A Holi day!

It probably wouldn't be very far fetched if I were to state that I practically live in India. The demography of the locality of my residence is such that humans of other races are a rarity. I guess there are more firangs in some part of Bangalore [say] than this place!

Today dawned like any other saturday [and here I stop about my rising habits] and my wonderful friends decided at 2 that we are leaving at 3 to go to the New York International Auto Show [how typical really...Men!]. Then at 3.20, I was still at my house looking for something to hold up my recently loose pants [by way of my circumference reducing....Thanks to hectic project!] and made a frantic call to my girl pal who was also coming to ask if I can borrow hers when she informed me that there are people in the corridor waiting to ambush any desi that crosses the vicinity and that she was lulled into opening up the door by one of the guys in our gang [or "The Family" as its being called now on account of the supposed pairings that are rumored to exist]. Next thing she knew, she was colored bright pink by 10 strangers and one grinning turncoat, who she assumed was there to get her since we are going out.

Having listened to this moving story of triumph of human spirit ['Yaam petra sugam, peruga iv vaiyagam' - Let the joy I got be propagated to the rest of the universe], I still reiterated the importance of holding up of my pants for the rest of the day and she agreed to come over.
As I opened the door for her, she told me that "the people" were "attacking" the apt of the guys.

Naturally, I had to look in that direction! [As if anyone could have ever not looked]
Unsurprisingly, I was immediately spotted by the Holi Gang for the crime of still sporting my skin color and they made a turn to my house.
I pulled my friend in with my lightening quick, superhero reflexes and turned the lock of the door with almost suave yet rapid moves before the fastest of the predatory gang could even bring a toe into my threshold. Then I proceeded to calmly announce to the guests of my roommate about the dangers lurking outside, jerking them off from the comfortable states of relaxation that they were indulging in, in our living room. Meanwhile, outside there was a curious silence after some rapid shuffling of footsteps and I posed the question of whether anyone was outside [to no one in particular]...pat came a reply of my other friend from the other side of the firmly locked door [one of the guys who was 'attacked']
"They are here", he said [Poltergeist theme music plays].

Immediately there were thundering knocks that broke the spell of uneasy silence which had settled by then. Indistinct cries were heard which I assumed were encouraging me to open the door and introduce some color into my house and my rather terrified guests. I yelled to my unseen door knockers and asked them to not proceed with their plans as I had guests; an attempt which even I knew was nothing more than a grand gesture [Like when Moses marched up to a mighty Pharaoh and said - Let my people GO!...except, not as great as that]

Then, at that very nick between consecutive subdivisions of time, I knew what needed to be done. I marched out and firmly locked the door behind me. My state of readiness to go out be damned!
"Happy Holi" I said to the lively enthusiastic group of my countrymen [and I include women here] and they greeted me with a non-uniform and out of sync version of the same celebratory wish and proceed to turn me green and yellow. They were also kind enough to have me partake the Holi sweets and made my day even more wonderful!


Happy Holi, all...Spring is Welcome regardless of the name of the actual festival.
Go out and hug your neighbour, develop that feeling of community and make someone's day!

cannot take an Indian out of India ;)
Rain

Jaggery fusion & character search

Worked this weekend. Made Kozhukattais.

First batch came out well, second batch came fused and melted out of shape. My reviewers give it high rating for taste...I still think they are just being nice.

My office Bimbo status has spread into my social life with my rapid blinking at the midnight-early morning card marathon on sunday featuring me at my worst, slowest, uncomprehending version. The rest of the assembly had a good time ragging me for my alleged search for a 'junk character'...they intercepted a 3 AM call from my offshore and chose bits from my side of the conversation to concoct some racy story bearing no semblance to my sub par life.

Havent shot pool in a while and think that my amateur status may have undergone further demotion to novice yet again. As such, when anyone says 'ball in hand' everyone surreptitiously steals glances at me.

Someone, I greatly admire responded to my birthday wishes for him and asked if I read anything interesting lately. [Hollow mirthless laugh]

Migrations almost everyday and UAT client meetings at noon. My application stubbornly refuses to get any better and my boss isnt the 'cup half full' kinda guy so all around there is raining in the parade.[not a good rain]

Winds of change are blowing this way...nothing will remain the same again.

Change-resistant,
Rain

Keys to organization

As a part of the training team headed by a tremendous spirit, I pretty much contribute nothing to the content of the sessions taken by him. He is a really highly placed executive with awesome energy and enthusiasm and its really inspiring to see how he works.

His last session was on "Organization". As part of the training team which supposedly compiles the content for the session, [100% the efforts of Big Boss all by his very brilliant lonesome], I get previews to the ppts and things he mentioned there struck a vein.

Read somewhere that if you can, at any point of time be able to locate as many of the following articles belonging to you without having to search for it, then it means you are not as hopelessly indisciplined as you would imagine [because, after all we always think the worst of ourselves]-
Your wallet, Your keys, Your office Ids, Your mobile phone[its charger], Your commute cards/change.

Me and Keys have "no love lost" relationship. This means that they have no love for me since I lose them a lot. Same goes with the rest of the articles above, but being stranded without house keys is a very poignant situation and I wonder why there were no major tragedies written on the subject. What is more utterly horrifying than sudden homelessness?

When I was living in my previous location in the States [part of my new drive to not reveal much...lets see how long that lasts] I locked myself and my roommate out, twice. Both times we were happy at Aafi's house and slept over to get the keys next morning [excuse to go late to office and wake up at 9 AM]. The one time that I left my house keys at office and came home to pick up a critical document that would lead to my getting repaid a significant amount, in my new place of residence, I had my friend come home early and went over to his house until my roommates arrived.
The fiscal loss however was a major motivation for me to keep my keys safe and I have had them since.

Today was entirely a different matter. I was in the audience section for this and a couple of nice girls are locked out. Dont worry for them because there is a whole gang of boys out to help them [as expected in any classic damsels in distress situations] and of course, there is always me [saving the world before bed time]
Not the time to gloat in what Roop calls "Relative Feel-Badness" but at least to note that Organized people are a minority and probably an endangered species. The movie "Idiocracy" expresses this not so secret message that we [Homo Sapien Sapiens] are evolving into morons.. The point of organization or remembering where you left your keys becomes moot if you are a drooling simpleton [my attempt at "Reframing a situation" :P]

Keying in,
Rain

Insecti-Lore

My baby steps to directing a romantic comedy were thwarted by the cruel fates tonight.

There I was minding my own business when some lady on the street thrust 2 small boxes on my hand and very affably said - "Bizarre Foods at 10". I didnt think I could argue with that, so I left.
On my way to office I realized what had been given...1 box of sour cream and onion flavored crickets and another box of bacon and cheese flavored crickets.
Back in Office when we were wrapping up (for the night...its been quite long since I've seen evening) I took a video of A friend of mine eating one of the legs. "Its crunchy", she exclaimed.
Hence started my pet project to film as many open minded non-vegetarians as possible.

There is a very sad couple of friends/co-workers, where I live, who in the confines of our collective imagination, are crazy about each other. There was a loose plan to make a love story involving the Hero impressing the Heroine by munching the crickets and then she looking at him with dewey eyes and gasping- "You love me. You really love me!"

The friend who I initially filmed assured me that the guy was really cool and he wouldnt hesitate about eating the insects. The girl in the question (one who is being teased) also decided to be a good sport and was okay with giving the insect to the guy. Unfortunately, the premised to bring the person over to the house itself was very contrived and the guy brought in reinforcements [unexpected villian, throwing monkey wrench into the works] with him in alarm.

As a result, the giving the insect in hand became hiding insect in cake. Those mutinous dead insects didnt remain in hiding and the whole thing flopped. But all around the sportive folks partook the morsels [ate the crickets] but I didnt take videos in honor of their broadminds.

One important lesson:
Sneaky practical jokes are not my thing. I should have nothing to do with them now, just like I have had nothing to do with them for all of my life so far. Apparently , orchestrating one is very hard work and great planning. If I wanted to think so much, I would live in my office.


Chastened and sorry,
Rain

One Among Many

If there is one thing about our generation [and by that, I mean the ancients born in the early eighties...those stone ages] that clearly branches away from those who spawned us, its that we are more individualistic.
Most of us are flourishing, even when living alone; a concept that would've made someone from our parent's generation into a blubbery mess of codependencies. This is probably why they had you by the time they were your age, whereas in your world, signal for your peeps to start ragging you with anyone [however much of a stretch they have to make to do it] is if you happen to go out with them on two consecutive weekends. That is how uncool commitment is.

Being around people all the time, yet not having any deep relationships makes us actually disconnect with what is going on with folks our age inside of the private cells of our minds where our inner creatures run loose. Everything you face, seems to happen only to you in the entire mapped universe. So toad in the well...
Its reassuring to suddenly glance into some posts and see a connection - some related thoughts, an share experience...to know- You are just one of many. Going through the normal phases.

Say, you end up getting needlessly angry as to how unfair it is that people expect you to just 'meet' someone and marry that guy. You reason -Does that ever just happen? This day and age, who do you ever get to just meet a stranger?
You go to office, you come back home. You go out with friends only and since they are your friends, you have already met them.

But guess what? Its okay, that people bug you as to why you havent met Mr.Right. The question is not personal by any means...apparently its custom to ask that to anyone of your age group who isnt married, engaged, committed, seeing someone, seeing many people or multiple picks of previous options. Just in the last half hour I have read 2 posts of similar theme written by two very smart and honest women. :)

Say, you go to work everyday not knowing why you even bother. Every dream is to run away to some place unconnected by internet where no one knows your office mail id...You feel bad thinking you are so weak when facing your daily karma and then you read abt someone who also isnt thrilled with his work or wants to run away. It almost brings a smile to your face.
Not calmed that they are having issues; just that you arent the only one to have them and that its almost rite of passage.

Its a good thing I returned to writing and reading blogs, otherwise it would've been brutal to withstand peer pressure, thinking your are the only single 26 yr old of your profile in the Tri-state area, not very 'gruntled' with work. Oh and those are just examples...keep looking and you will see connections to everything.

I like my happiness personalized to me, the other part is better default/general.

Look ma, i am writing!
Rain