Maid in namma Bengalooru

Transitioning from Eco-space to WTR has drained all the creative juices in me. I don’t have a proper frame of mind to write anything these days. I am trying hard to write from past couple of days and it’s just not happening. I feel so incomplete. Anyways still getting used to the new workplace, currently nothing major has changed in terms of work, except for work culture, policies and facilities. I like their transport policy, where we have fixed people, who travel every day. It’s only three of us in my cab(S S S). The good 3 hours of drive in the cab gives us opportunity to discuss on random topics like life experiences, crib about traffic jams, exchange tips on job searches and also to vent out our frustrations. Today’s hot topic was about someone who is the most required person in everybody’s household, our lives comes to a standstill without them. Take a guess on who is that? Yes, it’s our house maids. Well I got to hear some interesting stories and I thought will share it with you all.

Maid 1:

The mistress went berserk when the maid didn’t turn up. She asked her the next day, “Can’t you inform me that you are not coming?” Maid replies, “Oh, I sent you an SMS saying I no come, didn’t you see my message?”

Wow what an idea Sirji! I am sure the maid is using Idea cellular service.

Maid 2:

The day she came for an interview, she said, “I only work from Monday to Friday. Don’t ask me to work on weekends; I won’t come even if you pay me extra money”.

Totally influenced by the IT culture.

Maid 3:

I need a salary hike because I come to work on my two-wheeler and the petrol price is touching sky.

Utilizing the time to earn more.

Maid 4:

Don’t serve me leftovers, it doesn’t suit my tummy. I have a very sensitive stomach.

Stay healthy and fit.

There is a crazy demand for maids in almost all the cities, especially when both couples are working and they don’t have sufficient time to do the daily chores. Gone are those days when maids had restrictions and were treated badly from their employers. I am very happy to see the transition in them. Today what we see is they are educated, financially independent, work really hard to support their families and fight for their rights. Fair enough, if they do justice to their work, all their demands are certainly fulfilled. The flip side to it is some people misuse the freedom and the trust given to them. We completely rely on them when we are away from home. Just to make some quick bucks they take a wrong route. We have heard and witnessed such stories. Right?

Let me know if you have anything interesting to share.

Image courtesy: Google

Randomness

Lost in my thoughts
Lost in my dreams
Too many questions asked
Very few answered
Time can only tell
Time can only heal

***

Sleepy heads
Tensed faces
Exams nearing
They are fearing
Too little time to revise
Too much to cover
They wish they had studied earlier
Now it's vain; can only do it next year

Marriages are made in heaven

My maternal uncle and aunt successfully completed their 25 years of married life. I attended their silver jubilee party yesterday and it gave me a lot of insight about marriages. I wish them many more happy years together.

A marriage that lasts for 25 years, Isn’t this an achievement?

May be this wouldn't have sounded great 25 years ago. My parents spent more than that, probably there will be many in their generation. But now, this thought amuses me for several reasons.
Recently an acquaintance told me “we have a marriage deal for 3 years, let’s see if it works for 3 years. If it does not work, we will part ways”. Even before they could get married, they decided on the time frame of how long their marriage would last.

In recent times, I don’t see many marriages lasting for more than 10 years. I’ve seen marriages falling between 1 to 10 years. Is it that difficult to maintain the relationships? How did our elders managed to keep up the relation for so long?

No relationship is perfect; we need to make some adjustments and compromises to keep them going. After spending almost 4 years in the marital bliss, these are my thoughts for a good togetherness:

• Respect each other’s time and values.
• Give individual spaces (My space, your space and our space).
• Speak up: Never keep things for yourselves, voice out your opinions, tell them if you don’t like something. Ensure you say that at the right time.
• Follow forget and forgive policy. Don’t nag about the past.
• Keep your ego away and be open to ask for forgiveness.
• Stop being demanding and understand each other’s needs.
• Marriage is not about two individuals; it comes with a package of two families, accept them wholeheartedly.
• Don’t take each others for granted. Make them feel special.
• Spend quality time together (vacations, game, shopping, gymming etc).
• Be true to your partners. Do not cheat at their backs.
• Live up with all the promises that you made when you got married.
• Don't let your relationship fade away; add life to it.

Marriage is a beautiful bond between two individuals.

Baby on Board

I always marvel when I see the sign “Baby on Board” behind the cars. I don’t see a point with this. It puts me into thinking:

1. A baby is inside the car so don’t come and bash the car.
2.  I am still learning to drive (taking baby steps) so keep distance from me.
3.  Don’t honk like a maniac, a baby is sleeping inside the car.
4.  Don’t get irritated by my slow driving. I have a baby inside the car.

What does this really mean? Is this an instruction for someone who is driving just behind your car? Are you telling someone only to be careful when there is a child inside? Can anyone come and ram into you, if there is no child?

I always feel one should drive slowly and carefully all the times regardless of whether there is a baby inside the car or not. Everybody’s life is important, be it yours or someone else. Each one of us should be responsible for our act. We cannot be recklessly driving and hurting/killing people on the roads. Mind you an adult’s life is equally important. When you can be cautious with the sign and slow down, you might as well be sensible all the time.

Should every car display a sign like this to be safe on the roads?

Power of a smile :-)

"Smile and the world smiles back at you"

Whoever said this line is so true and I have a story to vouch for this. This happened over the last weekend en-route from Mangalore. I don’t know if it was the hectic travel or lack of sleep, I was totally worn out. I tried hard to sleep in the car but failed to do so. There was one such incident uplifted my mood. I couldn’t stop myself writing this here.

We were about 200 Kms away from Bangalore. There was a traffic jam on the high way and we had to take a diversion to avoid it. We got into some village roads. I was trying to catch up some sleep. But the ride on those bumpy roads disturbed my sleep and kept me awake. I looked out of the window; we drove inside some private property with few houses around. The coconut trees stood tall and welcomed us. It was wonderful to watch the sun-set amidst the coconut grooves. It was a feast to watch the lush greenery on either sides of the road. It was a narrow path and we had difficulty to drive on the road; sheep, buffaloes and cows had blocked our way. Just then, I saw some kids on the road who smiled and waved at me. Mind you, someone I have never seen before in my life. It was a reflexive action; I too smiled and waved back at them. I experienced a different feeling all together. I was uplifted. My tiredness was gone; I was wide awake and felt happy. I rolled down the window without caring about the AC was turned on. I didn’t care it was dusty and sunny. I popped out my head and looked outside. I enjoyed watching the sun-set, animals, people, kids and the greenery. I found so many other kids on the way and kept waving at all of them. The kids seemed very happy to see so many vehicles in their village (probably they don’t see that often) and stood in front of their houses. I screamed, smiled and waved at each one of them. The folks in my car found that a little funny or rather weird. Nonetheless, it helped me discover the childishness in me.

I kept thinking about how powerful a smile (genuine) can be. You could be having a worst day of your life, but that one smile can uplift your mood. Try it out! That’s exactly happened to me. I was charged up with the wonderful smiles. Though I didn’t know any of them but the warmth in their smile made me feel I was part of them.The innocence in those kids made me think of my childhood days. While I used to play with my friends, whenever we would hear the sound of the train, we would go near the railway crossing and wave at everyone, regardless of anyone waving back at us. We would continue to wave till the train was out of our sight. I wonder if anyone else had the same impact with our smiles too.


So please continue to smile and make a difference is someone’s life :-)

Social Networking

There is no such thing called private moments or privacy any more. Thanks to all social networking sites. Everyone gets to know about everything. All the networking sites what we have now has invaded ones privacy. Not that I am not in favor of these networking sites, It has been an integral part of my life too. It’s a channel which has connected me with my friends. It lets me know about the happenings in their lives. I am super cool about getting all the updates about my friends without meeting them or calling them up. The only thing concerns me is about the way people reveal information about their personal lives. Every micro detail about their life is shared on internet. One should know where to draw a line. We get to know who is going around with whom, who had a break-up, what they did on their weekends, who went where for a vacation, what’s their favorite food, what are they allergic to, who they fought with and why etc. All this you could get to know sitting at home without even moving an inch (just a click away). What we don’t know about is that could be dangerous too. You meet/talk to someone within few minute you become friends on these sites. Someone you hardly know gets to know everything about you. What if they misuse the information provided by you? Or may be stalking you?

People just don’t think twice before putting anything up there. The things which were difficult to say on face once, now comes easily without any hesitation. It has become a forum for everyone to rant on what sucks in their life and in others life. Everyone wants to speak their minds off (without thinking).

Everyone wants to have best statuses, best photos with maximum number of ‘likes’ and comments, and maximum photos in their album. It’s even crazier to see their friends list going up every single day. Are they really friends to you? Or just adding up for the heck of it?

Be aware of the consequences if you don’t know someone and you want to be part of your world. Like I said before, I am totally cool about these networking sites at the same time was wondering the flipside of it,is it good or bad? Couple of incidents really kept me thinking on this.

• Be sure who you talk to and what you talk online.
• Share all personal information only with the people you know.
• Accept friends request only from people you know.
• Be choosy in putting up your pictures.

OCD

Something struck me today during my dawn walk; I am so used to going after my routine, perhaps I never gave importance to this before. I realized it how troubled I am when my routine is disturbed. Do you all feel the same way?

Like instance I can’t walk without my music. I am addicted to it. I generally do about twenty rounds in the park (ten clockwise and ten anti-clockwise, so I don’t miss the count). I didn’t realize that my iPod was running out of charge, with the little charge what I had; I was able to finish 10 rounds. After that boom! It stopped. Though I know I am yet to finish the remaining ten rounds, I just couldn’t do it. I stopped walking and compellingly returned back home.

Likewise, I have some other set habits:

I can’t miss my morning cup of coffee and it has to be in the same coffee mug.

I need to have a newspaper with my coffee and I have to sit in my favorite place (next to the window).

I have to keep all my belongings in the usual place. I feel very uncomfortable if the location has changed. I’ll only be relieved when I put them back to the same place.

When I go to the gym I need to use the treadmill first. I can only start my workout after running on the treadmill. I am very annoyed if I don’t find a treadmill free and can never start any other workout.

When I board the cab, I would like to sit in my usual place (corner side). I get very irritated to be a sandwich in the middle.

On my bed I can only sleep on my side, I can never sleep on the other side.

Even my watches, footwear and bags follow with the set of clothes that I wear. I will never club with the other ones.

I don’t know if it’s good to be addictive on your habit. I wonder if these symptoms are said to be OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder).

Moment of Truth

While flipping through some channels on the TV, I happened to stop at a program which was showing the lives of soldiers in Indian Army. I have high regards to all of them who are with the armed forces. They do so many sacrifices to safeguard all of us. They don’t have an appropriate life like us. They fine-tune their lives for us to be safe and secure. At the end of the program I was so carried away that tears were just rolling down my cheeks without my knowledge.

Life has given me so many things in which I could be happy, yet I am not content with what I have. I constantly criticize about anything and everything. There are times I am happy in my small little world and times unhappy with the people around me. There are instances I wish for the ones I don’t have and instances where I don’t want what I have. There are occasions I would ask for people who are far away from me to be nearer and occasions where the nearer ones to go away. There are moments I want to be left alone and moments I want lot of people around me. There are times I want to dress up and look nice and times I just don’t care how I look. There are points in time when I want to blast music and points in time I get irritated with the slightest noise. There are moments in time I get angry on silly things and moments in time where I laugh at something serious. There are times I love to play in rains and times I hate the sight of it. Oh my god! I have so many choices and my mood swings so eccentrically.

Why am I not happy with the comforts that I have? I feel ashamed when I compare my life with a soldier. Look at them, they are far away from their families and loved ones. They have fractional comforts when compared to me. They have very limited choices in life, yet they are contented doing their jobs. Not once they whine about their issues. I saw that happiness (genuine) on their face. Their smile spoke about the delight of serving their mother land. They are proud serving the country. I am proud of these soldiers who work so hard to keep our country safe.

My learning from them is to be happy with what I am and with what I have.

I still remember

There are certain things which never fades away from our memory. Here is my list of such things which I still remember:

• When “Bangalore” was spelt as “Bangalore” in English and not as“Bengalooru”.
• When circuses still visited Bangalore every year and were a big deal for all the kids.
• When there were no multiplex movie theaters in Bangalore and I still enjoyed watching movies in Plaza, Symphony, Rex and Lido.
• When Popcorn and Pepsi were inexpensive in the theatres and I could buy from my pocket money along with the movie tickets.
• When it was only one TV channel (DD) and yet had lot of programs to watch.
• When I used to wait for the days like Sunday /Wednesday: To watch Rangoli, Giant Robot, Ramayan, Malgudi days and Mahabharth.
• When I used to watch very few movies, yet remember the lyrics of all the songs by heart.
• When I used to bicycle/play in the hot sun for hours together and not cared about getting tanned.
• When I used to relish the ads like “Mile sur mera”, “Ek Titali Anek Titaliya”, “Diary milk”.(I still do!)
• When I used to rent out Video cassettes and VCD/VCR players to watch movies.
• When autorickshaw drivers did not demand one-and-a-half after seven and not make fuss when I call them.
• When I used to go anywhere and everywhere in Bangalore and not getting stuck in the traffic jams.
• When Airport Road (old) did not have a Leela Palace, a Manipal Hospital and Kemp's Fort.
• When Coffee was only known as "Filter Coffee" and served in Darshinis and hotels.
• When Bangalore known only as “Garden City” not the Silicon city or BPO city.