Commonwealth: The hottest topic of discussion these days everywhere.
CWG: The guys we all hate, for making a laughing stock of us around the world.
Rs 70,000 Crores: The estimated cost of this fiasco.
Games Village: A "luxurious residence" for games athletes - where the roofs leak, toilets are jammed up, light fittings are missing, and stray dogs abound - not to mention the stagnant water capable of being a dengue/malaria source. Where so far only half the towers are complete and where many of the completed towers don't even have furniture installed yet.
Lalit Bhanot - A man with questionable standards of hygiene!!
Suresh Kalmadi - The master of the 3 ring circus, whose tall claims and empty promises have given the press plenty of material to rip apart...
Lackadaisical: The attitude of the government so far
Corrupt: A word we need to find an alternative to - it doesn't even begin to describe the crooks running the CWG operation. So many personal fortunes made out of "common wealth"
Chaos: What to expect when the CWG-exclusive traffic lanes become operational
Shame: What Indians the world over seem to be feeling at the current situation, since we all seem to have been tarred with one brush.
Apprehension: What next??

I want my money back!!!!

Had to move back to stay with my folks for a bit, because of a mild case of typhoid. Not the horrible typhoid of last year that I'd suffered through ; I didn't even need to take more than a couple of days off from work. I must say, no matter how independent one gets, there are times in life when one needs someone to fall back on. For me, that's my parents - I come to stay with them every time I'm sick, and it really makes a difference.

The one night that I was alone at my own home, with temperature crossing 102 and nobody around to even put a cold compress, sticks in my mind though. I can't remember a time when I felt more alone and depressed, and it makes me realise how important a support structure is - and that means not just parents but others. The way things are right now, I don't think I have that. You kill yourself working, so much that you neglect all or most of your friendships and relationships, and at the end of the day this is where you end up. Alone!

Laut ke buddhu...

Three years ago when I left my previous organisation, I had loudly declared to anyone who cared to listen that commuting to Gurgaon every day was not for me and that I'd rather not work than be in a place where I spent three to five hours just travelling to and from work. Well, things have now come circle and my current organisation has - after months of waffling - finally shifted their office. Where to? Gurgaon, of course. I'm back to my early morning wake up calls, long commutes, and insane traffic. As they say, never say never....

I did it!

The highlight of this year for me has been a two week solo trip to England and Scotland that I did on my own this summer. After years of waiting for "the right time", for someone to maybe go with, for the requisite "bank balance" and a lot of other things, I finally managed to screw up the courage and go off on my own. My first ever long haul trip, and yes my first solo vacation. It was even better than I had thought it would be, and I came back with lots of pictures and memories as well as a new-found confidence in myself. I wonder now why I didn't do this earlier! Parts of this trip will be coming up on this blog soon. I'm now looking at ideas and options for my next trip, since I've promised myself to do this on a regular basis now. No cure for the travel bug!

Back...again

I've been meaning to get back to blogging actively for a long time now, but something or the other kept making me put it off. Apart from my innate laidback-ness, I think there is this odd fear that I might not have anything to write about, or even that I mightn't remember how to! Only one way to find out. So here's looking at me, and yet another shot at doing something I used to love to do but gave up along the way...

Apology to my blog

For being away for a year, almost exactly to the day...For letting work and family and friends and Facebook and books and everything else take up so much of my time, that blogging took a backseat...For not having the discipline to take out time regularly and post, even though I know that I need to.
No matter how often I go away, or for how long, I always return.

Talking to myself

The gift of the gab. You either have it, or you don't. If (like me) you don't have it, you (like me) can't stop wishing you did. Every time you're in a conversation with someone and are left with nothing to say. Every time you think of a brilliant observation to make - hours after the opportunity is past. Each time someone with a quicksilver tongue manages to get attention in a way you can only dream of. Each time you are left feeling a little foolish and a little dull, and come back home to talk to your blog...

I underwent a root canal treatment on a wisdom tooth...four super-painful sessions...and then the dentist found that the tooth is so crooked that the RCT cannot be successfully completed. Damn, I wish she'd realised this four weeks ago...So anyway, this evening I somehow managed to screw up my courage and got the extraction done. And now, the pain.....Oh man the pain....

I'd begun a post tonight intending to rant about my problems: work and life and everything else in between. Then, as I was maybe half-way thru it, I found myself talking to S. She seemed to be a little off today so I asked...and then it all came out..a horror of a story which I will not mention here coz it would be a betrayal of a confidence...But I was astounded to hear of the things she's gone through in her very young life. I'm now looking at her with very new eyes and with a lot more respect.
After that conversation I find myself amazed that I have been messing my head over trivial things like workplace politics, weight gain, and other such incidentals.
So, no more rants. I'm going to log off, put on my Kermit-the-Frog woollen socks, go to bed and hopefully have pleasant dreams. Tomorrow will take care of itself.

I can't get over the irony of it. Even as I was writing my last post (Safe so far??? How's that for a joke??) the terror attack on Mumbai had begun. I don't think I grasped the magnitude of it till the following morning when I realised all the details. Those 60 odd hours were probably the worst in most of our lives, even if one of our own friends or family members wasn't trapped out there. This was a first. This was an unprecedented, unimaginable attack that brought a city to its knees and glued us to our television sets for the duration of the siege. Over 180 dead, more than 240 wounded. The "Jihadis" and their senseless violence put an end to hundreds of dreams, destroyed countless families and left the entire nation feeling insecure, impotent and angry.

We watched the images on TV, read the reports on the net, and shed tears for all those unknown innocent persons caught in the tragedy. We lit candles and observed a one-minute silence in their memory. We prayed for them. Beyond that, most of us don't know what to do. And this helplessness is combined with an impotent rage that grows stronger ever day. Rage at the terrorists. At our lax security arrangements. Above all, rage against the politicians - for their crass and indecent remarks, their efforts to use even this gigantic tragedy for political one-upmanship, their complete lack of sensitivity. How I wish these people were at the Oberoi that night instead.

The PM gave an unbelievably cold speech full of "we will" and "we shall" and a lot of the usual waffling. Dr Singh, this was a time when you could have redeemed yourself. And you as usual muffed it. The Opposition leaders imply that the entire tragedy wouldn't have happened, had they been in power. Yeah, right. And the Marathi manoos who was hiding inside his house while Mumbai was in uproar, would have us believe that those who died were all Marathis and only his MNS was involved in rescue ops. Silly me, I never realised that the Marcos and NSG teams were all Maharashtrians. I'm sure, before pulling people out of the burning Taj, the firemen ensured that only Marathis were brought out first, right? Oh grow up Mr Thakre!!

In our country precious financial resources are used to fund ministerial jaunts, organise Commonwealth Games shows involving Bollywood celebrities, buy imported cars and expensive planes for politicos, anything and everything. But crucial areas like coastal security are not given any importance. Commando units set up for anti-terror ops are diverted to provide VIP security to those egotistical idiots who pass for "leaders" these days. MP's get bungalows and cars and laptops and regular pay-raises. Soliders and cops get paid peanuts, get only very basic amenities, often are cut off from their families for long intervals...Our government has funds for any silly activity you can think of, but not to give its police forces some much-needed training and proper equipment. They are sent in to fight these new hi-tech militants with just their lathis and sometimes an ancient 303.

So what have we learned from the last few days? Something we all knew already - terrorism has mutated into newer, more frightening forms and we as a country are not yet fully equipped to fight it. If our politicians and bureaucrats did their jobs, and let the police and the forces do theirs without interference, we might be able to get there. Maybe. And until then, how many more 26/11's do we have to face? I don't even want to answer that.

Safe so far

The travel industry in India is going through a kind of phase never seen before. Nothing has hit us so badly since 9/11...and this downturn is by far worse than that one. Bookings are down, scores of cancellations have come in from every market, programs are being re-priced at wafer-thin margins or even nett cost, just to bring in some numbers. The world changed this year, and may never be the same again. I know scores of people who lost their jobs in this industry, and rumours of pay-cuts and downsizing have been flying around for some time now.
So when the boss announced that for the moment there are no job or pay cuts happening, everybody heaved a sigh of relief. Safe for now.

To the moon and back...

They've finally done it. Mr Nair and his talented bunch of unassuming men (and women) have fulfilled their promise of landing the Indian tricolour on the Moon with the the first unmanned Lunar mission - the Chandrayaan 1. An entire nation had been following its journey to the moon with their hearts in their mouths and a prayer on their lips. With the success of this mission, India enters an elite club of a handful of nations and hopefully will be able to send a manned mission within the next 10 years.

At a time when the economic downturn and slowdown in growth is affecting so many of us for the worse, the Chandrayaan success also acts as a much-needed ray of hope, a major confidence-booster in our abilities and our future.

Afterwards...

It's been almost a month since the serial blasts. In the days since then I've seen my own office building getting sealed and searched for a bomb post a hoax call, and I've heard countless grisly jokes about Saturday deaths. There have been other blasts since then, with the attendant slew of phone calls to/from family and friends to check on each other...And now it's become second nature for people to check their surroundings when they enter a shopping centre or board a bus or train. In a city of millions, locating a security loophole and planting another bomb somewhere is still easy for the terrorist set on creating mayhem. People realise this and fear for their loved ones. I've heard a friend tell a family member, "Don't go shoppin today, it's a Saturday".

It's a Saturday today and I was in Sarojini Nagar market. It was crowded, but not by a long shot as busy as it used to be on weekends some weeks ago. There are cops around, they've put up barriers to regulate traffic, they even have those walk-thru metal detectors that I'm not sure are very effective - at least, they do go ping all the time, but nobody seems to pay any attention.
It was hard to believe I was standing in SN Market on a weekend in the festive season. I'm not very comfortable with crowded places but I actually found myself missing the crowd today.

And terror struck again

Another terrorist attack. Another series of bomb blasts, all in crowded marketplaces in rush hour on a Saturday evening. 30 dead so far, at least 90 hurt. Ordinary citizens going about their lives. People shopping on the weekend. Couples enjoying the weather in Central Park. If the "Indian Mujahideen" are to be believed, hurting these people is an act of retribution for unnamed sins. What a load of crap. No religion on this earth sanctions such mindless violence against innocent human beings. What bloody sins are you talking of any way? The guys who died so tragically today had probably never even heard of you!!

One of the blasts happened right outside the building i work in. The fact that it was a Saturday and I didn't go to office means nothing. Every time I go to office now, I'll probably be wondering - where next. Every time I step into a Metro train, or enter a crowded market, or visit a film theate, I'll be asking myself the same question - will this be it?? I know my parents are going to worry each time I'm out. I'll have to sms Mom each night after returning home from work, just so she knows I'm still around. Each time a festival or any significant date like 26th Jan comes around, my parents will call and ask me to avoid visiting any markets.

This is how they affect our lives. By restricting our movements, limiting our possibilities, trying to control our lives by instilling fear. Scaring us and those who love us. I realise that I really can't do much about it. And that makes me seethe with impotent, helpless rage.

The opposition is busy trying to use this as an opportunity for electoral canvassing. Others are talking of conspiracies, visiting the hospitals after ensuring there's a media presence....But who takes responsibility for the recurrent intelligence failures and shameful lapses in security? Nobody. Who takes care of those who have lost loved ones today? Nobody. Who answers to those who died today? Nobody. There'll be the usual probes and so the circus will go on..

I'm angry today. I want to do something about it, only I'm not sure what I can do. The idea of living in constant watchfulness is abhorrent. Yet, that's probably what I will do. Come Monday, I'll be back in CP in my office near the blast site. Going about life as usual. Wondering where the next one will come. Fearing for the lives that are dear to me.....and still angry inside.

I moved house. Shifted to a two-bedroom flat and got myself a brand-new flatmate. Things look good. We have similar tastes and opinions, luckily. After the long phase of living alone, it's nice having someone to talk to and share things with. Of course it's a trade-off since privacy gets compromised...especially for a person like me that can be difficult.
But my room is huge, and the rent burden is much less now naturally. It's a third-floor walk-up so that took some getting used to...Lazy bum that I am!
Overall I'd say a good move.