Sounds of Silence


December 9, 2008 

The moon took refuge under a thick cover of clouds tonight but that didn’t deter my spirits; standing in the cramped utility space, I stuck my neck out in an awkward position with LG over my shoulder to get a glimpse of the semi-circle, pristine white body up there. Post-dinner it has become an unsaid tradition of taking a walk to see the moon with LG on the stroller so much so that our neighbors have come to acknowledge it as our “moon-light walk”. With the temperatures dipping slightly for winter, there’s a chill in the air; our night walks have gradually come down as a precautionary measure for I don’t want LG to be sick child on his own birthday- which is just a week away.

Winter is not significant enough to be called as a season on its own in Bangalore; alright mercury levels dip a bit and the sun sets early and rises late but other than that it’s all normal. But December brings with it a depressing feeling; it’s quiet, dark, cold, and eerily silent.  I don’t know if it’s just me but I can’t wait for the New Year to set in and get over with the last month of the year.

There was one winter that I loved. Thinking about that December gives me gooseflesh - the winter in Chicago, for days I waited to see the first snow, to feel it in my palms, to see it covering the colorful shrubs lining up the streets of Magnificent Mile,  to see the lake freeze, to be dressed in layers of clothing and yet step out cheerfully every morning, to see the fireworks light up the Chicago night sky every Wednesday and Saturday, to go ice skating and fall over and over again and still not give up - everything about that winter seemed perfect.  I’d never seen or felt snow before so it was a novel experience. The first night when it snowed, I frantically called up all the people I knew who were awake and rushed down onto the streets to feel snow and watch the kids (very few that lived Downtown) make a snowman.

This winter is quiet, very quiet indeed. I have tons of work to complete before the 25th and the weather isn’t making it any easier.  The silence is haunting, so I’ve finally taken to listening to loud music over and over again on youtube while working. It’s addictive and very little work gets done. Let’s not talk about taste, for now- damn promos and watching TV!

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Pizza. Sleep. Work.


December 5, 2008 

If you are wondering how the three title words are related, then don’t worry because there’s no mystery in there; all I could think of at this time of the day were single unrelated words. It’s Friday night and I would have loved to gorge on a cheese Pizza topped with jalapenos, black olives, mushrooms, corn, and the other regulars. The thought of a newly opened pizza outlet about 250 meters from where I live doesn’t help much. Pune and Bangalore are contrasts in every aspect of the daily life. I waited a good seven months before I could feast on a Pizza - one of my favorite foods - in Pune because I was pregnant with LG and couldn’t make it to the city. Can you believe it meant an hour’s drive to visit the nearest Domino’s or Pizza Hut and home delivery was virtually unheard of until about six months back? In Bangalore, there are two outlets within half a kilometer.

Sleep. Now food and sleep are two things I value very much in life; I can’t decide which one comes first but today I will go with sleep. Or maybe food on second thoughts. I can describe to the minutest detail the layout of our bedroom, the speck of dust adorning the fan blades, and the globe shape formed by orange hues from the night lamp’s reflection; no big deal if you spend hours night after night staring into these objects, right? For years, I went to bed to 10:00 p.m. and woke up by 6:30 p.m. - yea, I was one of those humans that required a minimum of 8 hours sleep to be sane the next morning. It all changed once Li’l General came into our lives. To match his night-time milk schedule, my bedtime shifted by an hour. Of late, with work keeping me up late nights, the mind is too alert by the time I land in bed while the body craves for some good sleep. I’ve been struggling to get a balance between the two. Committing to more work   this month isn’t helping either. So, I guess blogging will be a bit slow until I finish my projects before Santa arrives. Yes, the Santa Claus countdown has begun. V plans to visit us for a few days later this month. Yay! For now, I’m totally sleep-deprived and “sleep” tops my wish list for next year (I have the right to change it tomorrow, if I get a good night’s sleep today :) ). Talking of wish lists, do you have one or believe in one?

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Do You Know What You Want To Do?


December 2, 2008 

“I don’t know”, was my reflex response for years when faced with an uncomfortable question or one that required any thinking. I realized this was a safe answer that didn’t encourage a conversation, offered a temporary relief from making a life-binding decision, and one that led to no confrontation or further discussion on controversial issues. Issues, not the kind to decide if Rangarajan will a better successor to PC, but the ones closer home that we are familiar with like “Should I have my delivery here or at my mom’s?” or “Do I keep my job or quit?” or “Where do we spend Diwali - your parents’ or mine?”; the solutions to these which most often are elusive are far more consequential than Rangarajan taking over the reins of the already battered economy.

And then, it all changed one day. After that fateful wedding in 2002. For a few more years, I hung on tightly to the “I don’t know” rule. It didn’t take long for V to see through my scheming. Over the years, he has prodded me in his very outspoken way to find answers to the unknown; he has encouraged me to openly admit when I DO know the hard answers. To his credit, I rarely take solace in the unknown.

A friend who has just had her second baby while the first one is just out of the toddler years asked me, “How do I know what I want to do?” The state of managing two young children needs no elaborate description. The frustration for a career woman to be holed up inside a home changing diapers, making baby food, taking them for a walk on a stroller and putting up with tantrums is something that has to be seen; often it takes no more than 5 minutes for them to breakdown on a comforting shoulder. Domesticity is not bliss in these moments. To work or not to work seems like a life-altering decision something that you are bound for life. One’s ability to see past the you two years of a child’s initial years of dependence on a parent is totally blinded. This friend is torn between the parental guilt of not being able to raise her kids on her own and going back to work full-time. I asked her a few questions and predictably answers to most were a shrug or an “I don’t know.”

Do you know what you want to do? I have been faced with this numerous times in my life. Not once did I know what I really wanted to do. However, I always knew what I didn’t want to do and that just made it easier. She asked me how I got to doing what I do right now. It wasn’t easy. I did a few odd things over the last two years before I started enjoying writing. For instance, it was SEO consulting for the two months after I quit working at Cognizant and before delivering my son Li’l General. When I didn’t have enough time to market my SEO skills, I turned to freelance coding for a while. Finally, I settled on stock trading that I still continue to do. Stock trading for a 5% monthly return on investment doesn’t demand 8 hours a day. With a few more hours to spare, I took up freelance writing. As I look back, it was my need to be satisfied monetarily and do something creative with the option of blowing it into a full fledged career later on.

There’s nothing like a dream job. If you love the work you do in the field you are passionate about, in an environment that’s great to be in with money enough to fill your coffers, then count yourself lucky. Else, take this career advice - keep passion and the job that pays you enough separate.

No decision is binding for life. Understand your priorities : passion or money? Then use the elimination rule. Sooner than later, you’ll know what it is you want to do.

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25,869 Words in 30 Days


November 30, 2008 

I couldn’t think of a better title for this post but this says it all - 25,869 words in 30 days. November is traditionally recognised in writing circles as the National Novel Writing Month - an event that brings together professional and amateur writers from around the world challenging them to write a novel of no less than 50,000 words.  The goal is to write every day so that in the end one would be done with a 175-page novel.  The concept of NaNoWriMo has in recent years been extended to blogging giving rise to the concept of NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month. NaBloPoMo requires bloggers to post atleast once every single day for 30 days in November including weekends, and holidays. I didn’t register for this year’s event but was keen on attempting it. Any regular blogger would know it takes a lot of discipline, perseverance, and undying enthusiasm to blog day after day and to keep the ideas churning.  I set myself a target of writing 30 posts every day on my other blog Li’l General Rules. Today, on the last day of November, the number of posts clocked stand at 26, falling short of my goal by 4 posts.  But I’m glad on having attempted it and coming so close which instills me with the confidence and energy to try again next year.

This November has been a significant month when it comes to writing. Between this blog, Li’l General Rules and my daily writing projects, I’ve written over 25,869 words - the highest ever for a month since I started writing about a year ago.

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An Urban Indian’s Identity


November 26, 2008 

“Where are you from?” is a simple question that doesn’t warrant any thinking; it’s akin to asking “What’s your name?” Unless one is an absent-minded professor, the reply should be a reflex reaction. However, of late I find people respond to the place of their origin with a “It’s slightly complicated” or an evasive “Umm..” followed by what they think is appropriate at the moment after due consideration. I’m with the group that chooses a place per convenience. Weird? Well, let’s see as I draw the picture for you.

Born in Southern Tamil Nadu. Studied in places across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Bahrain. Parents living outside India intending to settle in a different town where neither have roots nor were raised. I’ve worked in Bangalore, Pune, and Chicago not necessarily in the same order. Married to a Bengali who was born and raised in Punjab and speaks Punjabi, Hindi at home. I currently live in Bangalore. So when people ask me where I am from, I answer “Bangalore” though I’ve never lived in the city continuously for more than four years. The fact that we own an apartment here brings that affinity for the place. Wonder what people with multiple apartments in different cities would say? After all, real estate is no judging factor to be rooted to a location for an identity.

A few weeks ago, a lady (let’s call her Ms. S) at met had a similar story to narrate. Her father was in the armed forces which in turn implied she had schooling in more number of schools than there were grades to study in (sometimes one grade in more than one school). The “Indian Identity” was not uncommon to folks from the Armed Forces and with parents in transferrable jobs such as those in banks. But to majority civilians when job-hopping was considered a big career mistake, it was a strange feeling until a few years ago to not have a place that you could call home. It’s an increasingly wide-spread phenomenon. Every second person you meet in India’s metros today are like Ms.S and I. Our kids in that sense will have more Indian-ness in them. And for all you know, they might just start calling themselves an Indian instead of a Bangalorean or a Delhite.

Regionalism is still pretty much intact in tier-2 and tier-3 towns of India. The cosmo experience has its own advantages. With the stay in every city, you take away some aspects of it that change your lives permanently. Pune, how-much ever I detested initially, always made me feel good for its community living. I regret spending the festive season in Bangalore. Be it dahi-handi during Krishna Jayanthi or pandals during Navratri and Ganesh Chaturthi, the city came alive taking in Puneites and outsiders alike in its festivities with an open embrace. My best Holi moments were in Pune. Bangalore, for all its claim of a blend of traditional outlook and modernity of a cosmopolitan, has that inherent aloofness, a cold feeling that’s difficult to describe.

Living across cities opens a wide array of culinary choices. I find it rather interesting at the ease with which we have sabudana khichdi one day, idli the next, paratha, and pohe the following days. Until a few years ago, we would have been discouraged to welcome Maharashtrian or Bangalorean food home out of a lack of understanding. What was restricted to experimentation in restaurants has entered our kitchens now.

Where you live transforms one in ways that’s difficult to comprehend at times. Sometimes it’s beyond reasoning. It was only natural for V to have immense faith in visiting Harmandir Sahib every time he was in Amritsar because that’s what he believed in during his growing up years. He may not live there anymore but that doesn’t shake the faith you’ve harbored all your life.

So, where are you from? A straightforward answer would indeed arouse my curiosity in you :)

Filed Under Bangalore, India, Pune | 1 Comment

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Your Biggest Critic?


November 25, 2008 

“Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you.” - William Arthur Ward

I’ve made peace with myself, finally. Criticism and comparison has plagued me all my life. My best critics were at home: my family - brother in particular. My parents were very sparse in their words when it came to appreciation for fear of letting success get to my head, as I understand their intentions better now. But in their own subtle ways they encouraged us by rewarding with simple gifts that I wish I had treasured. They were more attached to the trophies we won as kids - my mom going to the extent of polishing those brass and bronze statues every year. Sometimes it amazes me as to how these objects have made through our years of moving across cities and countries so much so that the hand-written note on the bottom of every prize citing the year and the name of competition is still intact. My mother would get me an audio cassette of the latest Hindi releases of my choice every time I stood first in class. I recall getting Aashiqui and Dil cassettes in the consecutive months. My brother always reaped the benefits of my hard work, in a way :) So mom would be never like, “Great or Good job.” but more of the sort, “You’ve got to aim for 100 in the next term or finish this year with an overall first”. The bar was always raised higher pushing me to achieve the next best. In a way, it motivated me to take challenges I would never have dreamed of.

My dad of all, has been very proud of me all along. He has never missed an awards function in which I was due to receive a prize. The most vivid one in my memory is that of the Independence Day in 5th grade when I received 5 prizes. It was raining cats and dogs and the school had erected a make-shift tent under which hundred odd students and parents had assembled. Dad kept scuttling back and forth to receive the prizes on my behalf as a bunch of we students were stranded at the other end of the school getting ready for a skit (which was eventually canceled) unable to reach the venue due to the downpour. He counts that among one of his proudest moments. Appreciative of kids in front of others while absolute silence and no acknowledgement to us has been his stand all these years until recently. While mom maintains a dignified silence talking absolutely nothing about her kids to others, which I consider cool because it takes a lot to be that way. With LG around, I know what it takes to keep mum about your child.

Constructive criticism is good. It’s finding fault for every action that can get to one’s nerves - something I’ve never been subjected to. The greatest compliment in all these years that nearly moved me to tears came recently. It was from Dad a few weeks ago when he said he was proud of what I did now. This is HUGE. Encouraged by the words, I read the mail over and over again pinching myself to believe it wasn’t a dream. It was for REAL. I love what I do now, to write. Nothing has made him more happier than to see my name in print. I’ve reached the stage where I don’t look for validation of everything I do. Writing is a path of self-discovery for me; it’s not a full-fledged career yet because the “C” factor is missing. Confidence of making a living from writing will come once I start f  believing in the written word and devote more time than the current 2-hours-a-day.

Do you have a critic at home?

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Parenting Outsourced


November 23, 2008 

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. - Elizabeth Stone

How one takes care of a piece of one’s heart is individualistic. Let me start with mine. The decision to have Li’l General was not momentous : a carefully thought and well-timed decision when I felt I’d had enough of my career and was ready to take a break without the nagging urge to go back within three months of maternity leave. Yet, I did not have the slightest idea of what was in store. As I look back at those 39 weeks now and read the blog posts dating back to my pre-delivery days, I realize it was very much taking one day at a time. So it was a total shocker on the operating table on the D-day as I realized how naive I had been to not think about it or even understand the whole process. V and I did not invest in any baby literature - books, videos, DVDs, anything for that matter. The only information related to what was going on was through the Baby Center Newsletter - a good friend at work casually mentioned this site sometime during my 27th week. What ensued in the following weeks after our son LG’s birth was even more funny as I reminisce now. One morning eight days after LG was born, we were to take him to the Paed for at-birth vaccination that had been delayed due to his calcium-deficiency condition. Three adults - V, my mother and I - were sprawled over the bed trying to figure out how ISRO managed to plant the tricolor on the moon. Alright, jokes apart it was serious stuff that required an equivalent amount of brainpower. We were discussing which was the front part of the diaper and how it should be secured around LG’s hips. I was holding the newborn diaper pack that my dad had got from Bahrain (wish I had known the imported pack was available at the pharmacy round the corner) while V and my mom were holding one end each as I narrated the steps. It took us 17 minutes to get the damn diaper on. More experimentation followed for various other things in the following weeks from how to bathe the baby to hey, there’s something called wipes to clean the baby after you-know-what. In the end, we gave up on new age parenting and LG grew up as a baby in the old-times co-sleeping with me and bathing on my legs.

In short, no one told me it was a 24-hour-a-day job and that parenting did not allow for annual leave, casual leave or even sick leave. It meant one could not nap when one wished to and had to time it with the kid’s nap times even if it were 10:17 a.m. And like Chetan Bhagat said in a recent article having kids could be like owning a luxury car. High maintenance stuff. When people ask you, “When are you planning to start a family” they don’t reveal it must be your lucky day if your newborn hasn’t pooped while you are having lunch or that it could be months before you and your spouse could have a meal together. This is the only way of parenting I knew from my experience with LG the past two years or had ever been exposed to.

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Why Do All Bollywood Numbers Sound the Same?


November 19, 2008 

Listen to thirty minutes of Zoom any day of the week to enlighten yourself of the upcoming releases. Either there’s something wrong with my hearing or there’s a serious dearth of creativity in Bollywood right now. As most viewers, I don’t understand what goes into the making of music for a movie but what I do know is good music can make or break a movie. And it’s been a really long while since the industry came out with some differentiating foot-tapping number.

The only ones that have stood out in recent times are perhaps “Pappu Can’t Dance Saala” from “Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na” or the ones from Bachna Ae Haseeno (thanks to The Boss). So much so that the originals sound very similar to the remixes. Or is it because they are overdoing the promos?

Even the popular “Singh is Kinng” didn’t boast of any grooving numbers. If it weren’t for the aggressive marketing or the chemistry between Akshay-Katrina, I doubt it would have been as successful. And don’t even get me started on Himesh Reshammiya; to think that he got the formula right once and has been rehashing ever since movie after movie in his nasal voice with the lyrics changed is suffocating. To think of Yuvvraaj being promoted as a musical with Ghai trying to replicate the success of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, it’s no where close. It’s a shame that the music took 87 days to make while the shooting lasted 90 days - whatever that means. Nothing these days makes you want to look back and hear one more time. I can’t quite recollect when I last named the movie from its music without as much as flinching an eyelid. The other day, a song from the recently released Dostana was playing and I thought it sounded very familiar - no wonder Karan Johar in action. If anything, the choreography can get better in the least. Great steps among recent movies: I’d pick the Bachna Ae Haseeno title number.

I am longing for an era as the ’90s when we had movies with almost all the songs that were chart busters - remember Aashiqui, Dil, Main Pyaar Kiya, DDLJ, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, Dil Hai Ke Maanta Nahin, Akele Hum Akele Tum, Dil To Pagal Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, and much later Dil Chahtha Hai - phew that was so effortless. And I have to now really rake my brains hard to come up with even 2 or 3 movies with overall good music in recent years. Maybe I will settle for Rang De Basanti, Jab We Met (alright, this is biased because I’ve seen it like 7483 times), and Bachna Ae Haseeno.

What’s on your playlist?

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GTD: Crossing Items Off Your List


November 17, 2008 

Do you believe in a notepad and pencil to keep track of your to-do list?  Sounds very old-fashioned? I’m a sucker for planning things and doing most of my activities in an organized manner. One of my quirks is to get the hardest task on the list out of my way as early as possible. So, if a deadline for an article is 10 days away, I like to get the first draft ready a week before leaving enough time for review and final submission two days before its due; this saves some nights of anxious sleep and the family from my foul temper. Getting the balance right between living life one day at a time to keep the surprise element and planning every moment is tricky!The habit of getting things done methodically well ahead in time can be annoying at times. For instance, I finalized the deal with Packers and Movers 35 days ahead of our scheduled move. And I can say from experience that crossing items off list early on works great and keeps everyone sane.

The tricky part in this whole business of accomplishing stuff is identifying what needs to get done and actually executing it.  Over years, I’ve come to use different tools such as Ta-Da List, Joe’s Goals, Remember the Milk, and Google’s To-Do List. But there’s one which is not in the list that won hands down with its proven track of remarkable performance; to this day, I completely vouch for it. It’s my memory. A few years back, I wrote about using memory mapping techniques I use in How I Remember Birthdays. I extend this to keeping track of my everyday lists as well. The first thing in the morning, I do a mental run of what needs to get done that day and go about doing them one by one reviewing later in the evening as to what is pending.

Mental note-making may not work for everyone. There is a very obvious drawback in this primitive system. At times, I am encouraged to procrastinate things I don’t like to do such as the calling up the customer service people to get my water purifier serviced or following up with Insurance firm on the due-date for premium payment or stocking vegetables in the fridge. But then aren’t mundane tasks what most weekends are about? Some periods of the year can be particularly busy such as December for me when personal and car insurance is due, LGs birthday falls right in the middle of it all, book closing, posting seasons’ cards and so on. Similarly, keeping track of 117 items for big projects such as moving cities is not feasible. This is when I turn to my good ole friend : the notepad, for assistance in accomplishing my mission. Strangely, memory can’t compete with the power of writing things down.

There are good days when all items get crossed off the list. The high you get in checking an item is amazing. Seriously. Try it if you haven’t done it before. There can be days when nothing will get done. Be prepared as the list seems insurmountable. On such occasions, I do a little trick of just breaking them into passable pieces and handling them one at a time. Of late, I’ve gone back to my notepad days to manage my days better.

What do you prefer - the techie approach or the notepad way?

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Top Favorite Eat-outs in Bangalore


November 15, 2008 

It was the monsoon of ‘99 when I first moved to Bangalore. Since then, I’ve lived here for four years at a stretch and then moved in and out of the city only to return with a renewed fervour - a longing one has only for a place you feel at home. You can live for years and still not feel the pulse of a city. Pune was one such place for me - cold! The three years I lived there, I never knew which restaurants served the best Italian food or which road-side paanwala rolled the most mouth-watering paan, or which day of the week you got the best chole bature at the neighbouring sweet shop. To Pune’s credit, it was the most welcoming city I’ve ever lived in; its just that with a closed-mind of always ‘wanting to go to Bangalore’ I never made the effort to fit in. There I said it and it is a huge relief now.

Things started looking up towards the end when I enjoyed some delicious chats almost four times a week during our evening walks; never realised how those colorful chutneys could arouse one’s taste buds - an act of gluttony, is all I can say! The thought of those crispy samosas, glistening jalebis from Pradeep Sweets every Saturday morning for breakfast will make it tough for me to get into bed now. Sabudana khichdi figures way high on the list of my favorite food items now - something that I tasted for the first time there. It’s pohe and sabudana khichdi anyday over Idli/Dosa. So you get it how I felt for the food I discovered in Pune yet there was this emptiness of not knowing enough to strike a conversation when it came to places and understanding the pulse of a city.

Bangalore has changed dramatically these past few years but somethings never change like the ubiquitous Shanthi Sagars (we preferred calling them *.sagars in the good ole techie days). Even after all these years, I can confidently vouch for some of the good eat-outs around the city from where you get the best tea leaves to the most creamy malai ras, to the best soan papdi in town and where you can indulge in greasy parathas that feels like real parathas. It feels so nostalgic as I recount some of the places we have frequented in Bangalore East. Many hold fond memories - of good food ofcourse.  I am a total foodie, you can count on that; someone who eats first and regrets about calories later when the flab shows up!

  1. Casa Piccola @ Indira Nagar: Black Forest Crepes, Chocolate Mousse, French Fries, and Grilled Cheese Sandwich
  2. Little Italy on 100 Feet Road, Indira Nagar
  3. Caesar’s on MG Road
  4. Orange County @ Manipal Center
  5. Bombay House on CMH Road : Malai Ras
  6. KC Das on Varthur Road - Misthi Doi
  7. The Dhaba : Dal Makhani
  8. Lalitha’s Paratha Point near Commercial Street

What are your recommended hangouts in the city you live in?

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