There's a big LCD TV in the cafeteria at my workplace. TataSky enabled, really funky.
The problem ('coz everything I write about is a 'problem' at some level), then, is the programmes we get to watch on that TV during our time spent in the cafeteria. If I happen to be there for breakfast some days (woe to ye if you judge me on my breakfast-making habits), I'm faced with either Tom & Jerry or on unluckier days, Himesh Reshammiya. The remote control is always absconding. On second thoughts, maybe that's just me.
During lunch hours, one is blessed by some mundane Hindi news channel, as opposed to the umpteen English news channels that can be viewed. News channels are safe bets when it comes to a TV in a public place 'coz it's very generic in nature. Unlike the saas-bahu soaps or, well, Himesh Reshammiya's nasal tones. My issue with Hindi news channels? Nothing in particular, just that it's too local and reminds one of cheap tabloids where the front page is dedicated to the pathbreaking news that a certain third rate actress was found in the company of a certain fourth rate actor in some fifth rate place. This, when bomb blasts rip my city apart and the culprits are still at large. This, when Aung San Suu Kyi's detention has been extended by one more year by the military government of Myanmar. This, when diplomatic wars are being fought across countries which vaguely gives one the fear that Nostradamus might just hit the bull's eye with his predictions.
But my rant is not about Hindi news channels. My rant is with the fact that I go to that cafeteria almost every day for my lunch and not once have I actually fished out the remote control from its hiding place and changed the channel to something that can be viewed by the majority. Ok, kidding, change the channel to something that can be viewed by me.
And as I sat there today having my lunch, hearing my colleagues and myself ranting about the stupid channel, it hit me that the state of the cafeteria is, sadly, the state of our country. I know to crib and cry about being made to watch stupid channels, but I rarely go for that remote control to change it. A lot of us know to crib and cry about the state of our country, but very few actually do something to change it. I can tolerate Tom & Jerry, but not the cheap news channels. Just like I can tolerate some politician making money out of fodder, but not politicians/rich-buggers escaping the law just because they have money and power.
Tomorrow I'm going to change the channel if I don't like what I'm seeing.
If someone has a problem with that, I can always chuck the remote into the sambhar that's floating in the oil. And then the entire world will watch what I want them to watch. *evil laughter follows*
P.S: Updates on my blog could become irregular for the next few weeks. I have deadlines to meet and most times miss, books to read, movies to watch - in short, a life to live. And this time around, reality ruins my virtual life. Bear with me, dear readers. And enjoy the peace and calm in this space while it lasts. One is tempted to use cliches like 'the calm before the storm', but one refrains.
Once in a while in your hectic life that is worklife, you get sent back into class for 'trainings'. Long long ago, so long ago, no one knows how long ago, I used to be in college. Where you had to be present before the bell rang, where coming late was the norm for hostel-folks and we (day scholars) were considered geeky nerds (yeah, if geek and nerd by itself wasn't bad enough) just because we sat in the front bench and came on time. Don't even get me started on school.
But I digress.
Without divulging a lot of details, I'll just say that I had a one day training class on a non-technical topic recently. No, you can't make me say what it was about. I'm just saving you some laughs. Given below are some of the observations I made in my notepad. Instead of listening to the instructor, you ask? No. I wrote these during those awkward silences that happen when the instructor asks a very easy question but no one answers 'coz everyone's so sure it's a trick question because the answer is so insanely simple. Too much education does that to you, ya know.
Observations -
- You get a wicked pleasure in seeing the latecomers come late. If you had to get up an hour ahead of your usual schedule just to get there on time, it is so totally unfair to have someone coming late. I have absolutely no qualms in judging you. Very critically at that.
- The EQ questionnaires. They have become oh-so-smarty-pants these days. I'll tell you why. The same question (word for word, mind you) is repeated at least thrice in the course of a 80 question questionnaire. If you're lying (for no apparent reason 'coz the answers are known only to you and you alone), you better have a good memory and keep your lying consistent. Else they call your bluff and you end up with what is, indeed, the truth. Which ofcourse is very bitter.
- I went one up on the smarty-pants questionnaire. I went back and checked my answer for the two previous times the same question was asked and kept my answer consistent. Take that, you silly stapled piece o' questionnaire paper!
- During breaks, if you happen to be some of the few in the room who decided the cafeteria coffee was not exactly worth getting up for, the topic of discussion is almost always the traffic and/or the weather. And trust me, everyone bitches about traffic. And everyone thinks the weather's way too hot. Even if you're talking in December, you ultimately end up talking about how bad the summer was! I think they should pass a law that forbids you to discuss weather.
- When the instructor calls out for volunteers to help him/her with something, the first reaction from us is panic. Plain, unadulterated panic. No one makes eye contact with the instructor lest he/she be called. That's when you remembered something really important that you absolutely had to make a note of and reach for your pen and paper. Or you just act like you were deaf. And look at everyone around you thinking 'why the heck won't you people volunteer? I'm deaf, I didnt hear a thing she said'.
These are just things I noticed in one session. But what still amazes me is that even after being out of class for so many years, that vision of someone teaching you still makes you do things that you used to do in school/college, even though it's completely unnecessary now because now you're a grown up! You can even walk out of that training room and no one can exactly ask you why. And even if they do, you can lie through your teeth and have them believe you one hundred percent. For, people, such is the life of a grown-up. Even if we don't volunteer to do something on front of 10 other colleagues. Even if we still take notes on things we know for sure we'll never need in our life. What if the 'teacher' saw me sitting without taking notes?!! Oh dear.
You see a piece of cashew in your cup of curd rice. You eagerly put it in your mouth, expecting to savor the creamy nutty taste and for a split second, enjoy your sorry meal.
One bite.
It's ginger.
And you can't spit your food out since you're sitting with your colleagues in the cafeteria.
Reminds you of this thing called 'life'. Rarely cashew. Mostly ginger. And a whole of people around judging you by the nanosecond.
Never approach Google for advice. Especially for advice on how to pass time if you're really really bored. Why? Because if you do, you'll end up finding what you're looking for! That missing piece in your life, that spark, that colorful rainbow, that really amazing feeling close to euphoria when you've found your life's worth! Yes, all that and more.
Little tidbits from what God Google blessed me with on things to do when one is really bored. As always, smarty-pant-responses in italics by moi -
- Try to not think about penguins (Tried. Failed. Miserably.)
- Watch TV, repeat everything said in an Italian accent (Tried. Amazingly successful. Family refuses to talk to me now.)
- Throw a surprise party for yourself. Turn off all the lights, then turn them on and yell "Surprise!" Act shocked. (Didn't try today. Sounded way too desperate. Maybe tomorrow.)
- Go up to a salesman and ask "May I help you?" (No comments)
- Go to grocery store in a bathrobe, slippers, and a towel around your head. Rubber ducky optional. (Not my kind of thing. But I would like a rubber ducky. A yellow rubber ducky.)
- Make a list of things to do that you've already done. (Done! result? I can do a lot of useless in any given period of time.)
- Laugh uncontrollably for about 3 minutes & then suddenly stop and look suspiciously at everyone who looks at you. (Not tried yet since I'm already at a risk of being carted off to a madhouse. Not tried YET.)
- In alphabetical order, list all the words you know (I bet this will definitely keep me occupied for the next 2 decades)
- Make orange juice and complain to partner that it doesn't taste like apple. Proceed to throw the contents on partner's head acting frustrated. (No. My family doesn't love me that much anyway, so I might be pushing my luck with this one.)
- Dress up like Queen Elizabeth. Ask everyone to call you Her Royal Highness and refuse to speak unless called so. (Yep, you guessed it right. I dont talk to anyone now. Everyone around me seem doubly happy about something. I wonder what.)
- Put up the Christmas tree. Say it's for Easter. (Done. I have one job less for Christmas this year!) (Kidding, ofcourse. I might say stupid things, but I'm not stupid myself.)
- Complain to God that Jupiter has more moons than we do. (Did that. God said the more I complain the longer He'll make me live. So I asked him why only the Queen can have crown jewels, why not me. I think I'm gonna live to be 200!)
Caveat: Do not try all these together in the same place at the same time in front of the same set of people. They might not give you an internet connection at the lunatic asylum.
Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for the repurcussions of the above actions. I don't know you, you don't know me, so you have no business doing what I say. For external use only. Batteries not included. Shake well before use. For office use only. Store in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight. This article does not reflect the thoughts or opinions of either myself, my company, my friends or my non-existent cat. Offer valid till stocks last.
I've written about this before, but it's just so horribly frustrating that I'm going to do it again.
The other time it was tea. Now, it's coffee. There was a time in days of yore that I loved coffee. The smell, the color, the taste! But all that changed with the advent of the omnipresent coffee dispenser in my normal working life.
Picture this: You have a splitting headache, and you have work to do. What's the first thing you try? Coffee, ofcourse. And what if that coffee is such an abomination that you start to hate the very beverage? Or maybe I should thank my stars that I'm not a coffee addict because of this! Unlike my parents and friends, I don't need coffee to keep me going. But once in a while, one does miss the golden brown brew.
The problem is not with the coffee per se. It all boils down to the milk (no pun intended). Milk and not milk powder. I don't know much about the dispenser settings to control just how much milk powder, sugar and coffee flows into one cup, all I know is whatever is there in the cup finally looks a lot like dishwater. If it weren't for the fact that I do not know what dishwater tastes like, I would've loved to say the coffee tastes like dishwater. (And this is to prevent any smart-ass comment on me knowing what dishwater tastes like. Tell the truth, you did think of that, didn't you? Ha, gotcha!)
To make matters worse, it's not just the regular coffee. The options on the dispenser are very very misleading, mind you. Let's take it one by one - first, there's Cappuccino. Any resemblance to any coffee, good or bad, is purely co-incidental. And I did the greatest mistake of having cappuccino from an authentic little cafe in Rome, after which cappuccino from even Cafe Coffee Day or Qwiky's or Barista is nothing short of..well, dishwater! So that just made the whole thing even worse. Second comes Mocha. Again, pretty much a big fat brown lie.
The same goes for Hot Chocolate - it looks all nice and chocolatey, but the moment you taste it, well, it transports you approximately 15 years into the past when your Mom had to run behind you with a huge steel tumbler filled with yucky-tasting Complan. And if you're trying to calculate my age based on this piece of information, give it up - ain't gonna work, 'coz I'm totally lying about the 15 years.
The lesser of the evils in the dispenser seems to be 'Nescafe'. Don't let the name fool you into thinking it's the authentic Nescafe that your parents so hate (because they are staunch filter coffee addicts and drinking instant coffee is a sin by itself) and you so love (because you can't stand the after taste of filter coffee and the color is so much better for instant coffee). Lesser evil, but evil nonetheless.
So the only other option left is good ol' hot water. I once tried using them Bru sachets (instantly instant coffee, mix in hot water, add sugar and voila! dishwater ready!), but that didn't work either. Which brings me back to my original rant - there's nothing like fresh coffee. And there's nothing called fresh coffee in some workplaces.
If you're one of the lucky few who can smell the coffee brewing, sitting right at your desks, count your blessings 'coz there are a lot of us who do not have that luxury. But 'us' are also glad that 'us' are no longer coffee addicts, thanks to the omnipresent coffee dispenser.
Now, if only my Mom were here to make me a cuppa! Alas, wishful thinking!
Image Source: That cup of cappuccino scored a full 10 on the droolworthiness scale. So, drool on!
I'm officially out of space in my little bookshelf. I don't find place for my precious Calvin and Hobbes' books (their size is not quite the standard size) and I don't like keeping books the way it's kept above. I like them all neatly arranged, indexed and then ordered by what I read often (read multiple times that is) and what I would like to read later. But no. No space! And I'm still in two minds whether I've to invest in a huge book shelf like the ones we see in the studies of famous writers and artists. I'm not sure my family can take that shock. It's just too early!
So till then, I'll just have to do with my little bookshelf. The new books will now start invading the space in the showcase. And when that's full, there's always the coffee table in the living room. God willing, if that's also full, I'm thinking about the dining table. C'mon, one needs place for books in one's house, right? We'll just have to be happy that I don't intend to move my masala dabbas out of the kitchen cabinets and use that for books. Now that would be a truly shocking shock for the family. Tell you a secret? I actually would love to see the look on my Mom's face if that happens! Evil me.
And the book currently out of the shelf and in my hand -
P.S: Yes, you guessed it right. I finally learnt how to download photos from the camera into my laptop. Talk about slow learners, eh? Better late than never, you see.
Has it ever happened to you that unknown to yourself you end up humming the same song all day? Or a phrase pops up in your mind out of nowhere and just refuses to die down no matter how many things you try to think about? Or how a word which you probably last heard in your 8th grade suddenly comes up in your mind for no apparent reason?
Any idea at all what I'm talking about? No? Hmm. Can't blame one for trying though, can you? Anyway, if you did get what I'm trying to say, good for you. If you didn't, act like you did.
I've had all three things happen to me the last few days. I've been humming a Himmesh Reshammiya number that I absolutely detest, been repeating the same proverb over and over again in my head and I remembered the word 'Mangifera indica' after god-knows-how-long, god-knows-for-what.
I tried listening to a whole load of other songs to make my stupid mind forget the Reshammiya number - no use! It's like stuck with fevicol or something! I could've even enjoyed it if it had been an ARR number or at least Ilayaraja, but no! It had to be Reshammiya. Why, O, why?!
And the proverb I've been repeating: Janani janmabhoomishcha swargadapi gareeyasi. The last I heard this was in Sanskrit class in my 6th grade (or was it my mom telling me this as part of her usual gyan? Hmmm.) and I've been thinking about this for the last 2 days, I have no idea why. To give this proverb company, came all the other Sanskrit slokas I had ever learnt, including the Vishnu Sahasranamam!!! Know what else I remembered? The first Geetham I ever played on the veena, Shri Gananatham and then Ra ra venugopala, to end with a Keerthanam - Ninnukori (Mohanam)! Iyo! You would think I'll admit myself into an asylum at least now, wouldn't you? Nope, not there yet.
Mangifera indica is the scientific name for mango. When I remembered this, I remembered a whole lot of other things on how scientific names should be written and the enter science class chapter! And I cannot remember what I had today for breakfast! (Heh heh. Typical exaggeration by yours truly. I had dosa for breakfast today.)
On the way to work, on the FM channel, I heard the RJ say something about chemistry and chemical equations. One guy said H + O2 forms water, H2O. Another lady corrects him saying, no, its H2 + O2 that forms H2O. And you know what I did? I tried to balance the equation in my head! Yep, 2H2 + O2 = 2H2O! (To maintain public *cough* admiration for my intellectual capabilities, I refrain from mentioning how many iterations it took me to arrive at that balanced equation. My chemistry teacher would have died of shame.)
If you forgot what I was trying to say, well, you're not the only one. Join the club.
To quote Einstein, 'A thought that sometimes makes me hazy: am I - or the others - crazy?'
I can't wait to see how many of you leave a comment saying 'You!'. Thanks in advance.
He that uses many words for explaining any subject, doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink. - John Ray, naturalist (1627-1705)
On a completely different topic -
The amount of Maggi noodles inside the pan always seems less than the amount on the plate. Which probably explains why the person I serve to first gets less noodles than the person I serve to next.
Below that is this really yummy looking picture of a chocolate chip muffin surrounded by chocolate chips.
Note: This is not a food blog-entry. For the world of me, I do not know how to make chocolate chip cake from scratch.
That said, I can, however, make a chocolate chip cake from Betty Crocker's Muffin Mix. Trust me, I don't even need to see the directions. And I can make it using a microwave (when the directions on the pack ask us to use an oven) since I do not YET own an oven (my request for an electric oven is 'Pending Approval' from you-know-who).
Now, according to Betty Crocker, this is a Muffin mix. But then, the always-so-busy me does not have the patience to go shopping for muffin cups, ergo - this is now a cake mix. Poured the entire thing into a glass dish and chucked it into the microwave - voila, 30 minutes and yummy-smell-fills-house later, chocolate chip cake is ready to eat. Need I say that it tastes absolutely divine? It tastes absolutely divine.
And no one is welcome to my house till the cake is over. I'm not kidding.
My broadband connection went kaput. Know why? Some moron decided it would be good to steal, yes steal, a part of the telephone cables (which in turn controls my broadband connection) buried underground.
Hey, we're all tired of the usual reasons of a dead telephone like rains, faulty cables and all that right? So this is a new reason. Theft! Theft of cables!
Long live BSNL.
Till then, enjoy this one pic - of River Teesta, that gave us company on our way to Gangtok from Darjeeling. And on the way down from Gangtok to Baghdogra. The pic was taken by my husband from a moving car - good no?
By the way, you know a color called 'aquamarine'? Yeah, that was the color of the river. Aquamarine. It really exists you know, not just a made-up color for cars.
I know something's wrong with this post, but I'm not able to place it! Feels like I'm being possessed by someone and it's not me writing this! Let me know if you know what's wrong, please.
P.S: I'm working on getting the RSS feed up. I have to tinker with the template and right now, I'm just not in a mood to look at code! :-( So please bear with me, will get it done at the earliest.
Wondered where I was? No? Ok, let's try it one more time. And this time, humor me along, will you please? :-)
Wondered where I was? Well, good for you! Just the question I want to be asked right now.
Just got back from a week long vacation to Darjeeling and Gangtok. Just got back from celebrating my third wedding anniversary at 14000 ft (yes, fourteen thousand feet) above sea level, amid freezing temperatures and fistfuls of snow. Just got back.
So the showing-off blog-posts will follow shortly once I get the pictures in order.
Thank you for your continued patronage (or the lack thereof)! ;-)
You know my last post, where I was cribbing that I didnt know what to write about? Well, its different now. I suddenly seem to have too many things to write about and now my problem is I dont know where to start! By the way, is there an opposite to writer's block? Like if a writer has too many ideas going on and doesn't know where to start?! I wonder how that would feel.
Right. So, where was I? Oh yeah. A coupla things to give my unasked-for, totally-worthless opinion on -
1. Paramount Airways. One word, awesome! ok, make that AWESOME! I flew from Hyd to Chennai (for only Rs.2200!) and it was amazing. The aircrafts are new, all seats are business class (yes, you heard me right, business class), the food was great, the service was impeccable, the checkin facilities were really good (I didnt even have to push my own trolley! someone did it for me!!! Woohoo! Cmon, if you're as lazy as me, that's a huge deal.) and the flight was on time!
So if you ever have a chance to fly Paramount, go right ahead. Worth it. And they also have an offer where you can collect 7 Paramount boarding passes (to n from anywhere) and have the 8th travel completely free! :-) Nice, no?
2. Air Deccan. Now, I told you about my trip from Hyd to Chennai. From there to my hometown saw me board an Air Deccan flight..er..whom am I kidding, they're not actually flights, but for want of a better word, let's just stick to 'flight'. Right, so they make us sit in the aircraft 10 mins before take-off. I'm almost surprised that its gonna be on time. Almost.
Sat there for 15 mins. Now 15 might sound like less, but without air conditioning, on the tarmac, with Chennai's humidity for company would make 15 feel like 50. So here we were in a sauna and the captain (ok..make that 'captain'..) comes on and says the weather is bad for landing there, so there'll be a 15 min delay. Great. But no, it doesnt end there. After 10 mins, he comes back on and says the weather is really bad, so there's gonna be a 1 hour delay and we were supposed to deplane and board after an hour. Oh yeah! Now that's like Air Deccan, me thought.
The best part starts here: they deplane us, take us to the checkin counter again to get us fresh boarding passes, take us through the security check, back to the boarding gate and into the aircraft. In 15 mins. And the flight reached its destination a good 2 hours late.
Let's just blame it on the weather gods, else I might just become a murderer which I seriously cannot afford to be.
3. Chennai. Have you been to Chennai of late? Like in the last 2 weeks? Dont go. There aren't any roads left - it's just one big pothole fest. Now if you live in Chennai you might wanna thrash me, but please understand that for a person living in Hyderabad, good roads are as natural as the air we breathe. Yeah, be jealous. That's all you can do. I cannot remember the last time I saw a road in Chennai.
Ok ok, I'm just exaggerating in the last sentence! Sue me. ;-)
4. Three new books on my bookshelf: Yann Martel's 'Life of Pi', Thomas Friedman's 'The world is flat' and Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'. Man, life's good. :-)
5. Tirupati. In my next post probably, waiting for the pictures. I mean, waiting for myself to download the pics into my laptop from the camera.
Sitting here with a blog compose window for like 30 minutes. And nothing to type!
So I just typed the above sentence, and then this.
And this.
It's good to be back, that too with absolutely no idea what to write about. Oh wait, did I say good? I meant bad. And did I say 'back'? I meant 'almost back'.
False Impression (Jeffrey Archer) A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) (Yes, it is a pity that I haven't read this book yet!) Shantaram (Gregory David Roberts) The Afghan (Frederick Forsyth) The Historian (Elizabeth Kostova) The Amulet of Samarkand (Jonathan Stroud) Golem's Eye (Jonathan Stroud) Ptolemy's Gate (Jonathan Stroud)
Some people can listen to Himmesh Reshammiya at 8:30 in the morning, while having breakfast.
Am I the only one who finds him as enjoyable as the sound of nails scratching on a blackboard?
(I can't bear to read the above line - it makes me clench my teeth and close my ears!! But that's how I feel, so I'm gonna let it stay. Happy forgetting-the-sound-I-just-mentioned. *wink wink*)
To all you schmucks standing in front of the coffee-dispenser:
If you've taken your coffee, GET THE HELL OUT! It's a 4ft by 7ft room and you're not exactly as small as a mosquito (although, I wouldn't put it past you to be a bug), so do us all a favor and leave!
And for godssakes, pick a biscuit soon. It's a biscuit, not a million dollar house you're thinkin' of buying. Jobless as you are, did you have any idea that other people might actually have work to do? Or did you think we would take our coffee and join you in being a schlub?
Ofcourse, above all this, when someone says 'Excuse me', MAKE WAY!! How dumb are you, anyway?!
When will the world be rid of morons? Seriously, when?
I used to think I was good at English spelling. Until I saw the 2006 National Spelling Bee contest. 90% of the words, I couldn't even pronounce, leave alone spell! The kids taking part were no older than 14 or 15 and my god, they were amazing! And I still, for the world of me, don't know how they could spell a word that's pronounced 'sittacism' correctly as 'psittacism' (the silent 'p'!!!). I'm guessing there are some rules for the way words are spelt based on their language of origin and the phonetics. The only other explanation can be that these kids have a dictionary-loaded microchip embedded in their brains that lets them do all this. The first seems more plausible, doesn't it?
The words were amazing too. I haven't come across these words in my Oxford dictionary (that I used to read a dictionary for time-pass is a totally different story), but I have a feeling if I go back and check now, I might just find them **shrugs**. I'm glad GRE doesn't test on spelling. I had trouble with the words even otherwise. I also had trouble with the analytical and quantitative sections, but that's beside the point anyway.
The contest was won by a 13-yr old who got her last word, 'ursprache', right. When I first heard the word, I thought this is it, she's finished. Well, she proved me wrong (like a lot of people do so very often). To see the other words that she got right: Click here
I was really in awe of all the participants in the contest. I know it takes a lot of hard work to get there and I'm happy for them and their proud parents. For an English fan like me, more specifically for a person who goes to Dictionary.com at least 20 times a day - this was absolutely mindboggling.
So, here starts my quest to learn how to spell. Better late than never, no?
Oh, BTW, I got 2 words right: 'izzat' and 'kundalini' - they had a Hindi and Sanskrit origin you see. ;-)
Scene: Busy traffic junction. Vehicles whooshing past red lights. In other words, a typical Indian traffic signal junction. It would be suicidal to even BE on the roads.
A well-dressed guy (by the looks, a software engineer) holding the hand of a really old lady (by the looks, a poor beggar) and taking her across the road on a zebra crossing. Took her the whole way to the other side and then crossed back to catch a cab/auto to his workplace.
I don't know who he is. But whoever he is, he did a really really cool thing.
To you, stranger-who-helped-an-old-lady-cross-the-road: Way to go, dude! It could be a trivial thing for you, but it would've meant a lot to that old lady. You probably saved her life by helping her out on that road today. And I know she would've blessed you with all her heart. And that is one of the best kind of blessings you can ever hope to get. Feel proud. And blessed.
Humanity is still around, you know. It's not completely wiped out. Yet.
Disclaimer: All opinions expressed here are my own and do not represent those of my employer. The fact that a particular comment is posted on this blog does not mean that I have endorsed it in any way or verified the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any such comment. I, in no terms, shall be held responsible for/associated with the content carried by the blogs I link to.
