Grey Shades

Why should Independence Day any different from other days, and for that matter any of Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Friendship Day, or Valentine’s Day? OK I’ll bring up the latter list some other time, for now, let me ponder on our I-day. After 63 years of so-called freedom are we really free? Do we feel any pride for being Indian? Has I-day (and the national song, the national anthem, etc) lost its value? Which emotion takes up more space in your heart today than any other? There are so many questions such as these running in my mind. Feel free to leave your comments on whatever you feel about I-day. Moving on, I feel nothing different from any other day today. In fact it has me wishing we were back there when our ancestors were fighting for freedom. At least all were “Indians” then. All the religions, citizens of all states, fought together against the westerners rather than within themselves like today. Do I feel ‘proud’ about being an Indian? Well, not really. Me being an ...

Did you know that our brain has as many neurons as the number of stars in the galaxy? (We carry a small galaxy in our brain!!) Did you know that a million thoughts pass through our brains each day and that 80% of the thoughts are same as those we thought yesterday? Did you know that Schizophrenia affects about 1 out of every 100 people? Did you know… Ok ok chill, I’m not here to share my gyaan on the human neural system. I’m here to share some of the thoughts that are going through my mind these past few days, though a little late to post or say anything about them. Anyway…quickkkly (that’s how someone I know says it)… 1. Class 8 student commits suicide because the principal canes him. This did not digest well with me. Coz I am from that age where caning was considered a normal and everyday affair in schools. We were all caned (yes, even a good girl like me ;) ) and we are all still alive. The thought of suicide NEVER crossed our minds perhaps because we never really cared. But wh...

This story is written as a part of Mommy Guilt contest on Women’s web . And the good news is that, although this entry hasn’t won, it has received a mention on the Women’s web blog as one of the notable entries :) Bela was a healthy and intelligent woman of 25 married only for a year. Holding the strip in her hand over the sink all she could feel was disgust. She did not want a baby now, not now. She was in the peak of her career. Her boss had proposed for her to go to the US for 3 months and she had been looking forward to it. He had also hinted that she may have to be there longer. And now she would have to drop it. All because of the baby who did not find a better time to arrive than this. Naina was 26, intelligent and married to a healthy 27 year old guy she loved. She planned to have a baby after a year, she wanted to spend a year with her husband before the baby came. She needed the year free from cleaning nappies and staying awake to shut the baby’s whines. But her husb...

This morning I lost my toe ring. I looked all over for it “spreading my vision” to all nooks n corners in office. I retraced my steps to every place that I had been since morning to no avail. I called up my husband so that he could check in our building’s parking lot. Maybe it had fallen off when I kick started my scooter? When he answered in the negative I pinged every member in office to notify me in case they found a silver toe ring anywhere. No news of it and I eventually gave up. When I returned home and was parking my scooter, there it was, just where I had parked my scooter in the morning!! I was surprised and happy.It was definitely not there when hubby checked in broad daylight but I could find it in twilight! :) Such a thing about me finding things when I had almost given up on them has happened many times before. Like one time in school, when I was in 4th Std, a classmate of mine and I were sitting in the classroom after school waiting for our auto rickshaw. The rest of o...

Warning: Lengthy post :) Though I am an optimist, I do tend to look at the negative side of situations quite often. It gives me pleasure, not in a sadistic kind of way but as an extension of introspection. I tend to look at all my actions for the day and see how I could have handled it differently with probably better results. This does not mean I regret anything I said/did. Coming to the corporate jungle and having worked in it for close to 5 years I feel I can do managing better (but I won’t know unless I actually do it :P ). I have had the fortune of working with 8 managers in 4 years. No, I did not “jump” companies. In fact I changed 6 managers in 3 years in one company. I had a new manager every six months with almost the same competency as the previous one. I have many a time seen myself in my manager’s shoe and taken better decisions – all in my head, of course. And I would have liked to share my opinion/understanding with my manager hoping something would come out of it an...

Continued from previous post - " Last post on Trip to Auli " The train was at 6:00 AM to Agra. It was the first time we would be traveling on Shatabdi Express and were very keen to experience the fastest train in India. There was a new kind of excitement as the train went from 30kmph to 40kmph…50kmph…60kmph. After that it never went faster than 40kmph, the reason being fog. Plus, the train lines are so congested there that our train had to stop every 15 minutes or so for other trains to pass. As soon as we changed tracks  another train passed on the other one within minutes. I found it extremely dangerous. Imagine the consequence if someone on one train pulls the chain? The supposedly 3 hour journey took six. What made us feel worse was that the groom, Ayush (we fondly call him Sethji), whose wedding we were attending was waiting for us for more than an hour at Agra station. He wouldn’t listen to us when we said we would take care of ourselves. Agra, the town, is real di...

Continued from previous post - " At Delhi ". This is the last post in the ‘Trip to Auli’ series though I will be continuing with the rest of the trip later. Before I do that let me list out a few tips for people looking to visit Auli. The first tip is to get yourself a good credit card that offers discounts on hotel and flight bookings. Saves you quite a few rupees. If you already have such a card, you are good to go. We did our bookings (flight, train, hotel bookings) online atleast a month and half in advance, so I suggest you do the same. Flight and hotel bookings in Dehradun were done via makemytrip.com. We got hotel discount coupons when booking flight tickets so it again saved us some moolah. So do check if the offer is still there and book the flight BEFORE the hotel. If you are not planing to use the hotel discount coupons, book tickets at the respective airline website, after finding the cheapest deal @ ixigo.com. Booking directly at the airline website will s...