Mixed bag- 2013

Somehow, I didn’t like 2013.. The year seemed to take me in a loss. Either it was losing loved ones or self confidence.

I wrote so many post on my preparation for interview and exam for two companies. my bad luck is that, they wanted only fresher’s. I didnt fit in their requirement. Not clearing an written exam really pulled down my confidence. with 5 years of experience, I couldn’t compete with youngsters. May be they are still fresh with book knowledge, which I might lack. Whatever it was,  I was lost.. It took me so many months and days to recover.

On positive side, I bought a new car. Bunty started going to school. Attended one of my Best friend’s wedding. Read so many books and reviewed them. Won few contests. Did some long pending shopping. Over all, it was a balanced year.

Note: got the first scratch on the car even before getting it registered. :(.  I have not added the car pic, in case I don’t get any post for the blogathon, I can add the pic one day. 🙂

Happy new year 2014

Wish you all a HAPPY and PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR 2014.

so here let me set few achievable targets for myself for the coming year. hope I fulfill them. So guys wish me good luck with my target 2014.

• TO make an organizer which works for me.
• TO review few Architecture books.
• TO read a subject related topic, and Prepare notes and keep it for future.
• TO have a proper study time with Bunty, and making it a habit.
• TO spend consciously, making shopping a need based than impulsive.
• TO put more heart into my Project than just being deadline oriented.
• TO be more organized, in everything from dressing to work.
• TO Learn both Music and Venna perfectly with practice.
• TO get back to painting and sketching.

There are so many mommy organizers available, but none of them seem to be indianised or they don’t fulfill my requirements. Few of the organizers are this and this. SO now, I want to make my own Organizer.

Next I spent little more than I intended to in buying few architecture books. So, i want to review them.

I think my boss would sent me for promotion next year. In my organization its interview based, not work based. SO, i feel its better I prepare for it. Best part is even If I apply for job else where, It would be useful.

Only the homework part I am taking care. I am not spending time revising what she knows. SO, i want to make it a 30 min routine in evening and make it study time. at least she will learnt to sit in one place.

This ends my list. many more can be added. but these seem to be more important to me right now.. So, tell me Do you have your list ready????

Any online sale i get tempted. I order it. regret for spending later. I bought 3 lip-balms as there was a sale. But, I have not even finished using one, I am getting bored of it. So, I dont want to waste more money on sale or online shopping.

When the deadline reaches, I Just finish the work, dont put in my heart and soul into it. I dont want to do it from now on. Instead I want to borrow extra time, and show my creativity too.

There are days when I have come to office and combed my hear, worn the pants of the dress with stitches out, or come to office with wet hair. From now on, i want to looked dressed up and organized. And hey I have subscribed for Velvettes, Fabbag. So, let me use few makeup things and look groomed.

I joined Music class. I think I told you guys. Now, I want to do it to perfection and practice everyday.

I am scared to start it again. Bunty would take my sketching book and scribble on my work. I dont want to be angry on her. I am not finding time to do. But I want to get back. Let us see, how many sketches I am going to make this year.

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I am Participating in Blogathon – Jan 2014 by Maya.. just chk out the other wonderful post too.

did i tell u? i cant draw faces.. :P

updates for last post..

the one with red dupatta is me.. it was during my previous office annual day celebration. and that’s the kind of sketches i make.. mostly faceless too.. :). i always believed in exclamatory mark.  they were must in my drawings those days.. the line representing the cleavage and the dot representing the navel.

good old days, when i had fans for my drawing.. friends requesting me not to draw anything when i borrow their books,  boys feeling embarrassed if i drew something on their drawing boards, professors warning me to stop sketching on college walls, as they could identify my sketching style.  seniors betting with me for sketching the most sexy figure, with minimum cloths, yet not vulgar. he he he.. yes we did have such bets in architecture colleges.. guess what i won.. :)..

god only knows what Bunty is going draw.. all my sketch books are deep under the draw, as my hubby has warned me not to give shocks to his parents. :(. so now i am waiting for a day when i would be alone, and get back to myself.. call myself an artist.. learn dancing with Bunty and give performances with her.  i feel like Chanadramuki ( ol Bhulaiyaa-Manjulika) when i feel my dance jewellery and look at those make-up items..

‘Motherhood: A Song For Life’

Participate in the Motherhood: A Song For Life contest, and share an interesting story about your beautiful journey of motherhood. chk for link.
Yes , I cant agree more with this video. It just depicts my feeling as a mother, the confusion when I got pregnant, the excitement of child birth and exhaustion while coping up with work and kid.

So, how to I describe my song? I don’t even know to sing. So, what do I do? I go and see people sing, learning to sing. I take tips from them on singing. The only mistake I do here is not asking the teacher about singing.

This explains my state when I decided to become pregnant, I browsed, spoke to people who were pregnant all that, but never talked about it to my mother or doctor for that matter. The reason was as silly as, pregnancy is equal to sex had before. Just couldn’t take out this equation from my mind, which was the first obstruction stopping me to learning singing properly.

Ok well, I got pregnant. Which came in as shock. Yes I wanted to become pregnant, but I didn’t want the news to break the very next month. ( I am spoiled seeing the drama in movies). There was no surprise or preparation, just shouted the news to hubby who was standing out the bathroom door. ( now I think how much surprising I could have made the announcement) .

Singing begins. Whenever I go off the tune, people where there to guide me. there is an arangrethram . ( the first dance/song performance on stage). Later the test day was announced.

Pregnancy continued, the formal announcement to neighbors and relatives was performed as function called seemantham. People where there to guide me on what to eat, how to be , what not to do etc etc. we all waited for the THE DAY to arrive.

I thought I had mastered the art of singing. But only to realize that whatever I learnt had no correlation to what the surrounding is, like how professional work is different from what is learnt is college.

I prepared my own notes for the song. I sat and framed my own tunes. Right or wrong was secondary, me able to adapt to the new tune was essential.

Child birth and breast feeding , hmmm what to I say, it’s part of motherhood, but even with the knowledge of the 7 swaras, it is still difficult to bring out the right combination to bring up kids or tackle them.

Mastering one form of music is just not enough. We need to change according to our only and only growing audience. We need to entertain according to the mood.

By the time I mastered one way of music, my daughter would want me to sing a contemporary songs . when I was settled with comfortable feeding, leaving her with in-laws and joining back work, she demanded that I feed her all night. I know I was away all day, but had to compensate in night. And now I am trying new ways to stop breast feeding her.

She is 16 months old now, but she knows how to make me sing. She decides the tunes for me, lyrics for me. I know she will demand more when she grows up, I need to grow with her. I need to know the notations to keep track of her vaccination and medical needs, sing in melody of her academic curriculum, be rhythmic with her games.

I am not sure if ever I will be ready to give a concert in spite of so many years of singing. When I can still find faults with my mother after so many years, I am sure even my daughter would never accept me as a perfect singer.

Dear bunty,

Let me tell you my dear baby, I am new to this motherhood, feel always new to it with your changing demand, I would be careful in bring you up again this evil filled society, stay in tune with you and explore the joy of parenthood. But promise me that you will sing along with me, make me enjoy my singing. We are not bothered about other audience, as long as we feel we are singing right song and music.

Loving amma,

“Singing the song of life”

 about the contest partner: 

Mom & Me, the chain of stores from Mahindra Retail, has been built around the unique needs of mothers to be, young mothers, infants and children up to the age of nine. Products include maternity & infant apparel; mother’s & baby wellness, nursery, food & nutrition, travel & safety and toys & games under Private Label, Exclusive International Brands and Indian brands. In a short span of time, Mom & Me successfully created a strong brand with pan India presence, operating over 100 stores across 43 cities in India by 2012.

World is so small..

Most of us in this blogging world keep our identities unknown( for various reasons). But the beauty of it unveils when we see the known blogger and you have a real common friend .

I was just checking the indiblogger meet pics in facebook. There was only one person whom I could recognize as she has her photo put up on her blog. Out of curiosity I click on the tag and went to her profile page. And viola we had mutual friend there. Wow, so she is someone whom I could have met in my past years is my feeling now. She might have heard about me as a conversation with the real friend?. Or from now on she will know me more?..

It’s a mixed feeling with excitement. Now I have to track back the link of the friendship. The mutual friend is my junior. So have to know if the blog friend is from my place, my school, or my organization?? doesn’t it feel like an hunt to find the secret link??

I am just waiting for the blog friend to accept my friend request and know her part of story..

And today happens to be AsH ‘s B’day.. many many more happy returns of the day. J. and tomorrow is my darling SRK’s..

Pendrive that put me on guilt.

This post is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with Badhai.in

“one gift shopping experience that drove you crazy?”

This is an incident which I wanted to write for very long time. But always forgot. Thanks to Blogadda for making me remember the crazy incident and making me document it in form of post, and record it in my space.

It was already 25^th of the month. Money had to be collected and gifts had to be bought. I was trying hard to concentrate on work. But somehow, the background thoughts were filled in party mood. This time, it was my boss birthday and best friends too. This excited me more. But I also had doubts in my mind, regarding my capability to host such a big party. We were expecting 40 people. The venue was fixed. The collections were in progress. Thank god, I didn’t take up the duty of going and collecting money from each staff. People dropped promptly by 25^th, and gave in the money.

It was 27^th, and I had not decided the menu. I was clueless on the amount to be spent on “snacks Vs gifts”.  I made my choice of making it 50-50 each. Which meant I had money only for cake and tea?  But I thought, I could save some money in gift and arrange at least some chips with it.

This meant I had to buy gift sooner. Going shopping in Bangalore traffic without a personal two wheeler was really tiresome. It was just not two gist I had to buy, but 5. 4+1(special gift). I was cursing the person who introduced this great idea of celebrating group b’day. i.e celebration of b’days of people of that month together on last working day of the month.  This month’s list included one young girl, one lady boss, one male manager, one helper. Though it was great idea, buying gift for all categories, according to their taste and more importantly within the budget was quite a task.

I was confident that the girl would like the handbags sold on commercial street platform, but didn’t know if the lady boss would like the funky stuff. Wanted to gift the managers a parker pen, but would the illiterate helper treasure it? So so many doubts. I literally took two days wandering on commercial street, garuda mall, chikpet ,central , Gandhi bazaar. But everything was in vain. The best thing is that, if I finalize on something, my friends wouldn’t agree on it.

It was already 30^th, but everything was pending just because I had not bought the gifts. Only after the gifts are bought, the rest of the money could be used to buying cake. Thanks to bakery’s which were ready to give me cake on 5 hours notice, but that would restrict my choice of flavors.

I was almost on tears. Just then somebody gave this idea of gift vouchers. But again, that means I was giving people a limited choice. I had no time, had only two choices. I had to buy gift voucher from garuda mall, which was near by office. Which means, I could get either Westside voucher /shopper stop /fab india.  But again, was worried if everybody would like it. There were online offers. But it means more shipping time. Buy one get one offers didn’t work as we were supposed to buy only 5 gifts.

So I ended up buying pen-drives for all. Rest of the money was used to get cake, chips, tea and samosa. I did cost cutting by ordering just one cake instead of 5.

The party started. To my horror, one of the b’day  guy( the manager) had the same pendrive hung around his neck.  The cake cutting and snacks distribution went on well. Then the gift disturbing started. I handed over the packet to the office head. He weight it and said,” it looks small for a gift”. I just controlled my anger inside. He started calling everybody’s names. I was again shocked to hear my name in the list. The HR mockingly said, we wanted you to know the “pain of receiving the gift”. (Though it was uttered jokingly, it hurt me a lot). It made sense, for me the pendrive was a waste as I already had 3 with me, one of the same brand and colour. The gift didn’t make sense to the helper too. The manager already possessed one, and for others, pendrives were banned in office.  I did a mistake of just buying a gift, which was decided on haste, lack of time and patience. It was a bigger mistake as it involved everybody’s’ money for which I am answerable.

That is when I realized the importance of gifting right thing, to right person and right time too.

So people don’t make mistake like me, but check on this.

So people put in your best efforts for the right gift. This time the recipients are going to like it. No more of gift wastage or recycling, but its just enjoying the gift.

Sign up using facebook and get a 20% gift back on your first Gift.
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Badhai gift vouchers are a unique way of online gifting. Badhai gift vouchers are acceptable at leading brands like Lifestyle, Croma, Pantaloons, Flipkart,com, Titan, Yebhi.com and many more.
The best part is that the person who receives the gift voucher gets the choice to use his gift amount at the choice of his brand.

PS. I was given pendrive, as that was my last day in that office.  I left the company for good, and with a good lesson on gifting.

women thinking aloud of SEX…

I wish someone told me, it ok be a women and think about Sex and changing partner openly without being called as a slut or a whore.

How I wish I could too express the desire to look at men, the way they (men) look at women and fantasize cuddling together. Why is it wrong when a woman expresses her interest openly?

I look at both the sexes as same. Both have the urge and need to get satisfied physically. But somehow one gender has overtaken the other, where man sexual desire is taken for granted and women’ is not. Shouldn’t I being a woman think of it aloud and demand?

I always heard and understood that any physical relation, when it is not official (mean sex without marriage as a license) the first move is always by women.  I also hear and read a lot that, it is very difficult to satisfy as women’s urge and only they are capable of multiple orgasms. Girls are the only ones who get to know partially about sex from home, even at a tender age of 8 in name of sex education or awareness against abuse or by talk about puberty.

Still it is always a strict no-no when it comes to open talk about sex. Why is that when ever women wants to share a joke with has anything attached to sex or organs or orgasm is still a taboo.  Where women just chuckle, smile or give that rude “dare you” looks and move out of the circle.

I see one group talking about equality, In women and men, but can’t accept that fact that women too can say,” I would like to sleep with this guy”.

Why is that I see captions on T-shirts saying, 99% of men masturbate and rest 1% lie. Why even a freedom like self satisfaction accepted only one gender?

Now I know many of you guys would ask me,” who stopped you?”.

The answer is nobody has stopped me or any other female for that matter. Nor can anyone stop me if I really want to. But will such women be respected in our Indian society without being looked down? Will they too be given same respect like the married bahu’s of an Indian family given? Without being looked down, will she be encouraged and given a green signal.

I wish someone told me, it ok be a women. But unfortunately I live in a country when I can get grouped or raped if I go to pub. I am forced to wear cloths which are not comfortable or climate friendly. By chance if the tailor stitches the neck design an inch low, I am named a provocative woman. Then think of my state if I say,” I would like to sleep with that guy”. That’s it I would be named a slut, and taken for granted and every guy who crosses me would ask me for it.

Thank god at least now I see women openly accepting the fact that they have seen the forbidden “ blue picture” . Thanks to YouTube and Google.

I wish someone told me, it ok to be women in land of kamasutra and yet not be ashamed of expressing interest in sex.

Now people go on.. I am already prepared with the kind of comments I might get, still I wanted to express my view, and here they are..

I wrote it for the Write Over Weekend contest and as usual missed the deadline.. so just thought of posting it now, rather than keeping it in draft for long..

 

The extra soaking time..

http://www.ashreyamom.com

There she was..

She was silently crying inside the womb, soaking in tears as she listened to her mother’s desire to have a son. She tried to impress her mom in every aspect she could. She grew up and soaked herself doing homework and extra studying to impress her dad. She silently worked hard to be away from abusers and managed to save herself from being a victim of sex abuse.

She struggled and struggled to prove herself to the world. She worked to soak herself in the pleasure of financial independence. But the work just gave her the money not the time. She longed for a company and got married. She wanted to be complete and be an example for the world soaked in desire of having a male child. She wanted to be a mother of girl. She did achieve her dream.  But now, she has no time.

Reason, cloths being given importance with food and shelter.( remember studying in school? Three important things- food, shelter and clothing) The world judging people by the cloths they wear.

What could she do? With her husband demanding the cloths to be chick and new, kid demanding the uniform to be bright and white and she wanting to look the best.

All the time , mornings and weekend goes scrubbing, bleaching, soaking, and re-soaking and washing.

Even while watching TV, her mind races after the different detergents and cloths soaked in the bathroom. Even after the hubby cursing for not using the washing machine which he gifted.

Then a day comes when her child gives an excuse of saying “DAAG ACHA HAIN” when she comes home mud clad uniform. She gets furious like any other mother and asks the kid to go a soak in the water like the advt. then the intelligent husband gets surf excel matte and announces “SOAK NO MORE dear”. And soak us no more in frustration of washing cloths.

The magic worked. Now she is relived of dirt, and time with extra bucket of water saved. Now she uses this extra soaking and waiting time for herself and family.

Now she gets up early as before, but she doesn’t SOAK any MORE, but do yoga for her health, on weekends, she plays with her kid or has a personal beauty pampering or marketing.

SOAK NO MORE = health + wealth + love.

This post is for the Indiblogger The Surf Excel Matic #SoakNoMore contest. SoakNoMore

click here to vote for me.

Multitasking..

When your left hand is busy moving front and back, right hand trying to be kept straight and once in while moving left or right, left leg half in air, right leg trying to give different pressures, eyes moving left,right center, and head trying to be calculative, ear listening and mouth tight shut.

Still dint get it? I am talking about learning a four wheeler. I have been trying to following all the instructions given by the instructor, felt this is the toughest multitasking I am doing.

Let me explain,

Class1: just try to keep the steering in control. I practiced that one full class. And to keep the vehicle to one side of the road, left extreme.

Class 2: I learn, ABC or driving. No no its CBA.. clutch, break and accelerator. I try and start car with just half release of clutch, feel the engine gear up and move the car. It was quite a task. Every time i do,  the car used to stop. Then comes the gear. The instructor shows me the diagram and says first,2^nd,3^rd,4rth and reverse gear. I practice to move in 2^nd gear.

But what is the mistake I do?? Guess??

Not pressing the clutch and trying to move the gear..

Class 3: I take the car on NH5, yes on a highway, and move the car in 2,3 and 4^th gear. Yup, this increased my confidence.

Class4: now the twist of turning came. For someone who is thin with not much of strength on arms, try out to turn the mechanical steering, at sharp cuts. So I was taken around a park and made to just turn and turn. Turn left, right.. oh don’t for the indicator.

Class 4: now, it time for me to practice speed controlling. Only with accelerator , slow brake and just to move the car in first gear and clutch control .

Class5 : trying to drive with the footwear. Yes, first 4 classes were with bare foot on ABC.. but I had to Judges the pressure applied with footwear.

Class 6: here comes the reverse. The car moves in the direction you rotate the steering, its not mirror driving. It took time for me to understand the concept. So again in the park, move left and right and go straight back.

Class7: trying to make and 8. Yes, it was part of driving test to be taken, so again go to plan hockey ground and make an 8, and drive on the previous tire marks made.

Class8: repeat all the above classes.

Class9: her, I am asked to park the car in the basement of my apartment. I struggle. Move the car front, take reverse, and move front.

Class 10: practice reverse on a curved road and 8, as I was taking the driving test that day.

What happens, I go the RTO office. Show my LLR letter. They ask me to take a car standing there and give me the keys.

Now I try and recollect the instructions given by the instructor

Step1: adjust the car seat. Yes, I am short, so have to move the seat forward.

Step2: unlock the hand break

Step 3: start the car

Step 4: move the car only in first gear. As passing the test is more important than showing the speed skills

Step5: carefully use the indicators before turning

Step6: follow the 8 path, take the simplest entry , so coming out and turning is not a problem

Step7: carefully take the car into the inbuilt ditch with half clutch and accelerate more to bring out the car. Remember, that car is in 1^st gear.

Step8: carefully turn the car. Stop, take reverse with right hand on window pane, head turning back, and take reverse. ( yes my car stops here. The reverse gear was not falling in its place. I don’t panic, but try again and succeed. I was driving really slow that, people didn’t notice my car stopping.

Step9: I bring the car back to the location and stop it.

Step10: report back to the traffic officer and he says, “PASS”.

That’s how I get my license.

Finally I bought a secondhand car. After  2 months of getting license, I drove to office today. Thanks to my colleague who was kind enough to accompany me on my first day to office, in my car.

I am like, yes I did it.. in spite of hitting the compound wall while taking reverse, stopping and trying to start car in middle of a big signal, not getting panicked with lorry fellow trying honk honk, missing two speed breakers.. Driving in Vizag rains..

Note: you may hear more stories on driving from now on..

Ps. I don’t even know to drive a two wheeler, my dad has a strong feeling that I don’t have road sense.