No answer to certain questions....

Post marriage I started traveling in Mumbai locals. This happened after being away from train journey for almost  two years. Life always keeps us teaching or makes us think or at least ponder over certain things which never come to our mind unless we face any type of incident or particularly come across certain situations. Journey in mumbai locals is one such medium of thinking school.

 Catching 8.30 in morning from Mumbai CST and 6.14 in evening from CBD Belapur was or rather is an achievement of it's own kind. Every compartment carries in it loads of faces bearing all kind of human emotions,thoughts,tensions,stresses,pressures and on and on. Even a small kid selling vegetables,fruits,food items or toys in the compartment has the above feelings suiting or more than his age. Passengers fight and argue with their fellows over petite issues which do not have an uttermost possibility of bothering them after their journey for the day is complete. Their are lots of such incidents that we may come across daily. But few of them receive places in minds and thoughts for a while.

I came across one such modal incident one fine day. A lady in a  filthy gown holding a baby in one hand and cute fair kid of about 3-4 years in other, entered our compartment and sat on the seat in front of me. The kid went backside and found a place there. The lady was feeding the baby and calling the kid continuously asking for something in the bag that the kid was holding. The kid was fumbling with the bag which is why the lady asked her to bring the bag to her, I guess. The kid obeyed and again went back to her seat. The lady peeped into the bag and started abusing the kid for not finding some eatable that she needed.

She threw the bag and kept mum until train reached the next station when the compartment vacated to some extent. She then went back and balancing the baby in one hand, started hitting and abusing the kid sitting at the back. I craned my neck to see what was happening. But  this kid was not the one who had got in with her. She was another sweet child of about 5-6 years who was victimized. The poor girl started sobbing and ran away from the lady. She went and sat in the front part of compartment along with the previous girl and other beautiful girl of about 10-12 years. The three girls started giggling and enjoying just in a while to everyone's surprise.

This incident achieved nothing but few minutes of attention by the ladies present in the compartment. The lady sitting next to me said "..the kid ate up something which her mom had bought for herself. So she hit her. See how mean...we have to run after our kids for eating food. and this lady beats her up for doing so. What are we earning for? So that our kids should be happy,right?"
The so called 'family' got down at the next station. It included three girls, a boy and a baby.

It certainly made me give a thought to why god is so unjust and unfair. People all over the world do whatever they can for having kids. Even a big fortune is at times unable to fulfill this wish of theirs.
And here was a  lady who is not even able to put food into her kid's mouth twice in a day...and still bears five children...and beats them up for eating more once a while. I remember my mom running after me to eat food in my childhood days. Both ladies are mothers. Both have conceived and nurtured their babies for nine months and further need to follow suit. Then why this difference god? Is it that you send some questions without any solutions, for us to miss their answer pair throughout our lives?
Only you understand the world that you have created god!

Aal is Well !!!!!!!!!

Last few days of the year..Christmas was coming near (Oh! it rhymed co-incidentally) Anyways, this Christmas was a 3 day long weekend a day before which the most awaited movie of the year "3 idiots" released. I had already vowed to watch it when I saw it's promos for the first time. As the release date was coming near I started asking my friends out for the movie. Everyone had the same plan but with different people..their beloved ones :) God bless them..but what about me? My plan was going to blazes.

Mom n Dad had planned for the native place for the fifth time in last one month. It's their favorite past time :) I denied because of the official working day on saturday at my new office ( By the way, did I tell you that I am now a Project Manager in a renowned Financial organization of India :)..Oh! I got your "congratulations" Thanks a Lot :) ) Should I go alone? Finally a thought struck to ask one of my neighbour. I had not a close relation but a good acquaintance with didi. After her mom obliged a bit, she agreed (Yippeeeee). I had checked on net already about the 18 shows starting from 8.15 in the morning at Fame Adlabs. This was just one cinema hall. There were 6 more multiplexes in Navi Mumbai. Somewhere, I will definitely get the tickets. So now "Mission 3 Idiots".This long weekend clearly meant that the movie would go completely "Housefull"...but God forbid..I truly deciphered the meaning of this word on Christmas day.

Her brother dropped us at Fame Raghuleela, Vashi at 12 noon. The next show at 1 was housefull. After that was 2 , 2.45 and 3.15. We had around 12 people ahead of us in the queue. The ticket vendor surprised us along with the girls just ahead of us by saying that only front seats are available for all shows upto 7. With everyone ahead of us discussing the difficulties of watching from first row, both of us were in dilemma to crane our necks for the movie. And finally, our wrong mind(s) won over the right(s) and we broke the queue to come out. Raju Bhaiyya (her brother) was in the same mall who approached us in five minutes. He said you should have taken the tickets, there is quite a good distance between the screen and the front rows ( No idea bhaiyya...had never been in first row (for the movie :))... That is why they say, 'A little learning is a dangerous thing'). He suggested to check at other places and dropped us at Cinemax..Housefull!..Big Cinemas..Housefull..only first row tickets of 4.45 show available. Boom! I thought that even I am becoming an IDIOT now..the 4th idiot. It was 12.45.
We really were cursing ourselves for not going for the front row tickets at Fame 2.45 show. I was calling all other multiplexes in Navi Mumbai. No answers or only one word came-Housefull. I also cursed myself for not listening to Raju Bhaiyya's advice to go to Kharghar were probably tickets were available in the morning. My hope of getting 2 tickets easily out of almost 50 shows in about seven multiplexes in Navi Mumbai had proved overconfidence!! God...is there really so much population in Navi Mumbai?? I had only seen crowds like sheep herds in locals and Mumbai congestions.
Finally we decided to give it a last shot at Fame once again...though for the front rows. This time the crowd had doubled and 2.00, 2.45 and 3.15 shows were all housefull. I made Didi stand at the ground floor box office and I thought of trying at the third floor box office. By god's grace, here the queue was very short. At the speedy ticket counter, by the time the person ahead of me reached the window, 4.15 show's light had gone red. Gone..our last chance was also gone. shows after that were bit late. Still I asked the girl on the other side if there are any front row tickets available..To my astonishment she said only 2 ...I immediately took them. 640 Rs. said the girl on the other side.640? front row? Anything for Aamir :) Later I discovered the cost included the 200 rs mandatory food coupon. If you wan't the tickets, you should have the food! This included a free t-shirt she said. I called didi and came down.
Wow! finally we had the tickets in our hands!! We were going to enjoy the movie. The happiness made us forget the physical stress for last one and half hour! But didi's office people and clients were not staying away from her even on the holiday. After number of phone calls and sms's the alleged issue was sorted. We gobbled on Pav-bhaji and Pasta for lunch. There were still 2 hours for the show to begin. So What to do? We started with every girl's deary past time-shopping. After having enough of it, we took water, some mints and my eye caught Chetan Bhagat's new novel at the book store at the station. So even that got a place in our bags.
We went to the screen and exchanged our food coupons for popcorn, samosas and cokes. The T-shirt was 3-idiots t-shirt..it was cool though 2 sizes bigger for me. Great!
We went in and discovered our seats at the 3 rd row from front. Screen was quite far..(remember the distance next time Sumedha..it's not that bad) I told myself. The movie began along with me popping the caramel and cheese popcorn with sips of coke in between.The movie was excellent as expected. The punches, humor, learning, scenes, flow, story line,music everything was so perfect! I really think that even one movie release in a year would do...but it should be like this! Hats off to heartthrob Aamir from a heartthrob buff !!! Another feather in his cap.... and cheers to everyone for the wonderful movie.
The show ended at 7.30 PM and we hired an auto directly to our place and discussing and giggling all the way,reached home by 8.15. At night, while Chetan Bhagat was telling me the story of his marriage (I hope the famous Indian author doesn't disappoint his readers now like 'the 3 mistakes') I really wondered at the memorable, unplanned yet delightful day that I had!
Cheers!

Chennai Tripaa ?

I had absolutely no pursuit of what we call as "work" after my appraisal getting screwed up irrationally this year, leave alone the effort of going on an outhouse project away from family and friends. But the meek pleasure of not facing the unwanted stress along with unwanted faces in the office helped me perk up to agree for a month's project at Chennai. My friends from Chennai had come at the airport to receive me.
While we were getting out of the airport, the handle of my trolley could not control it's excitement and came off straight into my friend's hand. It was a good beginning. We had a superb dinner that night. That's when I discovered the first good non-veg restaurant in Chennai. I had my colleague from Bangalore staying in the same guest house. We started our work from the next day at office, which involved, his second laptop (since the beginning of the project) breathing last. With no choice left, he had to use my laptop for his work. There was nothing apart from the 12 hours of work in the weekdays. Although Kumar (my colleague) was initially very reserved and serious kind of person (he portrayed himself likewise :) ) , we got along well very quickly since no person can be silent for long once he or she is with me ;)

The care taker (Raju) of the guest house was a brainy person. What a consistent cook he was! Whatever he cooked tasted the same everyday. Some dal, rice boiled and kept aside for four hours, sour curd, rotis like what the prisoners must be having in lock-ups and some vegetable dish. We had declared an award for the person who points out the difference between the current day's and the other day's side dish apart from it's appearance ! We got confident enough about his excellent cooking skills and started discovering few good hotels around to have food over there or order it.
The haste in the morning though left us with very little choice than to have Raju's breakfast everyday. This ended up in having some salt less thing stuffed with only potatoes named as aloo parathas or sour uttappams garnished with nothing except carrot slices or cold maggi noodles with large sized beans in it. Raju was a firm believer of the principle that water is a universal solvent. Hence he used to colorize water with tea or coffee powder and present it as tea or coffee solution to us. There were few accompaniments like pickle, sugar, salt which he used to place in a cupboard cum ant house behind the dining table. I used to warn him thousand times about the ants but he paid no heed to it.
Once we were having something in the name of aloo parathas when everyone asked Raju to get the pickle. This fellow placed the bowl of leftover pickle whose top layer was dried up completely. He needed no scientific reasons to prove that there are no ants in it and it's pure veg. I scolded him for this on which he said, " There can be no ants in it. I place the sugar bowl next to the pickle bowl. Ants must in the sugar bowl." Any comments?
I got acquainted with lots of people during the course of month. One of them was European old Uncle Vic Warden who came to our guest house in the first week. (He did not like being called "uncle" though age is something which you cannot really hide, at least not when you are 66!) Being from construction stream, he had visited almost 46 countries all over and hence had a lot to share out of his experience. You then are left with no choice than to listen to the non-stop stories at London, Vietnam, Africa and on and on. But his zeal for work at this age and enthusiasm at par was always a great inspiration for us.
Whenever the "foolproof" plans of my friends use to materialize, we used to meet for dinner or lunch and had a great time. I had a memorable visit at Tirupathi because of Arun (thanks da :) )
Ranjith and Thulasi also helped and supported me throughout the trip to find places and all.

What I found most funny over there was the language business ( My sincere apologies to all Tamil people reading this blog :) ) We call a regular vegetable potato as "urlakalangal" in Tamil. Check out! your potatoes may be burnt on the stove by the time you finish saying it. Banana is " Valyaya Payam" and while saying the "lya" in the middle, the rule is that your tongue must be bent in 90 degrees angle backwards and touch the upper part of your inner mouth surface. ( I still can't pronounce this word! period!)
The English over there was equally humorous. For people here, maximum times, OK does not come as OK alone, it is OK va. Da, Ma ,Pa, Va are the most often used syllables over there. I always used to tell my colleague when we had food, we shall have soda and after that poda.( we shall leave :) ) The 5 seconds pause at "ca" in "because" used to assure people there that they speak correct English. Tamilinglish (blend of Tamil and English) also had a rule of suffixing "aa" after each last word of a sentence. The Stationa pronounced by auto wala on first day when I asked him "beach station" helped me discover this. I am sure you got the title of this blog by now.
Once I had been to a restaurant with my friends where there was some bollywood theme. The walls were covered with all middle aged film posters. The one in front of us read "Teesri Ankh"
Arun's Hindi got overwhelmed to ask me " Sumedha, teesri ankh means? Third eyeaa? " (remember da :) )
The one month's period was fun filled completely and everything was good in Chennai apart from the overheated atmosphere. Had a good time and returned to enjoy Mumbai rains.

The endaa :)

A week when everything went wrong!!!

It's not that I like cribbing and nagging at all times. But there are situations, that I can't manage or no one can manage them. We just have to be through them, may be for no fault of ours at times.
CISA exam was a good experience. It held no surprises and I attempted it as expected. Thank God!! To get over the months and months of exam and work pressure, my family had arranged for me a trip to Rajasthan. It was wonderful with loads of fun and piles of memorable moments. As they say "All good things come to an end", so did my tour. But is it a golden rule in life that we have to go through problems and stress after having some good time ? You bet!
The beginning of new year marked with sickness of mom to the extent that she had to be sent to our native place for an Ayurvedic treatment. Then it was showtime for me....household chores and working at office... hats off to ladies who manage it !!!!!!(count me in the list now ) Even worse, working under peer pressure at office!!!
I don't like abusing people, neither I wish to take names. So the first person who harrassed me to his extreme potential, was Mr.!@#$ . This fellow had warned me to fullest extent to complete my project report and all documents before I go on leave for the Rajasthan trip. And after returning back, to my great astonishment I found that Mr.!@#$ had not even glanced at my work. Then starting from square one, the review was done and finally everything was completed. A final meeting was supposed to be held discussing the project report for which I was obviously invited since I completed the project. But our Mr. !@#$ was in great mood those days. He loved giving surprises. He made some presentation and attended the meeting all by himself! Then says, he forgot to call me. Ya right! As if he forgot to get a chocolate for the child! What a guy! Loved snatching things, be it water, food or credit for other's work!
The second person was Mr.***** . This guy is truly great. Asks me to make some presentation, glances it and then asks me to mail it to him. Then disappears from the office for hours. After coming back, asks me what feeling did I get when he "glanced" at the presentation. I agree presentations can be bad or may lack something. But how will a person know it unless he's told so?Damn it!! humiliated me for no reason. Has god started fitting mind reading devices in this generation? I am sure we do need them now.
I completely agree at this point of time that, working environment for security professionals is a maelstorm!!
20 days of the new year have passed. For me there wasn't a single day, when I was truly happy and contented or had a tension free peaceful sleep. But today I shall have it, coz I got a good news today that I have cleared ISO 27001 Lead auditor exam that I had appeared for long back. I am a Lead auditor for ISO 27001 now. Something good has happened at last! It feels like having bright sunshine in chilling winter! Thanks God! You finally saw me :)

Terror on face of Mumbai

26th November 2008.....every person in Mumbai was busy dining at home or outside or getting ready for a good night's sleep as usual to wake up for a fresh new day.....Little did they realize that this will be the longest night of their lives and they shall have to wait for as long as 59 hours for the new fresh morning!!!!

Few unknown people from some nook and corner of world (It's Pakistan for sure) enter our country unnoticed (they slit the throats or stab the people who question them) and create a big havoc in country's financial capital in a complete organized and planned manner!!! Audacious enough to take off a Police jeep and start firing on all the innocent unaware people on roads, Mumbai's one of the busiest railway station, CST and public places and then turning to two of Mumbai's best known 5-star hotels The Taj and Oberoi Trident and Jewish building Nariman House and holding many people over there as hostages, brutally killing many of them and mercilessly causing damage to lives and property!!! They had the guts and determination along with arms and ammunition that sufficed to give a big fight to hundreds of policemen, NSG commandos and army officials for 3 nights and 2 days.

Thanks to all the NSG commandos and all the brave policemen and ATS staff that their "so called" guts were striken off in the best possible manner and least possible time!!! True, they achieved ,to some extent, their mission of killing till the end of breath. But were stabbed to death or caught alive before they could do the worst!!! What many people have lost in these 3 days, be it a friend, relatives, someone's son, somebody's fiancee, someone's only daughter or maybe all the family members is truly difficult to be described in words.

The worst part is, in between all these terror strikes and chaos, our politicians did not stay back, be it in giving condolences to the affected families or ask for votes in disguise!!!! Can u believe them? The operations at three places were still ON , so many lives were at stake and politicians were begging for votes in the name of consoling people, carrying out their election campaigns through advertisements! Every one was pointing fingers to each other's opponents and our dearest PM was busy giving messages to India and Mumbai to maintain peace and not to panic and that those found guilty in these attacks shall not be pardoned( this old man needs a message and help for himself!!!) This dirty game of politics in India is showing up it's ugly face again and that too in the most outrageous manner!!! That's truly sad.

We lost some of our great warriors and beloved human beings including ATS chief Hemant Karkare, ACP Ashok Kamthe and Senior Inspector Vijay Salaskar in this battle of life and death.
Today, we breathe in a safe air at Mumbai because these people have laid down their lives for us.
My big Salute to all the brave commandos and all the great people who lost their lives in this battle!!! Also, hats off to all media people who did not care for their lives and continuously stayed at the three operation places to provide the details of every small incident taking place over there, to us.
Also, once again, Mumbai has proved that nothing can stop it!!! Come what may be, in between these threats, terror strikes and chaos, many people started for their offices,workplaces, schools and colleges on Friday which is truly worth praising. Long live this spirit of Mumbai!!! It's only because of this spirit and the solemnized humanity over here, that I feel Life in Mumbai is worth it!!!!

Being a CISA

It's not possible to begin from the beginning, so I begin from where I lie now. So I have my CISA exam next month. For people who are not aware, CISA is an international auditing exam (stands for Certified Information Systems Auditor) . I am really worried about it since it may be the last exam in my educational career (me tired of studying!!!). C'mon man, a person has right to say that after having a "blast" for 4 years in engineering and having a list of technical certificates achieved by studying even when out of college.
So, coming back to the point, I want this last exam to be the best and I am sincerely driving my efforts towards it. But attention is something that is demanded by almost everything in our lives.
So even after dumping all the other "so much wanted" things in a corner, work is still there. It needs my attention. I am finding it difficult to establish a kind of balance between work and studies. Moreover, one day out of the two weekly offs, goes off for the CISA classes. Again, travelling eats up time. Thankfully the classes are coming to an end now!
This was all the cribbing part, my college friends always used to say that no person can crib better than Sue. :)
Anyways, when I think of the superb career that I shall have after passing this exam and getting a CISA certificate, I truly feel that my efforts are worth it. Please God!!! Make my wish come true!!!