Now-a-days I am feeling fresh and rejuvenated..the credit goes to my beauty sleep. In my earlier blogs I had mentioned as to how inadequate hours of sleep was making me tired and restless the next day. The situation seems to have reversed for the past few weeks wherein I made sure that I go to bed in time and cut down on excess television. The efforts seem to have paid off :)

On the work front I have learnt to keep myself busy. Yesterday and today was quite productive as I could crack a problem which was plaguing me for the past few days.

Thanks to the lovely weather, I don't feel like getting up from my cozy bed in the mornings :)

It was a nice weekend except for Sunday. I was a bit depressed in the evening scratching my head as to what to do. On Saturday I hung out with Agni and his friend. Initially we had a plan to catch up on a movie @ Innovative, however it back-fired badly as most of the movies were houseful and the movies which were playing, we didn't want to watch it just for the heck of it.

We decided to have a good dinner and what a dinner it was :) Chung-Wa is a chinese restaurant located in Koramangala ( a stone's throw from my office). The food and the ambience was great and we savoured every moment. The icing on the cake was the ice-cream @ Corner house (a popular hangout).

I savored butterscotch with fruit toppings, agni enjoyed his chocolate cake topped with butterscotch and hot chocolate poured over it. It was really awesome :)

You honestly pay your taxes for the financial year and when your employer issues you a Form 16, you find out that the Income-Tax department owes you a refund because you had paid excess tax. Now we all know, how our government departments function and if the refund is in a four figure range such as 1000, 2000 etc we are never sure whether we will ever got it or the IT department will gobble up the money.

Yesterday when I was speaking to my family back home my mom informed me that my dad has received a letter from the Income-Tax department. For a moment, I was a bit tense wondering what's next. To my pleasant surprise, my dad told me that I had received a refund cheque from Income-Tax department. Then I recollected that yes, the IT department did owe me some money when I last filed the return in 2006.

The amount was not much however what gladdened my heart was that it's not all that bad about the government. Some departments do function :)

Today, I was able to do some productive work so the day went just about fine :) One of my colleagues resigned as she is all set to go to the U.S for doing her masters. All the best to her :)

It was Rafael Nadal's 3rd consecutive French open title on clay court and the person whom he vanquished was the World No.1 Roger Federer whom he had already beaten twice. Clay has alway's been Federer's weakness and Rafael exploited it to the hilt. French open title was the one thing which was missing on Federer's CV. I felt sad for Federer, however Rafael too deserved the win as he seems to have done his homework.

In any game, you win some and lose some. If you're one of the plain unlucky one's you don't win @ all. What was impressive was Federer accepting his defeat graciously and Rafael commenting on Federer that he was a good chap and he had great respect for Federer as a player.

On the work front, I have again issues with the software license so I have submitted a request for the new license. It may take upto 15 days.

I had a good time @ Hyderabad enjoying home made food and the taste of luscious mangoes apart from the usual lecture about how sick I look. I felt sad leaving home but then it's inevitable as I prepare for a working week ahead.

In the morning on my way to work, when I was waiting @ the bus stop, a shocking incident took place. Thankfully there was no casualties :) I was approached by 2 crossdressers / eunuchs (one in a red saree and the other in green) for money. I didn't pay any heed to them and looked the other way. There was a 20 rupee note in my shirt pocket.

All of a sudden the crossdresser in red saree snatched the 20 rupee note from my pocket and walked briskly, I was too stunned to react, however I managed to catch his hand and then left it. The arm was too soft and I felt as if I was catching hold of a girl.

I could have run behind the crossdresser and got my money back. However what scared me was I haven't done this earlier though I knew I was robbed in broad daylight. The very thought of picking up an argument with a crossdresser had me in a daze as they care 2 hoots about the people.

The people around me saw what happened as my face turned crimson red. There was an old gentleman who was witness to everything that happened. He told me that I should have given them a 1 or 2 rupee coin and they would have let me go. Now see what happened.

I understood the old gentleman's point of view but that was exactly my problem. I didn't have the change on me. Some of the people around me who noticed the shock on my face couldn't help smiling. After a while even I too began to smile and thought to myself to forget the incident as a bad dream and be cautious the next time.

The weather has been quite pleasant today. On the work front there's nothing exciting as I go ahead with my regular routine.

Getting a student visa from the U.S embassy, chennai was one of the toughest tasks as my younger brother realized. As I heard someone knocking on my door @ the hotel, I immediately knew it was my brother. I was waiting to hear the result of his visa application.

When I opened the door, I saw the disappointment writ large on my brother's face. He told me his visa application was rejected. I could instantly connect with my brother's disappointment and understood exactly how he felt.

We stayed put @ the hotel and discussed as to what could have gone wrong. We had a pleasant stay @ chennai, right from moment we touched down @ the chennai airport and the drive to Hotel Ranjith, anna salai. The only downside was the humidity.

The only option my brother has is to reapply after 3 working days. My family was also quite disappointed as they had pinned a lot of hopes. My brother had spent a lot of effort preparing for his TOEFL & GRE exams and I wish and hope that he realizes his dreams & ambition.

6th June is a date, I'll always remember. It was 2 years ago on the very same date after returning from abroad I got a job with an IT consulting company. That was my first job after returning home..:)

Nothing is progressing on the work front and I am busy with my .NET 2.0 learning sessions. For the past few days, I have been encountering turbulence in my personal life. I hope things return to normal.

I will be on leave tomorrow i.e Thursday & Friday. My Air Deccan flight to chennai departs @ @ 17:00 hrs tomorrow. It will be an overnight stay and then will travel to Hyderabad by the 9 p.m flight on Friday. My return trip to Bangalore will be on Sunday @ 18:00 hrs.

It was a pretty nice weekend. I watched the movie "Cheeni kum" with my friend Agni. The movie had a unconventional romance between an older man Buddhadev Gupta (Amitabh Bachchan) who is 64 years old and 34 year old Nina Verma (Tabu).

Buddha is a chef who owns one of the finest Indian restaurants in London and Nina is a visitor to the city. Their romance, can you beat this..begins over a dish of Hyderabadi Zafrani Biryani.

It was good clean fun, noteworthy is the performance of the kid whom Buddha fondly calls "Sexy". She may be a kid but talks like a grown-up. The only tragedy is that she is suffering from blood cancer. I liked the title song of Cheeni-kum.

On Sunday, when I was driving , I overran a traffic signal as I was a bit confused. The next moment I saw a cop giving me instructions to park my car on the side. I was impressed by the courtesy shown by the cop who addressed me politely. He asked me whether I broke the signal, I replied in the affirmative.

I had an option of paying a spot-fine, the problem was the cop didn't have a receipt. The fine was Rs.100. I didn't want to pay the money without a receipt as that would have encouraged corruption. I told the cop to note down my registration number for the traffic violation and send the notice to my postal address registered in the computerised records.

Back to work on Monday and this time it will be a short working week as I will be on leave on Thursday and Friday..:)

Today is June 1st, a landmark for me in terms of my stay in Bangalore, I have completed 6 months today in this city and my current organization. It's also my pay day :)

However as it turned out, it wasn't the perfect start to the Friday I was hoping for. When I saw my payslip it gave me a big shock, a sizeable amount of tax was deducted from my pay. I need to do something so that I can reduce my tax burden considerably. There are a few options I am looking at.

The mood of despondency lifted once my day came to a close..coz here comes the weekend :)

You need to save for a rainy day that was the realization which dawned on me when my sis gave me an earful yesterday night after knowing about the bad state of my finances.As a software professional I am earning a good pay, however what use is it, when I don't save a substantial amount of my salary.

I have made it a point from today to start spending sensibly and impose a certain financial discipline without compromising on my entertainment and other critical expenses. I neither smoke nor drink or indulge in partying however when I looked @ the state of my finances, it gave me a shock. Reality bites and it bites hard :)

The past few days has been kind of hectic and I expect some work to flow in. Today we had the birthday celebrations organized by our fun group for those whose birthday(s) occurred in the month of May. It was good fun, with the anchor (who is from Kerala) striking an instant rapport with the newcomers from his homestate. Whenever he asked the new team members whether they're from kerala, people from the audience broke into laughter :) The cake was really yummy and I withstood the temptation to grab one more bite :)

One of the newcomers sang a kannada song. She had a beautiful voice and everyone keenly listened to her. It's good to know that techies have a talent for something other than staring into the PC's :)

I watched the movie "Shoot-out at Lokhwandwala" @ Innovative Multiplex with Agni and his friends on Saturday night. I fully agree with the review of the movie by the critic "Nikhat Kazmi" in "Times of India" who has awarded it a 4 1/2 star rating.

The movie opens with blood stained stair-cases, walls riddled with bullets, and couple of bodies lying on the ground. A sweeper uses the broom to clear the empty bullet shells lying on the ground. A T.V journalist played by Diya Mirza narrates what happened the day before. Over 3000 rounds of ammunition was fired and more than 120 police personnel (if I am correct) were deployed to smoke out 5 hardened underworld gangsters holed up in the residential building @ Lokhandwala.

Heading the police operations is the top cop Khan (Sanjay Dutt) ably assisted by his two trusted lieutantants Kaviraj Patil (Suniel Shetty) and Jawed Sheikh (Arbaaz Khan). Khan is the chief of ATS (Anti-Terrorist Squad) which is modelled on the lines of the elite U.S police force S.W.A.T (Special Weapons and Tactics). The movie is based on a true incident which happened @ Lokhandwala in the 90's when underworld gangsters had a free run. Bollywood films are getting slicker by the day. The relentless action is thankfully punctuated only by a couple of songs. Credit goes to the Director "Apoorva Lakhia" for the way he has made the film and handled the big star cast.

Abhishek leaves his mark in a small cameo. Amitabh Bachchan, Vivek Oberoi, Amrita Singh, Tushar Kapoor, Ronit Roy, Shabbir Ahluwalia and others play their roles well. Aarti Chabbria as the bar dancer provides the glamour quotient.

In the light of the recent stage-managed encounters of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauserbi by the Gujarat Police and the encounters in Kashmir by the security forces, the movie does raise a lot of disturbing questions. How do you bring the hardened criminals to justice without taking recourse to encounters to them bump off when the judicial system is slow and corrupt notwithstanding the nexus between cops, criminals and politicians.

Sunday morning I took off along with one of my friend to Barachukki water falls which is about 160 kms from Bangalore. Unfortunately the place which was supposed to be scenic with water streaming down the hills had a barren look and you could see just rocks all over the place.

Ostensibly I got the timing wrong by visiting it during the wrong season :) Driving down the 4 lane Bangalore - Mysore highway was a experience to cherish, however much to my surprise there was not even a single restaurant on the highway except the one where I stopped for my breakfast on the outskirts of Bangalore. We had no other option than to go hungry during the lunch time. The road was also in a bad shape for around 30 kms.

I had purchased a new digital camera Sony Cyber Shot (7.2 mega pixels resolution) on Saturday and got a few snaps clicked. On my way back home, it rained quite heavily but thanfully I managed to reach home safely.

Monday morning it's back to work, however I am not expecting much work coz our U.S counterparts have a holiday today.

Yesterday after winding up for the day, I was waiting for my office shuttle. It was raining non-stop, thankfully I had my umbrella :) It was slow moving traffic on the roads. I came to know from one of my colleagues that our office shuttle is stuck @ quite a distance.

I was feeling drowsy and instead of waiting for the shuttle, I hired a auto-rickshaw even though I knew it was going to be expensive. As anticipated the auto-driver agreed to take me to my destination for 1 1/2 times the normal fare. I had no other options as the public transport buses were crammed.

The driver wanted to chart his own way to the destination however I insisted that I'll provide him the directions. As is usual with the auto-drivers he broke a signal, tried overtaking a bus through a narrow opening beside the road. I counselled him not to break the signals and let the bus go first. It doesn't matter if I am a bit late. Life is more precious. I don't know about the first 2 points however he did agree to my last point. I reached home by 10 p.m and thankfully the fare came upto 100 bucks which was okay :) After dropping me, the auto-driver smiled and waved @ me :)

Agni had called up yesterday and today morning. Unfortunately we haven't got the tickets for the movie as all the shows are houseful. The other option left is Innovative Multiplex @ HSR layout. Today morning, it was quite hectic. I started off with cleaning my car, preparing my breakfast and mopping the floor. The last task was to iron my clothes for the working week ahead :) I am quite @ peace now after going through the grind :)

Today morning after finishing my morning chores when I was washing the utensils in the kitchen, the cup which I was washing fell into the sink and the handle broke into pieces. Seeing that even my heart broke and tears welled up in my eyes.

The cup was one of my coveted possessions and was there with me for the past 2 years. It all happened due to my negligence as I was deep in thought when washing the cup. Even as I am writing, I am almost on the verge of tears thinking of the incident. The cup was an inanimate object however I had developed a deep emotional bonding with it. I still made my Bournavita and had it in the same cup minus the handle. I offer my apologies to the beautiful cup for breaking it's handle.

As if that wasn't enough I almost ended up tripping on the powercord extension of my washing machine. I wasn't sure whether I should believe in superstition or the fact that I was just having a bad day.

On the work front, things are still a bit slow. The weather continues to be pleasant and it was a sexy breeze which was blowing across in the evening. It's almost the end of the day. I am planning to go for a movie tomorrow @ PVR Cinemas, Forum mall along with my friend Agni who has just returned from a vacation in Hyderabad. The only thing which I am still not sure is the availability of tickets :)

Imagine talking to a friend on your cell, the only difference is you're standing on the highest peaks in the world with temperatures @ -30 degrees celsius and a beautiful panoramic view of the adjoining peaks. You guessed it right, it's the Mount Everest.

When I read the experience of Rod Baber a british citizen who achieved this feat backed by Motorola in today's "Times of India" edition, I couldn't help but put myself in his shoes. We all suffer from network problems in a closed room, entering tunnels, or entering an area with low or no network coverage. Mount Everest is the last place you did imagine making a call.:) But technology has made it possible.

The weather was again quite pleasant today after a spell of heavy showers and it continues to drizzle as I write this article. I am all excited about tomorrow as Friday is here and of course with it, the weekend is not far away :)

How many of us are conscious of our ecological footprint? Take for example, when we visit our neighbourhood Grocer, do we think twice before taking the plastic bags which the shopkeeper offers to stuff our groceries. How about reusing the old plastic bags? Not only are we contributing our bit in saving our environment from further pollution but also by consuming less plastic reducing the chances of the sewers / drains get choked.

There was an interesting article I read today about minimising the usage of cars and using public transport / metro trains, bicycling or walking to work. I personally follow this when it comes to commuting to work. Even though I can afford to spend on fuel, I prefer taking the bus or the office shuttle to work. I know I am in a minority however I am doing my bit to reduce environmental pollution, reduce congestion on the road (there will be 1 less car on the road :)) and also it's not bad for my pocket either :) I take my car out only on the weekends. The good thing when travelling by bus/office shuttle is that it allows me to grab that few extra winks of sleep :)

Most of my colleagues are into share trading and so I wasn't surprised when there was an absorbing discussion during our evening snacks about who sold which shares, whether there was any profits made or losses incurred (thankfully none) etc. There was some lighter moments as well. It rained quite heavily in the evening and some portions of our rooftop cafeteria was flooded with water. From a hot afternoon to a cold & chilly weather it was quite a remarkable change :)

Parker gets darker..is the theme for the recent movie Spiderman-3. You expect a super-hero to be flawless however when your hero comes across as someone who is equally vulnerable like most of us and has a darker shade it's not something which is palatable for most of his fans.

I am narrating this coz I too feel that I have a darker side to my personality. It's a dilemma I have been grappling with. Last night, I had a nightmare in which I could sense something evil lurking within me which comes out and destroys whatever good deeds I had done so far. My eyes were wide open and I realized that it was a dream. What I did know was that the dream was just mirroring a reality of my daily life.

It goes without mention that I don't reveal everything in my blog as there are some personal issues which can't be discussed here.

Progress on the work front has slowed down considerably as I am awaiting inputs from the on-site team which is not expected atleast till the end of this week.

Back to Monday morning. I had a very sound sleep so I didn't have any complaints on getting up on a Monday morning however when you know that you have a whole week to go for the next weekend to come, things do get a bit depressing.

The reality is we all (most of us) need to work to earn our bread and butter. It was a nice weekend though. The pleasant climate early in the morning and later in the evening made my day.:) I did my usual shopping for fruits and also bought a couple of kitchen cloths as that was something missing in my kitchen. Shopping @ Big Bazaar was quite cool however walking in the hot sun to the shopping centre around @ 2 p.m was definitely not the coolest thing to do and I realized it the hard way :)

On the work front today, I continued with my learning sessions.

You never feel the same on Friday's, maybe it's the weekend fever which gives you a new high :) Everyone seems to be much relaxed, the roads have lesser amount of traffic and there's a spring in everyone's step.

I got up today morning to a lovely weather. The weather was just perfect. It reminded me the other day when I read in the newspaper that the temperature in Delhi which was hovering around 43 degrees came down by a couple of degrees caused due to a spell of shower. So one should count their blessings in a city like Bangalore which is having a gentle weather in the cruellest month of May.

Yesterday I came to office in the general shift, as in the evening I had to catch up with a friend of mine whom I was meeting for the first time. It was a pleasant experience meeting her over a cup of coffee. I was completely lost gazing into her eyes :) It was a refreshing sight for my sore eyes after a long day @ work.:) I have never been able to understand the equation of how someone falls in love..I mean is it just physical attraction or some instant chemistry between 2 individuals or a combination of both. Anyways I had a good time :)

For the past couple of days, there has been a nagging pain in my knees which has restricted my mobility a bit. It may be that I am overstressing my knees or due to vitamin deficiency. I am feeling slightly better today, as I have started taking Vitamin C tablets.

It's the last day of the week and for today I have learnt some new stuff on the job. I hope to have a great weekend apart from the usual chores of doing my laundry and house cleaning :)

Now-a-days I am feeling a bit more tired and jaded by the end of the day. I am getting the extra bucks, however staying late till 9 p.m does have it's downside. My main worry is that having a late dinner can have a disastrous effect on your health.

After the end of the day, all I look forward to is having my grub and then hitting the sack. For the past few days I having my dinner by 8:30 p.m, though that means I need to take an extra break during office-hours. However I believe that "Health comes before everything else"..:)

I have requested my Project Manager to arrange dinner facilities for those who are staying late. He said he'll look into it. On the work front, after a few hectic days the pace has slowed down and I am looking forward to further inputs.

I had a good time last weekend. My brother was back along with his friend, and I took them out for a movie. Initially we went to PVR cinemas @ the Forum mall, koramangala to watch "Life in a Metro" there, however all the shows turned out to be housefull.

Then we went to the Innovative Multiplex @ HSR Layout closer to the airport and I was sure that we will be getting a ticket there. That's because it's quite a distance and people prefer something which is within reach. We comfortably got 3 tickets for the show.

For the first time, I watched a movie without going through the review and so had an unbiased mind. Luckily, the movie was worth watching :) The movie is a reflection more of the times we live in especially in a city like "Mumbai"

Shilpa Shetty comes up with a creditable performance, however the real star of the show is the Konkona Sen & Irffan Khan track. Kay Kay Menon comes up with another brilliant performance as the male chauvinist husband of Shilpa Shetty. The portrayal of his character is such that you invariably end up detesting his very sight. Sharman Joshi, Kangna Ranaut, Shiney Ahuja, all play their parts well. Watching the movie brought back memories of my stay in Mumbai :)

Here, Dharmendra & Nafisa Ali's romance needs a special mention. Their last scene together has been handled quite sensitively and aesthetically by the director "Anurag Basu". It shows that age doesn't matter when it comes to love.

Pritam's music fills up the void, if you do feel any :) On a humourous note, pritam and his band keep popping up throughout the movie sending the audience into peals of laughter :)

My brother left in the 7 p.m bus on Saturday night. Sunday, it was pretty much the same for me with laundry, cleaning and cooking taking up most of my time. In the evening, I went to the commercial street and had dinner with one of my friends.

It's back to Monday and so far I have been keeping busy. I was feeling very drowsy in the afternoon, thankfully a cup of tea saved me from dozing off :)

Thank God it's a Friday :) It was back to my favourite dress code i.e casuals :) I am hoping to catch up on some movies this weekend. Let me see how things go :)

Phew..another hectic day has gone by. Today, I had to rush to office coz I had to pickup my younger brother who arrived in Bangalore after a tiring journey.

The funny thing about my kid brother is whenever I tried calling him on his cell he always hangs up the phone. His reasoning is that the roaming charges are applicable. I appreciate it, that he values money and doesn't want to waste his mobile currency. However this was an emergency and I needed to know where he exactly was. Poor thing, he kept searching for my office location and eventually found it, although it was quite late in the day @ 1 p.m.

Today my kid brother Akshath (Akki) that's how we fondly call him has turned 28. He also happens to be my dentist.:) We have come a long way since we were kids. I used to envy him for all the attention he used to get being the youngest in the family. We ended up fighting most of the time and even though I was the oldest, I was @ the receiving end :)

Now Akki has grown up and is more mature than me. On the occasion of Akki's birthday, I wish him all the best in his career goals and pray for his well-being :)

The usual culprit for my half-awake day was inadequate sleep the previous night. For the past few days work has been keeping me pre-occupied. I was expecting one of my ex-colleagues to come down from Mumbai. As I only have 1 bed to sleep, as an emergency measure I had to get 2 single cotton beds and a pillow. It was not a bad deal for INR 550. Eventually it turned out that my ex-colleague will not be able to make it coz of urgent work @ her office.

I finally received my car from the Concorde showroom, the dent has been fixed and also the bumper has been repainted. The only sore point is the rear bumper which had just a brush-up done. You could easily make out that it has suffered a scratch.The total cost came to INR 6,500. Repair job was only 1400 bucks however painting cost a whopping INR 4,600. The rest was service charges and education cess. Thankfully I had to shell out only 500 bucks from my pocket and the rest was covered by insurance.

Touchwood, my fervent prayer and appeal from now on is to drive even more carefully and hope that nothing untoward happens.

Past couple of days has been quite hectic. Got a bit of relief when we had a lunch party hosted in favour of one of our colleagues who will be leaving this Friday on a year long assignment to Florida, U.S.A. After a long time, I savored chinese cuisine, vegeterian ofcourse :)

My car has now been repaired and I will hopefully be getting the delivery tomorrow. The weather for the past few days has been quite cool and if someone from any other city would visit Bangalore they would be surprised by the lovely weather and remember we are still in the month of May which is supposed to be the hottest :)

Saturday morning's as usual was reserved for my weekly chores like cleaning and mopping the floor. My car is in the garage to undergo repairs due to the dent caused in the accident nearly a week ago. I really miss it :)

Today I made a decision to invest in mutual funds. The funds I picked up was SBI Tax Magnum Scheme, UTI Infrastructure fund and HDFC Mutual Fund. I always had an interest in the share market however was apprehensive of getting directly involved for the fear of burning my fingers as other small investors learnt to their dismay when they got caught in the volatility of the stock market.

By investing in mutual fund(s) on a long term basis through a Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) you're not in it for the short term benefits but for the long haul. Mutual fund investments are still subject to market risks however as the portfolio is diversified and there are professionals who handle the money, there is a lesser amount of risk involved.

In the evening, I went to PVR Cinemas @ Forum mall to get 3 tickets for "Spiderman-3". I have always been a fan of Spiderman series and didn't want to miss the final instalment. However I was disappointed to know that tickets have been sold out till Monday.

On my way back home, I boarded the BMTC bus and what a journey it was..with the engine of the bus groaning and grunting :) Poor thing seemed to have been completely strained. I was praying and hoping that it atleast completes the journey till my bus stop. I agree, I am being selfish here, to be honest who isn't :) We need to be a bit selfish to survive.

The day has finally come to an end and there is only sunday left before my working week begins :)

It's been a long time since I wrote my blog. So it feels good to be back again. Last week, I was on a vacation @ Hyderabad. I drove all the way from Bangalore to Hyderabad. What a trip it was, I logged a distance of 610 kms and 620 kms on my return journey. The roads were a pleasure to drive on the National Highway 7 (NH 7). Onward journey to Hyderabad started @ 6:55 a.m from Bangalore and by the time, I reached Hyderabad it was 11 p.m.

I was totally stretched out having driven 16 hours. Of course I did take my breaks :) I had a good time with my family as I took them around in my new car. We watched a movie, hung out @ the hussainsagar lake and had dinner.

Return journey was less tiresome, thanks to my brother who shared the burden of driving. My work has started in full swing. and finally it's going to be weekend again.

Yesterday i.e. 3rd May was Pramoda's (my mom) 23rd wedding anniversary, I normally tend to forget it, but thankfully remembered it this time and wished her :)

After yesterday's incident I began thinking whether it was wrong on my part to have reacted angrily rather than analyze things with a calm mind.

Anyways today, I drove my car to work again, however this time I was honking as soon as I saw a two-wheeler or an auto either in front of my car or on the left-hand side. I didn't want to take chances after what happened yesterday.

I went to the Concorde Motors showroom to get an assessment of how much the damage would cost me. The person in charge of the car body repair section told me that as both the front & rear doors had a dent, it would cost me in the range of INR 5000. Now that's more severe than I had thought. As it has a metallic paint coating there's a lot of process involved which may take upto 4 days.

I told him about the Insurance cover and he gave me a claim form to fill up so that I can get the damages covered by the Insurance company. I called up the helpline number of the Insurance Company and had a claim number generated. Tomorrow the surveyors from Insurance company will assess the damage and will let me know how much cost would they be covering.

It really helps to have an Insurance cover in times like these, and I hope that both my bumper and the door will be repaired and restored to it's original pristine condition..:)

It was really a bad day for me today. A motorcyclist banged into the door of my car causing a dent. When I told him to stop, he just sped away. I didn't give up, I followed him and caught up with him. To my utter surprise, the auto-drivers who were nowhere @ the time of the accident gathered and started blaming me. I told them to come to the police station. One guy went to the extent of standing in front of my car and asking me to get out of the car.

My fuse literally blew up. I yelled @ him and told him to get out of the way. It was a nightmare for me, as when I was about to park my car another scooterist came and hit my car. I was stumped as I had switched on the indicator and slowed down and to any motorist from behind it would have been clear that I was taking a turn. Thankfully this time it was not a major dent.

I hate the 2 wheeler riders, especially when they don't have the discipline or traffic sense.

Friday, I was back to work as I felt a slight improvement in my health. I was running late so I drove to work and had to stay late. On my way back home, it was raining pretty badly, the time was 9:45 p.m and the traffic got reduced to a crawl. At a traffic intersection, there was a hold-up which lasted upto 15 mins.

It then started raining even more heavily and I had difficulty navigating traffic due to poor visibility which was caused due to the mist formation on my windshield. My only cause of concern was that I haven't had my dinner and by the time I reached home whether the restaurants would be open. This is one thing which I badly miss in Bangalore. In Mumbai you can find restaurants open till late in the night. So whenever I used to return home late from work I had no problem in finding food..:)

Much to my relief there was a restaurant open (I am a regular visitor there) and the staff were quite courteous to let me have dinner even as they were winding down for the day. It was Abhishek and Aishwarya's wedding today and I wish them all the best in their career and personal life. Hopefully, atleast now people will be spared the saturation coverage in the media when there are so many serious issues to be covered.

Saturday was pretty much cool, as I had recovered completely and it felt good to be "normal" :) Getting sick when you're staying alone can really be hard on you. You miss the company of your family. If it was home, mom would have made me breakfast, served me a hot cup of tea, put her hand on my forehead and give me a warm hug :) These may be small things in our lives for which we have no time in our busy schedule, however they do matter. Someone was right when they said "Money can buy you all the comforts, but it can't buy you love"

It was the routine of finishing my laundry and cleaning the house. In the evening, I went to my friend Agni's house. From there we went to the Forum mall as I wanted to check out some digital cameras. After checking out the camera and it's price, I was in a dilemma whether to purchase it or not. In the end I didn't go for it as I needed time to think.

We planned to watch the movie "Namastey London" which was unfortunately housefull. For dinner, we decided to try out a new cuisine @ the food court and went to the sea-food section. The menu varied from squids, fishfingers to prawns.

Agni opted for the prawn fried rice while I decided to check out the combination of singapore chilly prawns and fried rice. When the food was served to us, we got a shock looking @ the quantity. It was 80 bucks each and all I got was a small scoop of rice and prawns.

We looked @ each other and thought of ourselves as Jack-asses in a cartoon :) The food was ok and not so bad as we thought except for the price factor which prompted Agni to comment "Sometimes you pay more to get less" :) Now comes the best part and that was when we had ice-cream for dessert. It was an italian ice-cream gelato which is quite the in-thing now-a-days. The high point of this ice-cream is that it's water based in comparison to other milk based ice-creams. It also has a lesser fat content @ 5% when compared to 18% in other ice-creams. The good thing is you get to taste a sample of different flavours. I opted for "Dolce latte" which tasted really yummy. The only downside is the price which is 65 bucks for a scoop, however it's worth it :)

Sunday, so far has been a pretty lazy day and I am chilling out. Just a small thing remaining, that's to iron my clothes for the working week ahead :)

The first thing in the morning I did was to visit the physician. He gave me a prescription for medicines and advised me a day's rest. I tried going to work but then couldn't make it. It was really pretty bad and I didn't want to make it worse by sitting in an airconditioned environment and lastly spreading my viral infection to other people.

It was a beautiful weather in the evening as it rained once again, however I couldn't enjoy it because of my illness. For most part of the day, I did nothing except to lie down and sleep.

I hope and pray that it shall pass and I get better atleast by tomorrow.

It's every aspiring immigrant's dream. Some call it as the land of milk and honey. To other's it's the path to prosperity and a good life. I am talking about the United States.

However reading today's newspaper, the impression you get is that the grass is always greener on the other side. The shootings @ the prestigious Virgina Tech institution by a lone gunman (he was also a student) who shot dead 32 people and injuring others before shooting himself was not only tragic for the innocent lives lost but also focuses on the gun culture in the U.S. This is not the first time it has happened and may not be the last time either. It just begs the question as to why people who are frustrated or depressed want to kill others who may not have anything to do them. It's doubly tragic when those killed are young people who had bright dreams of their future and some who have come half-way from across the world like the promising Indian student Minal Panchal who was from Mumbai.

My cold has become worse, and I am running a slight temperature. The first-aid box in my office had come handy and I consumed a tablet "Sinarest" for cold and fever. When you feel unwell, you just can't summon the strength to do even the basic tasks. I just can't wait to get home and crash into the bed.

A 10 degree dip in temperature at a time when the mercury has been rising should have come as a welcome relief. However, it may not be so good for the body if the fall in temperature is quite drastic.

I can tell this from my experience. From the past couple of days, I wasn't able to sleep properly due to irritation in my throat. It was really bad and the first thing I did after waking up was to gargle with salt water. The relief was minimal.

When I was reading today's newspaper, my worst fears came true. What I was experiencing was a viral fever. It starts with a sore throat and then progresses to cold, cough and mild fever lasting for atleast 3 days. I visited the local pharmacist and purchased a cough syrup Benadryl along with tablets for cough and cold.

It did give me a bit of relief, however the cough syrup made me feel drowsy :) At work, when I was having my evening snacks, the weather was really beautiful. There was a nip in the air and cool breeze blowing across. The software problem still hasn't been fixed yet :)

Last weekend ended on a high note. I and Agni watched "Bheja Fry" @ Innovative Multiplex. It was a laugh riot all the way from the beginning till the end. My jaw began to ache as I couldn't stop laughing. Similar was the situation with my friend Agni and the rest of the audience.

Vinay Pathak stole the show and other(s) chipped in as well. Rajat Kapoor, Sarika (looking fabulous), Milind Soman everyone acted well.

It's the beginning of a working week and when I got a licenced copy of the software program after a long wait, my joy was short-lived as it turned out to be a damp squib. Anyways now I have a different assignment and I am hoping that atleast this will pull me through..:)

It was a Friday morning and what better way to break the monotony than by slipping into casuals :) Yesterday on my home it didn't rain, to be more precise it poured. I escaped by the skin of my teeth without getting completely drenched. There was thunder accompanied by lightning and strong gusts of wind. It seemed like special effects straight out of a Ramsay movie :)

It was nice and sunny today, however looking @ the weather forecast I wanted to carry an umbrella, but forgot it @ the last moment :)

At work, unfortunately the software which was being downloaded had some glitches and so couldn't be installed. I continued with my learning sessions and @ the end of the day, I must say I am quite satisfied.:)

As I am about to log off from my PC there is a huge relief that the weekend is here..:)

Y'day on my way back there was a brief spell of shower(s), and it brought a big smile on my face. It's been so hot for the past few days that it felt good to smell the earth when the rain drops struck the ground.

The effect of y'day night's shower was visible in the morning when I went to work. It was sunny, however the dry weather was missing. As I sat down to have fruits for my snack in the evening, the weather which was sunny gave way to an overcast sky and the bird(s) in the sky had their own rhythm.

Today was late Dr.RajKumar's (Kannada film actor) 1st death anniversary. There were melodious songs from his hit movies playing on the FM radio. One of them was "Sadananda", I can't make much of the lyrics, however I have heard this song earlier. It's quite melodious and has a life of it's own :)

Tomorrow is a Friday and the last working day of the week..:)

At work today, I was expecting my software to be ready however there is still a bit of delay and I am hopefully expecting it to be done atleast by tomorrow.

It was a very productive day as I could cover a lot of training sessions. I don't know why I am suffering from hunger pangs today. Can't wait to get back home and have a good dinner..:)

Sometimes you get up in the morning and as you start doing your usual morning chores, suddenly you feel that something is missing. You start thinking and questioning about the very rationale of your existence, what I am doing or how boring to do the same thing every morning.

On Tuesday morning, I was going through the same emotions. But then I thought this is what people irrespective of their geographical location do and as long as mankind exists unless something drastic happens this is how we are going to lead the rest of our lives.

When I was sitting in the public transport bus on way to work, there is this lady who came and handed over a pamphlet. On the top of the pamphlet was printed all the religious places of worship. Below that was the written text in various languages like Telugu, Kannada, Urdu and English.

It was a request for donations for a person who has lost his legs, a women who needs to get married etc. There was also the denomination of currencies mentioned. The minimum was Rs.2/. Right @ the bottom was an instruction which requests the reader to return the pamphlet.

As is our instinct my hand reached for my wallet, however then it struck me that how do I know whether it's genuine or not. When the lady approached me I returned the pamphlet, she began to search for the money and then asked me. I politely declined. It's not that I don't give alms to beggars, however my priority is the aged and the infirm, those who can't eke a decent living.

At office, it was business as usual. A minor breakthrough was that, I can now download the trial or evaluation copy of the software program. That should hopefully be done by tomorrow.

Sunday was a day when I completed my remaning household chores like sweeping and mopping the floor. This time it was a far more time consuming and laborious process as I had to dust the fan's and the loft. The fan blade's are the first one's to catch a lot of dust depending on how frequently it's used.

In the evening I and Agni (my friend) went to watch the movie "The Namesake" @ Innovative Multiplex. It was a straight road from Agni's residence and for the first time I cruised @ a speed of above 60 kmph in the 4th gear. My normal range of speed would barely cross 40 kms and the gear would ideally be stuck in the 2nd and rarely goes into the 3rd gear.

It was an empty and wide stretch of road and as I stepped on the gas, it pumped my adrenaline and set the pulse racing. It made me feel really good. For the first time I could break the shackles of city traffic..:)

The "NameSake" was quite a good movie to watch and is based on a similar novel by award winning other Jumpa Lahiri. Creditable performances by Tabu (screen name: Ashima Ganguli) and Irrfan Khan (screen name: Ashok Ganguli) apart from the younger actors Kal Penn (screen name: Nikhil Ganguli) and Zuleikha Robinson. Director Mira Nair has always done good cinema and this should be add one more feather to her cap.

The story line is not too melodramatic and put across in a simple way.

Past few days, today being no exception my morning chores have changed a bit. Changed in the sense, I do my usual pranayams/breathing exercises and later have fruits. Apart from that I get some tiffin in the morning for my dad and make him a hot cup of bournvita.

Today when I read the morning newspaper, there was a sad story of a techie who went missing yesterday and whose body was subsequently recovered today. His name was Manoj and his native place is in Himachal Pradesh. Manoj was working as a Software Engineer for EMC Square, Bangalore.

He had made friends with one Syed who worked as an attender with an IT firm. They had gone for a picnic spot along with 2 of syed's friends who later crushed his head with a stone. Manoj's relatives got suspicious when they called up Syed who told them that Manoj had gone for his friend Anand's birthday party. His colleagues revealed that there was no one by the name Anand.

The cops found cash missing from the wallet of Manoj and the credit card transactions totalling 30000. The credit card trail was enough to catch Syed and 2 of his friends. I was a bit shocked reading this article as it was the 5th such case wherein a techie was murdered for gain. Many IT professionals migrate to cities like Bangalore but staying away from family, friends coupled with boredom and work stress takes it's toll. It can become a trap for them to make friendships with strangers and in some cases it can be fatal as is the case above.

Being a techie myself, I understand the hazards involved. We are in a economy where the IT revolution has only sharpened the digital divide further between the have's and have-nots. So it's better to have a low profile than flash your expensive gadgets such as cellphones and notebooks/laptops in front of people. This was also an advice given by the Investigating Officer to software professionals.

Watching T.V especially news channels like CNN-IBN can sometimes be boring. The past few days has seen the same news about Cricket, BCCI, players etc. It seems like the media has discovered a goldmine in the aftermath of India's debacle in the world cup.

I had a nice nap in the afternoon and then had lunch with my dad. I'll be dropping my dad in the evening to the Central Bus Station. His bus leaves @ 7 p.m

It was a lazy friday morning for me as I got up @ 9 a.m. I had some plans to make use of the long weekend, unfortunately things didn't work out. I was thinking on going for a long drive to "Kemmanagundi", a scenic retreat which is 250 kms from Bangalore.

I finished my laundry, car cleaning today and only the house cleaning part remans which I'll be doing tomorrow

My dad is in town and will be leaving tomorrow evening. We had a pleasant dinner today evening after a long time..:)

I am feeling a bit better today after what I went through yesterday. Things aren't so bad as they seem. However the hot & dry weather continues to take its toll.

Everytime I get down the BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) bus and walk towards my office the sight of the tender coconut vendors sitting in the shade gladdens my heart. Sipping the sweet tender coconut water under an unforgiving sun is soothing. It refreshes and rejuvenates not only your mind but most importantly, the body. It's one thing which I really love about Bangalore city. You have coconut vendors sitting @ most important junctions.

It's the end of the day and I am pretty tired. Tomorrow will be the last working day for this week and yipee it's going to be a long weekend as Friday is a holiday.

Today nothing went as expected. My mood was off as a two-wheeler just scraped against the bumper of my car. Without a warning he just took a right turn and it totally pissed me off. I could feel that my car hit the 2 wheeler, thankfully nothing happened to them and they sped away. Only after parking my car did I realize the extent of damage. It had beautiful body colored bumpers and now it's not a pretty sight.

I felt sad for my car, coincidentally today is exactly 1 month since I bought the car. What an irony.

I normally don't take my car to work on the weekdays due to the crazy traffic. It's always a pleasure to drive on the weekends. However today, I had to pick up my dad and so I thought that was the most convenient thing to do. The heat has begun to take its toll. I am feeling a bit dizzy and longing to get back home and hit the sack.

At work, I am still working on my practice sessions till the software issue is resolved.

I was late for my appointment today and even though I did get the medical report, however I missed my consultation with the physician. I need to probably come back next week.

The medical reports suggest that my heart beat is normal, no blood sugar or traces of RBC's (Red Blood Corpuscles) in my urine test, normal cholesterol levels and the most important thing, my total haemoglobin count which is well within the range.

Not much to be done today except mopping the floor and I watched the movie "Taxi No. 9211" on Star TV. It's a remake of an English movie but the story was nicely improvised in the Indian context. It was a short movie the duration of which was under 2 hours. The editing is crisp and you empathize with the characters in the story. Of course there are lessons to be learnt. This is the 3rd time, I have watched the movie..:)

It was an April Fools day and I managed to find 4 Bakras..:) The excuse was "I slipped in the bathroom and broke my arm. I just came from the hospital and my arm is in the cast." All my friends fell for it and it was quite hilarious to observe their reaction, once they knew they had become a Bakra..:)

Time to get ready for the working week ahead.:)

I am enjoying my telecon with my on-site counterparts. Though it lasts only for around 25mins, we discuss about work and also find time to crack some jokes..:)

Started my day early on Saturday morning. I cleaned my car after a long time, probably after a month. There was so much of dust. Anywayz it was worth it, as the car looked quite pretty after the cleaning was done..:)

I was about 45 mins late for my health checkup. The ride was smooth as it was a Saturday and there was fewer traffic on the roads. I had to be on empty stomach for the health checkup. The blood test and the Urine test went on fine. The only delay happened when I had to undergo an ECG (Electro Cardio Gram) test.

As I waited for my turn, I was watching the National Geographic Channel on television. It was a show on marine life. For sometime, the focus was on the sting ray fish. It was recently in the news as the crocodile hunter Steve Irwin was killed by a sting ray fish. Looking @ the fish, it looks so pretty and swims so majestically and you will be hard pressed to understand why it's being labelled as a villain. It has wide fins and several breathing gills (which are in the shape of a straight line) below its body. It was amazing watching it.

In the meanwhile I was feeling quite hungry. I managed to lay my hands on a journal "Indian Journal of Urology". One of the chapters was titled "Urology in Ancient India". It spoke about Indian medicine in the ancient period. We marvel @ the advances made in medicine and the west is considered a pioneer in this regard. But surgical practices were in a far more advanced stage in ancient India.

The credit goes to Susruta who was the first one to have done "Rhinoplasty" which implies reconstruction of the nose. He wrote a treatise "Susruta Samhita". Susruta also specialized in the study of erectile dysfunction and remedies for various urological diseases. Most of his research was painstakingly done and documented by undertaking a study of the decaying corpses kept near the beach. There was no luxury of morgue rooms in those days. Not only that, there were around 54 surgical instruments which were used and documented by him.

Western medical experts to a large extent agree that Indian medicine was the foundation for the modern western medicine and Susruta's theories remain valid till date. It was an engrossing article and I learnt many things I didn't know. Thankfully I got the call for my test.

For the test, I had to take off my shirt, vest, wallet, watch and any jewellery I was wearing. I was a bit shy as I was thinking that the person who would conduct the ECG test would be a guy, however it turned out to be a woman..:)

I was @ ease after I lied down on the bed. The lady placed some gel on my chest and then fixed the monitoring instruments. Once the test was done, I had a look @ the ECG graph and was trying to make sense of it. There was an upward curve and a downward curve, the rest was greek and latin to me..:)

On the way back home, I visited my old buddy Agni and we had lunch together. I need to come back tomorrow for the medical report(s) and consultation with the physician.

Yesterday I got some documents and the .NET project files from my on-site team. The only problem was that the software which was set up on my machine wasn't able to run the project as the sofware used to create it by the on-site team was different.

It's a friday and I feel relaxed. In the afternoon session, I celebrated my birthday @ office along with another colleague of mine. New comers to the team were also introduced. Later we were given a game to play which involved stripping alphabets from the newspapers with our bare fingers. It was a tough task indeed..:) My birthday buddy came out the winner, she did a perfect job.

Tomorrow morning, I start off quite early. I will be undergoing a Wellness health CheckUp @ 8:30 a.m which will help me find out details regarding my haemoglobin count, Cholesterol levels etc. Hope the results come out fine. This is part of the package, I received when I opted for a "Artha Health Options" card. It offers coupons which entitles you to free consultations with physicians, dentists and orthopaedics. The best part is the holiday package thrown in. The locations are Munnar, Kairali and Kodaikanal. All these for an annual payment of INR 1994. Not bad..:)

It was a pleasant wednesday morning and it felt good to start my day on a fresh note with no hangover from the previous day. I am now getting used to my 12 p.m shift and to be honest enjoying it. The reason is I needn't be in a hurry every morning, I could do my morning chores @ a relaxed pace and also catch up on a good night's sleep.

We Indians are a superstitious lot and staunch believers in Sun signs and astrology. Most weddings in India are arranged on the basis of matching of horoscopes. So it came as a surprise to me when I read today's "Times of India" edition which states that zodiac signs in no way affect our future love lives /the reason we are married or stay unmarried . The results were based on a study conducted in Britain. Using the 2001 census, they looked @ 20 million husbands and wives across England and Wales to see if certain star signs were attracted to others (Source: Times of India, March 28, 2007).

Striking was the fact that not even one couple exhibited the special compatibility of the zodiac signs like Virgo's fancing Capricorns or for Libras to like Leos.

For example: In astrology, the union between Pisces and Scorpio is considered as a perfect combination. However to put across their point the researchers gave the example of actors Bruce Willis ( a Piscean) and Demi Moore (a Scorpio) who were married for 11 years and whose marriage broke down due to bickerings and marital discord.

Another example was that of actress Elizabeth Taylor (Piscean) and Richard Burton(Scorpio) who were first married in 1964 but were divorced ten years later, driven apart by drinking and feuding. Later they started dating again and remarried in 1975. This time the rowing started as soon as they got married and it ultimately ended in a divorce for the second time.

The survey results are credible as they spanned a broad spectrum of the population. It does hold many lessons for us that blind belief in the roles that stars play in our destiny is just that..a myth.

This is my 101st post and I have come a long way since I wrote my first blog on November 08, 2006. It's been a fascinating journey so far. As per today's "Times of India" article there are 200 million ghost blogs on the net. Ghost blogs are those blogs which were started by their authors and then abandoned. Lindsay Lohan's latest blog reads "I am soo sorry, I haven't written since a long time". The timestamp was 23rd October 2003. It's an example of a ghost blog.

The reasons could be due to lack of time for writing, they may have run out of ideas or moved on to newer trends on the internet. My only hope is that my blog doesn't end up as one of those ghost blogs. So far I have been a bit lucky that I find some stuff to write, however sometimes even I am worried when there's a paucity of ideas.

Monday was pretty cool as I started my work in the new shift timing i.e. 12 p.m to 9 p.m. I woke up late and after my morning ablutions reached office quite comfortably. It was the same story on Tuesday morning except that I am feeling a bit jaded due to lack of quality sleep yesterday night.

I don' t have a conference call today and hopefully I will be assigned some quality work to do either today or tomorrow, till then I am practicing some programming examples from a book.

If you are an avid cricket fan following India's world cup fortunes or misfortune(s) to be more precise, nothing could have been more heartbreaking than India's exit from the Cricket World Cup.

If you're not a follower of cricket and went through Sunday morning's newspaper you feel as if there has been a calamity which has struck India. The only difference is, it's a calamity of a different kind. I was watching with interest the discussion titled "India Bowled out" on NDTV @ 8 p.m. It had as it's moderator Vishnu Som, the other panelists were Navjot Singh Sidhu and Ajay Jadeja.

While Sidhu was doing what he was good @ it, Ajay had a few valid points. However it seemed that everyone had their own axe to grind. The one speaker I am most impressed with, was Imran Khan who was speaking from Lahore. I still remember the 1992 world cup when Imran despite being on pain-killers led his team from the front and eventually won the world cup for his team & the country.

His assessments were completely objective and unbiased. Take this quote "When you're talking about sweeping changes, make sure that the change takes you forward but doesn't take you to the bottom." It's this objectivity and willingness to think rationally that's missing among the fans, players, cricket administrators and the media.

It's understandable that fans are upset, however it doesn't give one the licence to threaten the family members of players, vandalise their homes and show ugly behavior on the street. Personally I have no compunctions to say that it's a good thing India lost. Instead of pouring money into cricket and getting low or zilch returns, why not encourage budding players in other sports like tennis, archery, gymnastics etc. All these games are played @ the Olympics whereas cricket is not.

The Advertisers must be in a state of shock, as per the estimates they have lost upto INR 30 crores after India's exit from the world cup and so did the tourism industry. It's better they put their money where their mouth is.

A piece of advice for the Indian players, learn from Australia how the game is to be played. Aussies may not be the best of role-models for their behaviour but the way they have played so far and yesterday's match against South Africa speaks volumes about their consistent approach to the game. Australia's 377 runs came against quality opposition.

You don't become champions by making a record word cup total of 400+ against minnows Bermuda who were like lambs put to the slaughter. I was most touched by the Bermuda captain's gesture. He loves India so much that he has named his daughter "India".

He said, if beating Bangladesh can help India reach Super 8 then he'll try his best to make that happen, this is inspite of the pasting they received from India.

It was a relaxed saturday morning that I woke up to..:) I haven't had proper sleep for the past couple of days. I have been regularly attending conference calls with the on-site team since wednesday.

The problem was that as we are in different time zones, it's people who are working offshore who need to make the adjustments. So the call was scheduled @ 7:10 p.m (IST). I had no other option than to wait for the 9:00 p.m office shuttle. By the time I had my dinner and reach home its 10 :30 p.m. I hit the sack around 11:30 p.m

Morning I am out of bed by 6 :30 a.m. After finishing my breakfast, I am already feeling sleepy @ work possibly due to lack of quality sleep. On Friday, I revised my timing. I started my work @ 12 p.m and this time there was not much sign of fatigue. I drove my car to work and this time it was a stress-free experience as there was no rush hour traffic.

I did a lot of household chores today. As usual, shopping for fruits + sweeping and mopping the floor took a lot of time. Then there was laundry to be done. It's been a long day so far but I am now relieved as my house was in a bit of mess and now it's how it should be..clean and tidy..:)

Let it be a guy or a gal, everyone is searching for the elusive Mr/Miss Right. Often it doesn't turn out the way we anticipate things. Yesterday night, when I was flipping channels while watching television, there was this soap which piqued my interest. It was on "Star One" channel.

It tells the story of an actress who goes down the memory lane. She recalls the episode when she had her first crush and her first kiss. Her name is "Padmalakshmi"or "Paddy"(that's how her friends call her). Paddy dresses conservatively, I mean she is always in a salwar or a punjabi suit with her hair neatly plaited. Being a South Indian she occasionally wears jasmine flowers on her hair. She still looks pretty though.

Her heart beats for this guy "Sadanand" or "Sad". Paddy despite trying hard is unsuccessful in getting his attention. Sad is a sort of playboy always hanging around pretty girls. Paddy in despair, turns to one of her close friends and asks her whether she isn't pretty..her friend answers "yes, she is pretty". Paddy again asks, then why isn't Sad attracted to her.

To this question, her friend has no answer but gives her a suggestion. She tells Paddy to wear western outfits and change her hair style, in other words to become modern. Paddy is initially revolted @ the suggestion, but then calmly thinks about it.

It's the fashion day @ the college and Sadanand who is among the audience with his girlfriend, suddenly sees this girl on the ramp. He can't help staring and his jaws literally drop. The girl is none other than Paddy who looks ravishing in a western outfit and a new hair style. Paddy gets her guy.

Fast forward, one year later it's time for the fashion show again. The same scene gets repeated, only irony is that paddy is Sad's girl friend in the audience. Sadanand's reaction is the same when he falls for another pretty girl on the ramp. Paddy is heart broken.

Cut to the present day, Paddy is now a well known actress. She tries her hand @ winning the beauty pageant, but is unsuccessful. She encounters Raj(a businessman) who she finds charming.

After a few meetings however paddy realises that something is still missing. Ofcourse the guy is rich, well settled but he is predictable and paddy likes surprises. Paddy falls for Rahul (one of her close friends) whom she feels accepts her as she is, however he isn't interested in getting married to her.

It's new year's eve and paddy comes home around 2:45 a.m. Her mom is still awake and chides her for coming so late. Raj's parents had called up and paddy's mom is worried as to what will they think about paddy as the marriage date comes closer. Paddy has tears in her eyes which surprises her mom. She says she isn't interested in marrying Raj and tells sorry to her mom.

Her mom instead of being furious is quite calm and accepts it. She tells Paddy atleast she called it off now, if she would have said sorry after getting married, it would have been too late. She wants her daughter to be happy. Mom and daughter hug each other.

Paddy is in front of the mirror and thinks about the whole concept of finding Mr.Right. She changed herself from a conservative to a modern girl to woo Sadanand and now Rahul has rejected her for being modern. He says that his parents won't like a modern girl. It was an interesting story which left me glued to the television for 30 mins. By the time, I hit the sack it was 12:00 a.m..:)

I am feeling a lot better today. As a precautionary meausure, I didn't venture out in the afternoon. I have a call again @ 7:10 p.m so will be reaching home late.

Before departing to Bangalore from Hyderabad on monday evening, I was dreading whether my Air Deccan flight will be on schedule given it's reputation for not sticking to time-lines. Much to my surprise and relief not only did it take off @ the correct time, it also reached Bangalore in 55 minutes.

Tuesday morning, it was time to get back to work. I had a few softwares to be installed today. The work seems to be gathering pace as I have received some documents regarding my project. From what I have seen in the documents, the work seems to be pretty interesting. Hopefully it should stay that way.

I am not sure why, but I am feeling a bit dizzy probably due to the sun and the weather change. My worst fear is that I'll fall sick. I have to stay back late as I am supposed to attend a training session with my on-site counterparts in the U.S @ 8 p.m.

Today is the festival of Gudi padwa or Ugadi depending on which state you're from. It's an auspicious day which heralds the start of the New Year coinciding with a celestial event, the partial solar eclipse.

I have a few hours left to spend with my family before heading back to Bangalore. My flight is @ 6:00 p.m and I need to be @ the airport early so that I don't face a repeat of the previous episode..:). 3 days have just passed by and I can't believe it. It feels like, I had come home only yesterday.

"Bangladesh Tigers not only roar but they also bite" was the booming voice of the anchor on CNN-IBN. If you're a Indian cricket fan it was really an embarrassing moment. Once upon a time, I was a die-hard cricket fan but not anymore. I feel as a nation we are very obsessed with cricket and players who don't perform. They would rather chase commercials than play for their country. It's time we look beyond cricket.

Today, most part of the day I spent indoors, surfing the web, watching television and chatting with my family members. In the evening I went shopping along with Shital for purchasing grocery. It was a bit of a rough ride as the highway which passes near our home is being widened as part of the golden quadrilateral project initiated by the "National Highways Authority of India (NHAI)". It's being made into a 4 lane expressway.

I was watching the movie "Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (KANK)" on television. The story dwells on extra-marital relationships. I am not someone to pass judgement on Karan johar, however I did feel that some scenes in the movie was a bit exaggerated. What I did appreciate was the scene wherein Amitabh and Kiron Kher who play the roles of Shahrukh (Dev's) and Rani's (Maya's) in-laws. When they catch Dev and Maya red handed i.e. indulging in lover's tiff, there is no chastisising or any furious reaction, however the disappointment is writ large on their faces.

Witness the scene when Abhiskek (Rishi) after venting his anger on coming to know about Maya's affair, tells her with tears in his eyes, I loved you so much and yet it wasn't enough.

The other important chapter was how the betrayed spouses move on in life. When this movie was released most of my colleagues were very critical of the movie. Sure the movie has its flaws, but it was just holding a mirror to our society. The main characters in this movie fall in love however it comes at a great cost sacrificing the comfort of their homes, careers and their families.

Friday morning, it was a bit of panic attack for me. Everything went fine, I got my office shuttle on time. My flight was scheduled for departure @ 10:15 a.m. However much to my horror I was stuck in the traffic jam. My one eye was on the wrist watch and the other was staring @ the traffic. It gave me goose bumps coz I had to be @ the airport atleast 30 mins prior to the flight departure before the airline counter gets closed.

Thankfully I managed to reach the counter exactly 30 mins before departure. The flight landed @ the Hyderabad airport @ 11:40 a.m (25 mins behind schedule). As I came out of the Hyderabad airport, I started thinking that within an hour, I had covered a distance of 550 k.ms. If I would have undertaken the journey by road, it would have taken around 11 hours. The other good thing was now-a-days, the flights have become affordable. I have purchased my to and fro tickets for a steal..INR 3000. Can you beat that..:) Of course I had to book the ticket a month in advance but it was worth the wait. My outward journey by Spicejet was priced @ INR 99 and the return journey by Air Deccan is INR 324. The rest of the fare comprises of taxes + fuel surcharge + congestion levy.

My home is approximately an hour away from the airport. This time I wanted to try the MMTS service. It's the equivalent of the mumbai local train. It was a pleasant journey by the train. There was no pollution + the train was quite punctual halting @ the stops for only 3 seconds. When I looked out of the train window, I could see that Hyderabad has changed. What was once a city which was languishing @ the bottom of the heap when compared to the other metros in India has now transformed.

The swanky buildings @ HI-TEC City (Hyderabad Information Technology and Engineering Consultancy City), the wide roads, the neatly maintained railway stations, India's first I-MAX screen, IT parks which house the top IT companies, real estate which is experiencing a boom, it's all happening. The only thing which Hyderabad lacks is lots of greenery when compared to Bangalore and the climate which can really get worse in summer.

In the evening I watched the movie "300" which tells the story of 300 spartan soldiers fighting the million strong Persian army. The special effects was quite good and it was awesome watching it on the I-MAX screen. Google the company for which my sis works had booked the entire movie hall for its employees and their family + friends.

Today i.e 17th March is my birthday. It's customary for me to seek divine blessings on this special occasion. My mom took me to the temple and then I visited another temple with my kid brother. I am not a very religious person however I felt an inner peace when I visited the places of worship.

What better way than to celebrate your birthday by cutting a cake and sharing it with family members. I am now 32 but age as they say is just a statistic, it's the maturity and the experience that counts..:)

Today was a busy day. I had this interview in the morning unfortunately it didn't go well. I managed to reach the interview venue an hour behind schedule due to the sloppy handling of my time. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't clear the interview coz that I would have landed me a visa to the United States. 1st April is the date when the H1B quota opens and is expected to end by 15th April.

My car had some trouble, so had to get it checked into the Concorde showroom. Need to pack my bags as I have a flight to catch tomorrow morning @ 10:30 a.m. It will be time to go home..sweet home and it's a special occasion for me coz it's my birthday which falls on the coming weekend..:)

One cannot underestimate the effects of a good night's sleep. You wake up fresher, bubbling with energy and enthusiasm. On the contrary if you ended up tossing and turning on bed or suffer from sleep disorder the day after goes haywire.

I am saying this coz after 2 days, I had a sound sleep y'day night. I feel better and there is a spring in my stride.

At work today I got to know that I have been relieved from the project and will now be assigned a new project (the one wherein I had mentioned earlier that I had cleared the client interview). I am a bit relieved that I won't be working on legacy applications.

In the afternoon, I had lunch with my Project Manager Dalia and a couple of colleagues. It was a sort of small get together. I am not sure whether I'll be staying back late or will be leaving @ 6 p.m coz there was supposed to be a client meeting @ 7 p.m.

Yesterday I was watching a television programme titled "Daughters of the suicide country" on NDTV wherein they showed the surviving wives and daughters of poor farmers from the drought stricken regions of Marathwada and Vidharba in Maharashtra being forced into prostitution. The poor farmers had committed suicide after fallen into a debt trap owing to crop failure and unable to repay the loans taken from usurious money lenders.

It was a heart rending story. The women had to bring up their children and the daughters had to support their family by selling their bodies. The pimps and middlemen have exploited the situation in the poverty stricken regions by trafficking the women to urban centres like Mumbai and cash-rich cities like Ahmedabad.

Most of the women(the faces were blurred to protect their identity) in this profession who were interviewed had only one thing in common, to send money back home, not let their children into sex trade, educate their sons/daughters so that they can lead a better life. They also had a desire to lead a normal life once their family is settled. Some were lured with the promise of better jobs in cities and ended up in brothels and others were sold by their family to middlemen for money.

Even though India has done well in sunrise sectors like IT, pharmaceuticals etc..there is a large segment of population struggling to come out of poverty. As Amitabh said in an interview when asked "What would he have done if he was the Prime Minister of India for a day?"

I am not sure whether it was an honest answer or whether he was playing to the gallery however his quick answer was "to eliminate poverty coz it saddens him to see so many people living in poverty".

The other day I was reading an article in "Times Of India" which compared percentage of tax payers in India with countries like Australia, France, United States and England.

France had the highest percentage of tax payers @ 54%. Contrast that with India which has only a mere 3% of people as tax payers in comparison to its population. No wonder the tax rates are so high in India as the government wants to squeeze the maximum out of the salaried class who form the bulk of the 3%. This is in addition to the covert taxes which the govt levies in the form of VAT(Value Added Tax) and other excise duties on petrol, diesel and the household items like groceries etc. It's not difficult to see that the government takes away a huge chunk of one's salary.

My point is after paying so much of taxes the people end up with bad roads, power outages, no social security etc. Why can't the government spend the money atleast on helping out the poor farmers by providing them support and finance in times of need.

Tuesday morning, we had to make do with a TATA Sumo as our office shuttle was badly damaged after yesterday's mishap. I got to learn some new things today. We had a 2 hour session on UNIX programming and Message Queue(MQ) series(product of IBM).

Apart from the training session, it was pretty much a dull day. Tomorrow we have our tele-con scheduled @ 10 a.m.

Saturday I went to the forum mall to meet my friend Agni. We went to the Landmark book gallery browsing through the books section and some other stuff.

Agni didn't have his lunch, so we had a pizza @ the pizza corner outlet located on the 2nd floor in the mall. It seems there was some birthday celebrations going on as cakes were cut and songs were sung for the birthday bunnies with pizza hut staff lending a helping hand. After a long time, I tasted a pizza and washed it down with a pepsi. So we guys really enjoyed the food.

Later I went to Agni's house and Agni showed me his X-Box game console. The graphics were amazing and when you are playing a war or the car racing game wherein you get hit by a bullet from the enemy fire or crash into the wall or lampost while racing the car, you could feel the vibrations in the joystick. The only dampener is the price which is a whopping INR 35000.

Sunday was the day when I finished my daily household chores and checked out some flats in the evening. Except for 1 flat, I was disappointed with the price, quality and location of the other flats.

Today i.e Monday I got a new lease of life. The office shuttle in which we were travelling met with an accident. We had just crossed the traffic intersection when the driver of our shuttle immediately slammed the brakes on seeing the public transport bus suddenly stop. Within a span of 3 - 5 seconds, we were hit from behind by a speeding TATA Sumo, we were all shocked and too stunned to react. The impact was so powerful that the Sumo ended up dragging our shuttle which went and hit the bus in the front. Our shuttle was badly damaged in the front and the rear and same was the case with the Sumo.

I was sitting in the rear and thankfully not the last seat. I could sense a slight pain in my back, but 2 of my colleagues sitting in the last seat bore the brunt of the impact. We later took an auto to our office. Before I was about to sit @ my desk, I folded my hands, closed my eyes and thanked god for saving my life.

We went to the St.John's hospital located near our office for our medical checkup. The doctor prescribed me some tablets and an ointment. The other colleagues of mine who were in the back seat were told to get their X-rays done as their injuries were far more serious.

The incident has left me shaken. People just want to rush @ mad speed maiming and killing others and also injuring themselves. No wonder India is rated as the 2nd country to have the dubious distinction where more people die in road accidents than due to any other reason.

Today and yesterday i.e Thursday has been quite hectic. Hectic coz I have been getting up @ 5:30 a.m so that I can reach office in time for our telecon scheduled @ 8 a.m with the on-site team in the United States.

By the time it's afternoon I literally feel like dozing off. Yesterday's telecon went on for an hour and today's session lasted for only 30 mins. Our PM Dalia couldn't make it today as she wasn't feeling well and joined the conversation from her home. There was a fair amount of work wherein I and another colleague had to work on the powerpoint presentation which captured the discussions we had with the on-site team.


It's friday once again and it feels good that the weekend is back..:) I always had the desire to visit the United States so I am hoping that luck favours me this time..:)

Yesterday's telecon with our on-site team in the United States went on for nearly an hour instead of the stipulated 30 mins. What did come out from the discussion was we will be working on legacy systems such as the mainframe and programming languages UNIX/Shell scripting, C, MSMQ. I felt as if we were going back to the stone age..:)

I was quite excited thinking that I'll be working on microsoft technologies like dotnet however on getting know that we will be working on legacy applications, all my excitement vanished into thin air.

Today it was pretty much the same affair, with the whole team going through the documents and giving our inputs in the form on an excel sheet. In the evening, we had a small discussion with Dalia wherein we analysed our SWOT(Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). The silver lining was Dalia did agree that we will require training on the applications I had mentioned above as we had learned all these applications either @ the college level or when we were pursuing our computer course. We haven't used these applications @ a practical level.

I am happy that I'll be going home today @ our normal time i.e 6 p.m..:)

When I took the office shuttle today morning, I sat in the window seat and could feel the cool breeze blowing across. I went on a rewind mode..and compared it to the same time on Monday morning.

On Monday, as I had to get the number plate fixed on my car, I drove the car to work. I never knew that it was the beginning of a long and arduous journey. I started @ 8:20 a.m. My litmus test came when I stopped @ the traffic junction which was on a elevated road. As soon as the signal turned green, the car started moving back even though I had switched to the 1st gear. I immediately slammed the brakes. There was a Hyundai Santro car just behind mine. What happened next..was a nightmare.

As the car started moving back I came close to hitting the car behind. The driver in the rear car started honking. I was damn scared and it showed on my face with sweat streaming down from my forehead. I suddenly let go the clutch and pressed the accelerator with full force. There was a screeching sound from the tyres and a pall of smoke from the exhaust pipe, finally much to my relief the car moved ahead. I thanked my lucky stars and there was a sense of relief which was short-lived.

Now when I was approaching Bannerghata road, it was start and stop bumper to bumper traffic. The speed of the car reduced to a crawl. Though I had the option of switching on the air-conditioner, I thought it will be a waste of fuel as it will mean the car engine needs to be in the running mode. The only saving grace was the FM radio.

I never thought I would get stuck up in the traffic for nearly an hour. The sun was not showing any mercy and I was literally getting baked, well almost..:). If you need to test someone's patience,just put them bang in the middle of a traffic jam with the hot sun for company..:)

It was around 10:30 a.m that I finally managed to reach the Concorde showroom. The person in charge of car service @ the showroom gave me some tips about handling the car in such situations. After listening to him, I knew where I went wrong.

When I reached office, I distributed sweetmeats to everyone on the occasion of purchase of my new car which drew enquiries from my colleagues like which car was it, whether it's new or old etc..It was my PM Dalia's birthday today. It was nice to know that she was a piscean just like me..:)

At the end of the day, my car was ready with the number plate. I also got a miniature ganesha and a perfume bottle which I placed on the dashboard. I really need the divine blessings..:) When I drove back home, I was a relaxed man and this time I was not short of confidence..:)

Tuesday morning, we got loads of documentation from Dalia regarding our project. We had to study the same, most of which sounded greek and latin to me and everyone else. It was simply overwhelming. Dalia distributed sweetmeats on the occasion of her birthday on Monday.

Today is the last day of the induction program for new joinees in the project team.

We are scheduled to have a conference call with our on-site team from 6 to 6:30 p.m. That'll mean I will be missing my office shuttle and either need to wait till 8:30 p.m or take the public transport.

In Saturday's blog, I had mentioned that I was assured delivery of the car by 7:30 p.m and thankfully this time there was no twist in the tale.:)

When I reached the Concorde showroom, among all the cars parked, I could see a brand new car with the same colour i.e "Arctic Silver" I had chosen. My instincts told me that this was my car..and it indeed turned out to be correct..:) She(the car) looked stunning with tinted windows, clear headlamps, body coloured bumpers and the star attraction, the rear spoiler..:)

It had Blaupunkt stereo system installed and the car bonnet was decorated with ribbons. The customer service rep handed me the warranty manual, first aid kit, tool kit, a box of cadbury's celebration chocolates, a tissue box and finally my car keys.:) Only thing pending was a ganesha idol, perfume bottle and my number plate which will be fixed on Monday.

Sangeeta(customer service rep) took me to the car and told me the operating instructions for opening the boot, child lock in the rear door, the bonnet and the service instructions. I thanked Sangeeta and told her that I appreciate her help.

As I sat in my car, it was a strange new feeling. It was my first car and for a moment I took a deep breath. The feeling was yet to sink in. You can call it as a state of euphoria and excitement.

As I turned on the ignition, the stereo system came alive with FM radio..:)
I was a bit nervous whether I will be able to drive the car safely home without any scratches or fear of causing an accident. The last time I was @ the wheels was 2 years ago when I was abroad.

But that was something different, there was lane discipline and you could easily cruise along the roads. Here it was a bit scary with all the traffic. I knew that it was my acid test. Thankfully I managed to weave myself through the city traffic, although I got lost a couple of times and when I reached home the most scariest thing was climbing the steep gradient.

I didn't know how to park my vehicle on the steep slope and my worst fear was what if the vehicle rolls down the slope..:) I had the parking brake on and to be doubly sure put a couple of stones beneath the tyres. BTW I got a free body cover thanks to Sangeeta..:)

It was a lazy saturday morning. Even though I wanted to get up @ 8 a.m, my body clock had got adjusted to the 6:30 a.m schedule, I had to forcibly shut my eyes so that I can sleep a bit longer..:)

In the morning I got an SMS alert stating that the amount I had paid towards downpayment has been debited to my account. That brought a big :) on my face.

I got a call from the car showroom, the cusomer service rep wanted me to get a copy of my PAN card and the address proof so that she can send the car for registration and I can take delivery in the evening.

After sweeping and swabbing the floor,finishing my shower and my breakfast, I had to hurry to the car showroom. There was a bit of uncertainity again, as the ICICI bank rep told me that I can get the delivery of the car only on Monday as he hasn't received some details yet. That was like a trigger to me, coz it ignited my pent up fury. I was shocked coz I was expecting to take delivery atleast on the weekend and go for a nice drive in my car. I had handed all the required documents.

This time it was the agent's turn to face the music and he didn't know where to duck for cover..:) I told him bluntly that either I get my car today or I am least bothered about it and get my car loan from some other lenders who offer it @ a competitive rate of interest. I told him that it was nothing but inefficiency and I could have easily got the loan from some other lender in less than the time the bank took to process my loan. The agent didn't know what to say and promised me that I can take delivery of the car by 7:30 p.m on saturday. Let's see..:)

Thank God, it's a friday..that was the first thought when I opened my eyes in the morning..:)

Today there was a lot of fun @ work. It was a riot of colors and we were taken by surprise. All the team members went around smearing gulal(coloured powder) on our face, the occasion was holi, no one was spared..:) For a few minutes, it looked as if we were all kids playing around with colors. I felt really good as it's been a long time since I played holi. Initially I ducked for cover, but then gave in. Some hid in the restrooms and refused to come out..:)

One of my female colleagues came upto me and said that I was still looking clean and there was space for some more colors. I didnt want my clothes to get stained, so I told her to just apply a small amount of color on my face, thankfully she did just that..:) Later we celebrated the occasion with sweetmeats.

When we went to the cafeteria for lunch, people were looking @ us as if we were aliens..:) I guess seeing our faces and clothes smeared with colors, they would have been puzzled as to where did we play holi..:)

This happened 1 week before. I had gone along with a friend to coffee day @ forum mall. The bill came upto INR 104 and as I didn't have change I paid 500. The person manning the checkout counter was the Manager. This was around afternoon. In the evening when I had gone to pickup my sis and wanted to purchase something, I realized that I didn't receive the change. The next day I went to the same place and asked for the Manager.

As he wasn't there, I took his cell number. When I called him up, he promised to look into it and get back to me. After the call, I visited coffee day once again and spoke to the Manager again. I waited for a couple of days and when I visited Coffee day y'day, this time I was quite furous. I told one of the guys working there to call up the Manager. I spoke to the Manager and told him to give his superiors tel number. He was the area in charge. I spoke tough and gave him a piece of my mind.I also told him that it was not only a mere matter of money but also trust. He assured to look into the matter.

Within a space of few minutes, I got a call from the store manager who told me that he had checked the cash balances on that day and found no excess cash. I literally blasted him saying that what took him so long to give the information. I stood by my statement and told him that this amounts to cheating and I'll file a case with the police under Section 420. That threat seems to have worked. He finally relented and told me to get the cash from his boys @ 4:30 p.m

When I took the cash, I felt really good. I could have forgotton the whole thing and let it go (that would have been the easy part) however I fought for a cause I believed in and won..:) That also made me realize that "Knowledge is indeed power" and how much value education has in empowering each one of us.

I wanted to skip writing today's blog coz I don't know why..I am feeling pretty tired. My eyes feel heavy, shoulders are drooping and my legs are just not taking me to my destination i.e home.

As I have been getting up early for the past few days, I am feeling quite sleepy by 7:30 / 8 p.m. After watching a fair bit of television, I hit the sack by 10 p.m.

At work, I was introduced to a new member of my team, her name is Kiran. She is relatively inexperienced in programming although she has been with the organization since 1 year, the same fresher I had mentioned in my previous blog. It's a tough job to have a lady working under you and that too if she is very pretty..:)

Kiran's CV was quite impressive. She had a whole list of achievements to her credit. Apart from the academics, she was good @ carol singing, elocution, winning Miss personality contests consecutively for 4 years @ her college and the list goes on..:)

Anywayz as a professional it's my job to see that I am not distracted from the ultimate goal that is to make Kiran productive so that she can deliver the expected results. I drew up a plan for her which has a simple task assigned wherein she has to create a web application which inserts records into the database.

Today I have completed 2 months in Bangalore and tomorrow I complete 2 months with my current organization. I love February..coz it's the shortest month in the calendar year..:) Ofcourse the real reason is..you get your pay a few days earlier..:)

The documentation process for my car is not yet complete, I was expecting to take a drive during the weekend however in an unexpected twist my cheque got dishonoured, the reason given: it was an outdated cheque. I realized that I would have wrongly mentioned the year as 2006 in the cheque. How dumb of me.

Time to wrap up for the day..:)

For the past couple of days there has been a rise in the temperature. The nights are getting warmer. Earlier I used to cover myself with a blanket and switch off the fan in the middle of the night. Now even with the fan on I could still sense the heat.

In the morning there was bit of drama in the office shuttle. The cab was full with people sitting on seats which had the capacity of only 2 people. The cab driver stopped the vehicle midway insisting that some people get down. One of the passengers who works in the HR was livid @ the suggestion. He said that its not the employees fault that the cab is full and when the company is deducting INR 1000 towards conveyance it's not fair to ask people to get down and hire an auto.

I totally agreed with him. In the end the cabdriver relented however not before one of the persons in the cab got down and took an auto. We felt sad for him.

Today was the first day of our corporate induction program. It gave us a brief insight into the organization. Around 4 p.m our project team had a small birthday celebration for those, whose birthday fell in the month of February. New comers(included me and Vijay) had to give a brief introduction about ourselves and play a game.

The birthday cake was really yummy and after a long time, I tasted the Samosa..:)