personal

The whirl this week

This entry was posted in personal on by (updated 6253 days ago)

Life has again been a whirl, this week. Clocking late nights in office so that I could take leave *at least* in the last week of this year, was a part of it. It took my maid to remind me that today is christmas. That awareness keeps slipping out of my mind. She asked me if today was “bada din”. It took me some time to gather all those hindi synonyms for Christmas et al. Those hindi hymns featuring “Yesu”, that we sang as kids came rushing back.

This week, Delhi has finally seen the “first day, first show” of “Dhundh – The fog”. Now I can say that winter is here finally. Somehow gradually, over the years, the winter season has been shifting further down the calendar year. But when it arrives, it makes sure you know that it has. I have been driving down late at night with some fog (or was that smog) blurring my vision. Constant dew on the windshield makes matters worse. My sympathies go out to all those who are stranded at airports at these times. Last night at 11 pm, when I had to leave from the office, the fog was literally flowing like thick smoke. Thankfully, I chose the office cab service instead of driving myself. I would not be exaggerating when I say that I could barely see the driver in front of me, from the backseat :-|. The fog required a whole lot of daring to drive straight (or wherever) ahead without knowing where you are heading!

Inspite of the foggy season, there was one exceptionally clear, dark and inky black night, few nights back. The place where I stay now, has a much clearer sky than Delhi. I could see *so* many constellations when I looked up. The sky looked much different from what I knew it. There were zillions of clusters visible to the naked eye and so many hazy stars which didn’t twinkle as brightly but were there nevertheless. I felt like I was in a planetarium. It dawned on me that the “artificial” sky that planetariums have (and which I found so unnatural) are actually closer to the real thing. I almost wished for a blackout so that the few street lights would also go out. With Haryana govt who needs to worry about these kind of wishes. My wish was instantly granted in an hour. I got adventurous and headed out into the cold at 12 in the night, with my handycam in tow. The sky was amazing. I just kept gazing at it. Sadly and as I expected, my handycam could not capture a single star. (I wish to click a snap like this someday). A few minutes later, I realised that the constellations had shifted majorly in the sky. That was quite a whirl, which I barely felt!

Here’s wishing everyone a merry xmas and a happy new year! Have fun snowballing, skiing or maybe imagining these activities, while I get myself a hot cuppa coffee.


Don’t ask

This entry was posted in delhi gurgaon personal on by (updated 3590 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.


Rangoli

This entry was posted in personal photography social on by (updated 6253 days ago)

All work and no play makes anyone quite dull, so inspite of the hectic schedules and my Senior project manager’s “warnings” to not indulge in cultural activities, keeping in mind the release deadlines, I did take part in a couple of things during the diwali cultural fest held at office (two weeks back). There’s usually a floor decoration competition here plus rangoli competition. Hard work pays (only where it doesnt really matter). My floor came first in the floor decoration competition and my rangoli came 2nd out of 13 teams. Here is a pic.

The theme was “good over evil”. Lord Ram is shown killing Ravanna, who`s a brahmin. The brahmin is a Shiv devotee and this is shown with the third eye and Shiv Tikka. The brahmin being Ravanna is depicted in his shadow with 10 heads. We (3 more ppl besides me) used rice (which we painted with water colours), pulses, rangoli colours, maida (fine flour), gold dust, soil, coloured sparkles, bit of thermocol etc. For Lord Ram`s clothes, we used satin, stuffed cotton under it and stuck the cloth to the floor, to give a 3D look. In the end it was highlighted with sparkles, to give it a royal appearance. Coloured sparkles were also put in other parts of the rangoli as well. When the spotlights were switched on, they added to the beauty of the rangoli. I personally liked the bright contrast which came up in the sun behind Lord Ram (he being a suryavanshi), though the picture doesn’t really show it well. Here’s another pic with just that part of the rangoli covered.


Bauji

This entry was posted in nostalgia personal on by

It was my paternal grandfather’s birthday on 27th September. He was born in Afghanistan. Lived like a pathan, went through a whole lot of experiences in life. This included the partitiion trauma and his father (my great grandfather) being murdered during that phase. He left all that was his, in what is now called Pakistan. Everyone still talks of the palatial marble and glass house that they had just got constructed barely in May’47 and partition happened in August just when the house had become a landmark for locals. After getting his family to Delhi, he restarted life from a bare scratch. He started a poultry farm. My dad remembers an abundance of poultry products and milk during those times. My grandfather was on duty with the police when Gandhiji was murdered by Nathuram Godse. But I don’t know why I never discussed this historical incident with him. He was a very powerful man. Even when he would be really ill, his lungs would somehow find the strength to bellow. He would always raise his voice against injustice. No wonder we are still fighting the cases against poultry farm land encroachment by the government. Bauji is what we addressed him as. I remember how I used to trudge along with him as a kid, to get his urdu paper. He used to read and write Urdu (and not punjabi, even though we are punjabis) and of course English and Hindi. But his main love continued to be Urdu. All his diaries, personal or with various important notes are in Urdu.

In old age, ppl go through a sort of reversal of life. A lot of it resembles childhood. They become dependent on others. Their reasoning is still stuck in their own times and thus they fidget at almost everything. They also get pleased easily and with some small insignificant things too. My grandfather had this habit of “rewarding” whosoever made him happy. He used to give us some cash as a token. But this used to happen very rarely. I remember wishing that he would have a real long life and live to see his greatgrandchildren (through me). Although he had seen several through other cousins. But that wish of mine can never be granted. He left us 2 years ago.. just 2 years short of his 100th birthday.