have never been dependent on anyone since I joined Satyam and I desperately want to be so in future as well (not that I will be ashamed to ask for anything to my folks, after all they will be the ones whom I will turn to in times of adversity). I do not want to sound way too metaphorical but I could relate the situation to a swan swimming in water. It swims with a very calm, polite face visible to us (above the water) but it makes the water whirl below to keep moving forward. I was feeling my emotions whirling in my sub-conscious mind!

One should always take the moral of the Story. My personal learning after the Satyam fiasco –
1. Though we have been imbued with morality this has been a LIVE experience of learning the fact that it’s better to be honest and not so popular (What does Calvin think about this?) The more you rise up the ladder of life, the more responsible you become and you become accountable to so many things happening to you and others. Be responsible!
2. Keep smiling, it makes you and everybody else around you feels better. The less negative you are, people around you behave likewise. The atmosphere gets much better.
3. No place is the safest place! Now that this has been proved right, do not make any place your comfort zone! As my team lead says -"When you start feeling comfortable in any place , its time to move "!
4. Please do not respond to any question asked by friends, media etc. if you don’t know the ground reality. You may be one among those who are spreading rumors and making 52K families nervous and unsure about their situation!
5. One can save the most of the salary when one is Single! Think twice before calculating your investments. Do not overdo it! I am so very lucky that i have been saved from being bombed by my premium amounts just by margin! Always keep some money in cache , you never know when you will need it!

Ok , after all those musings which lasted for some time , i am back to my usual self (thanks to the wonderful people i am surrounded with in office as well as in family), and so are the rest of the employees, very much jaunty and idyllic ! I hope things are sorted out as soon as possible and we get back to normalcy!

I would like to dedicate this cartoon strip to those who played a key role during this time of crisis -
A good book for the Satyam Cabal that brought made us feel like a nova since last Wednesday!
























I don't blame the reporters , you were tired of covering 26/11, there isn't anything scandalous in Bollywood, no cricket news as well ! The best part of the event was the flashing news in may web sites and channels about supposedly official mails that we never received! (Stop hounding us to fill your newspaper/site columns).



One of the best things that happened meanwhile is that god finally listened to our prayers and suddenly all credit card calls or any other promotional calls came to a stand still. Thanks to their fear that the credits might become insolvent! Yes those calls were replaced by calls by dear friends, long lost friends and relatives, but were certainly a better replacement. I hope they don’t gain confidence in our liquidity for some more time!


I strongly believe in this theory (which holds true for energy, but I think it holds for everything) that any entity in the universe is constant. It just changes it forms, its possessor, its location etc. While Satyam lost so much of money, there must have been someone else who was gaining. No prize for guesses, it would certainly have been Airtel Bharti, Vodafone , BSNL , IDEA, Reliance and all other mobile/landline networks across India. I think the service vendor should give some New Year gifts to Satyam employees for helping their business grow ;)! I felt like a BPO employee for the following three days, repeating the same stuff over and over again!

Image Source : Cartoon Stock ,Z.about.com, www.toondoo.com