Though I have been writing in English now for quite some period of time, yet after attending the IELTS (International English Language Testing System), I have realized that I have still a long way to go before I can be termed an expert user in English.

Yesterday I had a speaking test and today it was Listening, Reading and writing test. I started of my speaking test quite well however just when it was about to finish, I fumbled for answers. At the end of the test, I told my examiner that I was a bit nervous to which she replied that it was a bit unexpected. She said that probably I didn't acquaint myself well with the format. I was heart broken and a bit dejected. However I knew that there was still more hard work to be done. As I reached home, I started my intense preparation for the L/R/W test.

Today that preparation seems to have paid off. Listening test was a bit tough as the test came to a close, ditto with reading however the writing section was a pleasant surprise as I aced through it comfortably. The only worry is if I had written more than what was required. 13 days from now the test results will be out and I am keeping my fingers crossed.

One peculiar thing which happened and which usually happens in Indian test center's was a couple who were copying. Before the test, the invigilators had given clear instructions that should people be caught copying they would be disqualified. So blatant was the copying that the couple had to finally hand in their passport.

The good news is that summer is slowly giving way to the monsoon. That has brought down the temperature quite a bit. Now as for the not so good thing. The change in weather also means a change in our body temperature.

Now why I am saying this...coz the dreaded viral fever is back. For the past couple of days I am having running nose (it was pretty bad yesterday) and now it's headache and fever. Yesterday I went to the doctor and he prescribed me some medicines. The bill a whopping (INR 173) which includes the doctors consultation fee of Rs.70. Now that's pretty expensive to consult a doctor. I was thinking when I am feeling the pinch how will the poor patients pay.

I got up today morning and still have a singeing headache. I am thinking whether to attend office or not.

You have everything, a good job, 4 wheeler and a place to stay but then there is still a sense of emptiness. You don't know the reason but it's there. You're depressed but unable to fathom the reason for the depression. This is how I have been feeling for the past few days.

Now-a-days I have also realized that I have begun to pile-on weight especially in the mid-riff region. So I had two options...the 1st one is that you ignore it or the second that is to firm up an action plan. I chose the second one. I have started going for an hour's walk especially on the weekend. Today mom came along with me. It was a nice walk in the evening when the sun had gone down and there was a cool breeze. True, some things in life are priceless like the walk I had today with my mom. It's back to work tomorrow.

You're driving to work and suddenly a fly starts bothering you. You feel like catching hold of it, suddenly there are some wild ideas whirring in your head like smashing the fly with a hammer. But the only concern is that you're driving which is a highly skilled job and a momentary distraction can prove fatal. That's what happened with me yesterday. It reminded me of the MTV music video where in a guy does the same thing when a fly starts irritating him when he's driving.

He takes a big hammer smashes the windscreen and any other items on the dashboard however even then he doesn't get the fly :)

I was on a small vacation couple of weeks back. I visited a couple of temples (Dharmasthala & Subramanya) in South Karnataka.There was nice memories of the scenic drive, the baby elephant and sumptuous lunch at the Kukke Subramanya temple.

At work, the project has almost close to completion and now I need to scout for a new one. The summers are lot more bearable these days as we have applied a coat of white cooling paint on the terrace. The paint reflects the sunlight back. That really helps to bring down the room temperature by a couple of degrees and the resultant humidity and sweating. Not everyone can afford an airconditioner and the huge electricity bills.

The soaring temperatures in Hyderabad has made life miserable. Summers in Hyderabad @ 41 degrees ain't that cool. Who better to ask than my better half who cribs about the hot weather. She badly misses her Bangalore climate. I agree with her as far as the climate in Bangalore is concerned.

I had mentioned in my earlier blog as to how we can cut down on vehicular emissions by using more public transport. However I couldn't keep my promise as the cruel weather has forced me to switch to my four wheeler. The only silver lining is that the total distance covered is just 25 kms.

Missing a flight and that too an International one is the worst thing that can happen to any one. I realized it the hard way when I missed my 10:05 a.m flight just because I reached the check out counter 5 minutes late. Then I had to rebook my flight for the evening which came at an expensive price tag of 222 pounds or the Indian rupee equivalent of 18,200 bucks.

Of course the mistake was completely mine as I miscalculated the distance to the Heathrow airport. Here I need to specially thank the pakistani cab driver Zafar who shaved off about approximately an hour of commuting. The only problem was the traffic hold-ups in between. However in the end it all counted for nothing. Imagine waiting for the whole day in the airport as you're next flight is only at @ 21:05 hours. The only relief was I had some good co-passengers for company.

The security @ the Heathrow airport was so stringent that even water kept in the bottle was disallowed. One has to empty the contents of the bottle. I walked in through the metal detector and it triggered an alarm. This made the plain clothes officer suspicious and he told me to unbuckle my belt. He put his hands around my waist and checked me thoroughly from head to toe probably looking for some concealed explosives :)

Also we had to take our shoes for being x-rayed. I guess it's the John Reid effect. That's the man who wanted to trigger an explosion aboard the plane with explosives planted in his shoes.

Now I am back home atlast and looking forward to the long weekend before the hard grind ahead...yeah I am talking about getting back to work from Monday :)

It was my final working day in London today. But what a day it was...for a moment or so I was a bit of nervous wreck. I had to get the final document signed off by the client however the time taken by the client to review the document was making me a tad nervous. The problem was my ticket to India is booked for tomorrow and if I had to stay back for another day it would have been too late to reschedule the departure date. Thankfully as the saying goes "All is well that ends well" and things just evened out.

It's been madness for the past 4 days (excludes saturday & sunday) :) What I am surprised is that I exceeded my own expectations. I had to handle calls from my Project Manager in India and the big boss apart from interacting with the clients onsite. In the end it's been worth it. This has been my first exposure dealing with on-site clients directly. I agree it was tough, there were times when I thought of "Fight or Flight" but I am glad I chose the former. It has enriched my experience and that should stand me in good stead in the future.

I will miss the London tube, the daily morning English breakfast made of toast, butter, delicious cornflakes and warm milk. Who can forget the accomodation which was nice and sleeping cozily in the bed with the heater to warm up your room. The only thing which made my life miserable was the drastic fall in the temperature. Constant sneezing and wheezing has left a toll on my nose. It looks more like a joker's nose now...just kidding :)

In the evening my final port of call was the Mahalakshmi temple located @ East Ham station. For dinner, I visited Saravana Bhavan (Chennai's famous chain of vegeterian restaurants).

My Jet Airways flight departs tomorrow @ 10:05 a.m and hopefully I will be reaching India in the early hours of thursday morning. My experience with Jet Airways has been nice so far and it's nice to know even Indian airlines can give good competition to foreign airlines :)

Yesterday i.e Saturday the first thing I did in the morning was to visit the Ilford shopping centre. There were a couple of things on my shopping list. The first one was to get a pair of formal shoes. I had brought along my formal clothes however I forgot to bring along my shoes. Now that put me in an awkward situation when dealing with the client.

It was a trifle embarrassing to put on formal shirts and a sneaker. The only apprehension I had in my mind was how much will the new pair of shoes cost. As with most Indians I was used to the math of converting the British pound into Indian currency. So say for example I need to spend £ 2 on a chocolate bar, at the back of mind it implies I am spending around INR 160 bucks which sounds crazy. But is it really...what we forget is that your rupees don't count for nothing when you're in another country. So if you earn in £ pounds or have $ dollars with you, you can only spend in that currency.

Luckily for me there I found a shop where the discount sale was on. I got a good pair of shoes for just £ 8. Now that was cool. The other item on the list was to purchase a travel adapter. This one was a real pain as I had to go from one shop to another but couldn't find anything which conforms to Indian and UK electrical sockets. So the next time, when you leave the shores and have to charge your cellphone or use it for any other electrical gadget purchased in India, you need to be sure of purchasing a travel adapter before hand. Lessons learnt the hard way :)

After the shopping, I visited the "Tower Bridge" , "Big Ben" and the "London Eye". Now here's something interesting. People mistake the "Tower Bridge" for the "London Bridge" which isn't right coz both are completely different structures. The one thing which I really admired was the "Big Ben" and the "London Eye". Both Big Ben, London Eye and the British Parliament House are located near to river Thames. It was nice standing on the bridge and viewing the ferry ships transporting the tourists on river Thames.

Sunday saw a very wet weather and that kept me mostly indoors. I spent my time going to the Laundrette, preparing notes, watching television, ironing my clothes and getting ready for the busy day tomorrow. 17th March, is my birthday and sadly I will my miss my family a lot on this special day. I can't wait to get back home.

It's been 3 years since my last trip overseas. I am currently in London for a short business trip barely lasting a week. I will be holding discussions with one of our clients. From the day I reached London, I had to hit the ground running.

It's been so hectic that I indeed forgot I was away from my country. So far no time to visit any of the tourist hot spots. The good thing about London is the tube. People in London are lucky to have such an excellent transport facility. I hope we have something similar in most cities across India. I took a 1 week Oyster pass for 34 pounds. Its so cool I can travel unlimited number of times on the tube, overground trains and ofcourse the bus.

Traffic as in any western country is very disciplined. The only sore point is the crappy weather. I am put up @ Hotel Banks, Ilford.

It's a weekend tomorrow and I am hoping to visit places like the London Bridge and London Eye, stuff which I could only watch in movies so far :)

What is it, that happens to a person when they get behind the wheel? This was something which was plaguing me when I have been driving to work for the past couple of weeks. Sometimes I have done crazy things like overtaking vehicles when the road is narrow and just about saving my life by avoiding a head-on collision with the on-coming vehicles.

That day @ work I kept wondering what had seized me for that particular moment? I meant how could I do this. I keep harping on how road users here don't have traffic sense and look here I was doing the same stuff which I detest. How does even a sober person lose his patience when he/she gets behind the wheel. Anyway just as a sort of self inflicted punishment I felt like slapping myself and which I did.

Anywayz the weekends @ home are a far cry from my movie filled weekends when I was away from home. These days I am more focussed on doing "Home Improvements" There was the absence of a wardrobe since a long time and finally after 2 weeks of work its all set to be ready in the next couple of days. The downside... it did burn a hole in my pocket.:)

I am currently serving my time out in Business wait. The official name given for people on "Bench". I have been trying hard to get myself into a project however it's tough luck so far.

I have met a couple of my colleagues who have relocated from Bangalore to Hyderabad just like I have. So during the conversations we have the talk always veers down to which city is better whether it's Bangalore or Hyderabad. As usual the common complaint of most people about Bangalore is the chaotic traffic. The pleasant weather & greenery of Bangalore is no match to the hot and dusty weather in Hyderabad. Where Hyderabad does score is the cost of living and better infrastructure.

Initially it's been a bit tough settling down in Hyderabad after getting used to Bangalore. However I now treasure the moments which I get to spend with my family, shopping for groceries and other odd jobs. When I used to visit my family on weekends or on a short vacation, I wouldn't definitely have found time do all this stuff.

Take today's example. In the couple of restroom(s) we have, there are Indian toilets. Since a long time I wanted to renovate one of the restroom so that it could accomodate a western commode. Today I was finally able to do that. Poor mom had a tough time cleaning the house and getting rid of the construction materials.

When I now look @ the restroom, it looks neat with freshly laid ivory tiles. The only stuff remaining is fixing the commode and that will be done by the plumber on Monday. I am eagerly looking forward to the day :)

January 20th 2008. I can't but keep smiling and rub my eyes in disbelief. Blogging which was so much an integral part of my life for the past 1 year didn't find space in my daily schedule for nearly a month now.

Anyway's its a new year and there are new things do in life. I remember last year I had made of couple of resolutions for the new year. Whether by accident or sheer luck I did manage to fulfil atleast one of the resolutions that is to get married.

I have a new job now at Hyderabad...you guessed it right, my hometown...:) So it really feels good to stay with my family. There are certain jobs you can't do when you are away from home. Now that my kid brother has left to U.S, it certainly is my responsibility to look after them. And of course the icing on the cake is the homemade food I get to have. To sum it up as the saying goes "Home is where the heart is" :)

After a long hiatus I am back. It's been quite a long break from blogging. First, I was caught up in relocating hassles and then settling down in Hyderabad apart from the wedding preparations that has taken most of my time.

I am leaving tonight by train to Bangalore and from there to Mangalore. I am getting married on 28th December. It does give me goosebumps that I am entering uncharted territory however I guess it's part of life and one must take it in their stride.

So expect some lull again on the blogging front till I get back. So all you folks who have been reading my blog please do wish me all the best as I take an important step in my life :)

Though it's a Friday, it's been one hell of a day so far. To begin with I lost my Car's RC documents. It meant that I have to lodge an FIR with the police, get an NOC from my Bank and the approach the RTA for a duplicate RC. I have to shell an amount of INR 2000.

Gosh!!! life can sometimes be so cruel. The only good thing that happened @ the end of the day was the farewell card I received. I have initiated the exit formalities and it will mostly likely be completed by the EOD (End of Day) on Monday.

I am not much excited about the weekend as there are lot of unfinished tasks. I hope I sail through this :)

Filmstars have wives who are actresses themselves or someone outside the film industry and most of them look gorgeous. But how many people associate good looking women as the better halves as far as politicians are concerned.

The counter-question to this would be...how can you even think of asking such a question? Take a look @ Union Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav's wife and you know exactly what I am taking about.

However when I was going through Times of India newspaper I came across the picture of Union Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan who was attending a rally along with his wife Reena. Looking @ Reena she looked every bit the glamorous woman. She was fair, good looking, had a nice personality with her jet black hair (possibly dyed :)) untied. Now that was a surprise for me and I do realize that there can be exceptions :)

I managed to get an NOC from the ICICI bank regarding my car loan and the final step now is to get an NOC from the RTO. I cleaned most of my files from the PC. The important files I zipped them and sent it to my personal id. The sad part is they haven't reached the inbox of my personal mail id. It probably is due to the firewall of my company mail server...booo hoo.

The countdown says 3 more working days to go :) Today afternoon I finally managed to visit the Provident Fund Office. It was not a pleasant experience once I reached there.

I stood in a queue for a long time and then was asked to go to another counter. The person manning the desk redirected me to the earlier counter. The man @ the previous counter again redirected me to the next counter. I felt like a ping-pong ball being tossed around.

There was an old PC, no helpdesk to assist people regarding the information they were seeking, rooms filled with heaps of paper files. In other words it looked like a typical government department. For a person who is used to working in cushy airconditioned private office with all the amenities a visit to a government office is an eye-opener. It literally brings them straight down to earth...:)

The only silver lining was that 2 individuals were prompt enough to help me regarding my query. In the end, though I couln't get the balance and transfer details I was a bit satisfied that I now know where I stand.

It begs the question as to how motivated people feel to work in government office(s) in such an environment. Our nationalized banks were once a typical example of a government office however the tough competition given by private banks have forced them to change.

In other words nationalized banks had to change if they had to withstand the competition and be in business.

The rest of my day @ work just flew. So here I am waiting for a new day to begin :)

It's back to a working Monday. After having a blissful sleep yesterday night I woke up @ 7.am which is quite early by my standards :)

Sunday was nothing great except that I watched movies on DVD. Today @ office I let my replacement work on the PC for most of the time. When I went to have my dinner, the building adjacent to our office premises was lit up with christmas lights on the occassion of Karnataka Rajyotsava. It was a bit baffling for me coz that day was already celebrated on November 1st. Anyway it doesn't matter when someone is still in a festive mood and besides it's a delight for the eyes to look at :)

Friday was good not only from a personal point of view but also for my household chores. I managed to finish off the house cleaning by Friday morning.

So Saturday morning when I opened my eyes I felt so much relaxed. Well there was some more tasks to be finished. The first one was the usual car wash. The next task on my radar was going to the Provident Fund (PF) office which unfortunately didn't happen. The last task was to get my stereo from the showroom. There was a problem with the Blaupunkt stereo panel as the display wasn't lighting up. Thankfully it has been rectified now :)

Evening it was shopping time where I shopped for floor cleaning liquid and brown bread. As I am typing this stuff I still can't believe that my younger brother did indeed get a visa :) I distributed sweetmeats to my office colleagues and also to the security staff @ my office premises. Happiness gets doubled when you share it with someone :)

BTW as I wrote in my earlier about my intention to purchase the DVD version of "The pursuit of happyness". I finally got my copy though that did burn a hole in my pocket :)

It's been a rocking day for me today. The first thing in the morning I get the good news that my kid brother has got his U.S student visa after being rejected twice.

It took sometime for the good news to sink in. It's been one long road of struggle, hardships and pain. Finally as the saying goes there is always light @ the end of the tunnel. I can't express my happiness in words :)

It was a hectic day for me as my replacement has come back and I started imparting the Knowledge Transfer sessions to him.

To my surprise I could cover most of the session within 2 hours. So now there's a comfortable buffer zone for him and me incase we hit a roadblock. After a long time it felt good teaching someone. Mine was the only voice echoing in the office cubicle and everyone had a puzzled expression on their office when they looked @ me :)

So tomorrow is a Friday and end of the working week. I am looking forward to it :)