Away from you

Miles away from you,
I sit in a corner of my room,
Heart wandering, mind restless
My whole spirit bathed in gloom.

The clock has never been so slow before
I have never before been so lonely
Miserable without you around
I am filled with thoughts of you only

Emptiness is all I can feel
Without you life is hollow
Take me darling wherever you go
I will unfailingly follow;

My eyes waiting to light up
At the sight of you standing with poise
My heart waiting to skip a beat
At the sound of your chirpy voice;

I have missed your presence
Every second that you were not here
Without you life holds no meaning
You give me a purpose to live, my dear!!

- Pallavi

yipeee I m soooo happy!!!!

“Congratulations on Completion of 1 year in Aricent (9-June-2008)”,
Said the subject of the mail. Whoa… did I join Aricent on the 9th of July? I had to flip through the soft copy of my joining letter to confirm. I had been so sure that it was the 12th of July. But out of the 30/31 days of the month why did this 12 remain in memory? Of course because 12 April was the date on which I had joined my first company naukri.com 3 yrs earlier. I was still bonded to naukri from my heart. Though the name of the company changed but the date had stayed.
So here I am, already in my second year in this company. Time does fly… with the speed of light in this case. The mail congratulating me on completion of 1 yr in Aricent just about manages to induce a tiny smile on my face. The first sly thought sneaks in. I smirk and ponder “I can safely look for a job change now. My CV is again looking great with more stability on it”.

Damn us s/w people and damn our industry. We s/w developers are like vagabonds… on the move all the time. We stop at an oasis that offers lucrative take homes and kind of work that has all the latest buzz words. The moment we have exhausted the resources of that oasis or we feel the oasis is really not all that green as it appeared to be, we move on. Some of us leave an oasis just for the heck of it because all the others are moving to greener pastures. But more on that some time later…

Here I am writing about my emotional being on the completion of 1 yr in my second company. How should I be feeling? Exhilarated, honored, experienced, delighted…I felt none of this. However hard I tried, emotions of any sort refused to surface. Since I had reached office a little earlier than usual and my manager was yet to come in, the day dragged on like any other day.

Some how I am the kind of person who doesn’t care about birthdays and anniversaries… I have to try and make myself feel good. Someone once told me these are very special days not to be missed on any account. From then on I started the ritual of lengthy preparations, loads of shopping and loud singing of my approaching bday at least 15 days in advance. All this ado finally leads to a delighted “pallavi” on the birthdays.

But here I had done none of that. So all I could feel was “I can change my job now” feeling. I desperately tried to feel something else after all it is not every day that you complete 1 year in your second company. The magnanimity of the moment demanded from me a lot more of emotions that I currently exhibited. I decided enough was enough and I didn’t want to be a zombie devoid of any feelings of a normal late twenties female s/w developer. I would have to take the matter in my own stride.

So I picked up my phone and called up a dozen of my friends and relative to let them know of the feat. Whether they felt it or were just infused with my extra enthusiastic call, they all congratulated me by heart and wished me good luck for future (Some even suggesting that I could look for a change now J ). Then I opened my mail box and mailed the news to all of my chat/mail/fwd friends and got similar kind of response.

Finally at the end of the day I was feeling like a princess though the kingdom was built into thin air and would disappear any time. This taught me an important lesson. Whether I have completed 1 yr or 1 yr 15 days 5 hrs 17 sec in Aricent, what matters is not the time or occasion but my state of mind. Happiness is a state of mind and can be achieved any time/any place. I have decided I would rather be happy than just being a zombie… it feels so robotic otherwise.

Oh my seventh blog done finally… yipeee I m soooo happy!!!!

Agle janam mohe bitiya no kijo

“Agle janam mohe bitiya no kijo…” echoed a beautiful voice on television early Sunday morning. The words reached deep, deep inside. And then it was not any other singer performing in a reality show, it was someone very close because the person was echoing my emotions, “God do not make me a daughter in the next birth.”

I would not call myself a feminist but probably my upbringing was such that I never considered myself inferior in any way to boys, Being the eldest child of the family , I always made it a point to voice my opinion even in the most trivial of matters and the best part is my decisions were implemented. I never realized that I was a girl child. It was never ever mentioned in my household even though we happen to be just two sisters.

This is the way I spent my childhood without any apprehensions about being a “daughter”. I adored my parents and dreamed of making it big, not for myself but for them. I love the beaming look that my papa gives whenever I accomplish something.

Then it came. Slowly and surely. The day I finished my college my parents were talking of my marriage. “Leave my home and go live with someone else… nah… no ways”. I had no idea that marriage is inevitable and I would be no exception.
Everyone expected me to adapt some other family as my own and feel happy about it. I know women have been doing it for ages and it is a well accepted norm in our society but so what the ****?

It was then for the first time in my life I said,” God why did u make me a daughter?”. I remember standing by the holy fire on D-day as the knot was being tied, the only thought that blocked my mind was, “why do I have to leave the people who are the reason for my existence?”

I resolved I would not budge however hard they tried. And then I told my mother I didn’t want to go. I was resolute. She did not listen too busy for my vidai. I told my brother I was not going but he stayed quiet. Seeing no other way I wailed out loud,”mujhe nahin jana hai”. But no one listened. I kept howling, begging them to leave me alone. They all wept but the last minute preparations did not cease. The memories are all hazy perhaps because my eyes were filled with tears or because I have not recalled that day again. What I remember clearly is that I was sent of in a car packed with strangers. My father stood there beaming yet again, face puffed red, and my sister wearing an expression I have never seen before and my mother … I just couldn’t see my mother. It had become blurred yet again. My heart reached out for them but I couldn’t. It was the end. It was the end of the best part of me. I know something in me died that day.

I had conditioned myself to forget about that part until I heard this song on Sunday. I begged to God yet again, "agle janam mohe bitia na kijo"!!!

Be a sport

As I was browsing through the events of the year just gone by, in the sports section I chanced upon the line
“Dola Banerjee won a gold at the archery World Cup, Jhulan Goswami emerged as the world’s fastest woman bowler.”

Much to my chagrin, neither had I heard of any of the two names nor did know that there was a world cup in archery. This being the IT age the very obvious option available was to Google it out.
Dola Banerjee claimed the gold medal in the women's individual recurve competition at the archery World Cup finals in Dubai in Nov 2007. This was the first time an Indian claimed the coveted title. The 27 year old woman also happens to be the first Indian woman archer to qualify for the Olympics, has won the 18th Golden Arrow Grand Prix tournament at Antalya, gold in 2006 SAF Games. The government of India has honored her with Arjuna Award for 2005.

Jhulan Goswami, 23 years old is a member of the Indian women cricket team and now the fastest female bowler in the world, bowling at 120kph. She bagged the ICC Women's Player of the Year at the awards ceremony in Johannesburg on Sep 10 2007.
Again I was left with loads of unanswered questions … Is Dola Banerjee who won the archery World Cup any less deserving than the Indian cricket team who one the T20 world cup. Does Jhulan Goswami not deserve accolades for her feat? What have we done to cognize their effort and accomplishment that has brought glory to the country?

There was little or no coverage on them in the print media or tele media. When the media goes ga ga over the dhonis and sachins and yuvrajs, why are the Jhulans and Dolas forgotten. We are a biased set of people and so engrossed with team India (as the men’s cricket team is affectingly called), that we completely overlook other sports. The government also showers its goodies only on one set of favored players. This is what creates discontented and demotivated sports persons. Every time after an Olympics or an Asian games after the Indian contingent has fared badly, there is much insight into this. Many articles are written, speeches are made. But nothing more happens. Other sports continue to be in the same dire situation with no sponsors and no support.

Can we the people of India do something about it?