brothers are the best

In a nostalgic mood right now.. This is one of my favourite snaps. Taken a month after i went to the US, when i left husby dear and went to spend time with my brothers. To make up for my ache for the western ghats, they had organised a camping trip nearby on the shores of the Delware river, PA state. it was my first ever American camping experience,( you get to sleep in sleeping bags and have a tap outside to wash your face in! and a Loo!). Kinda missed my indian bushes though and Shivaji Maharaj's water tanks.. But well, Had fun camping, was terrified river rafting ( if it wasnt the water i was scared and yelling about, i swear andy and vinu would have pushed me into that very river). But at the end of it enjoyed every moment of the rafting too. what a thrill!

Actually, dont have any other snap actually with only me, andy and vinu in it. While growing up always felt that I cant live with them, and cant live without them. Now am forced to live in away from them in a different country. Damm this software business... yeah yeah just missing them a lot... Call me you idiots. its been ages..

When your life changes

Do you change with it?

The answer for many is an obvious yes. But I beg to differ. It isn’t always so. When I got married and my life changed overnight, I wasn’t ready to change myself and accommodate everything new that life had brought to my doorsteps. I wasn’t ready for the new country, new city, new food habits, new lifestyle habits, new people, new prejudices, new fears and even new love. So everything around me moved in a whir and I stubbornly remained mournful and aloof. Refusing to change with the world around me..

I don’t know how and when but I realised the futility of what I was doing and how unhappy it made me. I changed myself internally and began to love what life had presented me with. Of course I didn’t have the time to get too comfortable with US, the Fremont county library, Lake Elizabeth or the wondrous San Francisco, life changed yet again and we came back to India. Rampaging endlessly between Pune and Bombay, I landed at Hyderabad. Some more changes and another job and then again changes!

There seems to be no such thing as constant in my life. But I am determined now to even learn to enjoy the butterflies in my stomach and the fear I fight when I encounter change. But this time I am enjoying the thrill of new found love, of a work I have been eager and restless to do for eons.

Am changing jobs, from Information and Communication technologies for Development to only communications- my area of strength and passion. Only now I get to finally work with an NGO which believes in advocacy as much as I believe in my words. Something I have wanted to always do but never got the chance too.

Come Saturday, I start work at the Foundation for Democratic Reforms – popularly known as the Lok Satta Movement (no, not the newspaper folks), founded by Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan. weblink for Lok Satta is here.

Am restless, am excited, am nervous all at once. Something tells me this is a chance for me to learn. That I am somehow treading closer to what is ultimately going to change something inside me forever. If NISG was an eye-opener to government and its potentials, possibilities, as well as the inherent dormancies, bureaucracies and powerplays, Lok Satta I am hoping will finally help me to work with the focus being in governance reforms. It is I believe like poking a lazy elephant with a needle, initially it may not even feel the needle, but when you stab it again and again at the same point with a needle it may finally feel something sore and then the pinch.

Lok Satta fascinates me because for once rather than telling people I am here what can I do for you, it will give me the chance to tell people, you know what to do, let me help you realise your own potential. It is teaching a man how to fish and not feeding him for life.

World's Greatest..

buildings, roadways, waterways, natural wonders, holiday spots. resorts...are the titles of some travel programs telecast in the US. We remembered them a couple of days back and again marvelled at the fact that only occasionally did a place or two outside the USA, make its presence felt in that list.

One honour the media there truly deserves, world's greatest ego! Or maybe I am being too bitchy. Maybe the travel channel guys there are well, just less-travelled, and do not know the world outside USA. I shall give them the benefit of doubt.

After the long absence

Thanks to : Travels to Bombay and Pune, increased work load, resumption of reading and sheer laziness.

After making an unspoken vow for abstinence from blogging (was getting to addicted to reading blogs and trying to make mine look better!), I decided to finally get started again. Can’t really stay away from blogging for long.

Quick updates:

Am changing jobs to work with an NGO ( finally!) and I visited Matheran after 3 ½ years during the 15 Aug holiday weekend and discovered I don’t recognise the place with so many people around.

Some quotable quotes:

A colleague at work lamenting at the lack of salary revision mechanisms:-
“Salaries should be linked to petrol. They should increase proportionately with petrol rates.”

Truer words cannot be spoken. Anyone listening?
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And while on salaries, another one:-
‘Work done not must be proportionate to salaries earned’

As a reminder to my belief that software professionals are overpaid (But money is always good, I know. At least someone at home should earn.) But also conforms to my moral dilemma as to why, how and when did the importance of manual labour reduce. Why are people who do such work treated as lesser human beings. Is brain-work overrated? If my office boy didn’t come for day one, the CEO, VP and all would suffer terribly. Imagine them having to go make their own coffee, clean their loos and clean their lunch plates; unthinkable no? As a woman I know how terrible my mood is the day the maid doesn’t arrive. One day is ok but two, oh my god! Eh, me and my rambling.
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the third:
‘If you do not know where you are, you will never know where to go’

Dear me. Constant reminders of where I am, is important. Be is physically, mentally or emotionally. Only when I am aware of now, can I think/plan/ act for the future.

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Back to the present. (See how aware I am). Work calls. Gotta go.
(The format of this post should be evidence enough about the number of reports and documents I have been churning out.)