Need your Precious VOTE

A good friend of mine has entered and a contest and I'm just doin my bit to help him and his friend in their endeavor.. Request you to vote for them and the link for the same is at the end of the mail.

Mail from Santosh Abraham

I've gotten myself into a contest, Its not a race or a rally thing but an all expense paid drive for 10 days and i have to tentatively cover about 3,000kms and i get to drive a route of my choice and i'm hoping to do coast to coast.
Now this is where you come in, I need to get Vote's and testimonials to increase my probability in landing into the top 100, then into the top 25, then into the top 9 and THEN they would choose top 3 and give the contestants a Mistubishi Cedia and an array of Gizmo's to blog, shoot and record the entire adventure and based on the final output they will select a winner.
The only possibility of making it till the top 3 is with vote's and testimonials, 70% of the possibility depends on that. 30% on us and other details. I tried to get the Maruti people to strike a 50-50 deal but dint work(j/k).

So now i NeeeeeeeeD to get like a million votes considering the contestants from other states are getting a larger volume of votes. So please do click on the link below, and Vote for Nidhi and Me. And if you can spare me some more time please do forward this mail to your friends, family, relatives, pen pals, colleagues, neighbours and anything with an email ID.
I have less than 19days left to stand a chance.

You can vote as many times you want in 24hours intervals, and i'm not sure how many testimonials you can leave but each one of it is going to make a big difference. I really need all the help i can get on this one. Routing for Bangalore all the way, Help us get there!

Just click and leave your vote and testimonial.
http://www.greatdrivingchallenge.com/application/1246052544917751/

We really appreciate your time!
Loadsa Love
Sandy & Nidhi

Do we undermine the role of a homemaker????

Recently when I was home alone at home for 2 weeks, with just one dog to take care and no cookin to be done I thought itz gonna be one hell of a easy job to do. With one house, a dog and no cookin except for the dog. But once I started the routine I kinda figured out it ain't easy as I thought. Though for the first day I got up a bit late since i told myself I really don't have much to work on, as time passed I kinda figured out that I got it all wrong. Damn the next day I had to get up early so that I could finish up on time to rush to office.

As I got used to the grind everyday, I kinda figured out that my mom and dad definitely put in quite a bit of effort in runnin the house, coz I realized when my mornin green tea is not ready I get irritated, as to why the delay and here is my mom who is tryin to juggle between, makin breakfast and lunch for me, takin care of the dog, makin tea for papa, green tea for me, then tendin to her garden and what do I do??? Guess read the newspaper, wait for my green tea and then get ready to head to office. End of the day do we all appreciate what our mom does for us?????? I really doubt, coz we expect them to do it and how thankless her very own kids can be?????

These two weeks have been a great lesson for me, coz I've decided that I would never again lose my cool over mom if anythin from the kitchen is delayed. Shall try helpin her with whatever little things that I can help her with and yeah ensure that I tend to the dog and gardenin is something which I always volunteer so that stays good :-)

Also I've decided that whenever I can I would appreciate my mom at her work and let her know that I realize how much of effort she is puttin in to run the house and itz only fair that she gets her break too once in a while. Definitely I hope even you folks would do the same with your folks especially mom coz take my word it ain't easy and itz always better late than never for that little appreciation for our mom's who work tirelessly and never expect a promotion or increment in what they do. All they need to hear is, it tastes good and guess that makes up their day :-)

Love you mom!!!!!!!! Loads of of love to that :-)

Precious Life??????

Recently when there was a loss of 6 precious lives in an accident in the Metro in Washington DC, the way the Americans saw the preciousness of the lives lost is so stark with how we treat people who die in India in the similar accidents.

Over a period I've noticed that, the value we attach to life lost durin an accident is more like "Yeah it happens, so what"??? and we hardly work towards reducin the rate of accidents and we move on with our lives. Unlike the west, where they would see what really caused the accident and work towards avoiding the same in the future.

When 6 people die, they term the same as a MAJOR accident, but I guess for us even 40 or 50 people die, it doesn't really matter? Why this attitude? Simply coz we have the 2nd largest population in the world?? Have you folks noticed, there are times when 40 to 50 people die fallin off gorges in hinterland of India and it just receives a small column in our newspapers and it is never MAJOR enough for us!!!!!

Recently I was reading that the Mumbai local knocks down more than 400 people per year, how do we work around to reduce the rate????? Naaaaa no one bothers, guess we have too many people to replace the dead!!! How TRAGIC....

Back to the days of Babudom

Not sure how many of you remember those days of License Raj, but dealin with a public sector agency was one hell of a experience, coz those people out there thought they were doin us a favor and worse they never heard the concept of "customer being a KING".

Well, anyways today I tried renewin my insurance on the motor cycle and fortunately or unfortunately I happen to have an insurance policy from one of the government agencies and it was definitely an exciting experience. Over the period after the License Raj was ended and public sector companies are competing with private companies to serve the customer better and retain their market share. But guess just like they say habits die hard, I was at the receiving end when I tried renewing the insurance policy.

First when I walked in, they had three doors and I had to figure out which one was dealing with the motor cycle insurance and then when I figured it out, I was directed to one lady who happened to be in the grade of Assistant Manager, and when I apologised and produced my torn and tattered insurance photo copy, she asked me if the bike was in a good condition and I said yes and she was fine. The matter of fact was that she's supposed to inspect the motor cycle personally, guess she was tired after a good lunch ;-). Then she gave me a form and asked me to fill it up and when I decided to sit opp to her and fill it, she told me that there is a designated place to do that and directed me there. And when I started to fill it up I realized hell, she was supposed to do that and she passed the buck to me.

Anyways, once filled up I was asked to submit the same, she depreciated the 10% on the existing value and god alone knows whatever happened to No claim bonus and then again directed me to another counter. I move there and submitted the same and I was asked to wait. After sometime I was called and I head to make the payment, when I gave the monies to the lady, she expects me to give her change too and I apologise for not havin change and she murmurs some curses at me :-(. Once that is done, she routes the documents to the counter whereI went first and asks me to wait again. Atlast I get my policy with the premium paid but wait, I need to get a signature and she just gestures me towards the Asst Manager, while I'm all dazed, there is another guy who knows his way around and directs me to the person sittin behind the cubicle and when I approach him, he routes me to the first Asst Manager I met. Well she signs the same and then gestures me towards another lady sittin at another corner of the office, so I head in that direction and submit the same, and then the lady asks me wait again while she is busy filing other documents.

I realize she is a helper at the office and then she takes the carbon copy for filing and then gives me the original and puts in an envelope and this is the clincher!!!!!!!! She sports this BIG smile to me, well I realized that she was expecting me to tip her but unfortunately I was not carryin any small change with me, hence I matched her smile and turned around ;-) and was glad that for the next one year I needn't go through the same :-)

Few things I noticed was that, they really haven't changed ever after License Raj, they still feel they are doin us a favor, whatz with the concept of Customer bein the KING? hell we rule this place and time? excuse me??? you said time??? well we get paid to work for you people so our time is important to hell with your work and time ;-)

P.S: Please leave ur valuable comments on the blog and not on Facebook coz after years when we go through the same I would like to read the comments too and sure even others would like to see what response it has solicited :-) Thanks again for your time.

LOVE ACTUALLY!!!!!!

Just two days ago I was all alone at home and feelin all lonely and yesterday when I went back home, nothin much had changed except that I decided that I would watch a movie and kinda decided to browse through the dvd's lyin at home and decided to lay my hands on the movie 'Love Actually', though I was not sure if I was ready for a romantic comedy.

Once the movie got goin, my doubts were quelled and it was a laugh riot and I was like "hell my neighbors are gonna come askin me to shut up". But after Music and Lyrics, which also happens to be a romantic comedy I feel this movie is as good as it. Of course the movie starts off with the Heathrow Airport and ends there but throughout the movie the different characters and couples showcased and how they take it forward is what itz all about. But there were quite a few lessons too for all of us and definitely it will strike a chord with all of us, coz we know we all would have been in one of those situations.

Well I suppose I wouldn't spoil the fun, I highly recommend the movie. But yeah the thing I wanted to talk about is that the movie has again reaffirmed my belief that love would happen and it would happen you would least expect. Anyways after a month of matrimonial site huntin I've decided that I would give my self a break, coz I feel itz just not what I want to do. I rather hope and live that love would happen to me and then it can be followed by marriage ;-) (fingers crossed on that)

http://www.loveactually.com/

Naturalization!!!!!

Was pondering over what I should be bloggin today and I saw a friend of mine online who moved out of the country for his studies and definitely wanted to ensure that before he returns from the country he would be havin his Permanent Residenceship from that country. Fingers crossed that he would achieve his DREAM of a citizenship in a foreign country.

But my bone of contention is something else. We, as all we Indians he too had a Indian name and yeah his second name happened to be one of the disciple's name of Jesus. And after a few months after he reached there, I see that he stopped using his first/Indian name and has adopted his second name and it kinda surprised me. I mean why would you do that??? Well it didn't take long to figure out, coz supposedly the locals over there couldn't get the Indian name right, so they went for the easy way out and started addressing him by his second name.

I'm sure, you should be asking whatz the fuzz all about??? Well, when I see from my perspective, I kinda felt that it was wrong on his part to accept what was bestowed on him. Well he is entitled to his opinion, but well hey this is my blog, I'm entitled to my opinion too ;-)... Coming back to the case, I've always believed that whenever we go to another place we should always adopt otherz way of doin things and you are definitely appreciated when you do things just like them.

Thanks to my interaction with quite a few expats, I see that few genuinely take an interest in being part of our culture and also try to be one among us but well the color of the skin does give away, but still I appreciate the fact that they tried. Well there are few, who strongly believe that we should be doin things their way and they forget that they are our guests. There I go ranting something else, I still strongly believe that my friend should have atleast retained his first name. There I see myself doin a double talk :D!!!!

Well, given the fact that I've only travelled twice out of the country and that too on a holiday guess moi no authority to decide what people out there should do ;-) but I still feel he shouldn't have gone for it :D

I just came across an interestin article and its something of a dream from me to take up full time travelin. Guess someday I would head for it, for the time being for all the avid travelers some piece of advice on how to travel cheap:

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/cheap-travel/

Enjai Maadi :-)

Home ALONE!!!!!!!

I know we all think itz a great thing to be home ALONE!! I've always looked forward to bein home ALONE and bring in friends home, party like therez no tomorrow and just laze around and be yourself. Last few days I've been alone at home and on the contrary of it all bein FUN itz been more with juggling with all the chores at home and gettin myself to work and gettin back home in time to feed the dog!!!!!! AWWWWW how I miss my folks now ;-)

I guess itz kinda a realization too that folks definitely put in quite a bit of effort in runnin the house. Even though I've just been assigned the task of ensurin that our Mougli is fed and taken care and ensurin that the neighbor is given his grub for lunch. I find that I actually need to get up early to do everything. Hell I even managed to wash my clothes after a good one year since I moved back to Bangalore. Well don't blame me, mom refuses to allow me to wash my clothes :D!!! But yeah it was fun washin my clothes, which I guess takes me back to my Hyderabad days ;-), Hyd used to me sooo borin that my weekend ritual used to spent doin my laundry ;-)

Well now that my weekend plans has been dashed, I hope I end up havin enough fun in Namma Bengalooru. Definitely some gardening and catchin up with friends is on cards. I hope I find some time to relax too ;-)

Bon Weekend :-)

P.S: Would like thank Ma, Shweta and Rahul for a great evening last night and Many Many happy returns of the day Shweta you folks have fun :-)

Touchin Appreciation!!!!!!!

Last week when I was drivin down to Kerala, I happened to have a pit stop over at one of the Petrol Stations for breakfast and while I was gettin my car refueled I noticed something and I felt really good that I was carryin my camera!!!! Well the result was this. They actually had this wall with all the hand marks of the people who built the place!!!!!! Ahhhhhh!!!! I was sooo moved by the gesture and just couldn't wait to share it with you all.

There are so many times we all at work and personal front expect some sort of appreciation for all the hard work we do and hell itz not harm in expecting coz we are all humans. At times even a simple gesture like this would make a world of difference and definitely this one tops it for sure.

Definitely, some day if I'm ever gonna build anything, definitely this is somethin even I intend on doin and I'm sure itz worth every penny and time spent on it.

What is that I wanna do?????

Last 3 days being in God's Forsaken Country (as I've termed it after my 2 year stay in the state of Kerala), though I had rushed with my mom and cousin to be by my granny's side given her deteriorating health and since we had to fend to ourselves given that all at the family was at the hospital, there were few questions which I just happen to ask myself.

Firstly, I had to draw water from the well, ahhhhhhh what a feeling, well not that we didn't have the luxury of havin the water through the tap, but hell I would never miss an opportunity to draw water from the well, and what an exhilarating is that experience ;-)

Then gettin up aimlessly in the morning, lettin the hen out of their coop, checking out the two chicks and itz mother keepin a watch over them, checkin out for fallen trees and any other damage done by the late night showers!!!!!! ahhhhhh what a BLISS!!!!

Yeah then the monsoons ensuring that the heavens were opened, and open did they with all the fury that the next day we had a coconut tree and a rubber tree uprooted. Well but it was also a blessin given the heat there. Sittin by the veranda, readin a book and with the rains and thunderstorm, the mood was perfect, yeah missed the Scotch coz papa and mama was around ;-)

Well, what set me off thinkin was, though I keep saying I'm a hard core BANGALOREAN, I've always noticed that I enjoy my stays at hinterland and not really sure should I be retirin there or just stick on with Bangalore. Or is it that I find it really good coz I know after few days I'm back in Namma Bengalooru?????

Well anyways, guess if I can ever strike a balance nothing like it!!!!!! GOSH look at me.. already plannin my retired life ;-) what ever happens to my other plans of backpackin around the world and tryin to reach out to the needy????? living in a different country for some time??????

An Ode to our GRANNY

As she lies in the ICU battling for her life and since there is nothin much any of us can do but rather hope and pray that she cheats death as she did twice in the last one decade. I felt the best thing I can do for her is to write a tribute to her, coz I'm not sure what else do to.

Though, she has played very little role in our lives given the fact that we used to only meet her for 2 months every year durin our summer vacation during school days. She always ensured that we were petted and spoilt for those two months. Ensured that we had enough and more to eat and all the mangoes and jack fruits we've had, thanks to her ensuring that everything is saved up for our arrival for our holidays.

Infact she used to stack up all kinds of food in her pathayam (a huge wooden safe lock kinda stuff) and it would used to be locked 24/7 coz it had all been saved up for her grand children. She infact brought us brothers our first lungi (something on the lines of the wrap around for men) ahhhhh how can I forget them. The red and white checked out.. ahhhhh!!!!!! Then there was this time when I was down with chicken pox and 21 days of isolation, bland food and neem and turmeric concoction (BITTER would be an understatement), all the while Amma was along and of course she caught me towards the end wherein I was stealin salt water to add to my porridge coz it was too bland ;-)

Then her visit to Bangalore after years and few months of stay and she wanted was to return back to her home, despite the weather and people, nope nothin could keep her away from her home. And yeah she kinda freaked out too when one of my friend visited my place and she saw that my friend who happens to be a woman was wearin jeans, that was hilarious, coz she had no clue why she was wearing men's cloth ;-)

Lastly, she was one link which kept the family together and I hope we will continue to maintain the relationship even after she leaves us, but for the time being it would be great to have her back home and to hear all her rantin about her cows and hens and her trees!!!!!!!

Amma we all love you!!!!!!

Old World V/s New World

Yesterday I was pickin up my mom from the church and on the way back papa had instructed me to take mom and to go to the market and buy some mangoes for make some lip smackin pickle ;-).. and there I went with my mom straight from the church, found some decent place to park the scooter and took out the kakhi hand bag (yeah not polythene cover) which is hand made and you needn't feel ashamed of carryin it in the market unlike in the malls where you would stand out with a greasy hand bag.

It definitely brought a lot of memories to me and man the fun of just walkin around the market and lookin at all the wares that has been displayed to be sold!!! I mean you could find everything that needed and yeah you could bargain too, no fixed prices and guess every penny counts out there huh :-). I guess thatz what the hypermarkets, super markets and malls have ushered us to, pay as much as the price tag says and please we don't bargain here.. Awww... how the kids of today would never know the fun of haggling with vendors...

Yeah that reminds me to another time, when we brothers used to tag along with mom for her saree shoppin.. gosh she would bring the entire store down to choose and guess what.. she walks away sayin!!!!! "well they really don't anything interestin"!!!!! AWWWWWW, how could she do that????? I used argue with my mom sayin, atleast for all the trouble they have taken buy something, but no she wouldn't budge sayin "Its their job" and gosh we used to turn pink with the dirty stares those shop keepers used to give, but hell nothin could budge our mom.. :-)

Definitely, I feel that the trip down the memory lane was worth the effort and time and given a chance I would go all over again just to get the experience.