counting back to the year that was

I cant believe the year is almost over...we're just dealing with the last scraps...and for a while, if i sit myself down, i can't believe its gone by so fast...seriously...where did the whole year go?

Is this a sign that the year was nondescript? maybe...some parts of it were exhilarating... some parts of it just bleh! and while i am always grateful for the mercies from above... i cant say that i am particularly sad to see this year go.... i am so looking forward to the next one... 2010....almost sounds like something the space scientists predicted 60 years ago!

Most of this year has passed in a haze....the only memories that stand out vividly are the travel trips K and I made....

i can hardly remember anything from january other than i starrted a very important project at work which saw me through till july... we went on a team outing and i did the rope walk... it put a lot of things in perspective for me...in a way that was good, because the year was just starting off and having those thoughts helped me immensely...that was the only thing of significance i can recall....

february seemed like an extension of the month that went by ... the oscars for rahman and pookutty and a bigger leap for a dear friend J.... we shared so much on the phone, and taking a leap of faith, she began a home based business. last month, i visited her and was so proud of what she has achieved single handedly in the last 10 months.... a lot of what she did was so close to my experiences, that it was deja vu all over again....

march was full of excitement... travel to ahmedabad for 10 days of a well deserved break with K's family and time for me to laze about and be a bum....oh and the shopping! after going easy for 2 years...i went all out on this trip!

I cannot recall April...except that i kept exclaiming hot hot it was getting and fearing that the end of the world through global warming was near....fretting over the usage of plastic...and hoping everyone did their bit...

May was a blur of boozy times....for the first time K travelled for multiple days without me, and i stayed at a friends house till he returned... its interesting how living in someone else's comfort zone makes you wonder how welcoming your own home is for guests....i was privy to the life of a single woman...and sometimes, i wonder how life would have been for me if i was still single...it was also a time of excruciating pain with my neck and shoulder pain, i wore a collar for a month and was in bed for a whole week....also, began yoga classes.....sadly, R took her life, frustrated with her lot, alone and disraught....we'd spoken a day before and she sounded "normal"... i still cant believe she's gone sometimes....made me realign and reassess...and thank god for His mercies....

June was a busy month, full of people...i had a friend staying over because she had issues at home with the family over her "not agreeing to marry the first idiot" she encountered, we took a trip to bangalore where all 5 of us shacked out at my mom's.... i got not one...not two..but three piercings done...the shiny nose ring was to keep me enamoured for many months!! we had a barbeque party on the rooftop of my mom's home...and i got a cook!

the last day of june was a story... a day spent in a spa with K to make up for lost time....and beginning July with a trip... with just a one way ticket to delhi, we landed and stayed at a friends place for a couple of days... moved on to dehradun...then to mussoorie....and then the mother of all....a trek into the Valley of Flowers at the foothills of the Himalayas in Uttaranchal.... It was to be the most significant trip i took this whole year....i am glad i lived to see this day.... sun burnt or not... it was worth every aching muscle....i also turned a year older....i got a new camera and a new laptop as birthday gifts from K.....we were to have a relentless stream of friends staying with us... different sets...for the next two months...

August brought the much needed rains... i was beginning to worry about a drought....it also brought amma to spend a few weeks with me... but with the bomb scares and all that... she was terrified and it took a lot of counselling from K to calm her down...

September threw the state into turmoil.... YSR the chief minister died in a helicopter crash.... there was chaos and confusion and lots of political mud wrestling...the rains continued and were much loved by me...i started another blog....Patrick died....i made some important changes to the way i wanted to work.... K and I slaunched something of our own.... we made an end of the month trip to bangalore that was such a fulfilling experience....

october was a quiet month for me personally although the house was FULL of people and parties that included masks!! i pottered around ... painted my coffee table and beautiful mosaic...made more plans for the next few months...spent a lot of time in retrospection....

november seems like just yesterday....K and i have been married for 6 years and i cant believe it has been that long already.... we had a lovely dinner where i dressed up and used eye shadow!!we had a few more impromptu parties....i tagged on with K for a trip to bangalore...i loved the weather at this time of the year

December.....was a big month for us.... K's little venture was doing something exciting... as fate would have it, I went with him to Kerala for an event...it was the most charming way to end the year... we stayed in jew town ... i've never enjoyed a trip to kerala as much as i loved this one....the work we did was very well appreciated....K turned a year older....i was depressed for a while with not being able to spend christmas with family and all the bandhs for the formation of the separate state of Telangana ... but i came around...made cake and murukku and kalkals and shortbread.... had a party with the most significant people in my life right now... and am thankful for the year that went by....

i think its an age factor, when you begin to detest noisy smokey parties... i have nothing planned for the new year....

for myself.... i want more focus on the plans i have...personal and professional pursuits.....a year that will be better and more fulfilling than 2009....

for my friends, family and all those of you who read this space.... i wish you peace and joy... may you stay safe...and happy...and may you be fulfilled.....

Happy New Year... lets have a good year 2010!

Merry Christmas

 

To all of you who stop by here… family, friends & readers of this blog……. a Very Happy and Blessed Christmas. May the peace and joy of this season be upon us and with us always….With much love and thanks for reading

nearly there.... but not yet

its almost the ending of the year... this year has gone by so quickly that i cant even recollect most of it.. also shows that its been a rather unspectacular year... if there was a word like that....lets just suffice to say that a lot of expectations i had from the work i was meant to do weren't fulfilled, that left me rather disappointed.....

this year actually just ambled along... of course the most wonderful memories have been the personal journeys.... but more on that later....

As i sit at the table this morning.... having my second cup of coffee and writing this, i think the single most significant change this year for me has been the addition of a cook to my household. I now cant imagine life without her!! she's got the temperament that would've made her a top HR leader in any company, no request too much for her, and even when she wants to refuse, she does it with such finesse that i am left gaping!! cooking has become a pleasure once more and no longer a chore for me.... and i love it that my nails and fingers no longer smell of onions!! she's truly had a huge hand in liberating my mind... i would some days wake up with panic that i needed to cook!! its helped me organise myself much better.... i now have a set routine for buying of produce, groceries, kitchen maintenance... and i love that i can choose to get involved or simply delegate and supervise.....

K and I have been on the cusp of a lot of things... he's moved into consulting after much thought and heartache....and those were some anxious moments we had.... as a couple, and as professionals. the company he has started has seen a fair amount of progress and i cant even begin to express how proud i am of him, and the sheer joy that i just lucked out in finding him!!

ok... i took a trip i wasn;t planning to...... am going to reserve all of that for a propah year ending post.... till then lovelies.... tally ho!!

on the side, i am reading anita jain's marrying anita... so far, i am loving it....

things to do

have missed home like never before.... the back to back trips these past 2 weeks.... i wonder if this is a permanent shift in my mind....however much my beloved maids look after the plants and home in my absence....i feel guilty for having left it in their care....i make up by going at it with gusto....4 loads of clothes were washed today.... a few more to go.... plants to be cared for....urgent repotting is done,....pots rearranged....shopping (meagre....am very proud of myself) to be unpacked and put away....suddenly, i see theres a lot more to do at home than before..... a routine to be gotten back to.... meals to be planned....christmas preparations to be made.... am determined to put up a star and decorations before the final week this year.... projects to be completed.... emails to be answered.... phone calls to be made....much to be done....

the week that went by....

am going to try a less verbose style of writing... its very popular in blogging ;p

*      back from a 5 day business trip to cochin
*      never seen so many doctors at one place
*      i know now for a fact that doctors love "free bags" any shape, size and colour :D
*      even the greatest companies in the world are no greater than the people they employ
*      the quality of your work is a direct result of the quality of you

*      the most tiring work is made good with the satisfaction of a job well done...and the company of K!!
*      god's own country.... i just wish you had children who treated you better.....
*      explored jew town... was amazing how my perspective changes each time i visit....
*      was sad to see the synagogue...slowly getting engulfed by the "indian emporiums"
*      bought the freshest spices ever
*      had the loveliest time at a charming place called Old Harbour Hotel...am so glad we wound up our trip with  a dinner here.... am in love with fort kochi again
*      no matter how much you love to travel, how fabulous the place, how important and successful the work...you missed your home, as much as she missed you......

vodafone sucks.....not happy to help

it breaks my heart to say this to a place that gave me much in life.... a place i worked in with heart and soul.... today i called up the vodafone call centre with a sim card registration failed problem....and far from being able to help me (they just told me to visit the store) the fucking assholes.... 3 of them, sri lakshmi, ramesh and some other woman calling herself the floor supervisor, had the attitude of the king of persia.... so rude and unhelpful that it wasn't funny.....and when i said i do not appreciate being spoken to rudely...the SOB ramesh actually tells me, he is speaking that way because i said what he had just spoken (it was so garbled, i only made out he'd stopped speaking) wasnt clear. the moron obviously didnt know the difference between screeching and speaking clearly.... the call was then escalated on my request to the equally arrogant, incompetent beyond words..... after not listening to me, interrupting my every sentence because i asked her to give me some indication of listening to me, neither my technical complaint or the dissatisfaction of the way the earlier two executives spoke to me Swapna Priya (the supervisor) repeated the same story that they had already tried the basic trouble shooting and that this wasnt a problem that could be solved from their end and that i would have to visit the vodafone store to have my sim card replaced. this is after i told her it would be inconvenient for me to visit a store as the nearest one was 40 kms away from where i was currently located. She reiterated that they could not help me so with no choice, i hung up.

the point is this, every provider of telephone services, will have to have executives who are trained in the basics of the most popular handset models. they need to be familiar with the menu options and how to guide a customer to get there. the phone i use is a very popular nokia n 70 whose menu details are easily available all over the internet and everyone knows that nokia is a handset which has the easiest and most user friendly menu trees. yet these three people, only read from the steps in their standard operating procedure and went no further. the moment i said that i cant see the options they mentioned (cos they were directing me from a sub menu and not the main menu) they asked me to go to the vodafone store, not caring for the inconvenience that would be caused, even after mentioning that it would be too far, and could they try some other options.... no.... i drew a complete blank.....so i hung up in despair.....

i then did some exploring on my own, and managed to fix the problem.

i called to speak to the same floor supervisor.... to tell her what i'd done, so the pig head could help another customer facing the same issues....  she very conveniently had "gone for breakfast and would return after 1 hr" pray i want to be reemployed by vodafone which gives its employees a one hour breakfast break... so that meant that lunch would be 2 hrs? i was then put onto another floor supervisor/ team leader called charan lal, who after much hemming and hawing said that the call centre manager would be available only after 2 pm. (i cant understand how a business works this way). so i requested for a call back which has been promised before 3 pm.

and oh!! how did i resolve my own issue?? i did what we do most of the times.... switch off the phone, remove the battery and sim card.... put them both back in and switched it back on.... it worked.....