MindSet

I recd this a few weeks ago as a forward with the subject "Mindset"...
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I was more amazed at the mindset of the trainers (than the elephants) who think that the elephants would never try to break free from the rope??Just to give an interestig twist to the story...
What if one day an elephant out of the blue(or may be after reading this story;-) LOL) breaks open and runs causing a chaos?? Then what would the moral of this story be?? Never take the opposite party lightly :P or any other suggestions??;)

Old age-Are we prepared?

USA has many remarkable facilities; one among them is its public libraries.Members can borrow Books, DVDs, CDs, browse the internet- all free of cost ...yes not a penny (no membership fee either).As long as you don’t loose the items borrowed.

Lately, if some thing goes missing I immediately call out for Aditya (my 2 yr old son).When he understands what I am asking for, he brings it from somewhere (am yet to find where his hiding place is) and hands it to me. Otherwise simply gazes at me. As luck would have it he decided to hide one of his favorite DVDs “Baby’s busy day” and was refusing to give it back.

So I went to the library and told the librarian- an old lady, that I don’t seem to find the DVD at my home ,so she told me I would have to pay the fine to which I agreed.She then started looking up on her system for that DVD record, scanned my library card and then I thought she would ask me for money, and the job is finished.(yes I have been through this process a couple of times earlier too)
Instead she kept doing something with her system for about 10 minutes. I began loosing my patience .As I was waiting there looking at her face – I discovered she was having difficulty reading the screen. She also kept murmuring “I don’t know if I am doing this right”. After about another 10 minutes she decided to get help from her colleague. She called “Sophie can you help me...”
So Sophie peeped into her system and remarked…”Anne you have deleted the record and it cannot be recovered”
Sophie left her with a “you-do-this-every time” kinda look.

Poor Anne didn’t know what was to be done. So she started scrolling the screen up and down. I was feeling sorry for her. I started imagining my grandmother in her place. My grandma is so protected that she wouldn’t leave the home without anybody with her and this old lady here was all alone in this situation to earn a living.
Finally Anne mustered up her courage and asked for another colleague Jane.
Jane also looked very disappointed but at least she tried explaining to Anne what the alternative way could be.
Anne was so nervous that she was struggling to sort the coins and give back the change, didn’t remember what the date was; she even forgot the spelling of the word busy. She was not able to follow the instructions of Jane and was fumbling for words while talking. After she completed all the formalities, I looked into her eyes and told her thanks and to take care with a smile. I could see a sense of relief on her face.

It is an undeniable fact that faculties get weaker with age. So what’s the way out I thought- personally when I get old I don’t want to be in Anne’s situation.
And that evening I saw Baba Ramdev’s yoga on TV and there was this sense of enlightenment. He preaches that if we practice prananyam 30 minutes a day then we can live up to a 100 with all our senses intact.
30 minutes a day - definitely worth - to avoid the embarrassment, feeling of helplessness in the later days...what say??
And yes, not to forget the other important aspect to survive in older days-Financial planning! Good luck with that too :)

Mystery Solved!!

One fine morning of November 2007, when I woke up-the clock was ticking 9:00 Am (Sunday sure does bring some respite ;-)) Vishal was still asleep, so i thought why not surprise him with bed tea. I gathered myself up and proceeded towards the kitchen.As i was passing through the hall I discovered something strange, the timepiece of the set top box (verizon) showed 8 Am. Just when I began to wonder the inconsistent time display between the room clock and the set top box , I realized my brain was in no mood to take any load...all It needed was hot morning Tea,so I entered the kitchen and boooom another mishap there-the clock of my microwave showed 9:00Am.
Ah! How strange is that ...i began to wonder???
Did someone sneak into the house last night just to change the time of my clocks to stump me, (as everything else was intact, the way I had left it the night before)
I couldn’t help thinking what was going on while I was making Tea.
And just then I remembered I had to go online to chat with my mom in India.
As I switched on my laptop, I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing, the time on my system showed 8:00 Am .I was perplexed.
Were the clocks malfunctioning due to normal wear and tear or were they possessed by some evil spirit or were it just some bad coincidences. How could two watches show 8:00 Am and the other two 9:00 Am? So I checked my most loyal wrist watch and it showed 9:00 Am, the next moment my phone showed 8:00Am. Now I was befuddled to the extent that I started scratching my head. How on earth was I supposed to know what the actual time was? I couldn’t take the mystery anymore. I rushed to wake up Vishal and told him about the ambiguous timings the various devices displayed. In half closed eyes he told me “it’s called Daylight saving”!
Things were crystal clear now, I had heard about daylight savings, but never experienced them. :)
The time on the set top box and phone automatically updates itself through the cable network. And the laptop was set to incorporate the day light savings automatically as well. So now I had the task of adjusting my wrist watches and microwave clock manually.As I was adjusting my watch,I was thinking whoever said “No one can control time” :)

And then there were a spurt of questions running in my head, the most predominant being how does the travel industry make provision for this.
For example if a flight is scheduled for 12 Am .Now assume If the time change is scheduled to happen at 1 Am .This means after 12:59 it would be 12 Am again. So will the flight take off at the first 12 Am or the second one?? When i asked vishal this question he chuckled in his half closed eyes… I thought I had asked something stupid, but I breathed a sigh of relief when he said…my brain is no mood of taking this load right now:)

PS: Daylight savings is the practice of moving back your clock an hour in winters and advancing it an hour in summer so as to maximize the use of sunlight.

Exam time Again!

Hello Friends,
Am Back again after a long long time…or so do I feel.:)
I cant believe I was missing blogging.Initially,I was so skeptical to take it up, thinking that I might not be able to do a good job, or I wouldn’t have anything to write about.Most of all I didn’t know if I would enjoy doing it.
Thanks to Vishal who suggested that I take up blogging and reassuring me that I would enjoy it. A special thanks to Kanu and Arun, as well who encouraged me by telling that my first blog was good, which motivated me to write more.
Ok now the reason that I was away...I was busy preparing for a Microstrategy certification.(a reporting BI tool),did a good job there...narrowly missed the centum mark and finished the 75 minutes test in 40 minutes flat! That evening I was treated to delicious Chinese food, at a restaurant.
Vishal like a very supportive husband helped around the house and with Ady.
So a million thanks to him, and this time I would want to take the privilige of changing the famous adage - "Behind a successful Woman is a Man" :)

Indian Food- Foreign Palate

Last month, there was an annual international food festival at Vishal’s office. During this fest (read feast) everybody brings a dish of his/her native country for everyone else to taste or relish as the case may be.After a little deliberation, we freezed on Aaloo bonda and tamarind chutney.I got up really early (Yes, 6:00 Am is really early in my case) and prepared them.I Had Vishal taste one and he said they were excellent. (Well, it couldn’t be otherwise)

When the dish was placed at the table along with the others, it came to be known as “Indian meat balls” While, I don’t know how that name originated, nevertheless it was very innovative. Being a vegetarian that I am, I don’t know whether it’s a compliment, if I can make a vegetarian dish taste like a nonveg one.
Vishal told me it was amusing to watch people eat this (the only one) “spicy dish”
Someone commented “One of these could take a week to clear from the digestive system”.
While I was having a hearty laugh at this one I was reminded of an incident in a train while we were traveling to Venice. We were feeling very hungry and luckily my mom had packed lotsa food and pickle. (Vegetarians can sure have a tough time in Italy).An Italian was seated in the next compartment. He came to us and asked if we were having Indian food, to which we replied in the affirmative. He again asked if it was pickle, we were surprised that he knew the name of an Indian delicacy.He appeared again after 5 minutes, which had us thinking that he has a liking for Indian food .we were jus about to offer him when he told the smell was so pungent that it was making him giddy.!!

Some Embarrassing moments...

It takes lots of courage to laugh at one’s own self. Very few people have it in them to do so.And today I choose to be one of the few ;)

There were 15 looooooong months between my engagement and wedding.And like any other engaged couple, we used to send each other dozens of messages every day. Once, while I was busy at office, I suddenly had an attack of hiccups, and I wasn’t able to get rid of it even after drinking water. Now it is said that if you get hiccups it means that someone is missing you. So I had this immediate urge to send a sms to Vishal “Bahut hichki aa rahi hai honey…are you responsible?” .After a few seconds I got a reply “Pani kyu nahi pi leti”(how about some water??) I was shocked as this was a totally unexpected reply from Vishal. Only later did I discover that I had sent that msg to a cousin whose name also begins with V and it was his way of retorting.And to this day he teases me about it.

I was narrating an incident to somebody the other day. In my eagerness to use new words/idioms/phrases, I told her “I smell a fish” (I guess it came from the word “fishy”) for conveying “I was suspicious of something”. Only after blurting it out I realized that this expression is not quite right so I immediately corrected and told “I smell a cat”… smell a cat?? I still kept wondering if something was amiss. It was only after she left, I realized that all I wanted to say was “I smell a rat”!!!
She must be thinking if I had just returned from a pet store.

When it comes to embarrassing moments, all parents will vouch for the fact that their kids bring them many of those. I heard this one from Vishal’s grandma…
She told me that once there were a few guests at home during summer and she served them nicely cut mangoes. Now the kind guests wanted to be loving to the kid (Vishal) as well, so they offered him to eat the mangoes. Without missing the opportunity, he started eating them saying” andar jaunga toh sirf gutli hi milegi ”(I will get only seeds later)
I just hope Ady doesn’t take after his father: D

The Three Most Important Men In My Life

The First Man in any girl’s life whom she adores completely is her dad, and am no different. My daddy strongest!!
I am what I am today, because of my dad. I had taken science group in my 12th grade aspiring to become an engineer, and by the time I could finish it, I was so besieged with physics chemistry math and what not, that I didn’t have any courage to go ahead and take up the Engineering entrance exams. My dad made me understand that life is not a bed of roses and that perseverance always pays off. He was in no mood of letting me quit. He wanted me to pursue my dream. He told me to take the entrance exams and that it didn’t matter if I clear it or not. An important lesson there “Karm karo phal ki aasha mat karo”-Bhagvad Gita. (Do your deeds don’t but don’t expect results)
And here I am an engineer today …!
When people asked me what kinda guy I’d wish to marry I’d say “He” must be jus like my dad…

And so entered Vishal in my life (though he is not like my dad completely)and life became all the more beautiful.It has been a wonderful 4 yrs of this companionship which I cherish deeply.He is not just a husband; he is also a friend, a guide and a great connoisseur of food ;). Of course, we have had our shares of misunderstandings and arguments but that doesn’t stop us from learning and understanding each other even better. In fact, every time we fight and then make up we feel more in love.
And so here we are inspiring bachelors/spinsters to get married…!

And the third little man is … my dearest Ady, my lill bundle of joy.
He rules my world, it sometimes amazes me that how this 2 feet something lill being could make me happy and grouchy both at the same time. There are times when he messes around the house and I get really overwhelmed with his naughtines. He amazingly senses it- looks at me with all the love and innocence in the world ,that I cant help but laugh .He acts as if he deserves all the sympathy and love one could give. But he is a complete brat. He showed me the new side of me, which I thought never existed…Never imagined I could sacrifice my ‘8-hrs-mandatory’ sleep for someone, cry at someone elses’ slightest pain (like that of a mosquito bite) ,miss someone terribly if I didn’t see them for an hour.
And so here I am a proud Mother…!

I guess life is all about growing up and donning new roles…First a Daughter, then Wife, and now a Mother. Am glad I have lovely people to share my life with.