Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Happy Republic Day

Today our office building is decorated in the tri-colors. Saffron, white and green balloons, people wearing khadi outfits, sporting the Gandhi-caps and songs like "Aye Vatan, aye vatan, humko teri kasam" playing in the background, we are all geared up for the Republic Day.

I'm wearing a tiny tricolor flag on my jacket. Every time I look at it from the corner of my eye, I feel proud. I feel extremely proud. For a moment I forget that for millions others, India is just another third world country. I forget the surprised look on the faces of my Non-Indian colleagues to see the tall buildings, wide roads, multiplexes, etc in my country. (But I enjoyed their shock to not see a single elephant on the roads!!) I forget the pain of seeing corrupt politicians ruining my country. I forget the anguish of knowing that thousands of my countrymen can’t afford even a decent meal. I forget it all.

The tiny tricolor reminds me of my rich heritage. It reminds me of all the struggle and the sacrifice that earned us our independence. It reminds me that all Indians, wherever they are in the world are my people, we are all one. It inspires me to believe that we are making a difference in every field. And more than anything, it makes me happy to be born as Indian.
(I know, every American or every Zimbabwean would say the same thing about their countries.) :-)

But for now, if you ask me, "Saare jahan se achcha, Hindustan hamara"

Wishing you all a happy Republic Day!!

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Sankranti for me,

as a kid was all about the til-gul polis that mom made, the rangolis I drew in our courtyard and of course those kites! I remember looking at other kids fighting the kite-wars, crying out "Kkaaattt", and then running wildly after the kites won. The sky would be painted with hundreds of kites and every terrace or open space would be a venue of a noisy party.

I always wanted to be part of that real-action but I’ve never done that. This Sankranti with A, a kite-enthusiast, I knew I had a good chance of flying a kite.
So, Saturday saw us at A's cousin's place. 5 mins of exchanging pleasantries and munching on the til-gul laddoos, we got down to serious business. Both A and his cousin had had kite-colored childhood. They gave us (the cousin's husband and me) the technicality of where to tie the thread, how long that should be, which manja is good quality, why kites should be attached with tails (not just tails, but very very long tails), which kite is flyer-friendly, etc. The lil-too eager audience was mighty impressed. A actually used words like "the dynamics of kite-flying, the air-resistance, body-weight of the kite, balance", etc. For a whole minute I forgot that he was talking about just a simple kite!
The practical took place on the terrace.

I had no idea that we unknowingly had a traitor amongst us. A sweet traitor though. Even before our kite began to soar, A's 3 year-old nephew(S) pounced upon the thread and with all the strength of his tiny body began cutting it! Two of us tried to distract the tiny devil with a battered kite while the other two tried to fly the kite. The day saw two of our kites being swooped upon by the enemies. (They stood out with their brilliant tails, was our obituary for them.) But we also had a loot of 2 kites! Zero-sum game. Nah! Unlimited fun!

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

It's a small world!

I'm taking you on an imagination trip folks.
Imagine. You stumble upon a blog which you like at the first click. (How clichéd me!)
Then, you keep visiting and love it even more. And you discover that this wonderful blogger is your spouse's very good friend! What a coincidence!
Now, this blogger traces your comments on her blog to you and somehow "smells" who you are...Remember you don’t know each other and have not ever met. What will you say? After sticking out your tongue in amazement, of course.

Well, yours truly has been smiling widely reading Luxy's comment and realizing for the nth time that it's indeed such a small world!

Thursday, January 12, 2006

...

Thursday looks so much better!! Is it because you are already on the other half of the week and can almost smell the weekend?
In school, I hated Sundays! Because I loved getting ready for school, cycling all the way, meeting my friends and coming back home to my smiling mom waiting at the door.
Now like any other 5-day-a-week office goer I live for the weekends. Not that I do much during the weekends, usually it’s just the simple "joy of doing nothing" that I drink in. ;-)

Thursdays I fast. Not feast. I mean seriously, my relatives take fasting on the occasional ekadashis and mahashivratris so seriously that the next day their tummies ache out of overwork. Since I'm too lazy to cook sabudana, bhagar, fry fast-special savories I conveniently go the healthy way with a little fruit and milk.

The purpose of this post was to just write my mind. To see whether I could do it. And ever since my mind got whiff of this, the poor thing's gone blank!

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Mid-week crisis

There's something in the air today. I just don’t feel like working. Actually none around me is in any mood to. So I though why not take a break from staring into the monitor and pretending to think something and really think something...
I think I'm angry. I'm so very angry with myself and don’t know why. Most of the times when I've such angry thoughts, it's because I realize that there are many things I don’t have control over.

Well, for the last few weeks, the days seem to fly past without me doing anything. I want to do so many things, but don’t know what takes priority over the other. I so much remember my Mother's advice which is so cool, especially at times like these. Before every major exam that I took and had no clue where to start studying, she used to simply say "Just start studying somewhere." And it always worked! Hope every-day problems were as easy. Do you want a peep into my list of to-do things?

-I've to arrange things in my house. It's such a MESS!! I tend to get irritated to see a speck on a washed floor. And here I can see cobwebs, laundry by the baskets, old newspapers piling, receipts,bills,envelopes lying around etc...God! I can feel my bile rising...

-Then there are things like planning my investments. Just the thought of how to manage my money, how to do tax planning, how to provide for future purchases, etc is enough to give me shudders. Now, I'm a finance person. I've studied all this, but when it comes to making a real use of this stuff, WHY CANT I JUST DO IT?

These are just 2 things in my 324 bulleted points in my to-do list.

Mom, where do I start?

ps. I badly hope this is just Wednesday anxiety.