Technology we make..

Needed to apply for a Singapore visa for all of us and also a Malaysian visa. Had very little time on hand plus the agents' exorbitant and random charges kind of put me off. I found that we had an option to apply online provided we knew a citizen or PR of Singapore and they had an account with which we could login. I checked with one of my very close friends who has been living there for a while and she said she did have an account. I asked her if she minded applying for us. I filled all forms electronically but I was reasonably sure there was no option to upload them. And I did not want her to labour alone over 7 forms. So I thought of an idea which involved a technology which we make and use daily, WebEx! I setup one with her, we collaborated over the bridge and voila! It was done. And by some chance, the first two visas I applied, were approved and we had e-visas within 2 hours!! The rest took about a day and a half to come, but all in all a very hassle free process. Minimal paperwork and not to mention the very reasonable price - just the official government fees!

Kudos to the Singapore government - truly showing the way in technology adoption. And a million thanks to my friend :)

Was particularly proud of the technology we make - without it, this would have been a little more complex to do :) It is always great to work for a place whose products you know make a difference and what more, you actually see them in action every single day - right from when browsing on the mobile to posting this blog! :)

Back

After 8 hectic days in Hyderabad - got back into town this morning and rushed to work and routine. A great many things happened over the past week.

My sister migrated to Vadodara - and they seem to be enjoying it so far. Our first brush with all that we hear about Gujarat and its development :)

My Dad has gotten back to work. Although I am sad because it will mean no more long visits from them anytime soon, I am very very happy for my Dad - he will be content and satisfied doing what he loves :) All the best Dad!!

The biggest of all - my mother-in-law's heaven-bound journey has concluded and she has safely reached heaven. At least that is what we believe. It ends our period of mourning. It was a hectic set of ceremonies over 5 days, and it is done now. Went well. My father in law was extremely fidgety and nervous, and I'd rather have had him travel back with us but he wanted to stay on, so we had no choice but to come back, just the three of us.

The son, as usual, was completely non-fussy, and was all grown up - a great boon to us whenever we have to attend to something important. He was more social than ever, remembers most people and relationships now, and talked incessantly and most important of all - in spite of everything and all the stress, managed to come back in good shape :) (Touch wood!)

This was the first time I traveled First Class in our trains. It was rather nice. Thankfully the son had the dinner I packed for him without too much fuss and need for videos etc. On the way back we had a 2 person coupe which was even more fun. The son is also enjoying his train rides now - a good sign (makes it more economical too ;) :))

A day of indulgence!

The salon at Leela has moved to UB City because the facility here is undergoing some much-needed maintenance. I was debating if I should go back to my old hair-dresser who is now in Koramangala or to just go to UB City. Finally figured, since we never visited UB City, might as well go there.

The mall is great. We loved the atrium area. Need to go back once again to check it out at leisure. Yesterday we were too much in a hurry to do anything peacefully. My monthly routine plus son's haircut plus mom's routine etc. Subhash was the ultimate in chivalry and indulged us all very patiently. My mom's pedicure was very well done and totally worth the time spent there. I loved the way her feet looked. I have always seen them with cracks and this was very neat, very nice.

The son's haircut sessions become more and more haircute! He looks so sweet perched on top of that salon chair with pillows etc with the cape around him and patiently getting his hair cut. It overwhelms me like little else. Yesterday his session took 45 minutes since his hair-dresser had to hop between appointments as he started late with him. Yet, the son sat in his chair and waited and got it done all very nicely. Proud!

And in all that crowd at the M&W UB City, I was happy, I mean genuinely happy and delighted when I saw my usual faces - the Leela staff. Now, I've been going there for three years and it is a far cry from where I started with this post. Now they are more friends, recognize when I call for an appointment and in general make you feel welcome. Maybe I have turned Page3 now? ;)
 

From good to bad and back

Yesterday one of my mentors (whom I really respect a lot) sent a very flattering email and asked me to be a guest speaker in one of the cohorts he leads - topic was work-life integration. I was not very sure what to say, so we discussed it last night and he told me a few things I do that I can talk about. So, I was feeling really nice in the morning planning out what to say and the works.

The son wakes up pretty late these days and I dont try to force him out of his sleep either since anyways these are his last golden days, once in school he will have to wake up like clockwork. So, to induce him to wake up early today so that I could reach work on time, I devised a brilliant plan of drawing back the curtains at around 7 so he would wake up at the ideal 7.15 to 7.30 which would let us get out of the house on time. (he wakes up almost immediately when light hits his face)

Everything was going well and like I planned. He woke up at 6.45 itself, without me having to do anything and then he got ready to eat in good time and everything seemed to be going rather well when my domestic help decided to start being cranky and complain about too much clothes put for wash and how she is working way too much etc and then started the downward swing. She also forgot to clean his bottles, so I had to spend an extra few minutes doing that and all in all only got out of the house 10 minutes later than planned. Only to find a huge bore digging truck block the entire road without letting me get out of our colony. Luckily that beast moved faster than I feared.

Then all through the road, the folks just decided to drive slower - tailgate huge trucks without even attempting to pass, be extra gentle to their shock absorbers by maneuvering ditches at 0 KMPH etc - you get the drift. Somehow I managed to get to work just in time for the session. But then I did not exactly pull it off like I had hoped to. I did manage to go over all the notes I made but in a piecemeal style - not sure if the other managers in the cohort really got any take-aways from it at all :P

Then I came home, mentally preparing on how to deal with the household help. I had given her a raise not very many months ago and carefully I thought over what to say and said it like I hoped to. From the looks of it (or at least till the next argument), I think I won this round. Ironically just last night I was planning to finish a long pending blog on how life learns from work and how work learns from life - and cite this particular example. Last time she did this, I managed to wade through it very well and was particularly proud of it since I was certain that the same situation would have ended with me changing the help if it was a couple of years ago, simply because I was too .. hmm .. whaddayacallit .. unpolished, maybe? Definitely all credit to Subhash and my learning on the job. One of the main reasons why I chose this career path in the first place. It was the perfect opportunity to get over the handicap I had in dealing with all kinds of people. Of course it is still a long way to go, but I can clearly see my own improvement in the past few years! Thanks to some honest and relentless mentors at home (read Subhash) and at work.

Olympics is definitely heartening to watch this time around. Whatever we win is all credit to the athletes, since they definitely did not have it easy going all the way there. All power to Mary Kom and hope she brings in the Gold. We as a nation do not deserve to tag it on ourselves saying "India" won the gold - but hopefully it changes a little bit of our attitude of neglect towards the seven sisters :) (There are a lot of articles being flung around on this one so I wont write anything more for fear of having nothing new to say)

So back to the day, all is well that ends well :)

Sympathies

A lot of my friends and family have been increasingly wondering how I am coping (including Subhash;)). Whenever someone says that, I actually think, wait a minute, what exactly am I coping with? Sure, mother in law has been in the hospital for two weeks now, Rohan has been extremely unwell for the past 5 days, Subhash has been unwell for the last couple days, maid has not been coming for 4 days now and so on and so forth. But whenever someone sympathizes, is when I actually realize, yeah, life is actually being tough this week with so much to do, not to mention work on top of all this.

But that is all not the point of this post. The point is that I don't realize or feel any stress till someone actually shows some concern for my condition ;) Which I think is a good thing. (Of course, concern sometimes tends to induce self-pity, which I hate to indulge in, but I have learnt to control it well over the past few years I think). I am very very thankful for the stamina I carry and **touch wood** lack of my own sickness this week (which usually is unavoidable when Rohan is sick, since he passes on everything to me). Heck, I am even managing to stick to my workout schedules!!

(Thanking my stars and hoping they stay stuck this way)

Compliment

When we were in Hyd this time, I was managing in laws' house for a few days while Subhash's mom was out. And her maid apparently was inquiring about me yesterday asking if I liked her work etc. And she asked my mother in law where her second son was, since she mentioned she has two sons and she didn't see the second one. Mother in law said, they were here, right, second son and daughter-in-law. Maid was shocked and told my mother in law that she assumed I was the daughter and Subhash was the son in law. His mom tried convincing her for a few minutes that I was indeed the daughter in law and not the daughter, and the maid just could not come to terms with it ;)

I believe I can take that as a compliment ;) ;)

Speaking of compliments, I got a really nice one from my father in law very recently. He said I was managing everything very well and that my planning was perfect. Somehow I thought of my parents suddenly. Had they not brought me up the way they did, I'd probably be a very different person today. Some genes inherited, some qualities instilled when raising us, we are just the sum total of what they made us :) Thanks Mummy and Dad!!

Educated?

Today I was coming home on the usual route. There was a guy in a car in front of me. In a Honda City. And he kept smoking and kept dropping the left over cigarette stubs on the road.

I wanted to ask him, how come the car needs to be clean while the road can do with a few cigarette stubs.

I never understand how people manage to do that in spite of the education they have..

Shame on me

I was feeling increasingly guilty of abandoning this blog space. Lack of topics to titillate the readers, plus probably a slight (only a very slight) lack of time maybe.

But then, today a colleague at work said she knew me through my blog some years ago. Made me feel really sorry for this blog. It has helped me gain so many new friends and I keep neglecting it. I came back and checked the last post and it was nearly 2 months ago. Phew! Something has got to be done now.

So what is happening. In no special order

1) I am as thin now as I was before the baby, if not thinner. And people notice it now ;)
2) The son is becoming taller stronger sharper (I watch way too many Horlicks ads these days, so my talk is ad-speak)
3) Life is content and full. Keeps me happily engaged (hate the word busy)
4) In laws were here for a couple of months, left a few days back, leaving a void which we are slowly getting used to
5) More often than not, I am thinking about what to eat next (See the recently read books list in the left panel of this blog).
6) Had a good share of mangoes this summer but missed the rasaalu ones sorely (one of the very few things you cannot find in Bangalore)
7) I talk of summer as if it is past. Yessir, it is, the past few weeks in Bangalore have been cool, cloudy and rainy. Bane for the laundry but good for the spirit. Also most roads on my way to work have caved in which means son has a roller-coaster ride, what with my driving and the roads put together ;)
8) More friends send in news of impending babies.
9) Rarely logging into Facebook for lack of enthu. Hardly post any status messages there anymore except the blog entries which have also sharply fallen ;)
10) Refused to try fish pedicure after seeing the fish clutter at my cousin's foot. Anything that is wiggling and breathing, I just cannot touch. Includes, cats and dogs. Except humans actually, just about anything else.

There, I made 10 statements, so I can live in peace knowing I am not neglecting my blog anymore ;)

Spring cleaning

I didn't know I would ever do such a thing which can be correctly categorized as spring cleaning.

There was some seeping dampness in our bedroom walls this past rainy season and this had in turn attracted a lot of minute insects. We tried pest control, which I think killed all of them. But now with the coming heat, I believe all of the corpses were beginning to fly off the walls.

Have been sick since 6 weeks. Not sick, sick, but constant phlegm attack. No other symptoms of cold like body pains or headaches or anything but just a nagging phlegm problem followed by a bad throat ache every single day when I wake up. And I HATE throat ache more than anything else. Ditto with Subhash (minus the phlegm). Kiddo of course has been having all kinds of cough and phlegm variations.

So we decided to shift base. We thought maybe the master bedroom was too allergenic. So we slept in our guest bedroom for 3 days till the weekend came around. Then I took a coconut-twigs broom and swept all of the walls (to dislodge all the corpses) and then left the windows open (this is something I am not wont to do because I hate lizards with a penchant and I have a creepy fear that they will start walking in if I leave the windows open, of course, there is also the mosquitoes) for a good 3-4 hours. The master bedroom in our house is delightfully well ventilated, it is thousands of lumens bright when the morning sun rises and it also has splendid cross ventilation bringing in cool breeze till about 11 AM (after which it gets too hot). After that, I put on new sheets, and in general got the bed setup. In the night there was a delightful moon-light and I love sleeping in moonlit nights, by the window, with the fan on (while the window is open ;) )

I guess what I am trying to say is that I had a lovely pre-nap time last night because of the clean room, the clean sheets, the moon-light and the fan air!! (of course the windows were closed, I told you of my fear, right?)

I think I love summers simply for the sound of the ceiling fan! ;)

The cold brought me back

Yes, I have taken a long hiatus from this blog. Blame it on the cosmic powers ;)

Yesterday was COLD. I mean, after moving from California, it was the first time I felt cold when I walked out into the open at 4 PM. That is saying something for South Indian weather.

The cold brought me back to my blog though ;)

Thoughts past to present

This weekend was good. I caught up with a few friends from my pre-university days. I was just thinking, we became friends when we were 15 and now we have all crossed our 30 marks, which means we have been friends for 15 years!! That sounded like a solidly large number of years! Made me surprised and feel old at the same time. When I spoke with one of them late Sunday evening, I realized how very few people are left with whom I take the liberty of joking with :) Maybe I am old or maybe I have turned too careful in speech, I don't know which it is ;)

Finally the daycare @Cisco is seeing the light of the day and the son even managed to get in!! Yesterday we had an orientation so for the first time I drove the son alone, just me and him, to work. I was listening to songs on my iPod and was singing along too, and I think the son found it rather amusing. He kept turning his head away from all the pretty sights at the window to see what was wrong with me whenever I began to croon ;) I was thinking about the time when I used to sing and croon to these very same songs alone on my way to and from work. How life has changed! So many things could have gone wrong, but someone above safely saw me through all those phases of life till this day. I felt truly overwhelmed and thankful :)

Auto i

So we got home the new car yesterday. Since this was going to be a second car, we were particular about buying a small one and an automatic so we homed in on the Hyundai i10 Automatic.

They've come out with a new model recently and it is a sackful of goodies. I always loved the Volkswagen's blue backlight for the dash and the i10 also has it! First eye-catcher for me. Then of course, it is automatic. It has been ages (read 2.5 years) since I last drove an automatic and I must confess I was feeling rather weird not having to change gears and not knowing what to do with my second hand. The best feature on the i10 is undoubtedly its power steering. It is too smooth for words. It just fluidly rotates. For a small car, it has a lot of features that are not standard on some of the sedans too. I loved the iPod jack as well (USB port) since now it means I can put my first gen iPod in the car and with it that tonnes of music which I haven't heard in a while thanks to my mobile phone serving the purpose of mini music repository. All those songs I accumulated, collected, painstakingly sorted and labeled, are all now at the touch of a button. Yay!!

We got it home on Ayudha Puja day (MahaNavami) which also happens to be the son's birthday as per the Indian calendar! :)

The maid's prank call

So my maid yelled into her phone the other day (she is on her mobile talking to someone or another 50% of her work hours). I asked her what was up and if it was a prank call. She said, yeah, and the person would change the language in which he was conversing to throw her off the scent and make her think it was different people. But she said she knew because of the caller ID. I mean what kind of an idiot would think that a person owning a mobile phone wouldn't make out the caller ID?!

So, she was furious. And she asked me to help her call back the same number. And I did. It was apparently a Bangalore number (she cleverly made out since it didn't require a 0 in Bangalore, where if she was calling from her home town, she had to add one). And she yelled at the person saying, "if you call me another time, you see what I will do. You think you can fool me by changing voices/languages and you think I wouldn't know how to call you back. if you call me again, I will give your number into the police and then think what would happen to you." And so on and so forth, you get the drift..

I wonder so many times, I wouldn't think of the Police when trying to teach someone a lesson. Probably because I know how it works so well, that I've given up hope. But apparently the police threat still works in some circles!

I feel bliss!

The baby is sleeping
The cooker just hooted its three whistles, which means till the next 20 mins (till it cools down), I have no work in the kitchen
I finished doing weights
I tucked away the laundry
That evening call at 6.30 got canceled

Now I can peacefully sit for the next 15-20 mins (or till the baby wakes up, whichever is earlier) and get some work done.

I feel happy, one of those rare 20 minutes of stillness in the evenings! :)

Madness

Today was one of those days. When the day disappears in a whirlwind of tasks. From the morning, to now, it has been one thing or another at work. Escalations, tracking, meetings, more meetings, multiple meetings at the same time where I am needed in all, so apologizing to some people for not making it, calls, and all the rest of the good stuff. I just cleared my Inbox full of tasks. And today the son finishes 11 months. In 11 months, I think this is the first month milestone that I was not home some part of the day. Somehow all the months so far I have been working from home on those days or it fell on off days, or I took off specifically. Today I couldn't do any of that.

Well, anyway, at one point of time I was feeling stressed. Then I just took off for an hour, did the usual stuff with the son, bathing him, feeding him, etc and got back the mind to a threshold of peace and started again. Helps focus, this tactic. Else you are going from bad to worse ;)

Info overload?

Subhash sent me some newsletter he has subscribed to about the baby's week-on-week development. There was some nice stuff in it (he subscribed, not me, see that?)

As usual, it gave me the jitters. For whatever reason, I am very nervous to read these things. When you know that these 100 things should happen this week, it is easy to get upset when one of them doesn't. At least that is my temperament. So I avoid these self-help books like the plague.

When I was expecting, a lot of friends suggested we buy the bible "What to expect when you are expecting". I somehow shied away from it. Then we asked Dr. Kini if we should get it. He said he'd take us along the path and so there was no need for the book. That day I was sure he was the doc for me ;) And, of course, I never bought that book.

To date, I stick to the philosophy of listening to the doc and the doc alone. Any questions I have, I call the son's pediatrician. And no one else. No internet. No books. I don't even browse out of curiosity. Because you never know what information you get back. Too much information makes me nervous. What to believe, what not to believe. What to execute, what not to execute. So I keep it simple. Call the doc. Ask him. Do what he says. Trust him. To suggest the right thing. I did my research (very little of it) while looking for a doc. Not after :)

Whats up

I sat down to blog and then I checked my Inbox. There was a mail asking if I'd been busy. Someone was missing my updates!

Talking to people is always like a sounding board, you hear what is hidden in your own mind. I was trying to explain to someone I knew, about why I was not blogging. When I discovered that it is not so much not having time to write as to not knowing what to write. Days are a whirlwind of one thing after another. Work, baby, work, cooking, work, baby, work, something else. And so on, you get it! But I am sure I'd write SOMETHING if I had something to write about. But there you go, nothing but mundane routine. No new observations made, nothing new or exciting seen/learnt ;)

Today is my son's first Independence Day. I am glad he was born in a free country. So I said a silent word of thanks to whoever was responsible for it.

Yesterday Subhash and I stole off to dinner. Alone! Thanks to his parents, we left the son at home after feeding and putting him to sleep. We tried Zen (@Leela) and it was super. The food was just right. And we got some alone time after a long long while and got talking (like we used to earlier). It was satisfying. I didn't realize how much I missed it till last night :)

Friends came over yesterday and today. Today's folks just moved back from the US. It is great that so many from our gang back there are moving back. Bangalore is the next Bay Area for us. We have a substantial group here now and catch up with some or the other of them every weekend!

As usual, exciting and nasty things happening at work. Some days are battles, some days are peaceful.

All in all, life goes on as usual.

TGL!

So the health check results came out and I was surprised. My cholesterol levels were high. Especially the triglycerides, they were not even marginally high, they went beyond and were in the High range.

My overall cholesterol was within normal range (although it puzzles me how that can be).

Doc said, it is stress induced. I said it might be genetic, we have a family history of it. Or it might be diet? But she said no, this is stress induced, you have to have more rejuvenation. I have not the slightest idea how she was so sure, but there, that is that.

Now I need a break, officially! ;)

Other than this one thing, which she seemed to think is not going to be very serious till the next 20 years or so, that too if I continue with the same stress levels, everything else turned out to be OK.

I know a couple of my colleagues at least who also went in for this thing, came out saying TGL was high and doc sid they had to reduce stress. I know that after the results were out, they were actually stressed thinking why is it that they were stressed!

So I guess this is a common phenomenon that afflicts our generation, hmm...

Back and happy..

..to be home
...for the 10C drop in temperature
....for my 15.1" laptop monitor and the space it affords me to organize my email and browser
.....for the successful completion of the son's sixth flight where he didn't so much as wink during take off and landing and thoroughly enjoyed it playing with crew and me and his dad
......for my sister who got married

And many more such..

Air India and its meals

When I was in the US, I loved Air India. For its food. All the way home and especially on the way back (when you are home sick on the flight itself), they used to dish up delicious and hot Indian meals. And they fed you so often that it was tough to sleep..

Today we took the Bangalore-Hyd flight. Flight duration is 50 minutes. As soon as we took off, the breakfast was served. 3 idlis, 2 vadas, hot sambar, coconut chutney, croissant with butter and Strawberry marmalade, fruit salad and coffee. I mean that meal lasted us till 1 in the afternoon and we had it as soon as we took off at 8.50 or so.

And the best part, it was like a test in time for the crew to see how fast they can serve and clean. They served, and started cleaning after waiting for five minutes. And for us, it was like we made the journey just to have breakfast. We took off, had breakfast, finished and landed ;)

Air India certainly still is the best airline in terms of food. Yay! for that. And domestic flying experience in India is anyday much better than in the US, I'd say.