Taiwan

Yes, i happened to travel out of India for the first time ever! It was a 4 day trip to start with. Singapore airlines, my 1st international flight. For the kind of rigorous planning that I normally do even for the smallest of the things, I should ideally have planned very well for this most awaited onsite. However, I was in a different world.. Absolutely no planning, what so ever! It dint even strike my head that i need to google for a few Indian restaurants atleast.. May be the fact that its just a matter of 4 days made me relluctant. Apparently, I dint find a single Indian there other than my manager. I had no one to even bother about my where abouts. To my great luck, to get a SIM card in Taiwan, they not only require your passport, but also your PAN card!(An Indian PAN card!!!!, which i conveniently left back in India). Strange and bitter experience it was to be at a land far far away from my people, without any means of communication with them either!

When i landed in India after the 4 day stay at Taiwan, I felt so relieved. I dont want to sound dramatic, but the truth is that i was longing to take a look at the cooked rice!! I dint even get to see rice for 4 long days! Well, having got such a great experience, i was all set for my next trip to Taiwan again, for 10 days! There were heaps of Indians this time, who came in for the project from Bangalore office, just like me. They all reached well before me, found out the places to hang around, eat, walk along, shop.. etc. All i had to do was just join them :D It was great fun! What was the difference between the last trip and this one? Its still the same place, the same hotel, the same office, the same work!! But, this time I had friends to go around with, to share the feelings across, to talk out to.. and ofcourse, i had a mobile and a Taiwan SIM Card this time :)

A break @ Mangalore!!

In the tough schedule where i am hardly finding time to cook leisurely and eat, I decided to take a break..! I decided, "Come what may, I am going to Mangalore for 3 days", Quickly, i had set things in place to ensure no significant damange @ office during my trip. I also made sure to stuff my bag with loads of things that there was no place for the office laptop..

Planning is very important for any activity. But, not all things happen as planned. We should also learn how to mitigate the deviations in planning. Out of the 7 tickets booked, 3 people backed out one after the other for reasons which i still feel could have been handled without skipping the trip too.. But anyways, they chose to evade the mitigation plan altogether. But i was so particular that we should not dampen our spirits looking at such drop outs. And yes, admist all the uncertainty, four of us finally set off to Mangalore on a thursday night..(If you really want something, the whole universe conspires for you to achieve it!!)

That was my first journey in a sleeper bus. I was so excited about the journey and it was indeed a great experience. The moment i stepped out of the bus in Mangalore, I cross checked the bus to read the name plate - "Bangalore-Mangalore". I wondered if i were in Ooty.. The place is so green.. the climate so pleasant..and the timing so apt!! I definitely did not go there to note the statistics, but i couldn't help noticing the fact that every house had a well and a coconut tree as mandates..

We had gone to Kuki and Dharmasthala. I had seen the biggest ever line of my lifetime there at Dharmasthala. We went half mad looking at such a long line.. We thought we will atleast figure out where the line ends.. and by the time we figured it out, we realized that we were just 10 steps away from "gomateswar"!! We went there took a few pics and started back on our return journey..

I must say that the best thing about Mangalore is the sight of the beach!! Apparently, the clouds have disappointed all of us from watching a beautiful sunset. But, the pleasure that i got that evening in sitting on a small stone at the beach with waves of water at regular intervals touching my feet in itself is something that i cannot put in words.

Maggy had taken us through Mangalore at a glimpse in this car, trying to cover as many places as possible in the available short time..The moment, we went to his house, we were all busy in showcasing our photography abilities..It was very well maintained, i must say! No wonder, it won the best small garden award for 3 consecutive years in Mangalore.

All the three days that i spent there, i did not think about anything else.. no office... no work.. it was a great break.. just like all the good things come to an end, the time flew so fast that i was back in Bangalore again!! Thanks Sush for the wonderful hosting!! Hemanth, KP and Rajesh, am sure u are already repenting for not making it to such a great trip... Better luck next time..

A day out in the farm!!

Yesterday, i had a very good experience.. an experience filled with joy, pleasure and happiness...After a long hectic week, all i was longing for is a weekend... a weekend where i can take a break.. and sleep..But contrary to that, i got an opportunity to visit a village.. I was delighted to see the innocent people, pollution free blue sky, wide species of birds, the greenary.. and various small streams of water flowing here and there..!! what else do I need on that weekend to take a break from the mundane routine?

I had seen the cocoon culturing division..while i was still trying to recollect the school days where my science teacher taught about sericulture, fresh coconuts were given to us..I took the coconut and was waiting.. Sandip did not take a moment to think once he got his coconut.. he was so excited and tried to gulp it all directly into his mouth and eventually fed his shirt with good amount of coconut water! Kumar almost followed Sandy.. i was still holding the coconut in my hand while the others were ready for the second one.. i was waiting for a straw :P At once i realized where i was.. i was in a farm.. under a coconut tree and was expecting a straw.. For the first time ever, i tried lifting up the huge coconut and managed to drink it with almost negligible fuss and without making a fool out of myself :D

Kumar, Sandy and I shared the farm into sections and started harvesting the raagi.. Kumar underestimated our capacity and just got one gunny bag where we were dumping the raagi extract from the field. In the scorching sun we were on our task for the time time ever.. trying to learn from our own mistakes and sharing the best practices across..Sandip was emphasizing on the requirement of peer review.. While we were too engrossed with our task, we had two ox's not so tightly tied staring at us. Unsure of when they will break the rope apart and test the strength of their horns, we collectively managed to harvest one third of the 1.6 acre farm in a couple of hours time. I had taken a couple of snaps with the collected raagi like a proud farmer.. To dampen all my pride, Kumar told me the fact that after processing the extract into raagi, it will hardly make 1KG or 2!! Hard to accept, but he is infact right. A farmer works so hard all through the season fighting hard with the rain Gods.. at the mercy of nature.. and might sometimes end up not even being self-sufficient with his hard earned harvest..

After one round around the place.. with Kumar guiding us on the various varieties of birds (of which i honestly dont remember a single name while i compose this blog)...we were all set to drive back home at around 3:30.. But Govindanna's(a farmer around) wife insisted that we should have lunch there. Their lunch was so simple.. Rice(with almost no polish), butter milk and lemon pickle.. They were all eating it sooo happily.. All it takes to be happy is just the attitude towards life..We had lunch and came back homes.. But the day left me with loads of thoughts.. thoughts that are still running in my head..

Cricket match!!!!

After a very long time, i got this wonderful opportunity of posing on a cricket pitch!! There was a cricket match organized in our office by our team over the last saturday.. The rules of the game include the involvement of two women players in each team with the opening bats women being them for the 1st two overs.. where we had under arm bouling :D (btw.. i was a pseudo member of the organizing committee :) ) Ofcourse, needless to say that the highly enthued Sravani is in demand!! lol! I gave my consent to one of the teams out of four. The selection was kinda tough.. but i had to oblige after the captain promised me a treat!

There were three matches in total.. Abhik's team Vs Vikranth's team.. It was outrageously hilarious to watch the match with Abhishek and Adam taking up the charge of being the commentators and me trying to interrupt them in between.. with the people who are slightly weak in mathematics doing the manual scoring using the scoring sheets. Somehow, Abhik won the match! The second match was between Shridhar's team(the lucky team for having got me in it!) and Raimon's team. Adam seemed a bit too confident, walking like a lion on the pitch..

Shereen and I practised enough for 1 long hour to thrash the other team down. However, the bouler on the other side, Sushma, seemed to have practised even more ;). 5 balls is all it took for her to throw us out of the ground.. I faced the 1st ball.. while i was still wondering as to where the ball has gone, it is in the keeper's hand! I prepared myself for a shot in the next ball.. Apparently, before i could manage to relax after a big swing of my bat in the attempt of thrashing the ball, the ball comfortably hit the wickets behind me :( and i was thrown out of the ground..

Wondering about what had happened in fractions of seconds, i sat there watching the rest of my team mates hitting boundaries after boundaries.. I was cheering them and wishing for our team to win the match so that I can again get a chance to play.. this time, to really play the game and not just pose on the ground.. Irrespective of Adam's futile attempts, the Indian pitch did not seem to be favourable to him.. the Sachin of our team, Mallik hit him with sixes on alternate balls!! Yes..if you really want something, the whole universe conspires for you to achieve it.. we won the match and secured a place in the finals to compete with Abhik's team. I must say Vikrant did a great job as a commentator for this match and constantly managed to get Adam on his nerves.

After lunch, we had the final match.. We won the toss and chose to bat first. Shereen and I are all set to make a mark this time, unlike the last match. We thought about nothing else.. as the ball arrived, we just bashed it towards any random direction and ran across for the run. I had to dive forward stretching my bat forwards to save my wicket at one point of time..and.. we managed to give a score of 9 to the team at the end of 2 overs.. with both of us not out. We were so proud of our performance. I was so proud of my dive.. my 1st ever dive on a cricket ground. Probably the rest of the people in my team were also so excited with our performance that they apparently forgot to perform to their best :P ;) and we lost the match :D Afterall, it was just a match! But it made our day.. We had so much fun..It was masthi unlimited..

Pollution Vs Diwali

Yes.. today is Diwali.. Firstly, I wish you all a very happy and safe diwali :) Oflate i have been thinking how powerful nature is! Floods.. droughts.. earth quakes.. what not!! These are the things which no one can do anything about! well.. is it really so? Is it all because of nature that all these things are happening without any involvement of us? I dont really think so.. well, there is a lot of pollution around. There are ten people going from a destination A to a destination B. And, they would want to go on ten different vehicles, all of them polluting the atmosphere in their own fashion.. and i really dunno if any of those ten people trying to pollute the air by ten different means atleast even think of planting some trees to compensate for the loss..well, they wont! why will they? how does it matter to them? they just want comfort..

I have personally seen a lot people in my office calling multiple lifts at the same time, as they cannot afford to wait for 2 mins till the lift called comes. So, they want to call all the available lifts.. which ever comes first, they will take it.. The rest of them just waste the electricity and come in vain.. Not just this, people are so relluctant to shut down the computers while leaving for the day. Especially in the software companies, it is utmost important that one does not waste so much of electricity knowingly.. It takes a lot to produce one unit of electricity.. but who cares? we wont!!

And especially on this day of Diwali, i feel like writing this.. because as i write this blog, i can hear a lot of noises around.. of the crackers and bombs that people have been indescriminately firing since 4 hours giving no break for the air to calm down.. so much of air and noise pollution!! Yes, Diwali is the festival of lights and we should have fun.. but, one should always draw a line.. you can fire a couple of crackers.. just to drive away the flies and insects around.. but you should not just go on and on with it to the extent that a person with sensitive ears goes deaf in that noise! And again, are we doing something to atleast reconcile for the loss being created to the natures balance? Definitely, not!! Then, none of us have any right to blame the Mother nature for getting wild.. we are the culprits for making it lose its balance and roar at us in regular intervals.

The shorter, the sweeter!!

Of late, i happened to have a chance to glance through a couple of blogs.. I start reading them with great interest to start with, but apparently, when it comes to nearly half way through the journey, i get exhausted.. the interest ceases to exist.. I dunno if the blogger is trying to express so much on something that he/she is just pouring out all of it in one single shot.. or is it that i restrict my blogs to only a couple of paragrahs that i am finding others blogs a bit too lenthy??

As far as i am concerned, the blogs should act like a refreshing tonic to read through and get the views of the other person. I realized that the shorter the blog is, the sweater it is.. unless the author is a too good at writing! Atleast I hate to read long blogs.. If someone has succeeded in making me read a real long blog from top to bottom with the same interest, either the person has really expressed it in a way that is too interesting, or the person has similar thoughts as that of mine.. or the topic in itself has the magnetic effect!! Having said all this, i will stop this blog here [;)]

Change!!

Change is inevitable.. If things dont change, it gets really boring.. and if they do, it will be challenging.. but if they do too much, it makes life hell! There is a line drawn for anything. For instance, a fish is happy inside the water body. Not that it doesn't have its challenges inside that vast water body. If we get it out of its comfort zone and throw it on the land, you cannot term that as an attempt to make the fish to be more competitive and challenging.. it is beyond argument, a cold blooded attempt of making its life a hell!!

If a drastic change in itself is so dangerous, how pleasant a feeling it is to be amidst people who are not at all cooperative, deriving sadistic pleasure out of watching the fish struggle to reach back to its comfort zone?? The poor fish is happy in the aquarium.. some ppl watch it and enjoy by restricting its space.. narrowing down its zone of comfort.. while some others go to an even more higher level by taking it out of the aquarim and watching it struggle for its life on the land. Is it the mistake of the fish's fate to get into that aquarium in the 1st place?? Even if it is not happy inside and wants to just get away from there, back to its sweet home, does it really have an option??

Well, there cannot really be a solution for everything.. I once thought, if the problem is complicated, there will always be a smart solution for it. Afterall, if a brain can think and propose a problem, it can also think and get a solution for it.. But now, i need to think over it again.. before i confess that what i had thought once upon a time is not completely correct..!!