gurgaon

Don’t ask

This entry was posted in delhi gurgaon personal on by (updated 3589 days ago)

Don’t ask what I have been upto, coz I don’t have a clue myself, about where my time goes. I have been quite busy at office. As if managing ones’ own work wasn’t enough of a task, supervising a number of ppl (read duds), considering that you would rather do the job yourself than delegate to them, is worse. I see some serious flaws in the companys recruitment process now. Soon, I would complete five years in the same company, which is *quite* a long time, though we have a whole lot of “10-years-in-the-company-and-still-going-strong” ppl. Whether it’s an achievement or plain lethargy – Don’t ask.

The diwali week was as usual. Apart from my being stuck in a royal traffic jam for 2 hours (for a 5-10 minute distance) and missing my piano classes as a result, there was nothing “exploding” about it. Two days later my car broke down, thankfully not in the middle of nowhere but the clutch plates had to be replaced. How I managed to stop *myself* from “exploding” – Don’t ask.

The diwali weekend was spent coughing away to glory because of the enormous pollution levels (yours truly being asthmatic) and ultimately resulting in a bad case of cold/cough/fever series. The number of times I get this cold/cough/fever series in a year – Don’t ask. I have lost count.

I have finally shifted to Gurgaon in my own house. And alone at that (that was my own whim). How I am managing to stay all alone in a 3 BR, ground floor house – Don’t ask. My new friends are spidey – I, II, III (it goes on … ). At times they glance at me from the ceiling. At other times, I have mousey, playing hide and seek. My favourite sport now is “swat the maximum mosquitoes in one go”. I pray to the gods to give me multiple pairs of hands like them, so that I can manage all the household chores single multihandedly along with office. Maybe 10 heads like Ravanna won’t be a bad idea either. One could plan out separate activities with each perhaps. There’s no furniture in the house right now, as I had written in an adventurous post earlier. There are total 4 plastic chairs and of course the 3 bar stools for the breakfast counter. So at a time only 7 ppl can visit my house. Where the others will sit – Don’t ask.


The Local Zoo

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Step out and there’s a bird with a sharp trill, long orange beak, white breast, black body and longer legs than many birds. (Some ornithologist, please tell me which bird this is). The bird seems happy trilling around in the cool shade that trees provide on a hot sweaty summer afternoon and is busy swooping on small unsuspecting insects. Following its flight, I come across a not so pretty sight. A pig soaking in a water drain in all its oinking glory. But it seems to be deriving pleasure for sure. A little further away are two ducks standing in the hot sun (not in shade) in the middle of the road. The road is pretty battered up due to the construction going on, on the side. I notice the ducks standing in a miniscule puddle of water (some water stored up in a teeny weeny bump in the road). They also seem to be enjoying themselves. Even though they are standing in the direct sun, the heat is not getting to them. One of them is in fact *sleeping* with its neck somehow turned in the completely opposite direction, into its mass of white feathers and the head buried in them! Amazing sight. I forget that I am supposed to be driving. You, dear reader must be wondering where this local zoo is.. It’s right outside my office! (where else can you find pigs but in Haryana). And this is but a sample. While crossing roads, I have come across several other animals from this local zoo – donkeys for one, braying away to glory. Herd after herd of sheep for another. It’s a sight I have seen only in hill stations. Sheep and shepherd together with a lot of bleating going on! The only hilly part in the terrain are the crude speed breakers on the road.

But lately a new animal has joined this local zoo. It has been seen roaming around quite freely in the plush office buildings in the otherwise villagey gurgaon. It’s called the Software Engineer.



Celestial Odyssey 1

This entry was posted in delhi gurgaon travel on by (updated 5397 days ago)

Last night’s journey back from office was unexpectedly calm and peaceful. Set out at 9pm by the office cab bracing myself for the 1.5 hour ordeal. Surprisingly the traffic laden (no this isn’t osama’s relative), bumpy and potholed stretch of road was pretty empty. Of course it was still as bumpy and potholed as ever but at least there was a scope to bypass those unintentional ‘speed breakers’.
The pleasant breeze (sans the dirt and pollution) lightly caressed my face, delighting me. Strains of good music playing in the background made the effect even more ethereal. The breeze started toying naughtily, with my hair…throwing wisps of silken hair on my face. My hair was still not completely dry from the hair wash I had given it in the morn. (one of the disadvantages of butt length hair) As a result the cool wind managed to cool my poor brain which was overwrought with mental tension. I felt like throwing open my hair and feeling the wind streaming down the strands right from the follicle to the tip. (One of the thrills of butt length hair). It reminded me of the bike rides that we used to have back in Pune, when we (literally) threw caution to the winds at 90kmph on hilly Pune roads.
Seeped in nostalgia and complacently holding on to the moment, I snapped back into focus, realizing what I had been staring at for so long wasn’t just anything .. it was our very own moon, looking as full and brimming with moonlight as ever. It was SO big and close, it seemed like a scene straight out of ‘Bruce Almighty’ , except Bruce wasn’t there..but the Almighty was definitely showing off his breathtaking stunts to me :-). We crossed the back side of the Indira Gandhi International Airport..another peaceful stretch with thankfully no high rise buildings blocking my view. I kept playing hide and seek with the moon…saw it next to the beautiful Naval Officers Mess – Varuna, making it look like some Arabian structure with lots of mystery and magic. Suddenly I noticed a low flying plane going over the moon. From that distance, it looked as if it was literally ‘going over the moon’ :-). The beauty of a man made miracle next to a God made one, made that scene eligible for the best portrait award or something.
Soon we reached the Ridge Road, one of the best roads here. Because of the recent flyover constructions at Dhaula Kuan, not many people use it and the street lights have also been switched off temporarily. The ridge road is the last of the little bit left of the ridgewood forest. The wind is absolutely the best here. You can smell the fresh forest air to your hearts *and* your lungs content, hear the jungle around you and pass by unnoticed and unheard. No lighting adds to the jungle effect. The moon still kept its date with me as it followed me everywhere I went. The moment I would cast a glance at it, there it would be imploring me to somehow get photographic memory and lock this moment forever. Soon, I reached home, all fresh and calm and slept like a baby.


Rains Lash!

This entry was posted in gurgaon nature work on by (updated 3589 days ago)

One of the most interesting things happened last friday, something which could actually result in a lot of business loss for the company in which I happen to be employed. There was a complete power outage in one of the plots that we operate from. The generators and power cables etc are kept in the basement of this plot. The rains on thursday night had lashed out pretty strongly and Haryana being the way it is, with no proper drainage system in place, the water flooded our basement. It was 3 feet high with the major equipment completely soaked in water, resulting in emergency shutting off of the power supply. The UPS could also not last for long.

When I reached the office, most of the ppl were standing outside as nothing was working – no PC’s, no AC, no lighting. Everyone wondered for some time abt what to do next (of course the ppl handling the crisis were already at it). It was obvious that the power would not come back so soon and when it does it would take some time to stabilise things. The power was there in other plots but ppl cdn’t really work even there, since the central hub of the company was down. All unix servers, mail servers, proxy server were down, cutting us off from the entire world. It’s such a handicap in this age of electronic means!!
Anyhow strategies for making the best of the opportunity started pouring in. I was all for a Jaipur trip (provided we started on time) or a guitar session (have kept my guitar in office). Someone wanted to watch American Chai at DT Cinemas, Gurgaon. Have already seen that movie in a film festival last year. It’s another one of those where a typical NRI of Indian descent is confused about his “culture” and eventually realises sooner or later that it’s very much a part of him. Ultimately we watched Matrix Reloadedat PVR Gurgaon. The hall is superb, the movie is not. Various upcoming malls at Gurgaon add to the modernistic sheen of that place.
So we had a blast and came back to office, only to be told that the power outage is here to stay for some time. These guys were lucky all this happened on a Friday, with a weekend buffer otherwise imagine the number of wasted manhours!! I must have heard the term BCP (Business Continuity Process) umpteen no. of times that day! Lot of ppl went back home and attended to things they never get the time for on weekdays (that includes sleeping :-P).
In all, such things though in rarity, should happen .. it’s a good team building exercise as we all could make out :-).


An outing 7

This entry was posted in gurgaon personal on by (updated 5397 days ago)

Today I went to Tango, a restaurant in DLF. The ppl who accompanied me were Ish, Rohit, Mini, Bonda and Manoj – all from the PPG team. It was a small place with hardly any seating space on the ground floor. The cooking was done on the first floor, with a spiral staircase leading upto the cooking area. By now the waiters would have had enough of practice to avoid toppling dishes from that dizzying height :-). We all ordered our individual items and juices. The juices were surprisingly good and were freshly made instead of being tossed out of tins into stylish glasses. So the long wait was not minded much. The rest of the fare took quite some time to come though.
The first lucky recipient of his meal was Rohit. He had ordered a Chicken Sandwich and a Chicken Salad to go with it. Everyone dug into it except Mini who’s a vegetarian. After much wait, came the next item, Manoj’s Veg steak which had some kinda cutlet with garlic sauce on it. That was good too. The infinite amount of time being taken between orders could probably be accounted for, by the gas cylinder we saw, being “smuggled” up the spiralling staircase. One after another, all dishes came with the last one being Ish’s Macaroni florentine. Bonda didn’t like his Chicken Shashlik sizzler and found my Chicken Satellite sizzler better (dunno the funda behind the satellites though). In between Rohit tried all kind of antics (now that he was vela) with the water in the plastic glasses, managing to spill it all over himself, thankfully not in any strategic places :P. The food was good overall but the wait had been too much. Eventually it was time for payment of the 900+ bill. When we asked for corporate discount we were asked which company we are from and then told that there was no corporate discount policy in that restaurant. Wonder why the company’s name was asked for with such efficacy. We gave a credit card for payment and were told that the machine is out of order. Somehow managed to churn out 1000 bucks amongst ourselves and left.