English and Hindi, more than mere languages

Let me also make this blog a space where the people who have so far stayed protected from corporate world can get an insight into the fundas of this world and what a strange world this is!!
First of all the insistence on use of abbreviations just gets to me EOD, COB, PFA, PDA, the lsit just goes on man! (well for the blissfully ignorant ones: End Of Day, Close of Bussiness, Please Find Attached, Please Download Attachment) phew!!!
Secondly, today I learnt that that most of the stuff that is talked about is pure english, but the actual stuff which mostly doesnt happen is Hindi...... didn't get it na.... i know I was also wondering what on earth is going on, then I was very patiently explained that english means just funda, concept, good packaging, great power point presentations, portals, posters, basically just faff and talk. While on the other hand Hindi is the bottom level, actual, hard core stuff. So in the corporate world you need to be clear about what is being expected of you and what is being given to you english or hindi!!! truly a learning for hard core hindi like me!!

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzz

Finally tis raining in Delhi and the weather is beautiful, I should have been on my terrace having chai and listening to music and obviously soaking myself in the rain, but I am sitting in this AC office where even the windows are covered with blinds and it is sooooo cold and I want to sleep so zzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Airport Security

Was in Nagpur and lost my wallet and as a consequence lost all identification cards i possesed. Did the necessary stuff, went amd lodged a police complaint etc etc etc, but my biggest worry was that how will I reach Delhi, I only have a print out of my e ticket with no I card to go with it..... so I could clearly envisage a lot of pleading and explaining at the Nagpur airport and was a bit nervous about the whole thing as apparently there is a lot of security check at airports being good targets for terrorist attacks. I also had a collegue with me for moral support and to make sure that I do get on to some plane going in the direction of delhi.
Step 1 the entrace of the airport I show my e ticket print out and with confidence stroll into the airport ...phew that was easy now comes the real trouble...step 2 check in: Here I am rehearsing my story and with all the relevant papers in my hand including my boarding pass of the flight that I had taken to reach Nagpur just in case I need it. I hand over my e ticket and am all ready to vomit my story on the executive sitting there, after 2 minutes of silence the executive asks me if I have any check in baggage and if I have any seat preference no and window is the answer she receives and then she smiles at me hands me my boarding pass and wishes me a happy journey...all this while she is addressing me with the name printed on the e ticket, but she has no clue whether I am that person or not and just like that with a print out in hand i got into a flight to Delhi......imagine!
Cut to my return trip from Sangli, Pune airport, I have an e ticket in my hand and my i card, I am let in at the entrance of the airport after the security guard has held my e ticket for more that 15 secs and looked at it... I go to the counter of Jet lite and am waiting for my boarding pass.. the executive is taking some time and is shaking her head, I can't understand what is wrong then she informs me that the print out I have handed to her is for an e ticket of 29th June and not July and that she has checked her records for todays flight and my name is not on her records, some franctic phone calls later I am told that I am booked on the Air India flight for Delhi. I rush to the counter for check in and inform the executive that I am on the flight to delhi and dont have a print out of my ticket so on the basis of my I card if she could check me in she is the only one who raises her eyebrow looks at me suspiciously and asks how did you get into the airport?? I tell her that I had an incorrect print out in my hand and therefore the mix up... again I get my boarding pass and am comfortably seated in the plane for reaching Delhi. BTW this is happenning when the police in the country is going crazy discovering live bombs all over the place and there is a red alert in the country.
Like really I have nothing to say.......... either our security agencies will get all extreme and check people to the barest minimum and then recheck them ( and example is the film Aamir) or just let anyone waltz pass them without even doing the basic minimum required. Its just amazing! If this is our plan and idea of beefed up security I think i am any day safer sitting at home. What say?

Jai Jai Maharashtra Majha!!

I started wrting this yesterday but was so bored that didnt write anything at all. I sometimes think that I should make a diary of all the things I want to write about in my blog because when I do start wrting i phorget!!

SO let me start with my crazy trip to Sangli. I left for Pune on friday night reached there by flight with my crazy roomie who also works in my ex office. She was in high spirits dunno why.. maybe travelling does that to her. Anyways... was travelling in Kingfisher for the frst time so was sitting and judging them, they are ok except I could really do without the video of the owner going on about how he has personally choosen all the staff..!!!!! After reaching Pune we met up with even more crazier collegue and friend in Pune and crazy roomie's crazier younger brother. Started off for a 5 hour drive to Sangli. I was quite apprehensive about bad roads since it is also the monsoon (like real monsoon not just a pretence!!) in that part of the country but I was quite surprised to see that the highway from Pune to Kolhapur was brilliant and ofcourse after every 45 mins we were paying some kind of toll (that just explains it all!!). We reached Sangli and were suppose to look for the house of the District Judge as our hotel was bang opposite it. So at 4 in the morning we were trying to wake innocent people and ask them for the house of the District Judge. For some strange reason our driver would refuse to follow one person's instructions unless he has stopped atleast five time more and asked some more people... anyways we have been told to look for hotel Jyoti by crazy pune friend and when we reach the hotel it is called Lotus residency????? (hope you get an idea of what I mean when I say crazy!!!). We then tried to catch up on some sleep as the meeting was to begin in a couple of hours time. Reached the venue which was bubbling with a number of lawyers and law students, most local, some from kolhapur and satara. Had a great meeting with a number of people showing keen interest in taking this work forward in their city, towns and villages. A success of sorts in that sense. The bigger achivement in my mind was that we were able to get the young people in the audience to start questioning their own beliefs, assumptions and presumptions that they consider the sacred truth especially on issues like death penalty, prostitution, religious minorities, gender and patriarchy and globalisation. All in all the meeting was fabulous, the food was great, authentic Maharashtrian and the weather.......ooooh don't even get me started on that it was heavenly!! It is the kind of weather where you forget about the worries of the world and just get a couple of friends a backpack and go on treks to sometimes explored and sometimes unexplored terrain!!!

I completely ODed on the food especially the use of peanuts in just about everything...OMG I can't even explain what that did to me.........I just know that atleast for me if there is no penis atleast let there be peanuts (only in the food mind you!!) and the effect will be the same! Also did some shopping, bought typical Maharastrian nose ring the one that is slightly longish and also bought typical Mah toe rings, basically am ready to be Mah bride, come on bring out the guys!!! And bought a whole load of bindis, I know you will be wondering kya pagal hai Delhi main Bindi nahin milti kya?? But FYI the bindi makers in Delhi think that you wear a Bindi only on 2 occaaions either it is you shaadi or someonelse's shaadi get my point??? Good now am waiting for occassion to display mines nose ring!!

While coming back stopped at Chitale Bandhu in Pune to buy loads of Bhakarwadi..tinky you interested?? and at German Bakery to buy some yummy cake. Also had pretty much a fiasco at the Airport as I had an incorrect print out of my ticket and was panicking just a bit that I would be considered a threat and jailed or something but was able to rescue self soon. Will write about airport security in a seperate post. Tada till then!!

Well lots of things!!

Ok so I was meaning to write this yesterday, but somehow i didnt. Hmm I have been catching up with an old friend by reading her blog of 5 years ago.. and I realised that I have finished reading around 3 years of blogs written every week and lo and behold, there is not even an iota of dear old ME!!!!!! tauba,!!! even though she has written very passionately about NCC the reason we got to know each other and about her dog, the reason we had gotten close.. just made me sit and think that for a number of people who know me it must be the same feeling, you know that I am important for them but they are not important for me. So its not that I am sulking about not being important for u tinky...... we were actually not in touch and therefore I am reading your blog to get to know you. For me you were always someone I can call and listen to the latest pjs laugh my guts out and get on with life and I think that will definitely not change. Ofcourse now we being in the same city and me being a lot more free makes it easier for me to keep in touch. Teehee, i dont even know why I am rambling like this, but what the hell, aur kiss liye blog likh rahi hoon??

Also I saw Jaane tu ya Jaane na again!! heehee I know how silly, but tis okay, i like movie, i watch again. And please, someone tell the couple who were seated beinhd my behind that Sushant in Jaane tu is not the same guy who was Anshuman in Jab we met, kya hai are u blind???

Me travelling again this weekend going to maratha land and back, will write about that after I am back!! Hmmm I have been thinking about writing about serious topics but haven't yet got around to doing that, dekhtey hain.

I am back back back!!!!

Hmmm as I said before, don't really know where is home..but anyways am back to the place i call home in the Delhi!!! Although came to office directly from train station (i know stinky poo, but what to do, they don't give chutti, so we come to office dirty!! (OMG poetry just happened..yipee!)). Hmm did loads of things, ate vada pao (tinky u readin??), ate sabudana kichdi, played and played with bholaprasad nephew, made fun of sis with Bro in law, discussed investment plans, cooly avoided topic of current love interest, if any, did some itsy bitsy shopping and then was back in train. Also finished readg Hobbit, five point someone and some more parts of maximum city. Chatted with chaddi dost a bit and then came back!! Aur kya will write about 5.someone soon..promise!!

Going Home Going Home tra la la la la

Hellos peoples... heeheehee in about 5 hours time I will be on train to home.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Although i know its only for around 30 hours and then I will be back on a train to this home, but so what?? Working in a crazy place before has made me realise the importance of atleast getting home for a day or so and then getting back. Ofcourse Suchi can't seem to understand how I do it, but I guess its ok for me. Better than going home only once a year. Which also brings me to another point... which one is home, that place where i spent 20 years of my life or this place where i started living on my own and discovered myself?? It can be so strange... I am going from home to home. I think i already know what women who get married and leave home feel.
Anywhichways... am glad to do this 2 day thing so that i can catch glimpses of my nephew growing up, chat up with my sister, pull her leg with my darling BIL and make me sweetheart mom feel guilty for not taking chutti on saturday..(teehee evil laughter!!)
Bye bye will see you in a few!!

Why women's rights?

Ok so I was in Nagpur this weekend, I am still doing trainings and travel with my previous organisation whenever I can. We had a meeting on Human Rights issues with students of the Law college in Nagpur. I was to speak on women's rights. Due to some change in the agenda, I had to follow the session by Ram Punyani on Communalism and boy was I worried, because this session was a roaring one, very interactive, humourous and amazingly insightful!!! Anyways most of what I am about to pen down is what I had spoken.

Somewhere last decemeber we had a meeting of the women's rights lawyers in the country where we wanted to do a reality check on where we were and the way ahead. So obviously we also did discuss a lot of perspective issues. One of the main and key questions was are we human rights lawyers or women's rights lawyers. In my head I was quite clear, boss I am a women's rights lawyer, no two wasy about that and in any case that makes me a human rights lawyer (you know, women=human get the picture??)

Anyways so when we say that we are women's rights actvists, we dont mean we are against men, no what we are standing up against is gender burdens that both have to face, the patriarchial set up and the exploitation of the vulnerable by the powerful...thats all. And if in this context, if it has been the men who have been in power for so long and exploited women so be it... then there is the argument of women being the biggest enemey of women, but what we conviniently loose sight of is that it is the powerful woman oppressing the powerless woman and that situation can be between any two set of people. The way our histroical set up has been, it is women, dalits, disabled, sexual minoroties who get exploited as they are in most cases powerless in comparision to the men, upper castes etc.

I have come to realise that the best way to start of a discourse on women's rights is to assure the audience that this is not a male hating, man bashing session but just an attempt for us to go beyond our assumptions and actually start questioning them. Scratch the surface and see, really is this reality or is it only the perception!!! And then we will get our answers and we can actually look beyond the assumed obvious and live a life free of shackles.

Monkey Maddness!!

Ho hum.... tuesday morning...was able to make it to office on Monday, although not in time as usual so in that sense this week started a little differently... actually very differently first of all I was in Nagpur for a human rights meeting and I lost my wallet!!! Boohoooo it had all the things that you can think a wallet can contain and even more! So anyways I came back and spent some part of my monday morning in damage control and then went to office came back and cooked dinner and happily went to sleep.. Of course, I am reading the Hobbit and strangely whatever i read I dream of so it becomes thoda difficult for me to differentiate between reality and dream world. Now that I think of it, I think it is the same for a lot of my life!!! (Anubha concentrate, that's not what you started this for remember... monkey??!!)

Haan so anyways, I get up this morning to a smiling help and a great morning and I decide to make some lovely breakfast (I have been craving for hot toast filled with aloo masala for ever now.... the amount of cravings I am having I will have to stop blaming PMS for it!!) So i made some of that and with a plate full of sandwiches was just getting out of my kitchen. Before I move further let me tell you a little bit about my house. So it is on the 4th floor and is on the terrace and we have three different doors all in a straight line, one leading to one room, the other to the kitchen and the third to a set of two rooms. I get out of the kitchen adn just in time I see a monkey sitting on the ledge of the wall next to my room.....panic panic i lock myself in the kitchen and start calling out to suchi whose room is with mine and I tell her not to open the door as there is a monkey sitting there (pause: now suchi is someone who gets startled even if you walk past her into your own room at any point of time, sometimes i think she is going to have a heart attack if i walk past too often!!!) so anyways she starts banging the door to make the monkey go away. I muster some courage and open the kitchen door adn get out to see where is the monkey... well the monkey is happily sitting in the passage on the rack where we keep our prized ceramic bowls and glasses etc. I run back into the kitchen and suchi continues to bang the door.. obviously, this is not getting anywhere so i run into the other room and wake our third counter part who quite sleepily gets up and goes out of the room and picks up a broom lying on the terrace to scare the monkey, by now we discover there are two monkeys!!!! As soon as she threatens the monkey with a broom he/she jumps towards us.... we both (with her wide awake now!!!) scamper back into the room and wait.....tick tock tick tock.... in the meanwhile we use technology and call suchi on her mobile to find out the status (she btw is still banging the door!!). She informs us that from her window she cannot see the monkeys but she is sure they are in my room as she can hear noises there. I decide that I have to go and see what havock are these monkeys creating in my room (ofcourse this is only to get updated, coz I am very clear that I can't do jackshit about this!!) as soon as I open the door I see one monkey running away with a boiled potato in his hand, (whcih was in my fridge yikes!!) adn the other one has a packet of pistachios again plundered from my fridge in his hand, i wait and wait and then go out looking in all directions possible at the same time and then enter my room tiptoed... oh hell!! my entire room is filled with scattered boiled potatoes which i had saved for a rainy day (like this one!!)

Anyways i reach office and everyone is of the opinion that this is the wrath of lord hanuman.. as you see the logic is quite simple i lost my wallet on a saturday, which is hanuman's day and today is tuesday which (again) is hanuman's day and i get attacked by monkeys!! (hanuman in case you haven't noticed is a monkey god!) Clearly I see the begining of a new superstition!! and here i thought since in the hindu religion there are 300 crore gods and goddess each one will have a day to itself maybe once in my lifetime!! Anyways will visit some temple near home and say hello to lord monkey!!

Kathak kidhar??

With the new found 'free' time, I am out to conquer all that i always wanted to do but didnt have the time or the money for it. Well all that good intention saw the first victory in salsa classes..... so then the next step that we had decided was kathak. I have been dying to learn kathak ever since i can think. Of course my shcool in mumbai only offered Bharatnatyam so I promptly learnt BHarat natyam, but as soon as I had finished learning the steps, my teacher had a row with the school authorities so that ended right there. Then we had this new teacher who was one stylish babe and I was'nt particularly fond of her but anyways I started again with the steps and as soon as I had finished the steps again this teacher left my school. Ofcourse this time I atleast reached the first compilation Alaripu, but that ended there. After this my dancing was limited to some filmi stuff on stage and in gatherings of relatives!!!

So now my quest to learn Kathak began. I did some net searching and found a list of addresses and phone numbers of institutes taht offer Kathak. So yesterday I promptly started calling up those numbers. To my horror I was informed by the most reputed institutes that the forms had been filled in in June and the selection process was over!!! Oh hell why was I sleeping all this while???? Then most of the others asked my how old was my child for whom I was enquiring about the class!!!! Hey Bhagwan!! Anyways, I shall not be discouraged by these narrow minded people, so waht if I am 28 years old and it is too late, don't you remember, better late than never!!!!

You and I

Picked up something from a very interesting blog, really liked it a lot and therefore..... heehee!! It speaks volumes of where I am in life right now.....

You...Sometimes I wish to be near you all the time
Just be there, so that you wouldn't know,
But I would stand there in the shadows & watch you live.

Draw the shades in the morning,
when the sunshine on your face troubles you,
the only time when you can still dream without fear, or apology.
Or the weight of responsibility that you carry so well, without a whimper.
Or the way that you look when you concentrate too hard on something,
almost like you would burst out in laughter,
if someone only broke the ice, but you don't.

You just look through people & things,
as if they do not even exist,
all the while as you draw them in, as inspiration.

And I...Curious as I am,
for everything unknown though afraid of the same things at the same time.
When I am tangled you let me loose,
and then let me come back as if nothing ever happened at all.
Makes me wonder sometimes if there is really a great unexplained plan for us all,
something that once has happened, could never again be.

And yet I know that I will break away & break everything that comes in my way,
but I will want back in, you will let me & I'll wonder whether to stay.
But with you I don't need to stay, or leave all I need to do is live.

And let go.