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

Have you ever wondered what happens if Spiderman visits Bangalore? Do you think he will survive? Let’s take a look at the reasons for his non survival:

1. The moment he lands on Bangalore roads in his costume, our stray dogs will bark and chase him away. He can’t jump and fly shooting the web, clinging to buildings since Bangalore doesn’t have many tall buildings. Even if he finds some, he might just get tangled between the electric, telephone, and cable wires or probably be electrocuted by touching the wires.
2. In the effort to rescue someone in a remote area or a village, the only mode of commuting is to huff and puff on a bicycle. He will never be able to reach the destination on time because of Bangalore’s traffic.
3. Imagine the torture of wearing that skin-fitting-hooded costume in Bangalore’s heat, humidity and unexpected rains.
4. He will be disappointed to see the look-alike-costumes/soft-toys selling at National market and on pavements for dirt cheap price.

Even if he survives with his super power and agility, do you think our people will allow him to stay?

1. Kumar swamy and Yeddyurappa will join hands on mission ‘Quit Spiderman movement’. If the mission doesn’t work, our honorable chief minister will allot a residential site in HSR layout and plead him to stay there permanently.
2. Pramod Muthalik might put a pressure on him to change his western costume to a dhoti as it’s against to Hinduism
3. If his costume is officially changed to a dhoti, our censor board will put a ban on that for excessive skin show.
4. Ramgopal Varma will fly down from Mumbai to make a movie on him casting opposite to Maria Susi Raj.
5. Yoga guru baba Ramdev would be threatened and go on yet another hunger strike to shoo him away.
6. Do we have some spider worshippers in India? They will probably protest for insulting Spider’s name.
7. All Bollywood, Tollywood, Mollywood and Sandalwood celebrities will be vexed about their endorsements.
8. TV9 will start an exclusive channel (24/7) to show live telecast of his whereabouts.

Meet the husband!

I have written almost about everyone who are near and dear to me on my blog, but never dedicated any post for my dearest hubby. When I used to write posts for ‘Thank you Fridays’, he used to always ask me “when are you thanking me”? I used to reply, “Why do I have to say it on the blog, don’t you know that? Isn’t it understood?”

Well I don’t think it works that way, instead of assuming, I should express that. How can I not dedicate a post to someone, who has dedicated his entire life to me? Isn’t it totally unfair?

Here I go with this post dedicated to my lovely husband Niranjan- spotless/pure that’s what it means. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me! I was waiting for an opportunity to dedicate a post for very long time, and now is the appropriate time. This is his home coming gift. It’s been three years that he was away from home. Finally, god has shown some mercy on us.

What can I say about him?

There is so much that I will fall short of words. He is one simple, sweet, patient, humorous, practical, boundlessly energetic, optimist, independent, highly disciplined person. I was impressed with him from the day I first met him! I was always cynical about arranged marriages. I was apprehensive about how the person would be, how I would live my entire life with someone whom I hardly know. My uneasiness was cleared once I met him and had a long discussion about everything under the sun. The very same day we decided that we can take the next step into our relation. After six months of courtship we decided to tie the knot. It’s been four long years and we are happily married. That’s how we met.

Sometimes I marvel about, how are we even together, when we have so many differences.He is a sane person while I am totally insane. He is calm and composed while I am unruly and hot-headed. He has so much patience while I am totally impatient. He has good control on his emotions while I cry at the drop of a hat. He always analyzes the situations while I make decisions in haste. He loves actions movies while I like romantic ones. He is a fitness freak while I consider exercising is punishment. I guess, as per the quantum theory, opposite poles always attract each other. We like & love each other because of the differences we have with each other. I am so grateful to him for everything that he has done to me. I have no words to explain my feelings. All I can say is that my life is incomplete without him.

Niranjan,

I truly, deeply missed you every single day. I can't tell you how I spent these three years without you (I know, it was a struggle for you as well). I am glad that you are back and put the smile on my face.

What I missed the most was your absence on festival days, weekends, trips, lonely nights, and whenever I saw couples together. What I enjoyed the most was bitter-sweet fights, lengthy-late-night phone conversations. What I hated the most was the days when you packed your bags, kissed good-byes and I watched you outside the airport. What I never want to see again is, not to stay away from you and shed anymore tears thinking about you.

When I look back, I know that we have missed quite a lot of things. Nonetheless, what I foresee is the good times ahead of us. The distance between us has helped us to grow our relationship even stronger. I am confident there is something good in store for us.

Love you forever :-)

Forgotten b'day

Neha ran towards the phone hoping its Rahul who is calling to wish her on the birthday. She was slightly disappointed when she saw it was her friend on the phone not the love of her life. After an hour, Rahul called, she was overjoyed looking at his name and picked up the phone. They spoke for about ten minutes and there were no signs of Rahul remembering her birthday. Neha was totally disappointed. She thought he is playing a game with her; maybe he wanted to surprise her later, decided to play along with him. She checked all her emails, there was nothing from Rahul. She logged into Facebook, there were hundreds of birthday wishes but her eyes only searched for Rahul’s. She half-heartedly replied to all the messages. The only thought running in her head was how come he forgot her birthday when they just spoke about it few days ago. It was still noon; she decided to wait till the end of the day. When she went to the office, she had a surprise party arranged by her colleagues. Though she was part of the whole celebrations, her heart only craved for Rahul, she needed to hear only from him. She was alone amongst everyone. In between Rahul did call her couple of times, he had no clue on what was going on. Neha felt like screaming at him but suppressed her anger.

She kept talking in her mind about what could be the reason that he has forgotten her birthday. May be for Rahul it’s just another day but for Neha it’s a special day. Is it such a big ask? How can anyone just forget their loved ones birthday?

Every time her phone beeped she still looked for Rahul’s name. Every five minutes, she refreshed her inbox but nothing from Rahul. She lost all the hopes on Rahul and came to terms that it was not a game and he has forgotten her birthday. It was time for Neha to go home. While she was lost in her thoughts, Rahul called her again informing her that he was going out for dinner with some friend. She was in no mood to talk to him. She hung up telling that she would talk to him the next day. By now, her heart ached by Rahul’s behavior. Her day was totally ruined. Those hundreds of wishes didn’t mean anything for her, she felt stupid. She was about to breakdown; she controlled all her emotions, reached home and locked herself in the room. Her mother asked her why was she upset, she said nothing to her. She couldn’t sleep, after tossing and turning over for a long time, finally she slept. She woke up in the middle of the night, the thoughts rushed back to her, she groped for her phone. Tears slowly rolled down her cheeks!

Maruti- Suzuki : Way of life!

This incident happened exactly a week ago and just couldn’t ignore on putting up on the blog.

We (Dhivya, Gazelle, Arnab, Sada and I) were on our way back to Bangalore from Mysore after finishing Nitin’s engagement. All of a sudden, Dhivya’s car broke down in the middle of the road. First thing we did was to call Maruti on-road service for help. The call centre agent promised to send a technician in thirty minutes. However, that didn’t happen, we had to wait for more than two hours. It took so long for him to reach, in spite of giving out the landmarks and minute details about the location. We made couple of more calls to the call centre and then finally he reached. All of us heaved a sigh!

The moment we saw him, we were a bit scared, he was a lean, old guy who looked drunk. We ignored the looks and watched him work. He started checking the car, with a phone in one hand and occasionally asking some questions. In less than ten minutes, two Maruti Vans stopped in front of us. One man complaining there was no petrol in his car and the other saying something wrong with door-handle. The technician, who was addressing our issue, conveniently stopped and went to address their issues. By now it was getting dark outside (6:30 PM) and we were restless. I went to him and almost screamed. The look on his face was, as if he was doing a favor to us. He came to our car blabbering something.

After trying out all the troubleshooting steps for almost an hour, he finally realized that he can’t fix the issue. The next plan of action was to tow down the vehicle to Mandya, which was the nearest service station. He assured that it won’t take long. He tied a big rope from his vehicle to ours and gave enough instructions to Sada. For some reason, I always thought that we don’t have to do anything while someone is towing down the vehicle. I learnt that we still need to balance the steering and hand breaks. We cribbed, cursed, fought and rammed into his car while we reached the service station. He parked the car and we thought it was just a matter of few minutes, we were good to go. Without informing us anything, he got off the car and drove away in another car. We waited for about ten minutes and realized no one came to address our issue. I then approached a man who was fixing a car, he looked at me and said “you will get your car tomorrow, please come and collect it”. I was baffled. I said “excuse me, that’s not what the technician said, how do we go home now?” He looked puzzled and called up the technician and handed over the phone to me. The technician conveniently said, “The pump is worn out, and we will have to replace it with a new one. Today is Sunday and the office is closed, so come tomorrow, even before I could respond he hung up on me”. By now I was totally agitated and fuming. The guy whom I spoke to earlier was the branch manager and offered to help us. He made us wait for another two hours and finally agreed to fix the issue and send the vehicle to Bangalore. We hired a taxi and reached Bangalore at midnight.However, as promised they sent the car to Bangalore after two days with a big bill attached to it.

So moral of this story is:

• When in crisis, look out for local mechanic who can fix your issue. Call Maruti on-road service only as a last resort.
• Technician will never reach in thirty minutes, be patient.
• Ensure you have someone who can speak a local language.
• Make sure you have the complete details of the location(where your car broke down) before calling the customer support.

If I had just ten days to live:

Don’t get scared looking at the topic, this is just a random one. If you think I am crazy, well I am not, I am sure one or the other day we all need to set off, let’s be realistic and prepare ourselves to face it.

Day 1: Shocked & Disappointed

I would probably sulk for few hours and look out for options that make me live longer or at least buy some extra days. That means, running behind doctors, consulting astrologers or praying god.

Day 2: Planning

If it’s confirmed that I won’t get any extra days, first thing I do is to prepare a To-Do list. A to-do list that contains the things I longed to do throughout my life. I am a sucker for life and I am sure I will have million things to do, so prioritizing what I need to do itself will take a day.

Day 3: Spend time with my better-half

I feel sorry to leave him half-way through. However, it’s not a choice that I made. I will spend the entire day with him telling about things, which I have never told him before, doing things which I have never done before. Walk with him on a country road/beach/park holding his hands, sharing all my thoughts and feelings openly and honestly.

Day 4: Shop till I drop

I really wish I can prove this line. I know this doesn’t make any sense at all, for once I want to buy things without looking at the price-tag. For once, I want to buy clothes that fit me properly, not hoping that it might fit me when I lose some weight.

Day 5: Meet up with all my near and dear ones

I would like to spend the entire day spending with everyone who is close to my heart. I would use that opportunity to thank everyone for what they have done and apologize if I have hurt them by some ways.

Day 6: Wishful eating

I want to eat heart full without cribbing about anything. I will visit all my favorite eat out joints in Bangalore and eat without worrying about calories. I will gorge on Pizzas, burgers, chaats, sweets, ice-cream, and chocolates.

Day 7: Outing in the beach

I would like to spend an entire day in a beach, preferably clear water beach. I would love to laze around in the water not worrying about getting tanned, not thinking about people and not being conscious on how I have dressed.

Day 8: Write with all my heart

I want to spend an entire day just blogging. I would like to document all the best things that happened in my life. Just write everything that comes in my mind, without worrying about spelling mistakes, grammatical errors.

Day 9: Long drive & Reading

I want to go on a really long drive, playing my favorite music, preferably to a hill station with books of my favorite author. I would like to read all the books (if possible) that I have it on my check-list.

Day 10: The end

I will make short phone calls to all my near & dear ones and say good bye. I will get a nice hair-cut done, dressed in my best, take loads of pictures with everyone. Last but not the least will update my status on all the networking sites LOL!.

Enough I can’t write any more, this is too depressing :-(

About me

I couldn’t find any topic to write. So, I decided to write something about myself. It’s like getting to know about myself. I call this as “my top five things”. I am an avid reader and a movie buff. I enjoy watching movies in all languages. Here is the list of top five things which is on top of my mind.

My Top five books that I’ve read so far:

• A message in a bottle by Nicholas Sparks
• Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna
• Kite Runner: Khalid Hosseni
• Room
• The orange girl

My Top five Hollywood movies:

• Pretty woman
• The pursuit of happiness
• Terminal
• Forest Gump
• Avatar

My Top five Bollywood movies

• Dil Chahata hai
• Dhobi Ghat
• Wednesday
• Guzaarish

My Top five vacation places:

• Manali
• Coorg
• Pondicherry
• Ooty
• Mangalore