And finally, we made it !!

We finally moved into our apartment, a much awaited one. Bharath & me would be completing 11 years as Nov comes, but its just now that we could make this happen.
So here is my place, very endearing & which carries our dream for years. A house that is simple yet elegant matching our tastes. Reminiscence of the heated arguments to customize the house as per our needs & likings, brings in a smile & a sense of triumph now. How many sleepless nights, discussions & thought process before moving in ? For a house to become a home, I realized it involves everybody's cooperation & interest. My family was not that keen moving in to a new place, except for the stubbornness in me. It becomes very difficult to adapt to changes, especially when you are comfortable with your current state which is exactly what happened here. It took months convincing them, bridging the indifferences and finally landing here. Every single tile (brick is an old adage :)), the living room, kitchen, Pooja, balcony, the furniture...would remain from now a witness of our laughter, love, quarrels & patch-ups.

The effort to bring an empty house into a livable state when you move new, is definitely not something I would risk often. During the course, if anyone has qualms about a discomfort, it gradually creeps into you leaving suspicious - "After all, was that a right decision ?".

Thankfully, things have settled and I notice each one getting adjusted to the new place and their restlessness subside.

I keep telling Bharath - "This is ours, a reflection of our love, thoughts, a reward for our determined efforts". So allow me to enjoy them with no plans of relocating elsewhere for a while :).

With Love,
Lavanya Bharathkumar

Treasure Hunt

Bharath and I decided we'll not have  an attic/loft in our new house. The plan was to dispose anything not or less used. I kept postponing it as the thought of clearing around 10 cartons was scary. But my long leave brought this back on priority and I had no options than take it.

·         Unpacking the boxes, first came the mobile swing (baby's cradle). Bharath had bought it 7 years back for Srinidhi. I had not taken this out even for Varsha who is two now. The girls squealed with delight as I assembled it back and dropped their soft toys into it. They took turns playing and singing 'Rock a bye baby'.

·         Next was the Electric Rice cooker given as a compliment for some occasion 4-5 yrs back. It had found its place in the loft as I hardly needed it. This time, my mother wanted to try her hands. An array of cookery shows and books had tempted her to make vegetable pulav and other rice 'Sevais' in the Electric cooker. How it turned out, would be a different post :-)

·         There were the cartons of books then. The '366 Bed Time Stories' is 31 Yrs old.  My father had bought it when I was 2. Happiness rushed when flipping through the 'Rapunzel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood..' pages. It was a Yellow colored hard bound book with beautiful prints and sketches in every page. I have never seen such a wonderful collection when hunting books for the girls. As my daughters kept fighting as to whom this book belongs, I interrupted saying - 'It’s always mine. Ask your father to get one for you.' There were also the Nancy Drews, Goankars, Millman Halkias, David A Bell..reminding my school and college days. I will save them for Srini and Varsha (how mean ..:-))

·         Next was the Pedestal fan. I smiled at the memories of buying it during a scorching summer 8 yrs back. I was adamant then not to buy an AC or get into unnecessary expenses unless we had our own flat. It went to attic after Srini was born, feared the child would let her fingers in. Now I assembled it back and as the blades rotated, the girls cried and clapped with excitement. Wow amma,  you made a fan all by yourself. Little did they know that I just had to fit the screws and nuts :-)

·         Then there were bags of old shirts, pants of Bharath many of them worn just few times and found their places up due to not so perfect fitments. Why do men always comment on ladies wardrobe and fail to check theirs. They are equally or sometimes more spendthrifts when it comes to clothes. Out of this pile, the green striped 'Allen Solly' shirt chuckled at me. I gifted it for the third anniversary(we are in the 10th now). It was a loose fitment when I had bought him and is still waiting for Bharath to add pounds. I wished it good luck, as him gaining weight is only a dream for years.

·         There were also cartons of brass "Andaas and Kundaas (Big vessels)' as Kalyana seer. When I declared generously that I would give all of them to the maid as their use was scarce, my mother voiced her disapproval aloud. 'Ayyo Ayyo, Pithalai vikkara vilayile...keep them for your daughters or sell it for 'Pazhaiya Paathiram'.  So off they went, back to their places.

The list went on with a mouse trap, antique jewel box, childhood laminated photos, Cashmere blankets..and Bharath mumbled -'We are never going to have a loft free house'. I pretended not to hear it and had a great time explaining the girls nostalgic moments and interesting stories with each of them. So, are you ready for a treasure hunt :-) ? All the best.

Reflections from the table

Many a times I have ridiculed at this question. What still keeps few of us buzzing as a busy bee, shuttling between personal and professional life. Is money the only criteria? The last 3 months did convince me it was not so. 

I have hesitated to come out the cozy comfort circle not socializing with everyone except a selected few with whom I vent out. I used to have second thoughts on lunching with friends, being too time bound on the half an hour lunch break. Anything more than 30 mins would bring a sense of guilt and rush me towards work. Mostly I would wrap-up my lunch at desk (but taking utmost precautions not to attract pests J . So hope facilities Tm do not condemn while reading this). Little did I realize how wonderful life was being with friends

One of my college days friend who quite often saw me eat alone, invited to join their ‘Lunch Gang’.  It is a ‘Bubbly bunch’ of 10-12 lively young people who make the 40-50 mins (yes, I have become little liberal these days) of my lunch time beautiful. To my surprise, the conversations with them have helped to forget few difficult times (professional or personal)temporarily. I would fondly refer these chats as ‘sweet nothings’ like in the courtship period, where whatever the duo speaks makes no absolute sense but still remembered as enjoyable moments forever.

When I planned a brief break opting for sabbatical, I decided to compile few of ‘Across the table’ conversations happened amongst us.

·    There were days with intriguing gossips about our peers, seniors and of course about the excellent team players

·    Happy/dejected CRR discussions praising the brilliance of managers J or complaining the favoritism shown L

·    Delightful narrations on the charm and mischiefs of our sons and daughters

·    School admissions, donation, debates on best school, fee structure….believe me, you will not get such LIVE soulful narrations and truthful comments in any forums or review sites

·    Talks on real estates, reliable builders, ground water quality, benefits of recycling wastes, constructing environment friendly buildings

·    Carpooling, dance, yoga, music classes for our kids, Olympiad exams, Global Art, Abacus classes, Edu-Sports and what not ..

·    Sharing cookery recipes, tasting delicacies prepared by wives & moms, exploring different cuisines/restaurants when one of us sponsors a treat

·    Listening with suspicion J the stories on experimenting frog, snake delicacies along with fried dragonflies during the onshore tenure in China

·    Fuming arguments on better resource utilization, H1B processing, rationale behind Talent Management’s resource mapping

·    Amazed by a friend’s will power to take up Easter fasting giving up meat and wine (> a month), who would otherwise feast like a king J (Memories of him lunching Rotis and Baby Corns while watching helpless others slurping Non-Veg dishes are still green)

·    Bursting into laughter when someone describes the heroic acts by one of us, that pathetically turned soggy J 

Oh, the list is endless. Apart from these hilarious, thought provoking, adventurous and worthwhile moments, there are few tech savvy discussions adding cherry to the Pie. While one of them scoops on Windows 8 Apps development, someone else would be checking on Android Jelly Bean. If not at office, where would I get to know all of them? A person who can elegantly balance both work and life is lucky to enjoy the best from both the grounds. Having said that, so guys do you think I would wish missing all of them? Not at least for few more years J

With Love,

Lavanya 

You never know what happens next..

The client meeting was due at 7:00 PM IST and I was all set to present the deck. I was the only one to join the meeting from Chennai DC and rest of the folks joined from Pune and Onshore. I had booked a conference room to avoid disturbances and joined the bridge 10 mins before the schedule. Others joined on time including the Client and as the clock ticked 7:00, least did I expect to see the time-sheet reminder invade my Laptop screen. It would not allow me to 'Go Back' or switch to presentation slides unless I fill patiently for all missed days (Yes, I had not submitted time-sheets for a month). Nothing worked to get back and neither could I kill the process through Task Manager. God, what would I do when people keep repeating 'Lavanya, are you ready? Shall we start?' I made an excuse that my system was restarting unexpectedly and tried meanwhile to log-off and log-in again hoping the reminder would vanish.
Pressed Ctrl+Alt+Delete. Gosh.... What do I see? My screen has toggled upside down. All panicky to keep others waiting, instead of Ctrl+Alt+Delete I had pressed Ctrl+Alt+Down Arrow in the keypad. Pressing again Ctrl+Alt+ Up Arrow did not restore my screen orientation and I was locked out. Nothing worked to log me in again. Desolate in a conference room, the situation left me puzzled with no workaround to think. I was running out of time already and started perspiring with tongue tied.
Gathering all energy, I said - 'Yes I am ready to walk through the content, although I don't have the deck before me'. 'My system crashed' was easy to say rather to get embarrassed explaining what happened in real. We did have multiple reviews on the presentation in the past and in fact a mock up happened the week before. So I could visualise the screens (20 slides) and went ahead explaining each of them. The next 1 hour was unbelievable. Midway, I had to answer queries specific to the slides until the most desired 'Thank You' slide arrived. A big sigh of relief escaped when the Client said - 'Of course you did a remarkable job with no data before you'.

Lessons Learnt:
1. Never under-estimate the process in place(had I filled the time-sheets regularly, I would not have landed here).
2. Carry a print-out of the deck, especially when you are the Presenter. As you never know, what happens next.. :-)

Reflections of a working mom :-)

I am amazed at people who are experts in dealing children. I almost shudder at the thought of having to manage both Varsha and Srinidhi during weekends nowadays. They make me mad. I keep complaining to Bharath that I don't get a personal space anymore. They have become very fussy recently, especially with the sibling rivalry creeping into Srinidhi whenever I sweet-talk with Varsha. She does all things to grab mine and Bharath's attention. Both have problems in sharing toys, watching TV, playing with appa, amma...
Making Srinidhi eat is one of the tasks I fear even thinking. She is such a poor eater and hardly has any appetite.
I have made up my mind many times in the past not to complain about upbringing children, but I fail mostly. Parenting is not easy I conclude, whenever I get tired after lecturing Srinidhi the Do's and Don'ts and she hardly listens to any of them. A shade of guilt and self-pity envelops me when I think I am not spending more time with my kids. It is a delight watching Srini and Varsha playing together though, but really unbearable when they shriek with the highest pitch fighting for something. Bharath pretends to be hilarious at times, saying "Guys let me disappear from here, be at onsite for the next few years until the children are groomed well. Too much of noise pollution". And I would add, " I too feel the same :-)". Thanks to amma again, for sparing us from all these thoughts during week days, being all in all for Varsha and Srini. She is the shock absorber, pillar of the family and everything else I would be grateful of.

Facebook made a difference

It has been a conscious decision for long, not to enter into social networking. But thanks to my current project which has forced me to have one. Working for Mobility practise, there has been many business requirements on integrating Social Media links into the App we develop. As understanding functional requirements weren't that easy with no real-time experience in these, finally decided to create an account. Wow, how pleased am I to find my 2001 batch mates after 11 Yrs .. I was almost in tears seeing Subbu in FB after so many years and in fact was overjoyed reading many of her posts in (http://shub50.wordpress.com/about/) and was greedy to grab as much content I could on a day to patch up for all the years I missed. She was a true source of inspiration during my college days and she is here again   :-) to make me post a blog almost a year after my last one. Decided to stay connected to my frens and blog at-least once a week. Let's see.

-Lavanya

Revolution 2020

A slight disappointment this time, especially after a long wait since '2 States'. Didn't find the novel as interesting as the rest. Nevertheless, I am still a big fan of Chetan's narrations. 
Especially for a person in me, it is difficult to digest certain depictions. How could Aarti have a relationship with Gopal parallely, when she is committed to Raghav and still convince herself that it is because Raghav hardly spends time with her. The story has a dramatic end, irritating I should say. Raghav definitely deserves someone better than Aarti. 
In fact I found it stupid when Priyanka his heroine of 'One night @ the Call Center' broke her engagement with Ganesh because he had not revealed his baldness to her. But did she ever tell Ganesh about her previous relationship with Shyam?. Pushing aside these pitfalls, his novels are great to read and deserves real appreciation for the amount of research he does.