The weekend was quite hectic with most of the time on saturday spent on filing the Income-Tax returns and of course meeting the guy whose car bumper got scratched in a collision with my car.

Fast forward to Monday and it was work as usual. The weather is quite chilly outside and the airconditioning inside the office only made it worse, till thankfull it was switched off. Can't wait to snuggle into my bed and have a sound sleep :)

It was an exciting day @ work today as I finished my task with lots of time to spare. Of course being Friday was like an icing on the cake :)

The one thing which has come to haunt me is the filing of the Income-Tax returns. I thought that after e-filing my job is over. It turns out that there is a final submission of the acknowledgement hard copy to be done @ the Income-Tax office. Only after getting the seal, will it be finally over..phew :)

I am looking forward to the weekend. Next weekend our office colleagues are planning for a 2 day trip to Dandeli (a reserve forest) which is 8 hours journey from Bangalore. I am excited about it and hope things work out.

It was a situation of being half-awake and half-sleep when I got up today morning. The culprit after a long time was watching T.V till late night. The effect was visible as I felt drowsy and had a nagging head-ache throughout the day.

Rupee appreciating is good news for some people and bad news for others like the software industry and exporters. The pressure is being felt not only by the big IT companies but also the medium and small companies. The latter are under more pressure. There is a talk of techies being asked to work on saturdays to get more billing rates.

Personally I think that would take the charm out of a weekend after a stressful week. I hope that things don't come to such a pass.

Imagine a situation where you lost your wallet. It contains money, your credit/debit cards, PAN card etc. You will be at a loss to figure things out when something like this hits you.

That's exactly what happened to me. I had gone to the cybercafe on Sunday afternoon and after finishing my work, I returned home and had a good nap for around 1 1/2 hours. When I was about to go out, I realized that I couldn't find my wallet. Initially I was confident that it must be lying somewhere on my bed or the closet and finally my pyjamas. To my shock, I couldn't find it anywhere.

I quickly ran towards my car and looked under the seat and there was no trace of my wallet. Again I ran towards the cybercafe looking @ the road amid a faint hope that I could somehow get it back. I asked the cybercafe owner which drew a blank. Same was the case @ the laundry.

I returned home with a heavy heart cursing myself and thinking about the consequences. It was a nightmare, I was sweating and believe me it was nerve-wracking. I was dreading the nightmare when someone would have gone shopping with my cards and the loss of important ID's.

Life without a penny in your pocket is miserable and losing your wallet makes it worse. My happiness knew no bounds when I found my wallet which was lying just @ the side of the driver's seat in my car. I somehow missed it. It thought me a very valuable lesson on how to take care of your belongings and to prepare a Plan B in case of contingency.

At work, it's been the usual routine for the past few days. Feeling more tired today and looking @ the good weather, can't wait to get home :)

Spending your weekends all by yourself just doing what you like needn't be necessarily boring. Take my case, after finishing my household chores and the laundry I just lied in bed and closed my eyes. Those few moments when I grabbed a few winks of sleep after a tiring schedule was like manna from heaven :)

Post-lunch, I went to the Forum mall, koramangala. People may hate the rain however I enjoyed driving in the rain with the car stereo playing in the background and sound of the wipers clearing the windshield for company. Traffic was in a big mess as I approached the mall.

I had no plans of catching up on a movie and I headed straight to "Landmark" the book shop located on the 4th floor. Apart from books, "Landmark" which is situated on 2 floors also stocks gift items, dvd's/mp3's/cd's etc. I grabbed a mp3 cd of "The Train" and also a nice cup featuring the cartoon character "Johnny Bravo".

When I was going to the check-out counter, I saw a pile of Harry Potter books kept on display. I couldn't resist the temptation of going through the latest and the final edition of "Harry Potter and the deathly hallows". It has been a long time since I laid my hands on a good book. J.K.Rowling the author of "Harry Potter" wrote her first book in 1997 and since then the cult around the book has only grown. Some of the adults may think what the hype is all about, however kids who are the craziest fans swear by the book.

There was a small contest, where you need to figure out the 15 words printed beside a maze of alphabets. I haven't done anything like this before so I borrowed a pen from one of the security guards, took a table and sat down to unravel the puzzle. Initially I found the task too daunting and wanted to give up however something within me insisted that I persist. The guard was looking @ me with interest and at one stage came near me and counted the number of words still left :)

For a moment I felt like a school kid solving a puzzle in his kindergarten class. In the end I won the battle :) After filling up the form, I dropped into a bowl. I hope I get lucky :)

It's nice to know that in this age where people's reading habits are on the wane due to television, internet, gaming etc, books like these may arrest the slide atleast to a certain extent.

I had a nice thai dinner which had rice topped with mushroom and tofu plus some finger food. The desert was my favorite gelato ice-cream in "Dolce Latte" flavour.

Driving home was still the same as it continued to pour well into the night. Sunday i.e today was pretty much routine starting with my breakfast in the morning and spent some time watching television.

The one thing new I did today was to tidy up my kitchen shelves. I had planned to do it since a long time so I shed aside my inertia and neatly placed the stuff back on the shelves.

BTW I had mentioned earlier about my friend Agni who is now in Hyderabad. He has also joined the bandwagon of bloggers :) I read his first blog @ http://theczar-thestoryofmylife.blogspot.com/. It was pretty much about his thoughts, views, ambitions and the like. It was cool stuff and I enjoyed reading it :)

Yipee...it's Friday again. Today, on my way to work, I did my grocery shopping @ Big Bazaar. I am a bit relieved as I needn't worry about my breakfast & lunch for the weekend :)

The Income-Tax department has made it easier by allowing individuals to e-file their returns on the net. So I just downloaded the appropriate form, generated an XML file and then uploaded it again on the website which then gave me an acknowledgement form with the e-filing number. Isn't it pretty cool, saving the hassle of going to the Income-Tax office. I must say things are definitely going to get better in the future.

As for the weekend plans, it's going to be the household work again and then if I am lucky, I intend to watch a movie. "Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix" seems to be the flavour of the month however it seems pretty tough to grab a ticket for the weekend..:)

Wednesday morning and it was time to savor my cup of Bournavita with brown bread. It was yummy and is really filling :) Brown bread has become one of my favorite food for breakfast as it's healthy and tasty.

At work, I was involved with my learning sessions and ended the day with a telecon with my onsite team.

Last weekend I had forgotten to mention that I had watched a movie "Die Hard 4.0". It was a treat for those who are hard-core action buffs or Die-hard series fans, the movie doesn't disappoint in comparison to the previous tepid sequels.

Sunday, I met one of my friends Anil, his wife and their two cute kids after a gap of nearly 5 months @ their new place. In the evening I had a sumptuous dinner with one of my friends @ Woody's on commerical street. It was truly a lip smacking experience :)

Monday it was back to work. I signed up for investing in Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund - Prima option from today through a Systematic Investment Plan (SIP). In the morning, as a financial planner suggested to the radio host on 91.1 FM that "savings should be your first expenditure". How true can that be :) Rest of the day, the time just flew by till it was time to wrap up after the conference call.

Saturday being the day when my household chores take precedence over everything else. I thought of finishing of everything by getting up early in the morning, however except for my breakfast which I had on time (you guessed it, it was my favorute scrambled eggs with brown bread :)) and car cleaning I couldn't clean my house.

I had to rush to attend an interview. I have a 50-50 chance as far as the interview results are concerned. The day ended on a bad note as my car was involved in a minor accident with a brand new Honda Accord. I scraped past the car bumper when I was trying to take a right turn. The car owner was livid @ me, I could understand his anger as he had taken delivery of the car just yesterday. I had to shell out INR 5000 bucks for the damage caused. It also ruined what was a fine day for me. So sad that it had to end this way and I only have myself to blame. I feel like crying, as it was my hard earned money.

It was a bit tense atmosphere in the office today in sharp contrast to the pleasant atmosphere outside :) Well, the reason...we were having a security audit and everyone (especially the top officials) in the company were on their toes.

The office cubicles which normally had a festive like atmosphere with laughter and music suddenly sported pin-drop silence. In the end, everything went on smoothly. Only when the audit officers left everyone could heave a sigh of relief :)

It was a bad day for me as my head struck the ceiling. There is a staircase above the staircase which I was climbing and the ceiling is so low that someone who is quite tall can end up banging their head. That's exactly what happened with me. The impact was such that my upper and lower jaws gnashed against each other. I am still feeling dizzy..it's like the Tom & Jerry cartoon with birds flying over your head :) I only hope, it isn't serious. Can't wait to crash into the bed as I am having a severe headache.

I began my day @ work with a lunch party thrown by colleagues who had their birthday's in the previous month. The place was "3 Quarters", a chinese restaurant located on church street near M.G.Road.

We had arranged for our office shuttle and the rest came by their 2 wheeler(s). The food and the ambience was great. It was a buffet and the price per plate was INR 175 (incl. taxes), not bad considering that the food was quite decent. I especially enjoyed the desert topped with a sweet-meat titled "Malpuha" dipped in sugar syrup. It was sheer delight :)

I felt as if time just flew and it's time to wrap up for the day :)

The weekend just passed by. I wasn't able to catch up on a movie as planned. Saturday, my washing machine developed a glitch when it was not draining out water after the rinsing cycle. That led to a bit of panic attack for me as my clothes were just in between the washing cycle. Calling up the service centre didn't help as they were just closing for the day and will get in touch only on Monday.

After some hiccups, the washing machine managed to get the clothes washed but the water didn't drain out completely. I am just hoping and praying that I don't face a nightmare on the coming weekend.

Work kept me busy most of the day which is good as it's been quite a while since I had my hands full. The newspapers have been full of articles about the terror suspects from India. What has shocked me and many is that those involved were in highly respected professions like medicine and engineering. Of course as the dictum goes you can't label someone as guilty unless proven.

The downside is that many Indians including students and other professionals like techies, doctors etc will find the going tough due to the act of a few people. As it is, in the western society however good the Indians or non-whites are, you're still a brown skinned person.

It was a hectic day @ work today and can't wait to get back home and crash into my bed :) The good thing is that..you guessed it, the weekend is here :)

No one forgets their first job, no matter what the salary was. It might have been peanuts or sometimes nothing at all. It also would have been a good or bad experience. When I saw the program "On the Job" on MTV it reminded me of my very first job.

I worked without pay for 3 months and my joy knew no bounds when I received my first pay although that was a very modest amount by today's standards :) In the show "On the Job" the participants are put through a grind and only the lucky one gets a job offer, be it from a animation or an airline company based on their skillset. It's a nice show worth watching b'coz of the first hand exposure it gives to people fresh from college and willing to slug it out.

At my work, I had a nice interactive session with my new on-site manager. There was serious work issues discussed which was punctuated now and then with rib-tickling jokes :)

It was a bit of relief for me when I got hold of my Form 16 yesterday. I was waiting eagerly for it so that I can file my Income-Tax returns for the Assessment Year 2007-08.

I just didn't feel like going to work today, you can blame the lovely weather for it :) Whenever I have snacks in the evening with my colleagues we end up discussing health topics and this irritates a couple of my colleagues. I savour my fruit bowl while this colleague of mine indulges in hot puri's and mashed potatoes. My health talk seems to have some impact with people slowly converting their oily foods into something more healthy and nutritious like the fruit bowl :) It's the last part which is worrying my colleague as he feels that he will end up in a minority. To each their own :)

It's 4th July (American Independence day) which is a public holiday for our U.S counterparts and unfortunately we are working :)

Most people start businesses from the scratch and then build it into a huge empire. When the time comes to leave, they pass on the reins to their son(s) or daughter(s). But, how many of them pass on the baton to professionals and that too in an Indian company?

The best example is of IT behemoth Infosys where Nandan Nilekani resigned as the CEO and was succeeded by Kris Gopalakrishnan. It was truly a shining example of a company which has set new benchmarks. Another example was in politics when Tony Blair stepped aside as Prime Minister to make way for his deputy Gordon Brown. That was true democracy in practice. Having enjoyed power for 10 years, which politician would want to relinquish their post voluntarily? Imagine that happening in India :)

It's Tuesday and the weather continues to stay pleasant with overcast skies and no traces of rain. On the work front things were as usual except that I am not having a conference call with my on-site team today.

I spent Saturday's as usual doing my household chores and on Sunday, I watched the movie "Fantastic Four - Rise of the silver surfer". As it happens with such movies which are based on the similar series by Marvel comics, it's the victory of good over evil and here viewers are taken for a surprise when the person who is assumed to be evil reveals that beneath his hard exterior there's a noble soul within.

When I followed the news over the weekend of how Mumbai went under due to the deluge it reminded me of the not-so-good memories about my stay in Mumbai 2 years back on 26th July 2005. I was caught in the floods and what a nightmare it was. The only positive thing about the whole experience was it tested my patience to the limits against heavy odds. The sad part is it's become more of an annual ritual and I am not sure how long Mumbaikar's are going to suffer like this.

As a financial capital Mumbai gives you the impression of work-in-progress which never ceases to end. The dug up roads, garbage piled up, construction or proposed construction of flyovers, asia's largest slum, bad state of drainage system, lack of civic sense, an airport which has the distinction of being surrounded by slums, these are things which never change irrespective of which party rules the state or which organization control's the city's muncipality. What is amazing is that the city still survives.

Monday, as usual it's back to work. Somehow the day has been uninspiring so far.